Contents Gospel of Matthew versus Dependence of Mark Main Topics: Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ): upon Matthew: Discovery of the Introduction Introduction: External evidence Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) Matthew: 1 2 3 4 Mark's order of pericopes Overview of the TJ ( TJ: 1 2 3 4 ) relative to Matthew's order The TJ's UFO connections -- Matthew: 5 6 7 8 Markan foreknowledge of Matthew the Meier UFO-contactee case ( TJ: 5 6 7 8 ) Matthew: 9 10 11 12 Markan improvements of The TJ's New Age spirituality ( TJ: 9 10 11 13 ) Matthew's textual content Matthew: 13 14 15 16 Markan improvements of Matthew The TJ's genuineness ( TJ: 15 16 17 18 ) that were unsuccessful Major questions the TJ Matthew: 17 18 19 20 Markan reaction to Matthew's allows us to answer ( TJ: -- 19 20 21 ) anti-gentile statements Debunking and shunning Matthew: 21 22 23 24 Markan changes for the TJ ( TJ: 22 23 24 25 ) the sake of change Matthew: 25 26 27 28 The Meier case today Implications of Semitic ( TJ: -- 27- 29- 31 ) Meier-case witnesses: A B C Matthew's translation into Greek 28 30 Acts 1:9 Related Topics Synoptic Gospel Priority Theological Commitment Using the frequency distribution Plausible Deniability within New Testament of verbal agreement of word Scholasticism strings between parallel passages The little known Jesus-in-India About the researcher literary battles between Traditions Curriculum vitae the Gospel writers His Name The Modified Contact me Jesus vs. Immanuel Augustinian Hypothesis (MAH) Search this website for word(s), or for a phrase No. of once-only hits using quotations: on this one page since Oct. 25, 2008: THE TALMUD OF JMMANUEL: How this document, discovered in Jerusalem in 1963 by E. A. Meier, discloses, within its first several editions published from 1978 through 2007, how falsified and distorted the canonical Gospels are. The web site of Jim Deardorff Research Professor Emeritus Oregon State University* This site presents the results of 20 years' analysis of the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ), showing, largely through comparison with the Gospel of Matthew, that the TJ was the source for that gospel. The TJ's editions from 1992 through 2007 inform us which Matthean verses are genuine, which are partly genuine, and which are pure invention. In over 100 comparisons of parallel passages, the arguments pointing to Matthean dependence upon the TJ are seen to be difficult to reverse, and in all other instances the differences between the two are also consistent with TJ genuineness. Tests for TJ genuineness are indirect because its original Aramaic scrolls were destroyed due to their heresies, and only the German translation survived. From the TJ one sees that 19th-century scholars erred in assuming that Mark came before Matthew. Scholars beware: this web site includes information showing the reality of Enter here UFOs and their biblical connections. THE TALMUD OF JMMANUEL: How this document, discovered in Jerusalem in 1963 by E. A. Meier, discloses, within its first several editions published from 1978 through 2007, how falsified and distorted the canonical Gospels are. The web site of Jim Deardorff Research Professor Emeritus Oregon State University* This site presents the results of 20 years' analysis of the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ), showing, largely through comparison with the Gospel of Matthew, that the TJ was the source for that gospel. The TJ's editions from 1992 through 2007 inform us which Matthean verses are genuine, which are partly genuine, and which are pure invention. In over 100 comparisons of parallel passages, the arguments pointing to Matthean dependence upon the TJ are seen to be difficult to reverse, and in all other instances the differences between the two are also consistent with TJ genuineness. Tests for TJ genuineness are indirect because its original Aramaic scrolls were destroyed due to their heresies, and only the German translation survived. From the TJ one sees that 19th-century scholars erred in assuming that Mark came before Matthew. Scholars beware: this web site includes information showing the reality of Enter here UFOs and their biblical connections. About this Meier-case investigator My college years began as a freshman at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in 1946-47, but then I switched to Stanford University, where I entered their Naval ROTC program, while majoring in physics. There I received the BS degree in 1950. With a year more of tuition covered by Naval ROTC, I attended UCLA in 1950-51, where I majored in meteorology, having had a strong interest in weather since early youth. So I received a second BS degree at UCLA, in meteorology. Then the Navy took me as an ensign, assigning me as a line officer aboard the USS Yancey (an AKA or "attack" cargo ship) for about two years, traveling between Oakland, CA, and Japan (Yokosuka and Sasebo), after which I transferred to Albuquerque, NM, to train in Special Weapons deployment and see the desert country. This led to a stint aboard the USS Lake Champlain (aircraft carrier) in the Mediterranean. After about 4 years in all I opted out, being a Ltjg then, so as to pursue a civilian research career within the field of meteorology, which interested me more and more. The University of Washington was where I attended graduate school, in their Dept. of Meteorology, where I received the MS degree in 1956 and PhD in 1959. There I met my wife-to-be, Leona Winder, and we were married in 1956. After a couple years of post-graduate work there, in the field of air-sea interaction, I was accepted for a position at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO, in 1962. There I migrated into a study area involving laboratory and numerical modeling of turbulent thermal convection, and boundary-layer turbulence and diffusion. After a few years at NCAR I became a senior scientist, enjoying a successful, 16-year research career there. A list of the published research papers during this career is given in my Curriculum Vitae. During this time our family had grown to five, with three lively daughters. Leona and I had become members of Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church in Boulder, singing regularly in their choir. (I had been raised as a nominal Presbyterian, but switched to my wife's religion, Lutheran, upon marriage.) This experience provided a valuable background to my later interest in the origins of Christianity. After pressures at NCAR towards administrative duties, which I disliked, grew too strong, I took a position at Oregon State University in Corvallis, OR, in 1978, as a research professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. A desire to return to the Pacific Northwest, with its proximity to the Cascade Mts. and to the Pacific Ocean, entered into this decision. It was in Oregon that I became interested in the UFO phenomenon in the late 1970s, soon deciding that the evidence points conclusively towards its being a reality. Perhaps a previous interest in science fiction helped draw me in this direction. By 1985 I realized that my research interests had switched over irrevocably towards the UFO area and its implications for society; it was around this time that the first two of my 5 or 6 UFO sightings occurred. So in 1986 I made the decision to take early retirement from OSU. Writing papers, research grant proposals and attending to associated administrative duties no longer seemed as important as exploring the UFO phenomenon and trying to help bring it to public attention. However, by 1987 I had written three papers dealing with the UFO subject in peer- reviewed journals. Yet, the Meier UFO-contactee case and the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) absorbed most of my attention. Since established scholars cannot treat the TJ seriously, and have no incentive to investigate it, I was motivated to turn myself into an independent New Testament scholar to the best of my ability. A course in New Testament Gospels at a community college in 1987 was a helpful beginning. However, from it I quickly learned that the basic conclusions that are taught as fact depend upon the degree of theological commitment of the instructor and of the writers of the textbooks selected for the course. For example, my instructor (a minister) taught that if two of the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) agree upon an item or teaching, it is probably true, and if all three agree it must certainly be true. However, common sense instead indicates that if one Gospel writer made heavy use of the Gospel that came before his, and the third made heavy use of the two that came before his, as even the early church fathers testify, this guideline need not be true at all. So the rest of my education in New Testament scholarship came from self-learning through spending days on end in the Oregon State University library's book stacks, making frequent use of inter-library loans, and in visiting other university libraries. Occasional tips from OSU's Prof. Marcus Borg were also helpful in leading me to certain reference material. Later I took a course in New Testament Greek, which was useful in enabling me to better understand scholars' arguments within journal articles and textbooks. Still later I partook in Internet e-mail lists dedicated to various biblical topics for further exposure to both mainstream and alternative viewpoints. My New Testament studies, plus independent study of the topic of reincarnation, caused me to leave the Lutheran church in the mid-1980s. My wife and I then switched to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis. That church has no theological creeds to recite, and their tradition of tolerance allows a wide range of personal beliefs within their members. I was even allowed to give a couple of guest sermons -- one on reincarnation and one on the UFO phenomenon, in 1986 and 1987, respectively. My studies on the subject of reincarnation were prompted both by what Meier had learned from his contacting ETs, and by the TJ. At first I was surprised to find so much evidence supporting the reality of reincarnation, this being expressed either directly or indirectly in over a dozen books written just by MDs and PhDs. (These lent very little, if any, support to the Hindu concept of transmigration of the soul to other animals, nor does the TJ.) There are studies of very young children who at times spontaneously spoke of their past lives to sufficient extent that the past-life family could be identified beyond doubt -- some 1500 of these cases are in the records of the late Dr. Ian Stevenson, and still others within the files of other researchers. Then there are tens of thousands of past-life descriptions supplied by patients who underwent hypno-regression therapy, and some of these have received definite confirmation, although the past-life therapists' interest was usually more in healing the patient than in trying to verify reincarnation. There are other cases of adults experiencing occasional past-life flashbacks spontaneously, and much documentation of near-death experiences, which themselves are consistent with the soul or spirit surviving death. See my short bibliography on these topics. After much reading and study of these in the 1980s, the TJ's teachings on reincarnation appeared quite factual and credible to me. By 1990 I had learned enough about the Meier contactee case, the TJ and New Testament scholarship to write a book about the Talmud of Jmmanuel, pointing out the several hundred reasons either supportive of or consistent with the TJ being genuine and the Gospel of Matthew having derived from the TJ, rather than vice versa. It is called Celestial Teachings: The Emergence of the True Testament of Jmmanuel (Jesus), (Wildflower Press); however it went out of print around 2002. Its publisher was Dr. Brian Crissey of Granite Publishing and Wildflower Press, who also published the TJ's first three editions in English, in 1992, 1996 and 2001. The German text of the TJ is printed on facing pages, because Meier has insisted upon this format for any translation in order to better maintain the quality of the latter. Because the TJ points to terrible falsehoods within Christianity and some within Judaism also, it and my book, Celestial Teachings, could only be distributed primarily within New Age bookstores, which scholars of course do not frequent. So in order to make the TJ's solutions for long outstanding, but not heretical, problems of New Testament scholarship available to open-minded scholars, I wrote The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins, which Mellen Press in Lewiston, NY, (actually Mellen Research University Press) published in 1992. In it I avoided any mention of the Meier UFO contactee case and the TJ's major heresies in order that scholars not have those particular excuses for ignoring the book. However, in it I did make one brief reference to the TJ and to Celestial Teachings to let the serious reader know that most of the basic ideas did not stem from me. I also wished to make the TJ's solutions to outstanding New Testament problems that do involve great heresies for Christianity available to the open-minded non-Christian scholar. So I wrote a third book, Jesus in India: A Reexamination of Jesus' Asian Traditions in the Light of Evidence Supporting Reincarnation. I was fortunate to find a publisher for it -- International Scholars Publications of Bethesda, MD, in 1994, later taken over by University Press of America, an imprint of Rowland & Littlefield Publishers. More recently, much of my time has been devoted towards working on this website, which I hope you find informative and enlightening. Return to: Contents The Israeli Air Raid that Flushed Out Isa Rashid According to Rashid's letter to Meier dated 14 Sept., 1974, Rashid had been forced to flee from Jerusalem after he learned that his translation project and some things about the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) had become known to Israeli authorities. Although at the time the TJ was discovered in Jerusalem, in 1963, the West Bank was under the control of Jordan, it had come under Israeli jurisdiction after the short war in 1967. Rashid's letter mentioned that he and his family had fled to a Lebanese refugee camp, but that an Israeli raid destroyed it and forced him to flee once again. However, in the letter Rashid did not bother to state the date on which the raid occurred, what kind of raid it was, or which refugee camp he had been located in; rather, his concern seemed to have been to convey the terrible news to Meier that he had been forced to leave behind the TJ scrolls, which were destroyed in the raging fires. Meier would have to be content with just the 36 chapters of the TJ that Rashid had mailed to him a few years earlier. It is of interest to inquire which Israeli raid, and when, was likely responsible for the alleged destruction. Working backwards from the September date, we find from newspaper accounts that the first possibility was an Israeli bombing raid upon a "tent encampment" near Rashaya el-Fukhar in southeast Lebanon on 9 Aug., 1974. However, this was not one of the official refugee camps sponsored by the United Nations. Moreover, there does appear to have been a provocation for this raid, which was promptly carried out after Lebanese terrorists abducted several Syrian Druze workmen who were constructing a security fence for Israel along the border between Lebanon and the Golan Heights. Hence we move further back in time. We move past other raids, which also were not upon Lebanese refugee camps, until we come to the series of raids of June 18-20, 1974. These were Israeli air raids upon several refugee camps in southwest Lebanon, ostensibly in retaliation for a guerrilla incursion into Chamir in northern Israel on June 13th, in which three Israelis and all four guerrillas involved died. The air raid of June 18th is the most likely candidate to have struck the refugee camp at which Rashid and his family had been staying (and to which he may have been tracked by Israeli security), since the raid on the first of the three days would have contained the greatest element of surprise. This particular air raid, and those of the following two days, are prime suspects here because the Israeli bombardment appears to have been unusually highly escalated, being responsible for 70 civilians killed and as many more wounded (see the New York Times of 21 June, 1974, pp. 1-2), considering that the guerrillas involved in the earlier incursion had only been four in number and had died five days earlier. On June 21st, a U.S. senator, Abourezk of S. Dakota, spoke out against the brutality of these raids. In the Congressional Record, Vol. 120, No. 91, he stated, "I am extremely saddened to note that the government of Israel has seen fit to conduct daily bombing raids on civilians in southern Lebanon, in the farming areas, and, indeed, in the refugee camps where the military communiques which emanate from Israel say that the bombing raids are designed to kill suspected terrorists." And the Washington Post of June 24th stated, "Contrary to published speculation, the highest officials of the U.S. government were both astonished and outraged by the overkill of Israel's revenge last week against Palestinian bases, endangering fragile peace hopes for the Mideast." This series of raids quite possibly was delayed too long after the alleged provocation for it to have been the real provocation. In contrast, the Israeli air raids of May 16-18 commenced just one day after three terrorists, soon dead, had held 16 children hostages in Maalot, May 15th. A purported explanation for the delayed retaliation of June 18- 20 was offered by Israeli Information Minister, Aharon Yariv (New York Times, 19 and 20 June); namely, that the delay was to allow President Nixon to calmly complete his Mideast trip of June 10-18, 1974. However, this explanation could well have been a lame excuse, since it is a great political embarrassment to have to admit that one's country held off on a series of brutal, devastating raids, supposedly aimed at wiping out terrorists, in order to avoid upsetting the chief executive of their prime benefactor nation. The preceding Washington Post statement instead indicates, as might be expected, that in reality, high U.S. officials were outraged over the raids even though they did not occur until just after the end of Nixon's trip. Minister Yariv was a former Israeli chief of intelligence; hence he could well have been in on the necessity for a cover story for these raids. The raids took place about three weeks after Yitzhak Rabin replaced Golda Meir as prime minister of Israel, and Shimon Peres succeeded Moshe Dayan as minister of defense. It should be mentioned that Dayan had a special interest in Jewish antiquity, and was an ardent collector, indeed looter, of archaeological artifacts (Biblical Archaeological Review 31, March/April 2005, pp. 53-57). Hence he may have played an inside role in striving to attain or destroy the TJ rolls. If one gives potential credence to Rashid's report, one may surmise that Israeli agents who had been on Rashid's tail since almost capturing him in Jerusalem, had learned that he had fled to a refugee camp in southwestern Lebanon. The highest Israeli officials, knowing that the TJ scrolls were dangerous for Judaism as well as for Christianity, consequently would have planned the action to eliminate the scrolls. They could afford to wait a little while until there was some provocation, but President Nixon's trip caused their raids to be delayed longer than they would have desired. Then they raided, or bombed, two or more refugee camps in this vicinity to make certain they hit the one Rashid & family were in. As to which particular camp Rashid had been in, according to information Billy Meier received from his Plejaren contactors around January of 2011, the raid that destroyed the original TJ scrolls/rolls occurred on June 20th. If it was an air raid and or an Israeli ground assault was not specified. The refugee camp involved was said to be Ain al- Halwa, in southern Lebanon. If it was an air raid, this Plejaren input agrees with what the online Palestine- Encyclopedia has to say, namely, "Between June 18 and 21, 1974 Israeli planes bombed the Ain el-Helweh and Rashidiyeh Palestinian refugee camps, killing at least 100 and wounding over 200 others." The Western spelling of the designated refugee camp is Ain el-Helweh, or Ayn el-Helweh. It is located very close to Sidon, which is on the Lebanese coast about 25 miles northwest of the northern tip of Israel. In summary, Rashid's statement that the raids were actually for the purpose of targeting him and the TJ scrolls/rolls is consistent with the events outlined above. However, there is no definitive proof readily available that would verify his account, outside of what Billy was told by the Plejarens, and Rashid & family did not survive past 1976 to testify to its truth. Go Back to: Contents The Bachtelhörnli-Unterbachtel movie film and 35mm stills This hillside site is located just a few kilometers east of Hinwil, Switzerland, where Meier lived in 1975-76. During these two years, in addition to using a 35mm still camera, Meier used two different 8mm movie cameras on different occasions, one of which, plus a tripod, he sometimes brought along with him on his moped. On this occasion, March 8, 1976, he had a very lengthy photographic session, taking many stills as well as some 8mm footage. His contactor posed her spacecraft for him starting at 9:38 in the morning and lasting until 4:50 in the afternoon, according to Meier's still-photo records (in his Verzeichnis booklet). Some 62 still color-slide photos taken on this occasion, many of them showing up to three of the craft hovering at a time, still survive. THE MOVIE FILM Of particular interest is the 8mm movie film he shot. We don't know which of the two movie cameras was the one he used at this time; one was a Nalcom (or Malcolm) FTL, the other a Raynox XL 303, each with variable focal length. The one he used here had a slight obstruction to its view that left a small, blurry cusp at the top center of each frame of the film. Fig. 1. 8mm frame taken from Meier's Bachtelhörnli-Unterbachtel film sequence as video-taped by Yaoi and crew of Nippon TV and presented in the video of Genesis III entitled "Beamship: The Movie Footage." From 1st replay of the film, 7 seconds before the jump. Video camera was partially zoomed in. Near the start of this sequence, seven seconds before the craft makes an abrupt jump in position, the beamship is seen in Fig. 1 to be hovering up high within the frame and to the right of center. A panel (lower right) indicating hours, minutes, seconds, all relative to an arbitrary initial time, was later added to the video by Jun-Ichi Yaoi of Nippon TV, including the frame number of the video (30 frames/second). The frames being shown are from a video recording made by Nippon TV when Eduard Meier, his wife Kaliope and their son Atlantis, Lee and Brit Elders, Wendelle Stevens, Tom Welch, Herbert Runkle and Nina, and Yaoi and his TV crew of six, were all present. The film was projected onto a movie screen at Meier's residence; this was in the fall of 1979. The projected film was backed up and replayed twice while the video camera kept taping, with the frames of Figs. 1-6 stemming from the first replay of the film, and the remaining frames (including that of Fig. 1.1) shown from the second replay. About four seconds before the jump, the beamship has hovered upwards a bit, with the tip of its dome now out of the frame of view. See Fig. 1.1 below. Fig. 1.1. Video frame of 8mm movie about four seconds before the jump. From 2nd replay of film. One frame before the jump (0.033 seconds before), the scene appears as in Fig. 2 below. By now the beamship has drifted a little higher still, such that only its lowermost portion is visible. Fig. 2. Video frame of 8mm movie projection about 0.033 seconds before the jump. From 1st replay of film. Only the lowermost part of the craft shows at the top (arrow). (Compare with Fig. 1. The dark blurry cusp in the center of the top of the frame is an imperfection of the movie camera used, as noted before). Notice the many cloud fragments over the valley, which we shall be examining shortly. From what Stevens has reported, this filming took place around 4:50 PM (Stevens, 1982, p. 283). THE JUMP. Frame #20 in Fig. 3 shows the jump, which has been sufficiently simultaneous that no streaked track Fig. 3. Video frame of the 8mm movie taken at the time of the jump - one frame later than in Fig. 2. of the object is seen across the field of view from its previous to its new position (arrows). The beamship, now down low, appears approximately as bright and distinct as in further frames, whereas the craft's bottom slice, up high, seems to be less distinct. This suggests that the jump occurred early in the small time interval that the movie frame was exposed. The frames at and immediately after the time of the jump, see Fig. 3, are seen to be brighter, and Meier has commented on the brief flash he observes at such a time. The first frame after the jump (Fig. 4) is nearly as bright as during the jump, while the next frame (Fig. 5) scarcely shows any excess brightness and the next after that (Fig. 6) is almost back to normal. See Figs. 4-6. Thus the brightening occurred very suddenly Fig. 4. The 1st video frame immediately after (0.033 sec after) the jump of Fig. 3. Fig. 5. The 2nd video frame of 8mm movie after the jump (0.067 sec after). Fig. 6. The 3rd video frame after the jump (0.10 sec after). but required about 0.1 sec to die away completely. Meier has also reported a brief electric shock-like tingling sensation during the jump of a nearby beamship craft. If one places the frames before and shortly after the jump, in which the cloud edges are not washed out by the brightening, namely Figs. 2, and 5 or 6, into one's browser such as to be able to flick back and forth immediately between them, the changes in cloud outlines one can perceive are imperceptible over this 0.10 or 0.13 sec interval. This of course is not surprising if the time interval was indeed very short. Now, Wendelle Stevens has shown many photographic enlargements of 2- and 3-frame sections of Meier's 8mm films, including the two successive, connected frames just during and after the jump shown here (Stevens, 1989, pp. 242-291, and p. 281 in particular). Also, Elders & Elders (1983, p. 49) show color photos of the three frames centered on the jump. Should this not already be proof enough that the jump occurred essentially during one frame of the movie? Various critics have suggested that the brightness would have been introduced if the movie camera had been stopped, and then restarted a little while later, with subsequent cutting of the film and splicing having taken place, rather than being associated with the abrupt change in a UFO's position. However, it will be seen soon that the sequence of cloud pictures around the time of the jump does not permit much time for cessation of the filming, repositioning of one or more model UFOs, and resumption of filming. Until this is shown, critics may feel that hoaxing would have been a simple matter, because Meier's original film was lost or stolen and splices on the original are not visible on the film copy, which was later also lost or stolen. Bruce Maccabee has pointed out that a splice nevertheless is usually evident, when projecting a film copy, if it was not made with professional skill. It gives itself away as a slight vertical jump in the film image. However, no such film jump occurred at or near the point in question. BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FILM. Earlier Meier had had all nine of his short 8mm movie film segments spliced together so as to be available for viewing on a single reel, about 16 minutes in length. However, as Stevens explains, "A TV station in Munich, hearing of the pictures in Switzerland, sent a team to interview Meier for a special TV program in Austria. The producer persuaded Meier to let him take the reel of original movies to Austria for transfer to videotape for the program. It took the group in Switzerland a long time to get the reel of movies back, and when they did, they just put them away for safekeeping. When we got there with the NTV team from Japan [in 1979], to look at them again, we noticed missing footage. When we examined the film on the reel, we found that there were no longer any splices. Somewhere along the way [film] clips had been removed, and after that the rejoined sections had been copied and the copy sent to Meier. The Austrian television station insists that they returned the same reel of film that they borrowed, and in fact the film did come back on the same reel that the originals left Meier's possession on" (Stevens, 1989, pp. 237-238). Fortunately, the copy that was returned in place of the original did not have the section removed that shows this jump the craft made at Bachtelhörnli-Unterbachtel, although Meier has noted that other short sections had been removed. However, as Stevens continues, "The production company making the motion picture documentary on the Meier case persuaded Meier and his group to let them take Meier's only copy of the movies of the spacecraft back to Los Angeles with them to get the best possible reproduction from Meier's copy. Meier had kindly and generously agreed to this temporary loan of his precious film, provided it was promptly returned in as good a condition as it left his hands. After all these promises, we lost it somewhere in the many hands it went through, and could not find it, even to this day. Eduard Meier was very upset, and justifiably so, and complained for years that he wanted his precious movies back." As further clarified by Brit Elders (2001), the videotape of Meier's film went to Japan with Nippon TV's specialist in UFO matters - Jun-Ichi Yaoi - for him and his crew to examine, record onto better, 1-inch tape, and air in a program to millions of Japanese. They sent a copy of the improved videotape to Lee and Brit Elders of Genesis III, as per their contract. When Meier was later persuaded to loan his 8mm-film copy to Savadove/Young Productions of Los Angeles for their use in making the documentary "Contact," it was somehow lost after a rough draft of "Contact" had been produced, so the 8mm film was no longer around to be returned to Meier. Savadove/Young Productions ran out of funding to complete "Contact," which Genesis III later finished. The present frames come from: "Beamship: The Movie Footage," one of a Trilogy made available in 1985 by Lee and Brit Elders of Genesis III Publications. Hence, only the video recording of the 8mm film remained, from which Genesis III has made copies available over the past 15 years. Also remaining, however, are the photographs of small sections of the film-strip copy that Stevens made before the copy was lost, and which he later published (Stevens, 1989). However, no analysis was made of the changes of the cloud patterns, from which an upper limit of the elapsed time during the jump can be estimated. The present study fills this gap, as well as exhibiting further evidence that the craft was a large object in the distance. THE PARTIAL ECLIPSE The next frame we show here is one taken 22 seconds after the jump, by which time Fig. 7. 8mm frame taken 22 seconds after the jump. From 2nd replay of film. the craft had eased itself over to the left and downward until it was partially obscured by the brow of the hill - see Fig. 7. However, by subjecting the frame to enhanced contrast and brightness, Fig. 8a: Section cropped Fig. 8b: The craft at its lowest point, from Fig. 7 with contrast 26 frames before that of Fig. 8a, with and brightness enhanced. brightness and contrast enhanced. Fig. 8c: From frame of same scene from "The Meier Chronicles" video, contrast and brightness enhanced, showing foreground better. the dark greenish earth in the foreground can seemingly be distinguished from the dark underside of the craft beyond. See Fig. 8a. This, too, suggests the UFO could not have been any small model close to the camera. The interested researcher may start with the frame in Fig. 7 and subject the whole frame to enhanced brightness and/or contrast to see this result for oneself. Or, one may acquire a later video copy (look under "Products" for "Beamship: The Movie Footage"), and notice that there are three dozen other frames in which the craft is partially eclipsed which one may examine. In Fig. 8c rocks and wild flowers show up near the camera, though out of focus, while before the brow of the hill is reached there is an expanse where they are not resolvable, due to the greater distance. This indicates that the distance to the latter was appreciable-I would estimate some 30m at least. During the second replay of the film, the operator of the video camera zoomed in on the craft for about 25 sec shortly after the craft's jump; by 07:09:13 the lens setting was returned nearly, but not quite, to its original setting. As a consequence, in Figs. 7 and 9 the top of the film's frame does not show up, and probably a sliver across the bottom is missing, too. Regarding flaws in the film, a small mark at the very bottom of the frame in Figs. 2 and 3, near the left side, resembling an "=" sign, is visible in some of the subsequent frames and not in others. When present, it is always located precisely at the very bottom of the frame. It is present in nearly the same location in some of the other film segments. I believe it is a mark introduced when the Genesis III videos were produced, as it occurs also in still-camera photos superimposed within the video. In any event, this artifact was present in consecutive frames both before and during the jump (Figs. 2 and 3). A frame taken 11 seconds later than in Fig. 7 is shown in Fig. 9 below. At this time the craft has risen further upwards, and continued to do so for another 9 sec, at which time the end of the film segment is reached. Fig. 9. 8mm frame taken 11 seconds after the frame of Fig. 7. From 2nd replay of film. CLOUD-FORM CHANGES AND THE HOAX HYPOTHESIS. One may start with the frame just before the jump and inspect the cloud patterns for subsequent changes, starting 4 frames later when the sky brightness had returned about to its normal level, and continuing at increasing intervals. This is done below, 10a. 07:08:03/19 10b. 07:08:03/23 10c. 07:08:04/1 10d. 07:08:04/5 10e. 07:08:04/9 10f. 07:08:04/13 10g. 07:08:09/13 10h. 07:08:14/13 10i. 07:08:17/13 10j. 07:09:08/0, from 2nd replay 10k. 07:09:18/26, from 2nd replay 25 sec after the jump 36 sec after the jump Fig. 10. Cloud pattern (contrast enhanced) over a 36-sec period; view across the page. Relative times indicated (hrs: mins: secs/frame No.). The jump occurs just after the first panel in the upper left. Time in secs after Jump (J) in upper right of each frame. in Fig. 10. It is difficult to discern any consistent differences in the cloud pattern during this sequence, until about frame 10i, 13.8 seconds after the jump. Then the rather faint cloudlet indicated in the earliest frame by the arrow on the left can first be discerned as becoming relatively brighter and larger, while the faint cloudlet pointed to by the other arrow, which almost connects to cloud fragments just above and below it, is starting to diminish in size. These changes are not very apparent, however, until 25 to 36 seconds after the jump. There is nothing anomalous about the cloud patterns just before the jump relative to just afterwards. Thus I conclude that the cloud patterns indicate that the jump took place in a time period less than roughly 15 seconds, and that it may indeed have taken place during the exposure of one frame. This conclusion probably cannot be made more definite because small parts of these somewhat tenuous clouds are at the threshold of visibility and may or may not show up well on any given frame, given the limited resolution of the 8mm movie camera, and because there is a faint background "noise" in color and brightness, which resembles faint, horizontally strung-out, wormy cloudlets. Examination of the first couple rows of frames indicates that, due to these limitations, a certain amount of small apparent variations in the pattern occurs from frame to frame. As already noted, the reason the cloud-pattern issue is being pursued here is that some skeptics have claimed that the UFO was a model dangling on an invisible line from a very long fishing pole, for example, and was simply moved from one location to the other, with or without the camera having been stopped and restarted, and with the film during this interval later being excised and the ends spliced back together. Since such activity would require some time, it is of interest to estimate how much time would be available. For example, it would require several seconds for one hoaxer to lower such a pole, and for a second hoaxer to run and grab the dangling model, and unreel some 6 meters of line - probably 5 seconds, minimum. It would take more time for both hoaxers to reposition the supposed model and long pole, to steady them from all oscillations, and for the second hoaxer to then run back out of the scene - probably 15 seconds or more in all. However, this scenario doesn't get the model in both places at once in one frame. Hence another scenario might be imagined, involving two model UFOs. In it, one hoaxer supports a long pole to which the first model UFO is attached by a short thin line, and the other hoaxer supports the second, nearly identical model by a long thin line attached to another long pole, which he holds off to the side until the time for the jump. At the time for the jump, the camera is stopped, the second pole is swung around into position, and Meier is envisioned to step out into the scene holding the model. He would position it directly underneath the tip of its support pole, release it carefully, and check to see if oscillations or swinging motions were commencing, in which case he would readjust its position and re-steady it and again release it, until no such motions are seen to occur; then he would step back out of the scene. Then the camera would be stopped, to simulate the sudden onset of the sky brightening, after which the hoaxer holding the first pole would move it with its model back out of the scene and the camera would be restarted. Later, undesired portions of the film showing the hoaxers at work would be cut out, including all but the brightest full frame occurring as the camera speed decelerated to zero, and some frames occurring as the camera is restarted so that the initial sky brightening as the camera started rolling would nearly match that occurring when the camera was stopped; then the various ends of the film would be spliced together and a copy made. The critical parts of this scenario might be envisioned to take place in about 15 seconds, if the 2nd model did not start oscillating or swinging upon being released. However, this is a very formidable "if." OSCILLATIONS IN A DANGLING MODEL. Presence of oscillations or swinging motions must be considered very seriously because the support poles envisioned by the hoax hypothesis would need to be long. From Fig. 6 the amount of sky directly above the UFO is some 18 UFO diameters in height, and of course no tip of any pole is visible. If the model were but 30 cm in diameter, this would still require a pole some 6 meters, or 20 feet, long. It would likely require more than 10 seconds of trial and error just to remove initial oscillations in a model dangling from such a long pole, and it is very doubtful that oscillations would not immediately redevelop due to small motions continually induced by such a long support pole and by the wind or breezes. However, no tilting oscillations of the craft are observed upon viewing the moving film-neither rolling nor pitching. No up-and-down bouncing motions are observed, either, as would probably occur with use of a fine support line and a model UFO sufficiently heavy to be little affected by the breezes. Similarly, no swinging motions are observed, either to the side or fore-and-aft. Finally, no rotary motions are observed. In Fig. 1 and subsequent pictures, the craft is seen to be continually tilted to one side (to the viewer's left). A model UFO could be made to appear similarly tilted at some preferred angle when suspended from the center of its top, if one side (e.g., on the left) were heavier than the other. However, the rotary movements it would be subjected to, due to torsion in the support line, would then show up as the tipped side gradually rotated around. (They wouldn't show up with a model that was properly balanced and exhibited no preferred tilt, except for simultaneous tilting oscillations.) However, the tilted UFO in the film does not execute any rotary motions, either. Moreover, a similar tilt would need to have been implemented in each of the two models we have seen would have been required. These and the previous considerations explain why no Meier-case detractors or skeptics have tried to simulate this kind of movie episode with a model UFO and succeeded. Further, the imaginary hoaxers would likely not notice the constraint the small clouds would introduce, and so would take their time in repositioning their model(s); or, if they would be aware of the problem, they could just do their filming during a different time of the day when scarcely any clouds were present, as indicated by Meier's many still photos that day showing clear skies during the afternoon hours. In addition, in implementing a model "jump" scene, surely any would-be hoaxers would ensure that both models would show up well at the time of the jump, and would not raise one of the models almost entirely out of the frame of view just before the jump. ATTEMPTED DEBUNKINGS. In Korff's (1995) book, he does not attempt to debunk any of Meier's movie film. However, he has done so on some radio and TV programs. On the Fox TV program "Encounters," Dec. 18, 1994, in which he participated, a portion of this particular film was shown. However, they showed only the portion occurring after the craft partially eclipsed itself, which then avoids the evidence of genuineness shown here. As demonstrated above, a copy of the original film, as projected and videotaped, is ample in this case to show quite conclusively that the large object in the distance beyond the brow of the hill, which object appears to have jumped nearly instantaneously from one location to another, was no part of any human hoax. The facts that computer enhancement of the available frames is needed to bring out this detail, and that the craft only maneuvered part of itself behind the brow of the hill, appear to have been the beamship pilot's method of implementing a strategy of semi-plausible deniability here. The negative skeptic can simply choose to ignore evidence that goes against his wishes. Further implementation of this strategy may be exemplified by the fact that in the photo/video frame showing the craft in both positions at once (Fig. 3), only the very lowermost portion of the craft is visible at the upper edge of the frame. Thus a skeptic might argue that a second model was not required, and thereby preserve his view that a hoax was involved. However, the video shows that in the previous several seconds the craft had been fully in view and then slowly but continuously moved upwards until mostly out of view of the camera. Moreover, had hoaxers gone to all the effort to rig such a set-up and movie, and ward off the questions of curious rural residents of the Swiss hills, they would have ensured that their model UFO was fully in sight at the time of the jump. THE BACHTELHÖRNLI 35MM STILL PHOTOS Among the many still shots Meier took of the craft that morning is his photo #209 shown in Fig. 11. This photo is especially provocative for the skepti- bunker because the beamship is clearly in the sunlight, which came from the right and behind, while the tree limbs through which the beamship was viewed were totally in the shade. In all likelihood, the shading factor was a grove of evergreens located behind where Meier was standing. If a model UFO had been positioned along the line of sight to the beamship image, such a nearby model would in all probability have been in the shade. The best view of the beamship that day comes from Meier's still photos his #200, Fig. 12. It shows that the craft possessed small protuberances along its outer rim as well as a decorative- appearing cupola, Fig. 11. Meier's Bachtelhörnli-Unterbachtel photograph, #209. which the 8mm camera could not resolve. In 1978 Photo taken around noon. Stevens took Meier's original color slide of this photo to a company in Basel, Switzerland, a few years later for careful analysis (Stevens, 1982, pp. 339-340). According to Stevens, "This photograph was taken to Interrepro, A.G., in Basel where it was put into a HELL Chromograph DC300 scanning computer which, using an Argon laser beam, scanned the original transparency at 400 lines per centimeter and created new 4-color separation negatives. These negatives were then taken to Schori Repros in Bern where they were set up and printed on poster paper." The Basel company looked for support Fig. 12. Meier's Bachtelhörnli-Unterbachtel photograph, #200. structures, in case it were a suspended Photo taken at 11:25 AM. model, but none such was detected. One result of this analysis was a large poster in which the enlarged image of the beamship, with its edges enhanced due to the raster scan done by Interrepro A.G., was made available by Stevens. One of these posters was later obtained by an officer of the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), namely John Timmerman, which for many years he would bring, along with other UFO pictorial material, to UFO meetings for display on large bulletin boards. The caption that was emplaced stated in no uncertain terms that it was a hoax, since the craft's edges were too well delineated for the UFO to be a large craft in the distance. The caption completely failed to explain, however, that the poster showed the computer-enhanced version of the object in the photo. Such intensive but false debunking helped cause ufologists and UFO buffs to realize that it was "politically incorrect" to give credence to the Meier UFO-contactee case. Another of the still photos from the Bachtelhörnli-Unterbachtel series is shown in part in Fig. 13, to indicate that more than one UFO was often present when Meier took his pictures that day. In this instance there are three, the larger one being of the same type, presumably the same one, as in Fig. 11 and the movie film, while the two somewhat smaller craft were explained to Meier as being drones. One of them is partially obscured by a very nearby twig. Fig. 13. A portion of another of Meier's It is no wonder that Korff at times resorted to a hoax hypothesis that Bachtelhörnli photographs. Taken involved use of helium-filled balloons and tethering lines (Korff, 1995, from Stevens' 1990 calendar photos. pp. 219-220), so as to try to explain how three or four hovering UFOs could be filmed at a time. However, he failed to mention that this would require a couple of hoax-confederates with a considerable amount of gear, to set up and maintain for many hours at a time. During this time, such activity would surely attract the attention of neighbors, who would come and have a look at what was going on, and perhaps photograph the setup and activity for themselves. They would immediately have realized that Meier was not alone. As Kinder has noted, the people in the vicinity of where Meier lived quickly became very curious as to what was going on, whenever he went out on his moped and didn't return for hours. Quoting Stevens, "...if there were confederates, in three, three and a half years they would have found one, because we weren't the only ones looking for confederates; everybody there was looking for confederates" (Kinder, 1987, pp. 10-12,102). To implement his "tethering line" hypothesis, Korff displayed some of the still photos from the Bachtelhörnli- Unterbachtel series which had somehow acquired scratch-like markings. A close representation of one of them (Korff, 1995, Fig. 66) is shown at the right in Fig. 14. The arc shown here was fed in by hand. Unfortunately for his hypothesis, Korff's marking showed the same curvature: convex upwards. This was no catenary curve! Thus, the attempted debunkings fail because of their omission of relevant Fig. 14. From a photo of Stevens (1982, p. 337) to which I added an arc denoted by arrows in simulation of Korff's Fig. 66. evidence and relevant considerations of basic physics. On the other hand, the alternative-the photos and movie film are genuine because Meier's contacts were and are genuine-does not suffer any of these problems and does not require that Meier have been a super magician. Instead, the reason behind his contacts is then seen to be to attract the attention of independent-thinking people to the reality of the extraterrestrial presence, to the philosophy and teachings of this particular ET group, and to the Talmud of Jmmanuel and the teachings of Jmmanuel, with whom the same ETs' predecessors had contacts two millennia ago. Return to: Previous text Return to: Contents REFERENCES Elders, Brit. (2001). Personal Communication, Dec. 22. Elders, Lee and Elders, Brit. (1983). UFO...Contact from the Pleiades, vol. 2. Genesis III Publishing, P.O. Box 25962, Munds Park, AZ 86017. Elders, Lee and Elders, Brit. (1985). Beamship: The Movie Footage. Genesis III. See this site. Kinder, Gary (1987). Light Years: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. Korff, Kal. K. (1995). Spaceships of the Pleiades: The Billy Meier Story. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Stevens, Wendelle C. (1982). UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report. Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives (out of print). Stevens, Wendelle C. (1989). UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Supplementary Investigation Report. Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives (out of print). This witness testimony was presented during one afternoon of the 8th Annual International UFO Congress at Laughlin, NV, in February of 1999. Check with Bob or Teri Brown at (303) 543-9443 as to present availability of the 3 tapes, or e-mail them at ufocongress@msn.com. The cost of these tapes, as of June, 1999, was $35 plus $8 shipping charge within the U.S. Checks may be made payable to, and sent to: International UFO Congress 6160 Firestone Blvd #104-373 Firestone, CO 80504 Phone (303) 651-7136 (www.ufocongress.com) Telephone Conversation Liberal Translation of Write-up by Bernadette Brand in FIGU Special Bulletin #19 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., May, 2005) by J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 On 17 February 2005, Billy was already on his feet at 09:30 -- a time unusually early for him. Probably he simply could not sleep; I joined him and left the kitchen in order to get on with my work. At some point between 10:30 and 11:00 Billy phoned me [from his closed office] and said that Quetzal was with him and that they searched for the information about the keyword for the single meditation in the Core Group Guide, but didn't find it. As I have the manual electronically on my Mac, I explained to Billy that I would immediately look and call him back right away. Said -- done. I opened up the handbook-file, called Billy back and gave him the page and spot where the item was to be found. He asked again and repeated the page number and the section that I had designated and which I skimmed through at the same time. "This can not be it," I said and heard a male voice in the background that said at the same time: "Das isch es nöd" [That is not it]. It very obviously had to be Quetzal, who looked in the specified place in the manual and had also skimmed over it. At first I was about to ask Billy whether it was Quetzal's voice in the background, but held back as a precaution, and searched further. I again spelled out to Billy two or three places for it, but each could not be it, and I even searched under different keywords -- and each time I heard Quetzal in the background right away, saying that the selected spots were obviously not what was requested. His voice is very much like that of Billy's in tone, but it definitely sounds younger and is somewhat deeper, very masculine and extremely pleasant - smooth and balanced, with a very peaceful and charming undertone. During the whole conversation, which maybe lasted 3 to 4 minutes, I withheld my question regarding Quetzal and held my thoughts at bay, in order not to reveal under any condition my loud inner "shout of joy" and not bring myself unexpected delight. In so doing I stupidly forgot to send Quetzal a dear greeting, which in hindsight of course incredibly annoyed me, because it would have been the icing on the cake of my experience. During the telephone call, I could not avoid a quiet smile because the two men quite obviously thought that I could not hear Quetzal, for otherwise he would have kept quiet for sure, with Billy understanding him perhaps through hand gestures or nodding. The two with their work were finished shortly after noon, because Billy again called me afterwards and told me that he would have Quetzal's changes ready for the manual, and they were in the kitchen. I went over to pick up my work and asked him, by the way, whether Quetzal's voice had the same tone as his. He looked at me and asked whether I actually heard Quetzal. "Sure," I said grinning and repeated Quetzal's words. He confirmed it and said that he had not suspected that Quetzal could actually be heard -- he [Quetzal] had been sitting on the sofa and not spoken loudly. Laughing, I told him that I just always hear out of perked up ears when he had something to say to me! It hardly needs expressing what childlike pleasure I had, to "catch" Quetzal so unexpectedly; and I'm even more glad that during the conversation I actually could avoid the impudence of a hasty remark, or too loud thoughts of unexpected joy, of which I certainly must live a long time before being refreshed by a similar new experience -- if my good fortune should ever again be realized. Billy's Health Stroll by Jacobus Bertschinger in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 213-14 a liberal translation by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 On Sunday, the 6th of August 1978, Wendelle Stevens sat on the sofa in front of the house plaza -- the ex-lieutenant- commander of the American Air Force and dedicated UFO researcher, while Billy lay on the sofa in the living room the whole day, due to a severe cold. W. Stevens and I noticed, as we stepped into the living room, how Billy seemed to be straining to listen. After a few seconds he then said that he must go to a Contact with the Pleiadians, and go immediately. Therefore he got up and dressed for going out. It was 20:30 hours when Wendelle Stevens and I observed him leave. Back in the house, then, we naturally looked forward to Billy's return, for which we still waited. Then, after about 40 minutes, the telephone rang, which jarred our thoughts. Kalliope, Billy's wife, who answered the call, summoned me and explained that Billy was on the apparatus and wanted to speak to me. Billy then informed me, and explained, that he was at the Krone Inn in Elgg, where I should go pick him up. He was in the neighborhood of Elgg, having been beamed out of Quetzal's spaceship in order to take a health stroll to the village because he didn't take enough care of his health and walked around too little. Therefore there was nothing for him to do but hoof it to the nearby town of Elgg, about a 15-minute walk, while the beamship glided along above him the whole time as a so-to-say umbrella, so that he wouldn't get wet. Once in town he went into the Inn in order to telephone from there, because the wireless set he took along with him did not have the necessary operational range to reach the Center's house station. Naturally I explained that I was prepared to go fetch my friend in Elgg immediately, for if he wanted to walk on foot from there back to Hinterschmidrüti it would take hours. By foot the way would be around 16 kilometers [10 miles], and by road he would first have to drive to Winterhur and then Tösstal up to Wila, and then go the 6 kilometers up the hill to Schmidrüti. Therefore I drove with Wendelle Stevens as well as Kalliope to Elgg, where we found Billy in the Krone Inn drinking coffee, and he then explained the whole story to us. Regarding the affair there is still the following to explain from the associated Contact Report No. 113. Around 20:31 hours Billy was beamed up into Quetzal's spaceship, whereupon a lengthy conversation took place between the two and Semjase, who also was present in the spaceship. Had Billy gone the 16km way to Elgg by foot, where we picked him up, it would have required at least two to three hours. However, even with his Mo-ped, which during his absence had been in its usual place at the Center, it would have taken at least 45 minutes for the trip. Even if he had gone only to Sitzberg by foot, in order to travel from there to Elgg by public transportation, going to the next town, Dussnang, would alone have taken at least 15 minutes. From Dussnang out he would either, with public transportation, have to travel a very complicated way, in order to get to Elgg, or he would need to have gotten a ride with a vehicle that was coincidentally traveling on this road around this time. Whichever way, he could not have traveled the distance to Elgg with the means available to him in a short time. Therefore it is clear that Billy could only travel to Elgg by the aforesaid ways and means, namely with Quetzal's beamship, which was also Wendell Stevens's opinion, who carefully examined the whole affair on the basis of the various routes and the very winding road conditions. Relevant excerpt from Contact Report No. 113, Sunday, 6 August 1978, which commenced on 20:31 hours, as translated from the German by Benjamin Stevens. Note: On almost every contact the aliens (or Pleiadians/Plejarens) recorded the conversation verbatim, and a day or two later transmitted it to Billy Meier via some form of telepathic rapid typing for his right hand. Meier then makes the Contact Reports available in German. The numbers below refer to the sequential number of each sentence spoken by each Plejaren on this particular contact. Quetzal: 84. Nevertheless, on your side, you should also help with this and hold yourself to my instructions. 85. Already quite often, I told you that long walks are of urgent necessity for you and that you need sufficient fresh air and movement. 86. However, you shouldn't go alone and recover yourself in this way but rather always only in company, for you have already become too susceptible to weakness symptoms and often collapse, in order then, perhaps, to remain lying there for hours, which could be dangerous for you, seen from a different point of view Quetzal: 135. That is of correctness; I didn't keep that in mind. 136. But now, my friend, I will drop you off somewhat out of the way in the woods, so that you will have to walk a little. 137. According to your appearance, you haven't followed my advice and haven't indulged in long walks. 138. But now, you are forced to walk a little, for your speaking device won't be sufficient in the calling distance for you to be able to call your friends. 139. Whether you like it or not, you will have to go into the village down there and use a wire speaking apparatus. 140. Please greet your Cannibal [Kalliope] and all Group members quite dearly and also give them good wishes, as is usual with you. Billy: Gladly, my son, also greet yours for me. Ah yes, I am also to give you both the dearest greetings from all Group members. Semjase: 41. I thank you very much, and I echo Quetzal's greetings and wishes. Billy: Well then, okay. Bye together, and you are quite dear. [Final Note: In sentence No. 85 above, Meier was instructed not to walk alone on his health walks, and on his involuntary 15-minute walk in to the town of Elgg he was actually accompanied by Quetzal watching over him from his (presumably invisible) spaceship, according to what Bertschinger learned from Billy.] Night Sighting at Hermatswil/Ravensbühl by Jacobus Bertschinger in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 33-35 a liberal translation by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 It was the 16th of June 1975, shortly after midnight, when we, that is to say, Hans Jacob, Margret Flammer, Olga Walder, Pauli Steiner, Amata Stetter as well as Margret Rufer and I, Jacobus Bertschinger, together with Billy left his house at Wihaldenstrasse 10, 8340 Hinwil. Several persons sat in Hans Jacob's car, and Billy and some others in my VW-Käfer. The background for this: We were sitting as usual in Billy's living room, discussing this and that into a late hour of this Monday night, when Billy, who is often also called Edi as appropriate for his name Eduard, suddenly looked somehow into the distance and listened. That lasted a moment and then he said that he must go out on a contact where he would meet with Semjase, the Pleiadian beamship pilot. We all could come together, and perhaps Semjase would give us a small visible demonstration in the night sky. We could drive in the two autos, with Billy continuously receiving navigating instructions from Semjase, which he relayed accordingly to me through the night as we traveled towards the destination. Reaching our destination, however, took one and a half hours, which was quite normal because Semjase at times directed us back and forth through the countryside, before we finally arrived in the proximity of the contact place. So it was also this time. This time the destination was Hermatswil/Ravensbühl, where we parked the autos on a lane in the field and climbed out, while Billy went quickly along the lane, in order to go somewhere in the very dark night to a hidden spot where Semjase telepathically guided him. While we waited for his return and an eventual demonstration in the sky by Semjase's beamship, we occupied ourselves with surmises on when the contact would end and Billy could again be with us, and what the eventual demonstration would be like. Hermatswil is a small hamlet, and naturally all its inhabitants at this time were sound asleep. Accordingly, we could assume that we would not be disturbed by any villager, and could eventually watch and enjoy a demonstration in the night sky. And scarcely had we sustained ourselves over such thoughts when we heard rapid footsteps coming along the lane. Naturally it was Billy returning from the contact with Semjase and now only a few meters away from us. That was the moment when, about 500 meters behind him, a bright light flared up in the night sky -- Semjase's beamship, behind which a long, thin vertical streak of ionized air was seen, which looked like a light beam; however it then suddenly and continually changed shape, as much in length as in width. As the direction of flight of Semjase's ship changed, a second light beam suddenly appeared, this time in horizontal orientation. As it then briefly changed direction anew, the second beam broke up and no more new optical phenomena appeared in the sky. The two light beams mutually ran into each other, forming an unmistakeable equal sided, strongly lit, chevron in the night sky, whereby the light was so strongly ionized that it caused the ground some 300 meters below to light up weakly. At first somewhat blurry, now the contour of the chevron became clear and sharply delineated. The whole structure was from our view several meters large and must therefore at its true distance have been of enormous size. The demonstration occurred with such great speed that Hans Jacob, who carried camera equipment with him, was unable to take even one photo of the spectacle. However, that he would also not have been able to do, though his camera had been ready for use, because he was obviously stunned and stared speechless at the spectacle. In the meantime Billy had arrived at our group and could in any case yet take in a good part of the demonstration, before the chevron in its great size then silently remained standing in the dark night sky as its color changed to a milky white; how peaceful it appeared above us. Then the whole spectacle disappeared quite suddenly and only the black of the night sky was still to be seen, where some stars were vaguely visible. Therefore, we went again to our autos, which we had left a few meters away, climbed in, and drove back to Hinwil, in order to quickly prepare some coffee to enjoy, whereupon in the resulting conversation everything about the experience was discussed, naturally. So as morning dawned the new day found us sitting in our autos driving homeward to go to work, which we all must do. The Sword of Knowledge: Evidence for Jmmanuel (Jesus) having been to India by Dietmar Rothe One of the most misinterpreted quotations from the biblical scriptures can be found in Matthew 10:34, where Jesus addresses his disciples: “Think not that I have come to bring peace on Earth; I came not to bring peace but a sword.” Crusaders used this passage as an excuse to spread the Christian doctrine with ferocity and the sword. Such a philosophy of aggression and subjugation, however, stands in stark contrast with the Christian image of Jesus as the Prince of Peace and his doctrine of: “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matt 22:39), “love thy enemies” (Matt 5:44), and “turn the other cheek” (Matt 5:39). The inconsistency is absent in the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ 10:44) where Jmmanuel says: “Truly, I have not come to bring peace but the sword of knowledge about the power of the spirit, which dwells within the human being.” Knowledge is portrayed here as a powerful tool, a sword that allows us to discern the truth by cutting away all untruths. Applying the sword of knowledge as a tool in our learning process on our road of spiritual evolution, knowledge of the truth is turned into new insights and wisdom that allows us to “live the truth.” I consider this the definition of wisdom. The concept of the sword of knowledge separating the chaff from the wheat is analogous to “Ockham’s razor,” a valuable principle in the quest for truth named after William of Ockham, a 14th century English scholar. His principle states that among a set of competing theories, the simplest one, requiring the least number of suppositions, is most likely closest to the truth. Similarly, the sword of knowledge gives us the power to discern, to use that knowledge for making wise distinctions and choices. Some interesting connections can be found by searching for the origins of the concept and phrase, “sword of knowledge.” Did Jmmanuel invent it, or did he learn it from one of his teachers? It was not a common phrase in Jmmanuel’s time, neither is it today. Our search for its origins leads us to ancient India. In the traditions of Mahayana Buddhism, which arose between the third century BC and the first century AD, the sword was considered a symbol of logic. A key figure venerated by that religious faith is the Boddhisattva Manjusri, later known as Wen-yu in China and Jam-dpal in Tibet. Manjusri, the personification of the wisdom of the Buddha, is generally depicted with the sword of knowledge, symbolizing logic, and a book of the Prajna-Paramitra Sutra, symbolizing wisdom. He assists those in search of knowledge by casting away the “darkness of ignorance,” another phrase used by Jmmanuel in TJ 26:27, “There is no eye equal to wisdom, no darkness equal to ignorance,...” Was Manjusri a contemporary of Jmmanuel? A search for historical dates of his life proved unsuccessful, indicating that no such historical person existed. Though real to his worshipers, Manjusri is essentially the personified concept (idol) of the quality of wisdom of the Buddha. Similarly, the Boddhisattva Avalokiteshvara became a personification of the compassion of the Buddha. The Boddhisattva concept is analogous to the Christ image as an idol representing the essence of the pure spiritual being of the historical person of Jesus (i.e. his love, purity and perfection). The first written record of the sword of knowledge appears in the Aswamedha Parva (Sec. XXXV) of the Mahabharata, which was composed over a time span from 400 BC to 400 AD, a period centered around the lifetime of Jmmanuel (Jesus). In this reference, Vasudeva (Krishna) explains to Arjuna, by recounting an ancient discourse between a teacher and his disciple, the importance of knowledge and critical reasoning for grasping the spiritual truth that all things and beings are one within the Spirit of Creation (Brahman): “... and cutting [away the untruths from] all topics [beliefs and convictions] with the sharp sword of knowledge, one attains to immortality and casts off birth and death.” In another passage from the Bhagavad Gita, which was interpolated into the Mahabharata in the first century AD (during Jmmanuel’s lifetime), we read in Chapter 4, Verse 42: “O Arjuna, with the sword of knowledge cut away all doubt of the self, that is born of ignorance and resides in your heart.” The concept of the sword of knowledge was reiterated some 1600 years later by the Tenth Master Govind Singh (1675-1708) of the Sikh faith. He asked that we use the “Gyaneh-ki-badhni,” the sword of knowledge, to tear apart ignorance and superstitions. Jmmanuel’s use of the phrase, “sword of knowledge,” may indicate that he learned this word picture from an Indian guru. This supposition supports the notion that Jmmanuel traveled to India during his “missing years” between age 12 and 30. Another indication that Jmmanuel made "friends in India" is also evident from TJ 30:65, which describes how Jmmanuel's friends from India entered his tomb and nursed him back to health. Other possible explanations may be voiced in rebuttal. These are: 1. Through his exposure to Eastern religious doctrine, Billy Meier changed the term “sword” in Matthew 10:34 to “sword of knowledge” in the TJ. 2. Jmmanuel learned this phrase from his celestial teachers who also brought it to the gurus of ancient India, so that Immanuel (Jesus) did not need to travel to India to become familiar with this concept. In this scenario, the idea of the sword of knowledge was imparted to Jmmanuel during his 40-day absence after being baptized by John at age 30 (or so). 3. Jmmanuel learned this phrase from members of a Buddhist community in Palestine. Alternative 1. is not very probable given all the other aspects of wisdom contained in the TJ. Alternative 2. is more complex than the theory that Jesus traveled to India and is thus less probable by the principle of Ockham’s razor. Whereas the sword was a common object in Earth human history, culture and warfare at that time, it was not a noteworthy item for the technically advanced extraterrestrial teachers who had achieved space travel thousands of years earlier. It is more likely for the image of the sword of knowledge to have originated on Earth than for the same extraterrestrial mentors to have brought it to several terrestrial protegees on multiple occasions. The third alternative explanation is highly unlikely for the following reason. After Siddharta Gautama’s death around 486 BC, Buddhism was confined to northern India until the 3rd century BC, when it spread south through the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and then on to Cambodia and Vietnam in the 2nd century BC. Starting in the 1st century BC, Buddhism also spread north and east along the Silk Road, reaching China in the 2nd century AD, Tibet and Korea in the 4th century and Japan in the 6th century AD. But it never spread westward through the Middle East and into Europe until much more recently. Most Europeans became aware of Buddhism only in the 18th century. Egyptian, Judaic, Babylonian, Greek and Roman religions, and later Christianity and Islam, dominated throughout much of the Middle East, creating a formidable barrier that prevented the spread of Buddhism to the west. There is no record of any Buddhist community existing in Palestine during Jmmanuel’s time. Hence, Jmmanuel did not have the opportunity of accessing Buddhist scriptures and doctrine in his homeland. More likely, he studied the Eastern philosophy in India. He probably met “his friends from India” (TJ 30:65) there and brought them back to Jerusalem on his return. _________________________ For a summary of Jmmanuel’s words of wisdom, as disclosed in the Talmud of Jmmanuel, refer to www.avilabooks.com/Jmmanuel.htm Billy's Contact of 1 June 1981 by Eva Bieri in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 274-75 translated by J. W. Deardorff, July 2011 A previous translation is in Through Space and Time (Steelmark LLC, 2004), pp. 84-85 It was Sunday evening and we had been sprinkling our community garden up until around midnight, because for days it had been very hot and without rain. This night I had the midnight-to-03:00 nightwatch, and sat on the sofa in front of the house. Billy was still walking around a little and looking everything over. Also, young Rolf Wächter was still awake and sitting on a bench seat. When Billy came by the sofa where I sat, he told me he had a feeling that he would have to go to a Contact this night. When he then walked to the nearby forest, I naturally thought that he had gone by foot to his contact place. So I watched him until he had disappeared, and then peered up into the wonderful, beautiful star-studded sky. After about 10 minutes I heard quite a faint yet clear sound from the forest into which Billy had disappeared. Rolf also heard it, stood up, came over to me and asked where Billy was. My answer was that I didn't know, and that he should therefore finally get to bed. He only asked whether I had also heard the sound. "Naturally," I answered, and I recognized the noise as the siren-sound of Semjase's or Quetzal's beamship -- something that I knew very well because in the previous year I was there at the tape-recording when Billy and some other people could take in the sound of Semjase's beamship, when it was not shielded against its emitted sound [see the event of July 18th, 1980]. However I wanted to make sure that Rolf did not know about that. Therefore he went into the house, and I thought that now he would surely go to bed. However, I was led astray, for after another 20 minutes Billy came back and asked me who had been walking along the small pathway in the meadow, for he had seen someone when he had been sitting at the forest's edge. That could only have been Rolf, who had gone out through the back door to see what was making the strange sounds. Therefore the Contact did not yet take place. Instead, Billy woke up his wife, Popi. She had to take my place on watch, because I must now drive Billy [close] to the [new] Contact location in my car. We departed, yet the trip did not last long, for we went only to Sädelegg, where Billy had already had several Contacts. We climbed out of the car and looked around, when Billy suddenly said, "Look, do you see something there at the edge of the forest?" I looked, and at about 300 meters distance I actually saw a bright, shimmering, large light whose brightness varied repeatedly. It was Quetzal's ship. Billy told me I should sit on the bench under the tree at the parking place -- but then I didn't move from where I was as Billy strode towards the light. After about two minutes I again heard the well known siren-sound of Quetzal's ship, and, idiot that I am, I thought he had arranged that as a treat for me. That was naturally not the case, logically not. Billy explained to me later that from time to time when he steps into the craft its noise- shielding mechanism sometimes becomes operational too soon, whereby the siren-sound can be heard. In any event,I remained standing as rooted to my spot, and did not trust myself to take a step forward, because I knew that the Pleiadians moniter it, and are not at all pleased if one approaches them too closely. Off and on I looked all around to see if anyone was approaching and if everything was remaining peaceful, which it was. One heard nothing, except the sound of a roebuck, which had apparently become frightened at something. Despite everything, I must have yawned widely several times before Billy returned 20 minutes later. As I heard his footsteps I intently observed Quetzal's ship, which during the past 20 minutes had stayed luminous. However, I saw nothing further except for the intense light of the ship which all of a sudden turned off. Since Billy was back, we climbed back into the car and drove home, where I continued my night-watch duty, which I extended to 04:00 because I still had all kinds of office work to attend to. Below is an extract from Contact #145 of 1 June, 1981, 01:10 hours, as translated from the German by Benjamin Stevens. Billy: You're a little careless, Quetzal. From the parking lot up there, one can see that it is your ship down here at the edge of the forest. Especially the light is clearly visible. Quetzal: 1. Besides Eva, no one is there, and should some stranger approach, then I will find out early enough.. Billy: Of course, but you opened the sound-absorbing shield too early. I just heard the rather loud buzzing. Quetzal: 2. It didn't penetrate very far, but for what reason did you call me? 3. You did know, nevertheless, that I would come tonight. Billy: Oh no, I thought that you had forgotten me because I was of the view that you were going to call me to yourself on last Monday. Quetzal: 4. You're mistaken. Billy: Then it's fine. I thought that something had already happened in a negative sense again. Since our last meeting, I have gotten to know all kinds of things that were rather unpleasant, despite the joy I also had on the other hand [There follow 41 more sentences from Quetzal.] A Refutation of Bruce Maccabee's 1989 Debunking Attempt, and the Episode of the Above-the-treetop Beamship Oscillations INTRODUCTION. In his article, "Billy, no; Ed, yes," Bruce Maccabee (1989a) contrasted the Billy Meier UFO- contactee case with the Ed Walters abductee case of Gulf Breeze, FL, of 1987-88, since in both cases the subject was allowed to take multiple photographs of his ETs' UFOs, though from there on the differences dominate over the similarities. The Gulf Breeze case, which Maccabee investigated personally and intensively, received much flak from a substantial fraction of ufologists, due to its unique features, a state of affairs that always raises skeptics' suspicions. Naturally he could not have wished this case to be compared in the same vein as the Meier case and then suffer the same fate of receiving prolific debunking attempts. Thus, as the title to his article suggests, by following the "politically correct" course of apparently debunking the Meier case while supporting the Ed Walters case, Maccabee could let other ufologists know he had not stepped outside the ranks of respectability, ufologically speaking. This is not to imply, however, that his rejection of the Meier case may not have been sincere. As we shall see, he pointed out superficially suspicious elements of the case while scarcely commenting upon supportive elements. He apparently did not read or believe what the earliest researchers of the case found-Wendelle Stevens and his investigative team (Stevens, 1982, 1989; Elders et al., 1979; Elders & Elders, 1983), but appears to have relied mainly on Korff (1980) for input. • 1A. INCOME LEVEL. Using Maccabee's numbering of paragraphs, we start with his mention that Billy Meier, who was very poor, supplemented his one-arm disability income by selling literature [and copies of his UFO photos] and accepting gifts from his followers. Walters, who had a good income, did not have to do this. Maccabee seems to have been implying that this difference between the two detracted from Meier's credibility. However, with a family to support and an occupation of being a full-time contactee since 1975, Meier had no other way of supplementing his meager state income. He obviously had to do what he legally could to feed his family. I have monitored the prices he has charged since 1985 for his literature and photos, and these have never been listed above a reasonable price for covering the cost of having copies made. Since 1989, Walters has authored three books about his experiences and photos, one of them co-authored by Maccabee (Walters & Walters, 1990, 1994; Walters & Maccabee, 1997), and the fact that these books are not given away for free in no way reflects upon their authors' veracity; similarly with Meier. DATES OF PHOTOS. Then Maccabee (1989a) stated, "Subsequent investigations have shown that his first supposed UFO photos were taken not in 1975 but in May and June of 1964, in India." The tone in which this is written implies that perhaps Meier was hiding the fact of his earlier UFO sightings, photographs and experiences. This is not the case. Stevens, in his 1982 book, reproduces some of the black & white photos of UFOs that Meier took while undergoing contacts in India in 1964, and Meier long ago made available information about his Indian experiences. Maccabee may have been referring to the fact that Lee & Brit Elders, in their two photo albums of 1979 and 1983, presented photos from Meier's contacts subsequent to January 1975 only, and did not mention his earlier contacts-an item that Korff (1980, p. 3) criticized. It was certainly within the Elders' prerogative to publish only Meier's more recent, color UFO photos, representative of his collection, if they wished; their statement had been, "it was on this day [Jan. 28, 1975], in the remote hillsides of Canton Zurich, Switzerland, that the first evidence of a man's ongoing encounters with beings from another world began" (Elders et al., 1979, p. 11). Meier had had no contacts between about 1965 and 1975, but they have been ongoing ever since then, indicating that their statement is true even up to the time of the present update (2005). Korff had already been corrected on this by Stevens (1981a, p. 3), who correctly pointed out that the word "ongoing" had been used there. However, the topic has no bearing on Meier's credibility. As to the "supposed" UFO photos from India: they exist; Stevens published many of them in his books. A witness other than Meier to the UFOs at Mehrauli, India, has verified the UFO presence there in 1964 when Meier was visiting and taking UFO pictures-more on this below. • 1B. SOCIABILITY. Here Maccabee mentioned that Meier "is not active in his community," as if the level of community activity has some relevance to credibility and sincerity. But we've all read of dastardly acts committed by persons whose neighbors had thought, up until the act, that the person was a friendly, congenial, law-abiding citizen. However, being a contactee who was very frequently in touch with his ET contactors since 1975, Meier had acquired a rather different worldview than that of most of his Swiss neighbors, and he was left with a mission to fulfill that didn't leave time for small talk or playing community games. Meier's knowledge of human religions and of the Talmud of Jmmanuel could not have made him feel a need to become a member of a church, for example, and a partaker in community church activities as Ed Walters was. Instead, even before 1975 Meier had participated in a metaphysical discussion group in Wetzikon, Switzerland (Stevens, 1982, p. 28). After his contacts recommenced in 1975, and his photographs became more widely known, he spent much time with curious visitors, repeatedly explaining the meaning of it all and answering their questions, until this degree of sociability became too wearying and time consuming in the early 1980s. Thereafter he had to leave most of this task to some of his followers at Schmidrüti. All this is entirely consistent with his having been a contactee since early youth. • 1C. BILLY A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST? Next, Maccabee fell into more serious error, in asserting, "Billy has emphasized a religious connection to his sightings. (He claims to be the 13th disciple of Christ.)" Here "sightings" must refer to topics of discussion when Meier was in the presence of one or more of his ETs. However, his contact conversations with the Pleiadian ETs (or Plejarens as they were later called) cannot be termed "religious." They were wide ranging and sometimes did involve spiritual topics, with occasional mentions about religion; however, his contacts themselves were not religious-they did not involve worship, praying, rituals, reciting creeds, proselytizing, singing hymns or chanting or any such. It is true that Meier was told by the Pleiadians that he was our present-day prophet-our New Age prophet (Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 68-71), akin to the true prophets in the Bible, some of whom he had been during past incarnations, so he was informed; and this was why he was being contacted now. Meier has never gone around claiming this, but has just reported what he has been told during contact sessions, in which, with very few exceptions, everything discussed is subsequently recorded word for word (Moosbrugger, 2000, pp. 94-96). He has never claimed to be a disciple or a 13th disciple, and was never told by his ETs of being such; Maccabee apparently picked up this misinformation from Korff (1980, p. 6). Meier distinguishes between Jmmanuel (or Immanuel) and Jesus Christ, the fictional character of worship that the Talmud of Jmmanuel indicates Jmmanuel was made into, following the time of Paul. One can say, however, that Billy's contacts and discovery of the Talmud of Jmmanuel hold very strong implications for some of Earth's major religions, in particular, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Regarding my above reference to Guido Moosbrugger, he was formally a schoolteacher from Vienna, and has known Meier since April of 1976, having ever since been a good friend and supporter. He has frequently been with Meier at his place for extended visits over the years. His knowledge of the Meier contactee case comes from having been an insider. • 2A. DAYTIME UFO/ALIEN SIGHTINGS. Maccabee stated that "no one, not even his wife or family, claims to have seen a ship in daylight, nor has anyone claimed to see Billy photograph a spaceship. No one claims to have seen a Pleiadian or any 'entity' that Billy might have met during a contact." The facts are otherwise, but not knowable from Korff's 1980 article. Presumably Maccabee meant to exclude Billy Meier himself from this assertion, at the least. However, Meier's family, along with two adults besides his wife, Kalliope, all witnessed a Pleiadian beamship in the afternoon for several minutes, on June 28, 1976. The description of this event was made known by Stevens (1982, pp. 142-143) and should have been known to Maccabee also from Elders & Elders (1983, p. 44). An interview in 1979 of Meier's wife and three children about their witness to this sighting is on a videotape copy I obtained from Brit Elders; portions of this video are contained within Genesis III's video "The Meier Chronicles," which is more readily available. A written account of this sighting by Kalliope is presented in Moosbrugger (2001, pp. 157-159). In 1982 a visitor to the F.I.G.U. Center at Schmidrüti was sweeping the area just outside the residence one morning when Billy stepped outside from the kitchen, looking up at the sky. He pointed to a craft high in the sky having the appearance of a beamship, so that the visitor could spot it also, which she did. Billy had been alerted by a telepathic message from one of his contactors (Moosbrugger, 2000, p. 159), otherwise this sighting would not have occurred. There have been a few very brief sightings of one or another of Meier's ETs themselves, on the grounds of his Schmidrüti residence, by close friends of Meier. One of these is described here (Hesemann, 1998). A few others may be found here (search for "E" or "Hm" under the Events column). However, since his ETs are quite human in appearance, these sightings are not as definitive as the sighting of the "grey" alien by Ed Walters and his wife (Walters & Walters, 1990, pp. 63-64). MIRAGE JET INCIDENT. There is very strong evidence that during the day of April 14th, 1976, when Billy photographed a Swiss Army Mirage jet fighter making 22 passes at the beamship, which each time evaded the jet by moving or "jumping" away, the jet's pilot was a witness to this event. (Meier's Verzeichnis erroneously indicates it occurred on March 14th.) Of the 14 surviving photographs, ten show both the aircraft and beamship, and one of these, especially, has been studied very carefully by Stevens and his team (Elders et al., 1979, p. 35; Stevens, 1982, pp. 356-360; Stevens, 1987, pp. 443-447; Stevens, 1990, p. 375). In the original photo the beamship occupies a width of about 1.7% of the 35mm film width. Had it been a 30cm model suspended 21 meters away, it would have required a support pole some 23m (75ft) long by which to suspend it. This event took place while a Swiss army contingent was on maneuvers. Stevens (1990, p. 265) learned some very interesting second-hand information about the event, in quizzing persons connected with the Swiss air base. This was, in reference to a particular Mirage jet, that "A Fig. 1. Beamship and mirage jet fighter in same frame. mechanic at the base later reported From UFO...Contact from the Pleiades, vol. I, p. 35. Courtesy Lee & Brit Elders. that the fire control panel had melted Photo taken by Billy Meier between the villages of Schmarbüel & Maiwinkle. down internally, and had to be completely replaced, including much of the wiring." In one of the photos, the lower portion of the beamship fades out into transparency (see Fig. 2a). The Elders and Stevens attributed this to a sudden acceleration of the craft towards the camera on one of its jumping movements. However, this would not explain why only the lower 15% or so of the craft is affected, nor would a sudden vanishing maneuver as the camera shutter closed. Upon reflecting, however, on the Plejaren capability of rendering their craft invisible except in any desired direction of viewing, I would speculate that in this instance a touch of invisibility was applied to the bottom of the craft, either accidently or on purpose. However, the craft evidently made itself visible to the pilot of the Mirage jet, and from what Stevens has reported, also to some residents of the valley. Although in taking that picture Meier hadn't held the camera quite steadily enough, the delineation of the lower edge of the structure at the bottom of the photo indicates that a good deal more of the bottom of the beamship should ordinarily have been visible, as in Fig. 2b. Meier took the photo that Fig. 2b was cropped from on the same occasion. From it, one sees that the craft displays a very substantial "underbelly" when viewed from the side and below. Hence the phenomenon of Fig. 2a is no artifact of camera movement but is real, strongly indicating the beamship was no model UFO. Almost as important, Meier had a tape Fig. 2a. Beamship appearance in one of Meier's Schmarbüel-Maiwinkle recorder running during the six or more photos. Cropped from UFO...Contact minutes that the jet fighter was making from the Pleiades, vol. I, p. 31. its 22 passes, the sounds of which were Courtesy Lee & Brit Elders. recorded along with those of a reconnaissance plane, a paratroop transport plane, a train, a barking dog and a police siren (Stevens, 1987, pp. 456-459; Stevens, 1989, pp. 443-445). The soundFig. 2b. Beamship appearance in that the beamship made towards the end of Meier's photographing session was another of Meier's Schmarbüel- also recorded. All but the beamship's sounds could be, and were, identified as Maiwinkle photos. Cropped from UFO...Contact from the Pleiades, to their source by the lab that studied the tape in detail, including the sound of vol. I, p. 30. Courtesy the Mirage jet. This lab was the Naval Sound Research Laboratory at Groton, Lee & Brit Elders. CT. Stevens (1982, pp. 439-447) reproduced their full report. A UFO researcher from Zurich, Erwin Mürner, looked into the matter and was able to confirm, through several conversations with a Swiss Air Force officer, that this event between the "UFO" and the Mirage jet indeed took place (Hesemann, 1998). He also learned the jet pilot's name and was able to talk with him sufficiently to verify the event. Therefore the jet pilot was a daytime beamship witness, though his name has been withheld, by Mürner, at his own request for the usual reasons. For more on this, click here" (scroll down to #2). THE 1964 WITNESS IN INDIA. Rather recently a witness to the daytime UFO sightings occurring in Mehrauli, India, in 1964, at the time Meier was visiting an ashram there, came forward. She presented her recollections on this, which were video-taped, at the 8th International UFO Congress in Laughlin, NV, in 1999. She was a witness to Meier's alien contactor at the time, as was her younger brother and her grandfather, who was the head of the ashram. On more than one occasion they witnessed this humanoid alien's UFOs in the daytime, and Meier photographing them. Maccabee, in 1989, evidently did not know of this particular information. See also Stevens (1995a, pp. 19-36). MORE RECENT DAYTIME SIGHTINGS. On May 20, 2000, there were 16 witnesses to an apparent beamship sighting besides Billy, who had been alerted to it via telepathy a moment beforehand. One of the witnesses fetched Billy's camera and took three pictures of it, though their resolution is poor because it kept its distance. Click here under the above date. In July of 2000 Silvano Lehmann, in the presence of Billy Meier, sighted a beamship-style UFO, which Billy had again been alerted to through mental telepathy from the craft's occupant. The event is described here, along with a photo that Lehmann took at the time, which has enough resolution to show the distinct saucer- shape of the craft. Thus there have been over ten daytime witnesses besides Billy to one of the beamships whose occupant had been contacting him. • 3A. NO SWISS UFO FLAP. Maccabee mentioned that there was no "flap" of UFO sightings in Billy's region of Switzerland (as there had been in the Gulf Breeze case) during his taking of UFO photos in 1975-76. However this has nothing to do with Meier's credibility. He failed to point out the reason Meier received for this from his contacting ET: they keep their craft/ships invisible except when they desire to let a person see one. In Meier's case, they told him that, with few exceptions, they kept their craft invisible except as viewed from along only his line of sight. This accords with a strategy of plausible deniability -if only one person is usually allowed to witness and photograph particular UFOs, whether repeatedly or not, skeptics can more easily jump to the assumption that he is not credible, if they wish. Negative skeptics are thus not forced to believe anything against their will. There are plenty of UFO sightings on record in which the craft suddenly vanished, but it is not then known if it had suddenly darted away too fast to be seen. However, two instances are reported by Gordon Creighton in which the UFO disappeared by becoming more and more transparent until it had vanished (Creighton, 2001); such reports indicate that invisibility, or "cloaking," is indeed part of advanced alien technology. More are reported and discussed by Douglass, 2005. For ET groups who long ago reached this level, it seems reasonable that with an additional 500 years, say, of advancement of their science and technology (also long ago), the cloaking could be refined to allow a corridor of visibility from a particular desired angle of view, while retaining invisibility from all other viewing directions. It would make no sense to dismiss this possibility of cloaking, or partial cloaking, simply because our own level of science and technology is thousands or millions of years behind theirs and we at present can scarcely begin to understand how this bit of alien magic might be achieved. • 4A. CONTACTEE VS. ABDUCTEE. Maccabee stated, "Billy's contacts with aliens were pleasant. One gets the impression that he looked forward to meeting the beautiful Pleiadians." The impression Maccabee seems to have been seeking to leave with the reader here, especially among fellow ufologists, is that a contactee, whose contacts are not scary, traumatic or painful, is not to be trusted in comparison to an abductee whose UFO experiences usually are traumatic. However, it is entirely unscientific and illogical to assume that all ETs seek to impose themselves unwillingly upon their human subjects, and not allow that some ETs could exist with ethical levels we can appreciate, thus resulting in contactees, and not to allow for the likelihood that some ETs could be human in appearance. (This is not to imply, of course, that all alleged contactees are genuine.) Nevertheless, Meier did not always look forward to his contacts, as Contact Report #115 of 19 Oct., 1978, indicates; see also Kinder (1987, p. 211). As for "beautiful," I'm not aware that Billy described the Pleiadians with a word of this meaning. Although he found them to be nice looking, the sketches of several of them that he had an artist draw in accordance with his memory look like rather normal appearing human faces (see www.billymeier.com, and click on "Pleiadians/Plejaren"). • 4B. PSEUDO-RELIGIOUS OR SPIRITUAL? Next, in referring to Billy's voluminous Contact Reports, Maccabee stated, "There is a pseudoreligious message in Billy's writings." In response, see 1C. above. Meier received a good deal of spiritual teachings during some of his contact sessions, but these do not reflect religious instructions. They add rather than detract from his credibility, since much evidence has been accumulating in the past several decades on the reality of the human spirit, which is ignored within the major religions of the Western world. See the studies within this bibliography. Billy's writings include spiritual messages (pertaining to the individual human/alien spirit) and not pseudo-religious messages. • 5A. NICE SAUCER PICTURES. "Billy's still photos show classic disc-shaped UFOs in daylit country scenery. They are beautiful pictures which fit in with the general expectation of what a flying saucer should look like." Here, Maccabee seems to have been implying that since the general disc-like shape for UFOs had been frequently reported for nearly three decades before Billy's Swiss contacts commenced, the fact that most of his contactors' craft displayed that general shape indicts Billy of having utilized models of that general design. However, this implication lacks common sense, and is "reaching" much too far. Since 1950, and both before and after 1975, there have been many sightings of UFOs of the same general shape as the flying saucers first reported in 1947. It obviously makes no more sense to reject all sightings and photos of UFO craft that resemble the shape of those first reported than to reject all photos of automobiles built after 1930, say, as real whose components include 4 wheels, a cab and an engine up front. The beamship that Meier had the opportunity to photograph on March 8, 1976, exhibited knurled protuberances all around its outer rim and a decorative appearing cupola on top; this departs from the simplest "saucer" shape. The UFO that Ed Walters took the most photos of exhibited a fancy crown-like body, resembling an expansion of the cupola atop the craft on the left that Meier photographed. Does this in any way implicate Walters of having made a model UFO that copied from, and embellished upon, the structure seen in the Meier photo? Of course not, especially considering Fig. 3. Section of Meier's photo that ETs in general seem capable of traveling in craft #200 after Stevens had Interrepro Fig. 4. Section of Ed Walters' of whatever design they wish, be it disc-shaped, bell- A.G. in Basel, Switzerland, analyze 2nd photo, Nov. 11, 1987. it with a laser-scanning computer From back dust cover of shaped, boomerang shaped, spherical, cigar-shaped, in 1979. Black & white rendition Walters & Walters, 1990. triangular, or a shape like a banana or an ice-cream from Stevens (1989, p. 412). cone (the latter two shapes have indeed been reported). Further, UFOs have sometimes been observed to quickly change their shape (morph). We can only guess whether ETs utilize craft of various shapes for particular functional reasons, or for a whim, and/or as part of a strategy that includes plausible deniability. • 5B. BILLY'S PICTURES WELL COMPOSED? Here Maccabee wrote, "Billy's pictures, at least as presented in various publications (after some retouching, apparently), are clear, well-composed shots." What is the implication here? That after having had numerous visitations with his ET contactors, and after being summoned telepathically to various sites in the hills for the purpose of shooting roll after roll of film of beamships, that his pictures should appear as if he were too hasty or frightened to hold the camera steady? Many of his shots are not very well composed, however. His camera's viewing mechanism was broken, and his aim and tilt of it was often not optimal, usually being too high and showing too much sky and not enough of the lower foreground. Many of his photos could have been improved if he had held the camera in the portrait mode rather than the landscape orientation. It is realized, of course, that Ed Walters' photos, in contrast, were taken very hastily. However, this merely demonstrates one of the differences between an abductee and a contactee, albeit an abductee whom ETs treated in a special manner, and a contactee whom his ETs treated in quite a different, very special manner. • 5C. CARELESS TREATMENT OF SLIDES BEFORE 1977. Here Maccabee wondered why Billy would have treated his original color slides "so carelessly" that there was uncertainty as to which were originals and which were copies. If one stops to consider that already by the summer of 1976 Meier had accumulated some 300 photos showing his contactors' beamships, one sees that he quite likely felt he could afford to loan quite a few of them out to friends and acquaintances. By the time that Wendelle Stevens started investigating the case in late 1977, however, Meier had learned better than to loan out his photos, as some of them had not been returned, and with some others there was evidently reason to believe that only copies had been returned. By 1978, Stevens had visited Meier for sufficiently long periods as to receive his partial trust. Yet even then, when Stevens persuaded Meier to loan him some 40 of his originals from which to make copies, he was obligated to have a member of Meier's group of closest followers (Bernadette Brand) accompany him with the original color slides; they went to a photo shop in the town of Winterhur to have internegatives made (Stevens, 1995b). Stevens was rather certain that these 40 color slides were the originals, judging by their appearance and sequencing printed on their cardboard frames, and fairly sure that the photo shop did not substitute copies during the day's wait before he and Brand received back what seemed to be the originals judging from the frames. Thus Meier's behavior here was not in any way suspicious of that of a hoaxer, but was realistic. If he had been a hoaxer, his close friends or acquaintances would have known of it, and so would persons living in surrounding areas. If he had been a hoaxer, he would likely have shown Stevens only particular photos he could utilize in making copies, rather than letting Stevens choose whichever ones he wished. If he had been a hoaxer, he simply would not have taken numerous photos of a model UFO, suspended in one manner or another, on occasion after occasion, for each of which he risked the chance of later detection of a suspension line showing upon careful inspection of the photo, a point of suspension higher up showing, lack of haze effect showing, or a model UFO out of focus by being too close to the camera whose focusing mechanism was jammed at a stop just short of the infinity setting, etc. If there were only a 2% chance that any of these and other problems would later be noticed on any given photo, then for 300 photos, for example, the odds would be only 1 in 429 (assuming randomness of errors) that a fatal error would not show up on any of them, which the hoaxer himself might fail to detect. After Michael Malin of JPL was shown some of Meier's movie films, and tried to visualize how they could all have been contrived, he is quoted as saying, "I'm sure he's clever. He's a sharp guy" (Kinder, 1987, p. 242). However, a clever hoaxer would not like such high odds of risking exposure of the truth, and would therefore not fabricate a huge number of fake photos. • 5D. SUPPORT LINES IN PHOTOS? Here Maccabee made a very serious charge: "Photographic analyses of Billy's photos have turned up some overt artifacts (for example, a line above an object suggestive of a support)." Yet he did not supply any reference to any of these analyses. If he was referring to Kal Korff's (1981) booklet, it doesn't require much analysis to find numerous fatal flaws and false claims there. If referring to Korff (1980), there an edge-enhanced version of a Meier-case beamship is shown in which a large number (about 50) of vertical line segments show up; one of these was claimed to be a supporting string or wire. Maccabee may have been referring to this. A very definite problem has been caused by the debunking efforts against Meier's experiences and photographic evidence having been widespread within ufology over the past two decades. A frame of mind within ufology towards the Meier case soon developed that is akin to the frame of mind within mainstream science towards the UFO phenomenon as a whole, involving the "curtain of ridicule" that grew both naturally and out of an official policy of debunking UFO reports (Maccabee, 2000, p. 256). To wit: to denounce the genuineness of Meier's evidence became almost mandatory in order to pass the test of "political correctness" within the field of ufology. This has produced the problem of peer pressure providing motivation for dishonest analyses and manipulation of Meier's photographs, which modern technology and techniques has made simple to accomplish. As a result, claims of the nature of what Maccabee has passed along above have been made without supportive evidence or honest proof being required. It seems that the only hope for objective analyses in such cases in the future will require a balanced panel of experts for purposes of ensuring that photo materials of highest quality and closest to the originals are selected for analysis, and for managing the photographs, carrying out the analyses under each others' watchful eyes at all times, and agreeing to make public the findings. A possible complication in selecting photos for analysis arose after Billy Meier announced in 1998 that he had been informed by his ET contactors' leader (Ptaah) that some 230 of his photos had been subject to possible faking or manipulation (discussed in Contact Report #260 of Feb. 3, 1998). These involved film he had allowed a certain photographer to have developed at low cost, and involved photos mostly from his 5-day space trip (Stevens, 1988, pp. 283-339). Whether this information is genuine or is instead disinformation provided by Ptaah for the purpose of plausible deniability, may be uncertain. Meier's contacts have continued over the years, though much less frequently after the mid 1980s than during 1975-78. The careful investigator will distinguish between what Billy reports from his own experience and what he reports being told by his ETs. • 5E. NO PHOTO OF A WITNESS OTHER THAN BILLY? Maccabee wrote, "None of Billy's UFO photos has a person other than Billy in it. A photo that included another person would provide documentation of a multiple-witness event, one witness being the photographer." Here, Maccabee failed to mention that one of the several requirements Meier was under, apparently in keeping with an alien strategy of plausible deniability, was that he not permit any others to accompany him all the way to the site of any of their contact or photo sessions (Stevens, 1982, pp. 64, 126; Moosbrugger, 2000, pp. 91-93). Evidently an ET group that provides a man with many hundreds of opportunities to click the shutter of his camera with their UFO in view needs to be much more careful about upholding this requirement than another ET group that provides a person with just one or two photo opportunities. However, the incident between the beamship and the jet Mirage fighter, under 2A. above, could satisfy Maccabee's plaint here, since the evidence indicates that the beamship was interacting with the jet fighter plane, whose pilot obviously witnessed the beamship, which had been its target during its many passes at it. Ten of the 14 photos in that series showed both the aircraft and the beamship (Stevens, 1982, p. 356; 1987, p. 443). • 5F. NO DISTANCE INFORMATION? "Billy always took mono photos, i.e., used a single camera..." Therefore, "Billy's photos provide no conclusive information on the distance to the UFOs." However, on two occasions it is definite that the beamship was partially obscured by ground or tree, respectively, at a substantial distance from the camera (roughly 30m and 90m, respectively: the brow of the hill, and the mature abies alba tree). The imprecision in the estimated distance in these instances is not so great that they could be off on the low side by more than 50%. In a third instance, the beamship interacted with the top of a mature tree a considerable distance from the camera (see below). Additionally, by 1981 Meier had acquired the use of a video camera in addition to a different still-picture camera, and was given the opportunity to use both on April 3rd of 1981. Twice when taking the video footage he gradually zoomed in on the "wedding cake" UFO (E.g., see Elders & Elders, 1983, p. 70; Stevens, 1982, pp. 526-527), which was hovering just in front of a tree. By observing how the different stretches of ground successively come into focus at increasing distances from the camera, until the UFO and tree are both in focus at the camera's greatest focal length, one can be certain that the UFO was no small model close to the camera. (A copy of the video may be available from Meier's support group in Schmidrüti, or a video of a projection of it from the conveners of the (1999) International UFO Congress.) • 6A. 8MM MOVIE FILM CUT AND SPLICED. Here Maccabee noted that the segments of 8mm film footage that Billy took and had spliced together and placed onto one reel "has obviously been cut at a number of places, sometimes where the UFO image jumps in position from one frame to the next." What he omitted to inform the reader, however, is the fact that this footage had been loaned to a television studio for their use in a program about the case, and when the reel was finally returned, it was later found that only a copy of the film was on the returned reel. Meier then learned that the copy had been made only after several cuts and splices in his original film had been introduced. However, his comments on the videotape indicate his belief that this jump from one position to another (at the Bachtelhörnli-Unterbachtel site) had not been due to a cut in the film. This agrees with the fact that a portion, at least, of the craft is seen in both positions at once during the one frame of the jump. • 6B. BILLY DID NOT PAN WITH MOVIE CAMERA. Maccabee then commented upon the fact that the movie film Billy shot shows the UFO moving in front of a stationary background; "there is no evidence that he panned with the motion of a UFO (which would require him to be behind the camera...Thus, if a hoax, he could have moved the UFO by himself.)" It of course in no way incriminates Billy that when he brought along a movie camera with him on his moped he also brought along a tripod on which he would mount it. What Maccabee failed to mention is that Meier used the tripod so that he could take still pictures at the same time as the movie camera was running. (Meier learned that the ETs could turn his 8mm-movie camera on and off remotely from their hovering craft (Stevens, 1982, p. 282) while he took pictures with his still camera.) A one- armed man cannot take pictures with a camera in his one hand and pan with a movie camera at the same time. Maccabee also failed to mention that a one-armed hoaxer would have required one if not two or three accomplices in order to have rigged model-UFO arrangements that would begin to achieve the reality seen in Meier's movies and pictures. An assumption that a one-armed hoaxer could have set everything up, and operated it all himself, is not plausible in this case. • 6C. THE UFO UNDERWENT MANEUVERS. Maccabee next remarked about the movie-film segment in which the beamship oscillates in pendulum-like movements, with some wobbling added, above a conifer tree (Stevens, 1982, pp. 280-281; see also Maccabee, 1989b). This was on March 18th, 1975; location undisclosed. Fig. 5. Superposed frames from the "Beamship: The Movie Footage" video of Lee & Brit Elders, showing one of the pendulum-like swings of the craft. Interval between images of craft about 0.3 sec. Brightness and contrast enhanced. The implication he was making here is that the beamship was a suspended model UFO circling from a nearly fixed point of attachment above a small, young tree close to the camera. Now, from numerous UFO reports in general one reads of UFOs that wobbled, often like a falling leaf, and from other reports one reads of UFOs oscillating like a pendulum (in Tunisia on 9/3/1954, the famous Father Gill case in New Guinea on 6/16/59, in in Tierra del Fuego on 8/9/1959, near Essex, U.K., in 1992; see also Olsen, 1989; Pine, 1993). Olsen pointed out three UFO cases in which the UFO executed repeated pendular movements. Maccabee (1993) himself pointed out that some of the videos of the red/white Gulf Breeze UFO disclose quite regular oscillations. Hence it is well within alien capability to maneuver their UFOs in this manner when desired. Maccabee (1989a) failed to mention this possibility or that aliens could be intelligent enough to possess a strategy of dealing with us that includes the plausible-deniability factor. This film segment was the first one that Billy took, on March 18, 1975, so it would not be surprising if his ETs went to extra effort at that time to establish right away a semi- plausible cause that would allow skeptics to deny the reality of this and later pieces of Meier's film evidence. I had pointed out (Deardorff, 1989) that in one or more instances the UFO in this movie segment changed its direction of oscillation rather abruptly with no change in tilt of its vertical axis (see next paragraph), and that it twice hovered absolutely motionless for many seconds (20 seconds in one instance). To this, Maccabee (1989c) responded that a model UFO suspended by a string from a pole could have one or more strings attached to it laterally with which to cause an abrupt change in its state of motion. However, the response here is that it would require measured and orchestrated pulls on three strings at once to achieve an abrupt state of prolonged motionless, which in turn would require three hoaxers plus Meier, if one of them were holding up a long support pole. All this is quite implausible, considering that in 26 years no hoaxers have ever been identified or come forward to confess their alleged handiwork, and no skeptic has come up with a satisfactory replication of this movie segment using a model. Besides, Maccabee had earlier criticized Meier for his use of a tripod to support the movie camera, rather than panning with the camera, as if this had allowed him to maneuver a model UFO around in the absence of any confederate hoaxers. At one point (at about 06:19:18, frame 20, on the Genesis III video-tape counter), when the craft was 2/3 into Fig. 6. Superposed frames from the "Beamship: The Movie Footage" video of Lee & Brit Elders, showing a left-to-right swing of the craft changing to towards-the-camera. Interval between images about 0.2 sec. Brightness and contrast enhanced. a left-to-right swinging movement, it abruptly shifted to a towards-and-away movement without any jerkiness, as seen above. It might be thought that, if a model UFO were involved, this could be accomplished by suddenly moving the tip of the imagined support pole closer to the camera, or moving the entire pole further behind the camera. However, such a change in momentum could not then be accomplished without the model UFO experiencing an abrupt tilt towards the camera. No tilt in any direction accompanies this maneuver, as seen in Fig. 6. Instead, one is again forced to hypothesize Maccabee's multi-string scenario, with one of the three strings being connected to the craft's rim at a point that faces the camera and being managed by a hoaxer's accomplice who stands alongside or behind the camera. Later (below) we find, however, that such a string would need to have been some 50 ft in length, with slack maintained in it much of the time during the craft's maneuvers, but without such slack ever becoming entangled in the tree! An equally implausible part of Maccabee's claim here, however, is that the tree was a small one, Fig. 7. Frame from "The Meier Chronicles" video, just as the base of the beamship passed behind the tip of the tree, March 18, 1975. Brightness and contrast enhanced. Courtesy Lee & Brit Elders. such that it could be rather close to the movie camera with a model UFO suspended above it. The tree seen above appears to be mature, judging from the density of its branches and from the small-branch new growth extending out from the denser outline of the tree. The tree's height appears to be 50-80 times the length of the new growth seen on its left side; using 15cm (6 inches) for the average annual growth of outer branches, the tree is then 7 to 12 meters tall, or 24 to 39 feet tall, and therefore at a considerable distance from the camera. As far as one can tell, the craft, tree and house are in equally good (or poor) focus. In watching the movie itself at Meier's residence, the viewers agreed that the ship appeared to go behind the tree at this point. However, this is not quite definite in the video copies, as the movie was shot on a grey day when there was some mixed rain and snow (Stevens, 1982, p. 280), resulting in little contrast. However, on one of the craft's maneuvers it passed just over the top of the tree, causing the uppermost 15% of the tree to suddenly swerve to the right and then just as quickly recover. (It may be mentioned that a similar event occurred during the 13 August, 1947 sighting at Salmon Dam, Idaho. Trees whipped violently as the UFO raced overhead (Keyhoe, 1950).) Maccabee was aware of this tree-top swerve (Maccabee, 1989b, p. 11), and so knew better than to make the assumption that the UFO could be a model dangled close to the camera with the tree being much farther away. The conclusion one comes to from the appearance of the tree, however, is that it was not a small tree close to the camera, and so the UFO could not have been a small model dangled just above or behind it. This conclusion is supported by a figure within Maccabee's own website analysis. A section from his Fig. 2, after being enhanced in brightness and contrast, appears in Fig. 8 on the right. One can see the lighter hue of the side of the house underneath much of the lower edge of the tree's canopy. This lighter hue would not show up if it had been a small tree much closer to the camera than to the farmhouse in the distance; instead the darker hue of the ground and grass would then occupy that strip of the film. This flaw in the hoax hypothesis is exemplified by the photo in Fig. 9 on the left. The small, 2½-ft tree in Fig. 8. Section of Meier's 18 March 1975 the foreground (white arrow) was about film segment taken from Maccabee's Fig. 2 50 ft from the camera. (Further below but enhanced here in contrast and brightness. we discuss Maccabee's more recent finding that the tree, if a model tree or very young tree, was only some 2½- or 3-ft tall, and was about 55 ft from the camera.) It had no limbs in its lowest third, yet one cannot begin to view underneath it to see anything at any appreciable distance behind it-in particular, to view the tree and house in the background (yellow arrow). This is true even though I took the photo from a squatting height (not quite 3 ft), whereas Meier's movie-camera height on the tripod was about 5 ft; and even though the distance of the camera from the house was less in this example than in Meier's film. The problem is this: the eye-level, or camera level, would have to be right down at ground level, but at any significant distance away from an infant tree the camera's view would then be totally obstructed by meadow grass or its dentritus near the camera, or by any slight hump in ground level nearby. In Fig. 8 the darkest region underneath the tree's canopy, encompassing the tree's trunk, appears to be located somewhat to the left of the centerline of the tree's Fig. 9. Section of a photo taken in western Oregon in perimeter. This, and the out-jetting of several isolated branches to the right March. Tiny tree in foreground suggest that the right-hand side was the side more sheltered from the stronger and large tree in background prevailing winds; the left side of the film frame would then point towards a denoted by arrows. southwesterly direction. The sketch to the left, Fig. 9b, indicates the problem with the camera's line of sight towards the house passing along the trunk of Fig. 9b. A sketch, not to scale, the tree, if it were a small tree relatively close of the locations of the camera, to the camera. The line of sight then hypothesized small tree, intersects the ground. and large tree & house in the distance. Fig. 10 to the right is a frame from a video taken by Jun-Ichi Yaoi of Nippon TV in 1979 at approximately the same site as Meier's movie was taken. It indicates the steady rise in ground level from camera towards the house. MORE ON THE PENDULUM-LIKE MANEUVERS. Very recently Maccabee (2002) amplified upon his (1989b) "pendulum" paper in an Internet article. Here I shall briefly quote places from it where important factors were overlooked, and discuss an important new finding he made. The tree later disappeared. Maccabee remarked that "there is a farmhouse in the distance but there is no tree blocking the view of the Fig. 10. A wider-angle view of the same general scene farmhouse." In a later amplification, he added, viewed by Meier's 8mm movie-film camera (rectangle). "Note: hearsay testimony barely recalled, but The tree was no longer present in 1979. interesting anyway. I was told the following by From Genesis III's "Beamship: The Movie Footage." someone years ago. I was told this by Yaoi or by someone who was aware of Yaoi's investigation. Regarding the tree which, according to Meier, was 'removed' by Semjase, if I recall correctly, Yaoi asked the occupant of the farmhouse if he was aware of the tree disappearing. He responded that there had never been a tree at that location." What Maccabee didn't mention was what the witness, Meier, learned about this. He was told by his contactor, Semjase, that the Pleiadians/Plejarens had carefully removed the memory of this tree from those who had definite memories of it, and the same also for the tree that figured prominently in Meier's Fuchsbüel-Hofhalden photo session. The exception was Meier himself, for whom the memories were left intact; also, however, diffuse memories of the latter tree were allowed certain FIGU members who had traveled to the site and observed that tree before it had vanished (see Moosbrugger, 1977, 2001). The weather. Maccabee noted Meier's remarks on Yaoi's video tape when his movie segments were being projected on the screen, that it had been raining and snowing. Then he mentions, "Observation: the sky appears featureless in the movie (video) and the scene seems reasonably clear, i.e., not obstructed by snow, rain or dust." A fair conclusion one may come to is that there had been light rain mixed with melting snow either at the time of Meier's filming or shortly before, but this was not a heavy enough precipitation rate to produce a noticeable obstruction in the visibility. There is no reason to doubt Meier's word on this. Cutting and splicing of the film. On this Maccabee wrote, "The jump in UO position occurs at the same time as a vertical jump in the whole picture. This vertical jump in the picture, up and then down, is typical for 8 mm home movies that have been imperfectly spliced together. (When two sections of the film are spliced together the sprocket holes along the edge of each piece of film must be matched perfectly. Otherwise the film slips a small amount as the splice travels through the framing mechanism. This slippage appears as a vertical jump in the picture on the screen until the sprocket teeth again match the sprocket holes exactly.) Hence one concludes that Meier's film itself had been cut and spliced at the locations of these frames." By not referring to the history of Meier's film segments, Maccabee probably leaves a misleading impression here. The cuts and splices were made while the original movie film was out of Meier's possession, loaned out to the TV station in Munich. After the reel had been returned it was learned that only a copy of the original was on it. During the process of making a copy, any jumps in the film's position initiated at splice points naturally carry over onto the film copy. Thus, the telltale jumps indicative of cutting and splicing show up on the later video copies of the film copy. It would not be surprising if, at the points of splicing, film had been snipped out that showed the treetop having been briefly swayed over as the beamship passed near it, with the one episode of this still on the film being an oversight of those who did the cutting and splicing. Meier was as upset as anyone over the loss of his originals, and there is no need to assume he or an unknown accomplice doctored the film. Evidently, those who wish that Meier's contacts had never happened feel that by destroying or altering his evidence they can lead others to believe it was all hoaxed. Maccabee went on to refine his earlier estimations on pendular motions, obtaining an average period for the oscillation or swinging motions of 4.5 sec, which corresponds to a pendulum length (or suspension string length for a model UFO) of about 16 ft. Since the maneuvers varied, however, between transverse oscillations, nearly longitudinal oscillations, and conical or elliptical oscillations, he reasoned that the object's suspension point must have been moved around considerably, and that this would lead to a somewhat shorter period of oscillation on the average, corresponding to a pendulum length of around 14 ft. This, combined with measurements of the amplitude of the swinging motion relative to the width of the oscillating object in the film, led to the conclusion that if a model UFO were involved that was about 1 ft in width, the tree about which the object maneuvered would then have been 2 to 3 ft in height. Maccabee's finding of 2003. A few of the object's maneuvers involved swinging motions towards and away from the camera, but still centered over the tree. Maccabee realized that the change in apparent size of the object when closest to the camera versus farthest away, combined with the estimate of the amplitude of the object's oscillation (covering roughly an arc of 10-ft width as determined with the aid of the "pendulum's" length), yields an estimate of its distance from the camera. For example, if the tree were only 6 ft from the camera and the object were a 1-ft model UFO, then when the model was only about 1 ft away from the camera it would appear huge, while when it was 11 ft away, on the opposite extreme of its oscillation, it would appear an order of magnitude smaller in size. His calculations on this yielded a distance away of some 50 or 55 ft, since the ratio of apparent sizes, near and far, was only about 1.2, not an order of magnitude greater. Since this is a rather critical finding, I have repeated the exercise, below. Two frames below, a few seconds apart, show the object when it was close to the camera, and most distant, respectively. Fig. 11, above: Frame from Genesis III's video "Beamship: The movie footage", when the craft was near the end of a longitudinal swing close to the camera. March 18, 1975. In this portion the video camera had zoomed in on the movie screen. Fig. 12, above: Frame from Genesis III's video "Beamship: The movie footage" 2.7 sec later, when the craft was near the end of a longitudinal swing away from the camera. There were about 3 oscillations of this nature at this time, not directly to and away from the camera but at an angle of perhaps 20° off. The amplitude of the swings at this time appears to be about the same as in its previous transverse oscillations, which Maccabee estimated as being 5 ft. I find the ratio of the object's apparent width when closest (w1 and Fig. 11) to when it was farthest (w2 and Fig. 12) to be 1.22 (the extra non-significant digit is carried temporarily to avoid buildup of round-off error). Had the motion been viewed from a point to the right where the oscillation was exactly to and fro, this ratio would have been a little greater, namely 1.22 divided by the cosine of the angle, or 1.30. Now if the distance to the tree is D and the 5-ft amplitude of the oscillation is r, then for a direct to-and-fro oscillation we have: w1 / w2 = (D + r) / (D - r) = 1.3 since the apparent width is inversely proportional to the distance of the object. The solution for D above is 38 ft, and does not require quantitative knowledge of the object's diameter. Maccabee arrived at D = 55 ft, perhaps due to the variability in the object's oscillations and his having utilized different frames of the film than the above. If, from Fig. 6, we estimate the craft was some six diameters this side of the tree on its movement towards the camera, then the above formula yields, for a 23-ft diameter craft, a distance to the tree of some 1050 ft, which may not be inconsistent with Fig. 10. Below is Maccabee's analysis of this, as of 2 Jan. 2009: The ratio of the maximum width of the UO image (when highest in the picture) to the minimum width (when lowest in the picture) is about 1.2. Assuming the UO itself did not change size, these image sizes are inversely proportional to the distances of the UO from the camera: the shorter the distance the larger the image, and v.v. If the UO moved in a circular path of radius r, then the distance when closest could be called D and the distance when farthest would be D + 2r and these two distances would be inversely related to the image size ratio: that is, (D + 2r / D) = (image size when closest/image size when farthest) = 1.2. This leads to D = 2r/0.2 = 10 r. If r were 5 ft, then the distance from the camera to closest point of the UO would be about 50 ft. This relationship scales with r, of course. For a model UFO suspended from the tip of a pole above the camera's view, one sees from Maccabee's analysis that the length of the pole would have to be somewhere between 50 and 70 ft in length, if the pole were held by someone standing just behind or alongside the tripod-mounted camera, and if one end of the pole were grounded for necessary stability of support. It might be argued that a hoaxer could be standing to the left of the postulated tiny tree and would then be out of sight if he were only 10 ft away -- the distance then to the left side of the frame. However, for a support pole extending in from the left not to be visible within the upper left corner of the frame would require a pole (angled upwards at about 45°) even longer than 70 ft; this is, because the distance above a 1-ft model UFO at tree-top to the top of the frame would then be about 15 ft, whereas the length of the hypothesized support string attached to the pole is only 16 ft. Any such pole would be far too long to expect that a model UFO could be held stationary for many seconds. Towards the end of the UFO's maneuvers, it hovers completely motionless over the tree for 14 sec; movements as small as 1/10 of the craft's width (about 1 inch for a 1-ft model) would have been clearly visible. Such stationarity would not be achievable if it were a model freely suspended from even a 21-ft hand-held or hand-guided pole. Using a 21-ft pole with one end anchored in the ground, and a 3/4 pound simulated UFO model (skillet lid) at the end of a 14-ft line, the minimal swaying motions of a model I could achieve, with breezes less than 5 miles per hour, was 3 inches. If this had been a 70-ft pole, these unavoideable movements including bobbing motions would have been amplified by a factor of at least 3. Maccabee (1989c, p. 24) had suggested that such a maneuver could have been accomplished if string(s) had been attached to a model (presumably to its rim). However, it would require three hoaxers spaced triangularly apart, simultaneously pulling equally (and somewhat downward) on three thin lateral strings attached to the model, in order to try to hold it motionless during this period, while a fourth hoaxer tried to hold the pole steady. It seems very unlikely that this attempt would succeed, even if the hoaxer holding up the pole were to have rested it in a well braced support; oscillations of as little as 1/10 of the UFO model's height (about 1/2 inch) would be readily noticeable in running the film. There is still another problem with the "lateral strings" portion of the model hypothesis. All the while the model would be oscillating back and forth, and around the tree top, the three hoaxers holding onto the lateral strings would need to keep the strings almost taut, without interfering with the object's pendular-like oscillations. Otherwise, slack in one or more lateral strings would cause it to become entangled in the tree and quickly put an end to the attempted hoax. Two of these strings would need to be some 15 to 25 ft or more in length, and the third about 50 ft as mentioned earlier, so that the hoaxers holding them could stay out of the movie camera's view. (At a distance of 55 ft a 1-ft object having the apparent size of the UFO in the 8mm movie would indicate a camera focal length of about 35 mm, which yields a field of view of width 13°. From this the minimal length of any such lateral strings may be estimated.) The whole operation would be totally impractical, even if the postulated lateral strings were wielded using fishing poles; just ask any fly fisherman! For such reasons we have not seen videotapes presented in which skeptics have attempted to discredit this film segment of Meier's using a model UFO, a long pole, lateral strings and a small tree, whether such tree were to be located 38 ft or 55 ft from the camera. It may be mentioned that an Italian ufologist, M. Verga, has tried to debunk this movie film segment, pointing to Maccabee's earlier presentation on it. However, he was apparently unaware of these points of genuineness and of why a hoaxing attempt would not have been successful. • 7A. NO PHOTO OF A TRANSPORT BEAM. Here Maccabee's (1989a) criticism was: "Billy talked of being transported onto the spacecraft, but he produced no pictures (of which I am aware) depicting any phenomenon associated with that transportation." Again, Maccabee failed to mention the strict precautions Meier's ETs took for their craft not to be in a position where others could get any clear daytime photographs of it. I.e., he failed to allow for an alien strategy involving plausible, or semi-plausible, deniability. Any photo showing Meier being transported into a craft would of course have violated this precaution. Most of the time, when Meier was "beamed up" for a contact session, however, or beamed back down, it was by some means of instant dematerialization and rematerialization. Witnesses have on occasion come very close to observing the former (see Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 117-118), as well as the latter (click here, here or here). Either event occurs far too unexpectedly and suddenly for anyone to be prepared to film or videotape it. On one occasion a witness in a car accompanied Meier towards a contact session one night as far as was permitted, after which Billy went on alone for quite a ways on his moped, and was then taken aboard by one means or another. From inside the craft up in the sky, Meier was allowed and able to speak to his friend via his two-way radio, one set of which was inside the car. The verification involved his friend sighting the "UFO" (a faintly illuminated oval disc) from the vicinity of his car, and telling Meier over the radio that it was too faint, and asking if he could get Semjase to make it brighter. Just a few seconds afterwards the UFO shone brighter and started blinking in intensity. Though not photographic evidence, this, along with the rest of the report written by the witness himself, indicates that Meier had indeed been taken aboard the craft, and is excellent confirmatory evidence of the reality of his contacts. See also Stevens (1993, pp. 290-293), which includes Meier's conversation during this contact (#73) while he was within the beamship, including his words to the witness down below. • 7B. BEAMSHIP-INDUCED "CROP" CIRCLES. There was a circular area of dead grass left behind in connection with the Ed Walters UFO case (Walters & Walters, 1994, p. 143, Photo F), and so Maccabee mentioned the "saucer nests" many times left behind after Meier's many contacts for which the beamship had descended to ground level. His apparent criticisms of this were that (a) the grass within the swirls of pressed-down meadow grass in Meier's case did not die, (b) the swirls' diameters of about 6 feet were much smaller than the reported 23-foot diameter of the beamships, and (c) no tests were afterwards performed on the swirled grass or soil underneath. Regarding (a), the fact that the grass remained alive and growing yet remained bent over next to the ground within counterclockwise swirls (Elders, et al., 1979, p. 60-61; Elders & Elders, 1983, pp. 52-53; Kinder, 1987, photo facing p. 155; Stevens, 1989, pp. 213-220, 464-473; Moosbrugger, 2001, Figs. 37-44), is more impressive than if the grass had died. I.e., killing the grass would be much simpler for a hoaxer to accomplish. These circular swirls were first commented upon by Meier in 1976 (Stevens, 1993, p. 143: Contact #60 on July 29th, 1976), while the first crop circles of similar nature did not start receiving much attention until 1981 when the matter was first brought to the attention of the British press (Delgado & Andrews, 1989, p. 5). Fig. 13. A set of three counter- Fig. 15. A set of three counterclockwise clockwise swirls appearing after Fig. 14. Closeup shot of one such swirl. swirls after another contact. From the one contact. From the video From the video "The Meier Chronicles." video "The Meier Chronicles." "The Meier Chronicles." Courtesy Lee & Brit Elders. Courtesy Lee & Brit Elders. Courtesy Lee & Brit Elders. Regarding (b), in a serious oversight Maccabee failed to mention that the imprint left behind in the meadow grass, by the craft his alien contactors used most often, always consisted of three such counterclockwise swirls equilaterally spaced. These fit within a greater circular area about 17 feet in diameter. Meier of course already knew that the three circular areas corresponded to the beamship's three broad touchdown supports, and in response to his questioning he was told by his contactor in general terms about there being anti-gravity oscillations associated with these supports that affected the underlying grass or plants (Stevens, 1993, pp. 143- 144). Re (c), these early "crop circles" occurred years before crop-circle investigators had made it an accustomed procedure to test samples of bent-over grain and associated soil in the laboratory (see Delgado, 1992, pp. 145- 153). If it had occurred to Meier or his close followers, or to Stevens, to have such tests performed, would they have felt there was a university department somewhere that would look into the matter seriously? • 8B. TESTING FOR HOAXED PHOTOS. Maccabee claimed, "There is no evidence that Billy carried out any experiments which would help investigators determine whether or not the photos were fake. He did not use a camera provided by UFO investigators." However, he did nothing to discourage Stevens from carrying out such tests. Stevens had a Hollywood studio construct a 1.5-foot diameter, lightweight model of one of the craft Meier photographed in 1975, and brought it with him to Switzerland on one of his trips circa 1979 or 1980. Then, using the same camera Meier had used in 1975-76, plus one of his own, they took photos of the model suspended by a monofilament line from a long pole, with a scenic background, using various lens aperture settings and shutter speeds. They found that when the horizon was in good focus, the model was not. When Stevens focused on the model even when it was as far away as 30 feet, so as to yield a clear image of it, the horizon features were in poor focus. Or, in testing Stevens' camera on a 6-inch model five feet away, "all other objects beyond 10 feet from the camera were badly out of focus" (Stevens, 1981b, p. 12). Also, in comparison with the beamship images in Meier's photos, the model reflected light too brightly and its lines were too distinct (Stevens, 1982, p. 290). The model UFO did not pass the test. Stevens left the Hollywood model beamship with Meier. It should be noted that according to Moosbrugger (2001, pp. 195-196), while Meier was taking his early Jakobsberg-Allenberg photos on Feb. 27, 1975, he approached the beamship too closely, and both the viewfinder of his Olympus 35 ECR camera and its exposure meter were rendered inoperative from then on (in the book, the wrong photo number is assigned here). By the time Stevens and his team first arrived in Switzerland in late 1977, Meier had had no photo opportunities for an entire year, and Meier did not then anticipate being allowed to take further photos (which did happen in 1980-81, however). So the thought may not have occurred to supply Meier with some kind of range-finding or stereo camera that he might be able to operate with one hand. By the time of his 1981 photos, someone had equipped him with a zoom-lens video camera, however, as already noted. • 8C. BEAMSHIP MODELS. Here it is claimed that "Investigators found burned slides of model UFOs...Billy's explanation was that he carved models of the craft to get better pictures." Better than what, one wonders- better than his genuine photos? Early on, after Meier had received criticism that his photos could be hoaxes involving models, he acquired one or more rather crude models of beamships to photograph and see if they would look at all realistic compared to his many genuine photos. According to Kinder (1986, p. 225), he made one of these models himself, carving it. The resulting slides of models didn't measure up at all, so he trashed some of them (Stevens, 1982, p. 285), and was going to trash others but was convinced not to (Kinder, 1986, pp. 225-226). Meier's wife evidently tossed some of these slides into the fireplace, but Billy arrived on the scene in time to retrieve some of them. The accounts differ somewhat (see also Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 196- 199), but none indicate that Meier acquired model UFOs to get better pictures. Instead, it was to see if the critics' claims could be true. Only two models closely resembled a craft in Meier's photos: One was that which Stevens had a Hollywood studio construct, and the other was one that Meier's contactor Semjase temporarily left with Meier in 1975 (Moosbrugger, 2001, Fig. 65). The latter is listed in Meier's photo collection (Verzeichnis, photo #63, Sept. 18, 1975) and clearly labeled as a model. Meier's contactors, however, utilized some six or seven different types of "UFO" craft during his contacts of 1975-81. It is otherwise unheard of for an ET to leave a model UFO in the hands of a witness or contactee, but in the Meier case it fits in with the large number of contacts and photo ops he had, and the uniqueness of the case in many other respects. The supposed reason why Semjase left this model was so that if the "heat" grew too strong for Meier to take, he could show the model and falsely confess that he was a hoaxer; for who would bother to try to assassinate a confessed UFO hoaxer? But Billy did not go that route, although the many assassination attempts against him commenced in January of 1976 (Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 251-269). However, I view this alien model "UFO" as being, for the most part, but another piece of plausible deniability, since skeptics can assume it was a model Meier somehow acquired, then used and later destroyed. Semjase insisted on receiving the model back from Meier a few weeks later (Moosbrugger, 2000, p. 198). Otherwise, it would have been an interesting artifact for analysis. In summary of Meier and models, it would be surprising if an intelligent person who became a UFO contactee and was supplied with many photo opportunities of their craft, and who received criticism that the photos could have been faked through use of models, would not want to take pictures of one or more models to see if the critics' claims were reasonable. Meier found they were not. • 9A. LIE-DETECTOR & PSE TESTS. "Billy has not (so far as I know) taken a lie-detector test." This is true, but it is surely worth mentioning that he did submit to a psychological-stress-evaluation-PSE-test in 1978. Five of the key witnesses to the genuineness of various aspects of Meier's experiences were also given the PSE, worded differently of course for them than for Meier. After the voice tapes were analyzed, it was found that all had passed the tests; "no indication of conscious or deceitful intentions was detected on the part of either Billy or any of the other participants" (Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 219-221). A peculiarity was found in Meier's charts, however, in that his graphical responses uniformly showed considerably less than the expected amplitude (Stevens, 1982, pp. 161-173). Possible explanations put forward for this were that he had been asked stressful questions often in the previous three years, or that he exhibited a uniformly high stress level that might have been due to being in constant pain, or being hypnotized or having positive control over his own autonomic system, as a yogi might have. Stevens pointed out that these were possibly relevant, because Meier had been in bed suffering from stomach cramps for several days just before he took the tests, and he had years earlier studied yoga in India. However, even if Meier's PSE results were then to be considered too uncertain to draw any conclusion from, the fact that all five key witnesses passed their tests does strongly favor the reality of Meier's experiences. • 9B. DID BILLY VISIT A PSYCHOLOGIST? "Billy has not...been studied by a clinical psychologist (or any other professional). He has not been hypnotically regressed." As far as I know this is true, but also irrelevant for judging his credibility. Although such an evaluation could give indications as to how close to normal the man appears to be, there are quite a few accounts from first-hand witnesses to indicate Meier possesses psychic abilities that are very substantially above-average (Kinder, 1987, pp. 112-114, 213; Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 75-83; a simple example is presented here). This degree of psychic ability would be considered abnormal by the clinical psychologist, and might cause a psychologist to pronounce him abnormal. However, it would not bear on Meier's honesty. Yet, it should not be surprising that a true contactee can demonstrate strong psychic abilities, as even UFO abductees have a tendency in this direction (Mack, 1994, p. 398; Sprinkle, 1999, p. 137). CONCLUSION. In summary of Maccabee's article entitled "Billy, no; Ed, yes": with respect to topics under the first half of the title I have found all kinds of problems. With respect to the second half of the title, I believe Maccabee's statements were accurate. Return to: One level up Return to: Contents References Creighton, Gordon, (2001). "Note by editor of FSR." Flying Saucer Review 46/4 (Winter 2001/2002), p. 14. Deardorff, J., (1989). "Pleiades pendulum" (Letter). International UFO Reporter 14, No. 5 (Sept./ Oct.) p. 21. Delgado, Pat, and Andrews, Colin, (1989). Circular Evidence: A Detailed Investigation of the Flattened Swirled Crops Phenomenon. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd. Delgado, Pat, (1992). Crop Circles: Conclusive Evidence? London: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd. Douglass, Elaine M., (2005). "Invisible UFOs? Case reports, video suggest the reality." MUFON 2005 International UFO Symposium Proceedings, pp. 178-198. Elders, Lee J.; Nilsson-Elders, Brit; and Welch, Thomas K., (1979). UFO...Contact from the Pleiades, vol. 1. Munds Park, AZ: Genesis III Publishing. (The page numbering I have used in referencing this volume assigns P. 1 to the title page.) Elders, Lee, and Elders, Brit, (1983). UFO...Contact from the Pleiades, vol. 2. Munds Park, AZ: Genesis III Publishing. Hesemann, Michael, (1998). "Der Fall Meier: UFO-Kontaktier entlarvt?" ("The Meier case: UFO contactee exposed?"). Magazin 2000plus, Oct. 10, pp. 64-71. See www.figu.org/us/figu/supporter/hesemann/magazin1.htm. Kehoe, Donald, (1950). The Flying Saucers are Real, ch. 9, p. 81. New York: Fawcett. See the NICAP website. Kinder, Gary, (1987). Light Years: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. Korff, Kal K., (1980). "The Meier incident: Infamous hoax." MUFON UFO J. (Dec.), pp. 3-6. Korff, Kal K., (1981), with editorial assistance of William L. Moore. The Meier Incident: The Most Infamous Hoax in Ufology. Self-published. Maccabee, Bruce, (1989a). "Billy no; Ed, yes." International UFO Reporter 14, No. 3 (May/June), pp. 16-19. Maccabee, Bruce, (1989b). Pendulum from the Pleiades. International UFO Reporter 14, No. 1 (Jan./Feb.), pp. 11-12, 22. Maccabee, Bruce, (1989c). Pleiades Pendulum (Response). International UFO Reporter 14, No. 5 (Sept./Oct.), pp. 21-24. Maccabee, Bruce, (1993). Gulf Breeze lights still unexplained. International UFO Reporter 18, No. 1 (Jan./Feb.) p. 20. Maccabee, Bruce, (2000). UFO FBI Connection: The Secret History of the Government's Cover-Up. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications. Maccabee, Bruce, (2002). Internet article, "Pendulum-like motion of an unidentified object (UO) filmed by Billy Meier." Mack, John, (1994). Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Moosbrugger, Guido, (2001). And Yet...They Fly. Tulsa, OK: Steelmark; translated from the German edition of 1991. (See www.steelmarkonline.com). Olsen, Thomas M., (1989). Pleiades pendulum (Letter). International UFO Reporter 14, No. 5 (Sept./Oct.), p. 24. Pine, C., (1993). In “Current Cases,” MUFON UFO Journal No. 305 (Sept.), p. 20. Sprinkle, R. Leo, (1999). Soul Samples: Personal Explorations in Reincarnation and UFO Experiences. Columbus, NC: Granite Publishing. Stevens, Wendelle, (1981a). Kal Korff and the "Meier hoax": A response - Pt. 1. MUFON UFO J., (Oct.), pp. 3-5. Stevens, Wendelle, (1981b). Kal Korff and the "Meier hoax": A response - Pt. 2. MUFON UFO J., (Nov.), pp. 11-14. Stevens, Wendelle, (1982). UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report. Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives (out of print). Stevens, Wendelle, (1988). Message from the Pleiades, vol. 1. Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives (out of print). Stevens, Wendelle, (1989). UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Supplementary Investigation Report. Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives (out of print). Stevens, Wendelle, (1990). Message from the Pleiades, vol. 2. Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives (out of print). Stevens, Wendelle, (1993). Message from the Pleiades, vol. 3. Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives (out of print). Stevens, Wendelle, (1995a). Message from the Pleiades, vol. 4. Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives. Stevens, Wendelle, (1995b). Personal communication. Walters, Ed, and Walters, Francis, (1990). The Gulf Breeze Sightings: The Most Astounding Multiple Sightings of UFOs in U.S. History. New York: William Morrow. Walters, Ed, and Walters, Francis, (1994). UFO Abductions in Gulf Breeze. New York: Avon Books. Walters, Ed, and Maccabee, Bruce, (1997). UFOs Are Real: Here's the Proof. New York: Avon Books. His Birth Year: 6 B.C. or A.D. 6? James W. Deardorff Updated April, 2001 Giving Luke more emphasis Questioning the reliability of Matthew Further support for A.D. 6 Implications References Introduction. The birth of Jesus is usually placed around 6 B.C. because of King Herod's involvement in chapter 2 of Matthew, his death in 4 B.C., and the implication from Mt 2:16-19 that Jesus had been perhaps a couple years old when Herod died. On the other hand, a 10- or 12-year uncertainty in the birth date exists because Luke 2:2 indicates the birth was during the period of jurisdiction of Quirinius in Syria-Cilicia, commonly believed to have been from A.D. 6-9. Giving Luke more emphasis. The other key point of reference from Luke 2:2 is the decree from Caesar Augustus to enroll "the world." Historian T. P. Wiseman has pointed out that this decree could well be the known imperial edict of A.D. 6,1 that introduced a 5% inheritance tax upon Roman citizens, and which would likely have required census data. He suggests that governor Quirinius conducted a local census of Jews in Syria and Judea, which was also under the jurisdiction of the new prefect Coponius, at the same time as the general Roman census in A.D. 6-7. He would likely have wished to ascertain the registration of tax-paying Jews under his jurisdiction and that of Coponius. With the whole Roman empire affected, plus many Jews, this might indeed have been referred to loosely as enrolling "the world." Investigator Michael Molnar has also noted that Quirinius conducted a census for the purpose of levying taxes on Jews.1.1 With this reasonable suggestion, we find that the last two out of the three primary reference points in time (King Herod, Caesar's decree and Quirinius) agree if Jesus had been born around A.D. 6. Therefore, in researching a cause for the contradiction in dating, one needs to reexamine the first reference point, King Herod, for possible reasons it may be in error within the Gospel of Matthew. Questioning the reliability of Matthew here. The first critical point is encountered at Mt 2:13-20 because of the very close parallel between the reported massacre of the infants along with the return of the Holy family from Egypt, and Moses's rescue from the slaughter of Hebrew children in Egypt along with his later return to Egypt in Ex 4:19. Matthew's massacre of the infants is considered non-historical mainly because neither Josephus nor any other historian, including the writer of Luke, seems to have been at all aware of such a dreadful event,2 and because it appears to have been developed as a setting for the verse from Jer 31:15 appearing in Mt 2:18.3 The fact that the Holy family was returning from Egypt while Moses was returning to Egypt, and that the Jeremiah story relates to much older children, are prime reasons why the analogy with Moses appears to have been a forced one and thus a redaction of the writer of Matthew. This then raises the likelihood that the reported massacre and its association with King Herod were introduced by the writer of Matthew in order to give Jesus at least as high a human standing within emerging Christianity as Moses held within Judaism. This would have been very helpful in drawing converts from the Jews. Also, King Herod was still very bitterly remembered, and there would have been few qualms associated with attaching an infant massacre to his other crimes, as no one could deny that he was incapable of having done such. However, one need not assume that the entire episode of the Holy Family's flight to Egypt and return was non-historical, as is done within some branches of NT scholasticism largely because no accounts of it occur within Mark and Luke. Instead, there could be good reasons for the latter. Thus we here consider the likelihood that the name of King Herod is one of the many redactive embellishments the writer of Matthew added to his gospel source material. Had the Matthean source material contained the basic story of the flight to Egypt, and if the A.D. 6 dating is the correct one, the flight likely would have been to escape a death threat from Herod Antipas, assuming for consistency the Magi story is basically correct. Antipas reigned over Galilee from about 4 B.C. to A.D. 39, and acquired the dynastic title of "Herod" in A.D. 6.4 In Matthew's source the angel's statement to Joseph would then have been, in effect, to return from Egypt because Herod Antipas had had a change of heart, since evidently he had not died. However, this statement would have been noticed as paralleling Ex 4:19 if Herod had died. This result the writer of Matthew could easily arrange for, nearly a century later, by replacing the first mention in his source of Herod Antipas with King Herod in his gospel, and deleting any further mentions of "Antipas" within the Nativity section. Then the Ex 4:19 phrase "for all the men who were seeking your life are dead" could be used in Mat 2:20 with only slight alteration. That this verse alludes to the Exodus verse has been known at least since McNeile's work.5 That it likely contains redactive input is further suggested by its not being an attributed citation, and by the improbability that those (plural) who were seeking the child's life would all be dead within a very short time period. Although the length of stay in Egypt is unknown, it is usually considered to be only a few months.6 The mention in Mt 2:22 of Archelaus reigning over Judea is then a redactive touch by the writer of Matthew to provide a proper historical context for his altered date of birth of Jesus. By the time of the census in A.D. 6, Archelaus had already been exiled and no longer held jurisdiction over Jerusalem.7 Thus it is not inconsistent that Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, was in Jerusalem at the time of the visit of the magis. Other redactions could be expected to accompany the ones already discussed, in order to support the redactor's massacre story and Mt 2:20. As noted by Beare, the Hosea (11:1) citation appears to be one such, although for this reason Beare considered the entire flight-to-Egypt story suspect.8 Here the angelic statements associated with it, even if involving some redactions, are considered to provide positive support for the flight to Egypt. The rationale is that if "angels" should turn out to be extraterrestrial entities who have occasionally intervened in human affairs, the tendency even 2,000 years ago on the part of an editor could well have been to minimize their involvement so as not to let angels usurp the powers of God. A real extraterrestrial may then have appeared to Joseph in person, with this encounter (or these encounters) edited into angelic appearances in dreams. Thus I believe that the angelic text that has survived should be treated seriously. Further support for A.D. 6. A piece of further support for the present analysis comes from the mention of Judas the Galilean in Acts 5:37, where the writer of Luke-Acts stated that he "arose in the days of the census." The revolt led by this Judas is believed to have occurred in A.D. 6.9 Hence it lends support that an important census did occur in that year, and that it could have been no other than the one mentioned in Luke 2:2. The verse of Lk 1:5, which again places the Nativity "in the days of King Herod," may seem to counteract this additional evidence. However, if Luke is dependent upon Matthew, as in some of the Gospel priority hypotheses and as affirmed in statements by Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine, then this verse could easily have been a slip-up by the writer of Luke, who may have started out by following Mt 2:1a before deciding to deviate greatly. There is no shortage of other slip-ups by this writer documented by M. Goulder.10 Additional support for the A.D. 6 birth year comes from the church father, Origen, in his debate with Celsum. One of the statements from Celsum that Origen reproduced includes the information that the occurrence of a new star and the birth of Jesus occurred while Herod the tetrarch ruled in Jerusalem (after Archelaus was exiled from Jerusalem).11 Origen in no way contested this piece of information. Still additional support for the A.D. 6 birth year comes from the 1904 study of George Macdonald,12 and the 1999 work of Michael Molnar.13 They noted the importance of an Antioch coin that shows, on its rear face, the symbol of the ram looking up at a bright star. Molnar showed that the ram, or Aries, was the zodiacal sign for the Judean region and as far north as Antioch at that time, while Macdonald found that the earliest mintage of this coin was dated to between September of A.D. 5 and September of A.D. 6 (Actian year 36). The star shown on it is no Star of David, but has 7 or 8 lines radiating out from it, as if it had been a very bright object. Although Molnar used the coin to support the customary birth year of 4-6 B.C., it is evident that it much more strongly supports a birth year of A.D. 6 if the star on it from The Star of Bethlehem, represents the star of Bethlehem. Although the coin itself did not come with any date with permission of Michael Molnar on it, Macdonald stated that "there need be no hesitation about assigning the coin to the Actian year 36." The Actian era is considered to have commenced in September of 31 B.C. (36 years later corresponds to a time between September of A.D. 5 and September of A.D. 6 since there is no A.D. 0 or 0 B.C.). Macdonald could deduce the Actian year 36 date from the "Antioch Metropoleos" lettering on the coin, among its other features, in relation to other Antioch coins before and after, and in relation to Antioch becoming the capital of an expanded province in A.D. 6 that included Judea and Samaria as well as Syria. Molnar showed pictures of three other almost identical coins based on the first; these latter ones had been minted in Antioch in A.D. 11-12, A.D. 12-13 and A.D. 13-14. Thus, with the minting of coins in Antioch having been done on a frequent basis of every few years, it makes good sense that this coin was first minted shortly after the event that occasioned the image shown (A.D. 6). This can explain why it was not minted many years earlier, around 4 B.C.: Jmmanuel was not born until A.D. 6. Now if word of the "bright star" event indeed soon reached Antioch, it is likely that it would have become a part of oral tradition in that city for sure, as well as in Bethlehem and surrounding area, and the existence of this coinage, which had several re-mintings, would have helped maintain the tradition. It is then noteworthy that in the early 2nd century Bishop Ignatius of Antioch mentioned this "star" of Bethlehem in his epistle to the Ephesians. The tradition, as he stated it, was as follows: A star shone forth in the heaven above all the other stars, the light of which was inexpressible, while its novelty struck men with astonishment. And all the rest of the stars, with the sun and the moon, formed a chorus to this star, and its light was exceedingly great above them all. And there was agitation felt as to whence this new spectacle came so unlike to everything else [in the heavens].14 Since this is much more than what the Gospel of Matthew has to say about it, it is consistent with the deduction elsewhere in this website that Ignatius's epistles were written before Matthew was. In that case Ignatius indeed knew about the "star" from oral tradition and not from the later Gospel of Matthew. The novelty of this great light mentioned by Ignatius is consistent with the description of it in the Talmud of Jmmanuel as the "bright light with the long tail."15 In fact, one may look again at the image of the coin and notice that one of the eight rays of the "star" (the one in the "4-5 o'clock" position) is peculiar, and, if not due to a slip of the stylus, may be a representation of a tail-like feature that Roman witnesses in Bethlehem described. Implications. An A.D. 6 birth date would mean that Jesus was significantly younger than commonly supposed during his Palestinian ministry -- only in his mid twenties -- and that his education during his youth was a remarkably advanced one, for him to have become known as "Teacher" at such a young age. His relatively young age may have given psychological reason why his teachings were rejected so quickly by scribes, Pharisees and elders. It similarly gives reason why theologically committed scholars and influential church leaders alike prefer the earlier birth date, as it yields a more mature Jesus during his ministry. It appears that the writer of Luke felt the same way, in saying, in Lk 3:23, that Jesus was "about thirty" years of age when he started his ministry. In summary, an A.D. 6 birth date for Jesus (Jmmanuel) is consistent with all three primary, temporal reference points, considering the redactional behavior of the writer of Matthew. It is also consistent with the dating of the impressive coin depicting what may have been the "star" of Bethlehem. References 1. T. P. Wiseman, "There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus," NTS 33 (1987) 479-480. 1.1 Michael R. Molnar, The Star of Bethlehem (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 2000) 49. 2. Michael Grant, Herod the Great (New York: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1967) 262. 3. Francis Wright Beare, The Gospel according to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981) 82. 4. Harold W. Hoehner, Herod Antipas (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1972) 105-106. 5. Alan Hugh McNeile, The Gospel according to St. Matthew (London, Macmillan & Co., 1915) xxxiv. 6. Beare, Gospel according to Matthew, 83. 7. Josephus, Antiquities XVII, xii, par. 2, and beginning of XVIII. 8. Ibid., 82. 9. Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War II.8.1; or see The Anchor Bible commentary on Acts 5:37. 10. Michael Goulder, Luke -- A New Paradigm, vols. 1 and 2 (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1989). 11. Origen, in "Contra Celsum" (Book 1, Sec. 58). 12. Macdonald, George, "The pseudo-autonomous coinage of Antioch," Numismatic Chronicle, Series IV, vol. 4 (1904), pp. 105-135: see pp. 106-111. 13. Molnar, Star of Bethlehem, p. 50. 14. Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians, in A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993) vol. 1, p. 57. 15. See TJ verse 2:14 listed under Matthean verse Mt 2:9 in the Mt 2 file. Go Back to: Home Page A Video Interview with Retired Command Sergeant-Major Robert O. Dean, Phoenix, Arizona, May 2007 -- The Transcription Bob Dean: An Officer and a Gentlemen - Part 1 Shot, edited and directed by Kerry Cassidy and Bill Ryan Introduction and Summary Bob Dean: It is the most important issue in my view in human history. It's not merely that we're not alone but we have never been alone It's lucky like I said that I didn't end up in jail because I drove my friends up the wall. I pushed my security clearance to the limit. I use to get into classified file cabinets, sort through material and look for photographs and reproduced things that should not have been reproduced If there had been a threat from these guys (pointing upwards) whoever they were, it would have been over a long time ago. As one of our old Generals use to say, "they could have cleaned our clock from the beginning" Because when we started shooting at them they had a unique way of eliminating all of the electrical systems in our aircraft But these guys could be walking up and down the corridors of SHAPE headquarters or the Pentagon or the White House. Kerry Cassidy: Were they? Bob Dean: I have always suspected that yes, they have been How do you tell Christian Fundamentalists that that lovely man from Galilee two thousand years ago was a part of that program? ...He tapped me and he went over to the vault and pulled this thing out and he threw it on my desk and he says, "Hey, this will wake you up. Read this." It was "The Assessment". He said when the old man read that story, or that report, The Assessment, he said it hit him like a truck, hit him like a ton of bricks. He told me the General threw his hat across the desk and he says, "Do you know what the hell this means? Everything we've got, everything we've done, everything we've had... doesn't mean a damn thing." ...Monumental aggravation and frustration that the government had continued over all these years to lie to the people. Start of Interview Kerry Cassidy: You're a real hero, you know, a real hero in a lot of people's eyes because you came forward at a time and said, "I've signed a note but you know, it doesn't matter, come get me. I'm going to tell the truth because people need to know." Bob Dean: You said it, and I'll say it again, and I shared it with Bill downstairs: I believed from the beginning, and I still hold deeply in my heart, that this is the greatest story in human history. This is a story of who we are, how we came to be here, what kind of a species we are and where we're going. It is the most important issue in my view in human history. It's not merely that we're not alone, but we have never been alone. We have had what I have shared many times. We have had an intimate interrelationship with advanced extraterrestrial intelligence from the beginning of human history. And that is dynamite. I've tried to share what I've learned. And I told Bill earlier I will tell you what I've seen, what I've learned and what I've concluded. This will probably be, I really sincerely believe, that this will be my last interview. So I will share with you things that I strongly believe and strongly hold that even today, it's the greatest story in human history. It involves who we are; it involves what we are as a species. It involves how we came to be. Now for many, many years, I held to the view that once we could get this out, many of us who are military would say what we've seen, we've learned, what we concluded. Experiences we've had personally and I kept naively thinking, ah, once we get it out, the public is going to clamor for more. "Oh tell us more, tell us more, tell us more". Then the government would respond by opening up and telling the public the truth. Well, forgive me; I certainly have learned my lesson. That didn't happen and I believe it isn't about to happen because the story is simply too big. This involves our origins as a species, as a race. I've almost reached the point where I am sympathizing with the government for not telling the truth. To a point where I sympathize with the government by saying that the masses of people out there probably are NOT ready for the truth. That the masses of people probably couldn't handle the truth, because the truth is incredible. It's dynamite. I use an analogy about Pandora's box, and I know you're familiar with the old Greek legend. This alien issue, this extraterrestrial presence issue, is like Pandora's box. You can't open it just a tiny bit. You cant just open the lid and let a little bit out because if you open the box... BOOM... everything is going to come out. The masses of people are going to demand more, more, more and more. Which I believe they have a right to, but that mass of information is going to be earthshaking, literally earthshaking. K: Wouldn't you consider yourself something of an ordinary person? I mean obviously you?e fairly extraordinary. B: I've always thought of myself as a typical ordinary guy, yes. K: All right, and you handle it. So why... B: Not easily K: Not easily... really. B: No. K: Can you tell me what it was like? B: Let me tell you that.... K: When you first found out.... B: I've known this for over 40 years. K: Right. B: When I first began to get some information of what was involved, that to me was like a drug addict. You know I've never taken drugs. Well, I smoke a little, and I drink coffee, and I have a little bourbon now and then. K: (Laughing) B: But I tell you, I've never taken hard drugs. K: Right. B: It was almost like an addict, once I learned, officially, from government documents what was taking place. My God, I couldn't get enough! I couldn't learn enough. I was voracious to get more and more and more. I became a nuisance to my friends. It's a wonder I was able to retire honorably without ending up in Fort Leavenworth, which is a disciplinary barracks, by the way. It's a prison, military prison. It's amazing that I've gotten to this point in my life without going to jail. K: Okay... were you highly respected at the time when you discovered this information? Would you say that in your career as a military... B: Yes, I had been given a Cosmic Top Secret document. K: Right. B: Which was and still is the highest security classification that NATO has. K: Okay, but... Cosmic Top Secret. Did that mean to you that you were going to be able to be let in on the secrets of our extraterrestrial relations with other planets? B: No, it simply meant that I was given access to a military document, a study that NATO conducted from 1961 to 1964. When I got to SHAPE in Paris in 1963, I learned of a study that was underway. I'd had a Top Secret clearance when I arrived, which you had to have to get to that particular assignment. It was a rather choice assignment, by the way, Paris in those days. I took my family, my kids went to high school in Paris. It was a choice assignment, and not everybody got that assignment. You were selected and you were analyzed and you had to have so many little pluses in your box to get that. K: I know but, Top Secret way back then? I mean were you naive? Did you have no idea... B: No, no, no. K: ...when you first came across this information? B: I had some suspicions, and I was curious about the extraterrestrial issues. K: So you had some suspicions way back in.... B: Oh yes. Oh yes. K: ...in the 60s. B: Well, I went into the Army in 1950. K: Right. B: I paid attention, and I used to read a lot, and I always had a nagging suspicion that there was something more going on out there than we were being told. K: Did you know about underground bases at that point? B: No, not at that time. Now being exposed to this SHAPE study in 1964 was simply the appetizer for me. It opened my mind to the point that, Oh my God, this is real! Not only did I see reports and studies and analysis, and photographs, there were autopsy reports that I was able to study. Because there had been crashes and retrievals of bodies, and all the rest of it. K: So how many pages were in the report? B: Oh, the study itself was about an inch and a half thick. K: Oh, so it was like a book? B: Yes. Well, it was supplemented, supported by about 10 inches of appendices and, what do they call them... annexes. K: Oh, really. B: There were ten of them. So the study had laid out the problem, as any military study will do. It laid out the problem, purpose and the meaning of the study and some of the conclusions of the study. And then it referred to the annexes, which were the ones that had all the details. K: I see. B: For example, there was an annex on retrieval of bodies and autopsies - with photographs. So once I got a chance to go through this thing with my Cosmic clearance, that allowed me the access to it, in the vault. K: At any time you can go back in there? B: Well any time I was on duty in SHOC. SHAPE is Supreme Headquarters of Allied Forces in Europe. SHOC is the Supreme Headquarters Operations Center. It was a war room. I worked in there regularly. I ran duty rosters. I was a Senior NCO at the time, I was a Senior Master Sergeant at the time, and my clearance allowed me... I had a desk in SHOC. I had a desk in the operations center over in the corner, and I ran the duty rosters and I was in charge of giving assignments and all to all of the lower enlisted men. I even ran a duty roster for the controllers, which were O-6 rank. Colonels, Captains in the Navy. We were in the middle of a bloody cold war. K: Okay, so it was during the Cold War. B: This was the 1960s. I arrived in 1963. The study was completed in 1964. The Warsaw Pact and NATO were lined up along a divided Europe. We were bristling with arms. We had fifty divisions here. The Soviets and the Warsaw Pact had a hundred divisions here. World War III was just moments away. That's how close it was. Young people today like yourselves cannot imagine what that would be like. K: So this is a serious desk that you'd got. In other words it's a lot of responsibility. B: Yeah, I worked in the War Room. I had access to the vault and my clearance allowed me there. K: So we're in the middle of what's called the Cold War, and you're reading about our relationships and interactions with alien races. B: Well, let me give you some reason first of all why this study was concluded. In February of 1961 there was a massive flyover of unidentified objects, coming out of the East from the Soviet Warsaw Pact area, flying towards the West, coming over our lines, over NATO lines, over Germany, over France. These objects were very high, very fast, in formation, obviously under intelligent control. K: Did you see this? B: They were circular disc shapes. K: Did you see it? B: I didn't, no. I wasn't there in '61. K: Oh, was it filmed? B: Oh yes, we had film of it. K: Really. How many were there? B: The point is Gordon Cooper, whom I'm sure you're familiar with, one of our famous astronauts from the old years, Gordon's gone now. But Gordon shared with me one time and he shared it publicly. He said, "When I flew over Germany in the 50s, we'd see these things all the time. We wondered what they were because it was obvious they were under intelligent control. They would fly over our lines or they'd come out of the Soviet sector flying west". As I said, over Germany, France, England. They'd turn north over the southern coast of England, and then they would disappear off of NATO radar over the Norwegian sea. K: Okay and I know, or I assume the government figured they weren't Soviet, it that right? B: The government didn't know from the very beginning - at least NATO didn't - what they were. We thought they were Soviets for a time. We learned that the Soviets thought they belonged to us. K: Right. B: But they were very high, very obviously under intelligent control and in formation and they would come sometimes en masse. The flyover in February of '61 was a couple of hundred of them... they couldn't count them. And they thought, oh my God! World War III has started here. K: Exactly. Didn't the base at that point aim and shoot? B: Everybody got on alert. We didn't have the capability to shoot because they were too high, and they were too fast. And in those days we did not have the aircraft nor the weaponry to deal with this. And they were obviously always under intelligent control. K: So this is why the study was put into effect? B: The study was initiated in '61. I arrived in '63. It was concluded and published in '64. And that is, as I said, what changed my life. K: Okay, what was the conclusion? You said they came to some conclusions? B: The study was designed initially to determine if there was a threat to Allied Forces in Europe. It was a military study... a simple beginning. What the hell is going on? Is there a threat here? K: Is there? Was there? B: They concluded after three years, apparently not. No threat. K: Really? B: That's right. Now the reason they concluded that is first of all, the technology that they had been exposed to, the technology that had been repeatedly demonstrated to our military, to the Soviets, to everybody, was so far beyond anything we had or even could imagine, that the technology was out of this world. No pun intended. So if there had been a threat from these guys, whoever these guys were, it would have been over a long time ago. As one of our Generals use to say, "they could have cleaned our clock from the very beginning." Because they demonstrated, repeatedly, technology that we couldn't even begin to touch. K: Okay this in the ?60s? But didn't Eisenhower have a meeting or make a treaty with these people long before that time? B: Let me get back here and tell you that this study was the beginning for me. K: Okay. B: It opened the doors of my mind, so to speak. I could never leave it, I could never lay it down, I could never walk away from it after that. And I kept over the years learning more and studying more and as I said, it's lucky I didn't end up in jail. Because I drove my friends up the wall, I pushed my security clearance to the limit. I used to get into classified file cabinets and sort through material and look for photographs, and reproduced things that I should not have been reproduced. I was a damn nuisance, I'm sure. K: So where is this stuff that you reproduced? B: You see, I knew just this much (indicating with fingers) but I wanted to know this much (holding arms apart). K: I understand. B: And over the years I learned this much (holding arms wide apart). K: Okay, but what happened to all that stuff you photocopied or whatever? B: Oh my God. K: Is that a secret? Is that part of the reason you haven't been... B: The material that I photocopied I don't have any more because being somewhat intelligent, I knew that having classified material in my possession that I was not authorized to have, meant jail. And as I jokingly said, going to Fort Leavenworth for 30 years. So I destroyed it, but I put it here (pointing to his head). K: Right. B: And I remembered, and I memorized, and I kept notes for years and years. I had a whole series of notes. K: Okay, to get back to my question though... Eisenhower had a meeting theoretically with aliens. Truman had given a shoot down order years before you ever read the studies. B: Eisenhower never gave that order. It was given by an Air Force General. I can't remember the year, but I believe it was in the early ?60s that an Air Force General gave an order to shoot them down. That order was revoked within 90 days. We lost something like 30 aircraft. Because when we started shooting at them, they had a unique way of eliminating all of the electrical systems in our aircraft. They didn't shoot bullets at us. We shot bullets at them, and missiles and everything else. But if we attacked them, they had an incredible scientific procedure where they could literally nullify all of the electrical operations in our aircraft. Now if you're flying a high performance jet, and you're at 30,000 feet going 400-500 mph and all of a sudden everything goes dead. Jet pilots used to share that flying one of those 100 series planes was like flying an anvil. They had no glide capability. They were heavy, they were overly armed and they were heavy aircraft. The only thing keeping them in the sky was a powerful jet engine that kept them going. So if they lost all of their electrical controls, they couldn't even steer, for God's sake. The plane - as I said - just fell like an anvil. Well, we lost a lot of aircraft, a lot of guys got out, they bailed out in time. A lot of planes were lost. We lost a few pilots. Now that order to shoot them down was revoked within 90 days. K: Right. B: And they never issued that again because they learned their lesson. Don't mess with these guys. K: Okay, but you're telling me that you read a report in which the military states that their technology is not up to par so they can't compete with people that are flying over invading their airspace, etc, etc. I'm assuming they didn't know what their MO [modus operandi] was, they didn't know what they were there to do, right? B: Let me tell you briefly what the conclusion of this three year study was. They concluded that apparently there was not a threat involved, because their repeated demonstrations of technology was so beyond anything we could do or match. If they were angry at us or wer hostile, it'd be over. K: Okay, but the logic of that is not, it doesn't fit... B: Let me continue. K: Just because you can't compete doesn't mean it's not a threat. It could still be a threat. B: Let me go on. K: It could be an implied threat. B: This three year study did not find any example of overt hostility on their part. (points upwards) K: Okay. B: They were not shooting our planes down. We would shoot at them but they would pooh-pooh, it's like throwing little pebbles at somebody, see? They concluded after the three year study that we were dealing not with one group. We were dealing with at least four separate groups. Photographs of crashes, retrievals, landings and contacts, where they had landed and contacted people, indicated that they were humanoid, all four different groups. Out of the four different groups, all humanoid, one group was so human looking, just like us - it could sit down next to us in a restaurant, they could sit next to you in a theater, and you would never know. That's the ones that bothered the Admirals and the Generals the most: that these guys could be walking up and down the corridors of SHAPE headquarters or the Pentagon or the White House. K: Were they? B: I have always suspected that yes, they have been. K: Okay... had you met any? B: I met a couple that I am convinced were from somewhere else, yes. K: Okay. B: But that's another story, and we'd be here until midnight if I got into that. Let me finish what I was telling you about the SHAPE study. The Assessment concluded we were dealing with incredibly advanced technology. We were dealing with four different groups, all humanoid, but one group looked totally human. We concluded in this study that they were from somewhere else. Another planet, another star system, perhaps another galaxy. We concluded that they did not... they were not malevolent or hostile - overtly. They certainly were able to defend themselves. But they did not have an agenda, an aggressive agenda, that was hostile, because they had not smashed and torn and broken and destroyed our military. K: And this is prior to the abduction scenario that has since come to the forefront? B: Oh yeah. This was the initial study in '64 based on three years of research by the military. K: Now, who did the study? B: The military. K: But who in the military? I'm assuming you weren't part of this? B: No I wasn't. I was working in the War Room at SHOC. The study was under way when I arrived. It was made up of NATO members. There were Germans involved, there were French involved. There were Italians involved. K: Scientists? B: And Americans... they went to some universities and got some of the top people. They got historians... Oxford, Cambridge. They got physicists from several of the top universities in Europe. It was a thorough study. K: Was it signed by their... in other words, did they sign off on this study? Do you have names? B: The individuals who contributed to it, in bits and pieces, would put initials, you know, to their particular part in it. You would have anthropologists, historians, geologists... K: Okay, but do you know their names? I don't know if you are going to tell me. B: No, I know the names of the guys that I was with at SHAPE headquarters who read the damn thing, and signed off in it, yes. K: Okay what about the ones that worked in the study itself? B: No, I never kept those names, because as I said this was classified. If I had ever been caught with a piece of paper from this study, I could have gone to jail. K: But someone you were working with gave you this to read. B: Well, I'll tell you how that happened. One morning, one or two in the morning, we were on these long shifts. I'm bored to death. The coffee was so black you couldn't drink it. The phones are not ringing. The telegraphs were not going off. It was boring as hell. It happens a lot. The old story is military life is 99% boredom and 1% total disaster, total terror. But we were going through the 99% boredom, you know. And I'm sitting there nodding off, and had read old newspapers, magazines and all. The controller on duty at the time was an Air Force Bird Colonel, what we called a O-6. All controllers were 6-level, and I ran the duty roster. He looked at me and went over to the vault and he pulled this thing out and threw it on my desk. He said, "Hey, this will wake you up. Read this." It was The Assessment, and it dealt with UFOs, and it concluded that there were extraterrestrials coming here, had been coming a very long time. Sometimes estimates of a thousand years, two thousands years. Historical records in The Assessment itself indicated that the Romans had been paying attention to them two thousand years ago. So I'm going through this thing and history was one of my majors when I was in college. Good God, this is dynamite! The more I read, the more I wanted to read, and I went through the whole damn thing, and then later every time I was on duty in SHOC I would go over to the vault, pull it out, go through it again. K: So did you have conversations with this officer? B: We had limited conversations, because you could not discuss classified material outside of SHOC because there were too many ears. We were having a problem in those days. Let me tell you another little side-bit here of history. We were in the middle of a vast French spy ring. Which if you really want to do the follow up on that, you get a book by Leon Uris called Topaz. K: Oh, cool. B: It was made into a movie. K: That's right. B: Uris laid it out. A French spy ring was going on in Paris. I was there at the time, and we would find French Air Force officers. We found a French General one time in the woods outside of SHAPE with a bullet hole in his head. Guys were jumping out of apartments in Paris. It was a major scandal, de Gaulle was the president... K: Okay but what was the objective of the spy ring? B: Well the spy ring was Soviet, to find out what we knew that they didn't know. So they had been buying and paying off people all over Europe... Hungarians, French, Germans... K: So what has that to do with finding The Assessment papers? B: What it's got to do with it is the UFO issue. No information ever came from Washington or London to SHAPE headquarters on the UFO matter because of the French spy ring. Everything that came from Washington and London to Paris ended up in Moscow. There was a British Air Marshall, Thomas Pike. Thomas Pike was the Deputy SACEUR [Supreme Allied Commander Europe]. He was Assistant Deputy to my boss, an American four star General by the name of Lyman Lemnitzer. Sir Thomas Pike, after the incident in February '61 said, "We're going to have to figure out what the hell is going on here. We're getting nothing from Washington or London on this issue. We ask... they don't send anything. We asked them for information and insight on these objects. Who are they, what's happening? Nothing." Well nothing was because everything that came from Washington and London ended up in Moscow thanks to the French, the Hungarians and the Germans. So the study was initiated strictly as a military idea to conclude what the hell is happening to us here. Is there a threat, yes or no? They concluded apparently not, because these guys had been coming and going for a long time. The history annex took it back a couple thousand years. The records, the photographs, the drawings, the paintings, it was unbelievable material. This was just all wild for me, you see. K: Okay, but this is after World War II... B: Yes. K: It was after Germany had, you know... Paperclip... [Project Paperclip, in which key Nazi rocket scientists were brought to America after the war] B: Germany was divided. K: Okay, and you were in West... B: We were Western Europe. K: Sure. B: The Warsaw Pact was Eastern Europe. K: So are you saying that the technology that was used by Hitler and his group, some of which was brought back to the United States was not known to the West, you know, to the people in NATO that were doing this report? B: Of course not. It was highly classified. K: But it's a classified document. So you're saying there's a classification in a in classification... B: You have a classified document here and then you have classified document here, and the guys who wrote this one and have access to this one, can't read that one because they don't have the need to know. Now the guys that have got this one and wrote it and read it and talk about it, they can't read this one because that's another separate classified document. K: Okay... so this guy Pike, right, he's the guy in charge? B: Thomas Pike, Air Marshall Sir Thomas Pike, initiated the study in February of '61 and said.. . K: He had a need to know. B: "I want to know what the hell's going on", and they started the study. K: There's some kind of animosity, I don't know, to this day, between NATO, right, and the US and... B: Honey. You should have seen the animosity that existed in SHAPE headquarters itself. K: Oh. Okay... B: It was so bad that the Greeks and the Turks wouldn't even walk on the same side of the corridor. Cyprus was an issue back then. It still is. So we had Greeks and Turks snarling and frowning at each other, and we had the French. Uh ho ho ho ho... Excuse me, bless their hearts, the French were a pain in the butt from the very beginning. K: Why? B: Well first of all de Gaulle hated the fact that Churchill and Truman had not given him the appropriate respect that he felt he deserved. One of the reasons that happened while I was there, is that France withdrew from the Military Alliance. De Gaulle threw us out. We had to pack our bags and move the entire kit and caboodle from Paris to Brussels. And I was there at the time when it happened. K: Okay where were you reading the report, before or after this happened? B: I'm reading the report in Paris. SHAPE was located in a little town called Chatou... Rocquencourt, right outside of Paris. A little old Napoleonic battle took place there somewhere. Anyhow, the animosity between the French and everybody else... the Germans, the Italians, and the Americans and the Brits were all like this (clasps hands together into a fist). The French were over here. (points away to his right) K: But you're saying the guy who initiated the report is Pike? B: Pike. K: Okay. And you're saying, I mean he clearly had a need to know if he's having flyovers and the US is hearing about this, Britain is hearing about this. The people at the top are hearing about this. So he does this report on his own or... B: No. K: ... or something... that's what it's sounding like. He had a need to know so theoretically... B: He was a five star rank Air Marshall. He had authority to initiate a study like this, and he did. K: Okay, where did it go from there? Do you know? Did it go to the US? Did it go to... B: No, no. K: It sat in a safe somewhere? B: They published fifteen copies. K: Right. B: The first, copy one, went to the Secretary General of NATO. But you cannot imagine what an international headquarters is like. It's like a.. a wasp's nest. K: (Laughs) B: Like I said, the Greeks and Turks were snarling at each other all the time. The French were always angry at everybody. K: Okay so what you are saying, fifteen copies... B: Fifteen copies were initiated. A copy went to the US, a copy went to Italy, a copy went to France, a copy went to the UK, and so on. Fifteen copies are out. One copy, I think the 14th or the 15th, came right there in the vault at SHOC. K: Okay. B: Reading material for the controllers, the full Colonels who ran the 24-hour-a-day War Room. K: So you weren't the only one that read it? B: Oh no, no, no. Oh no. We had an American Air Force General by the name of Robert Lee. Robert Lee read the thing. I got to know his aide fairly well... it was a Lt. Colonel. Inside the War Room we were a select group. We all had the highest clearance possible. The enlisted men and the officers mingled closely. The enlisted men had... the senior enlisted men, most of us were top E-7s or E-8s and a couple of E-9s. So we mingled closely, and it wasn't on a first name basis, there was always respect for rank. But when you work in a War Room like that, and you work closely together over the years, you get to know each other pretty well. General Lee's aide told me, he said: "When the old man read that story, that report, The Assessment, it hit him like a truck, hit him like a ton of bricks." He told me that the General threw his hat across the desk and he says, "Do you know what the hell this means? Everything we've got, everything we've done, everything we've had, doesn't mean a damn thing." The shock was pretty serious. Here you have a highly decorated World War II Air Force General who's been all over the place... I think he flew B- 29s in the Pacific... he said, "If this is all true, if this is real, what we've got, all our military, our Air Force, our bombs, our planes, doesn't mean a thing." The conclusions of the study after three years concluded that they had been coming here for a very long time. That they apparently had some involvement in the origins of our species. Big shock to traditional people, particularly Christians and Muslims. It was interesting because apparently there wasn't a threat involved. If they had been hostile or aggressive it would have been over a long time ago. Now: what was their purpose? Well, the study was not able to conclude that. It said that the military committee will continue this research, which indicated to me that the study in some form had continued... that this document in '64 was simply an initial conclusion. K: Okay. B: But when they concluded that there were four different extraterrestrial groups involved, and one of them was totally human, looked just like us, that was a BIG shock to the old traditional mindset of the military. The Admirals and the Generals, they couldn't deal with it. K: It also said that there was something to do with the religions, that all the religions of the world... B: Well, let me tell you. The study was not that thorough. It was a beginning for me. It was the initiative, the initial event that triggered my curiosity. It launched me on 40 years of research. And much of what I've concluded has been as a result of the years of study since. You see, I continued to dig, I continued to probe. I continued to turn over rocks. As I said, I drove my friends up the wall. K: Okay you looked at this material, you learned a lot. You weren't the only one. You've convinced me of that. Supposedly these people that you knew also read it. They weren't your close friends, I'm assuming? B: Well, they weren't my dearest closest friends, no. K: Okay but were you able to talk to them or have relationships with them after outside of 1967? Did you ever compare notes? B: We formed, back in those days, what we call "the old boys network". This network was made up of people like myself, enlisted and commissioned. Of all services, Air Force, Marines, Army, Navy. As I said, all ranks. There were others like me who were so engrossed by this and excited by it and what it meant. You hear a few of them coming out even today, those that are still alive, saying what I saw, what I learned, what I concluded. The reports I studied, the contacts that I knew happened. Some of them had contacts themselves. K: Sure. B: Personal contacts with some of these guys (pointing up). Phil Corso was an example. Are you familiar with who he was? K: Absolutely. B: I knew Phil fairly well. He and I were speakers at several conferences together. And in Italy I got to know him pretty well. Phil shared with me things that he had had happen to him. Not just what he had seen, but that he had personal contact with an alien at White Sands. He was in charge of the security of the range one time. And something came in, the radar picked it up. He hopped in his car and went out to see what the hell it was. There is a UFO sitting on the ground. There's a guy standing beside it, and Corso walks over to him and says, you know, "What the hell are you, who are you, and where are you from, and why are you here"? This fellow says, "I just came to talk". Corso asks him, "Well, are you with us, or are you agin' us?" Simple military type question. You know, are you with me or are you against me? This guy says, "Neither, we're neither for you or are we against you". He had a conversation with this guy that lasted over an hour. The guy says, "Please turn off your radar, it disturbs my control or my guidance system, so I can leave." Corso went back to the shop, or back to the headquarters, and turned off the radar... and away he went. I got to know through the old boys network dozens of guys like myself, who were as excited and enthused about the thing as I was. K: But they didn't become whistleblowers. What's the difference? B: Some of them did. Some of them lost their commissions, some of them lost their rank. K: Can you name somebody? If they became a whistleblower, do I know them? B: No, no, no. K: What happened? B: Many of them just retired and died. K: Okay, so they tried to blow the whistle, but they didn't get known? They haven't lasted... B: Let me explain something. K: ...but you have. B: I was one of the loudest loudmouths, and this is my nature. I retired as a Command Sergeant Major. And that rank gives me the privilege to open my big yap to anybody. The Generals, the Admirals and everybody in between, you see? It's a unique kind of rank to have. K: I see. B: The Generals depend on you to tell them the truth whether they like it or not and so you learn to tell them the truth. Well, I turned out to be a big mouth. I sat on this for... when did I come out of the closet, so to speak? It's just a term... K: Right, okay from 1967... B: I sat on this from '67 to '92 or '91? I believe I came out of the closet in '91. K: Okay, so that's a long time. B: Yes. I respected my oath, which I swore. I took an oath to never share anything that I learned in a classified nature while I was on active duty. I knew that if I did, I could go to prison for 10 years, $10,000 fine, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, retirement everything, whatever, forever. K: Okay so you've come out. What happened to you? B: So I came out in '91 at a conference in Tucson, Arizona. The result was monumental aggravation and frustration that the government had continued over all these years to lie to the people. Not only were they lying to the people, they were ruining lives to keep the lid on this subject. I had enough of that. I had seen good friends of mine, guys who... theyhad said something to the wrong person, the wrong way at the wrong time, and they sent them to Iceland, you know? K: They reassigned them? B: They reassigned them to Iceland without their families. A three year assignment in Iceland. That's like the Russians sending you to Siberia. We have this in this country, the ability to do that. There are assignments here and there that, you know, I don't want to use the wrong terminology and embarrass you but... you've heard the term anus mundi? We have places on the Earth where we have military bases, and if they send you there, everybody says, "Bye, we'll probably never hear from you again", you know? K: Okay, but that didn't happen to you. B: No, it didn't. And let me tell you... K: Why not? Do you know why? B: The more I learned, the more I grew aggravated I became. And at '91, I think it was, when I came out... Wendelle Stevens is a good friend of mine. Remember the "old boy network"? retired Lieutenant Colonel Air Force fighter pilot Wendelle is still alive down in Tucson. He and I were close for years. When I retired from the Army, I bought a house in Tucson and lo and behold, I found I was right across the street from Stevens. Anyhow, he went to prison, and it was a trumped up, fixed political deal. I always suspected it was because he had spoken out openly on the subject. Now there were people who say, "No, no, Wendelle just made a dumb mistake, and he broke the law", and off he went. He spent three years in prison. Well, here's an example for you. People say, "Well, he screwed up". Well I never did believe the man screwed up that way. I think that partly him going to jail was a result of him being very outspoken. Now, that's a threat that you face. In '91 I was up to here (puts hand to forehead). My first marriage was on the rocks for a variety of reasons. I was in a new job. I took a job with the Sheriff's Dept. I was actually working for FEMA as an emergency management director. But I was just so frustrated and so aggravated, waiting for the government to tell the people a little something. And then I was so frustrated and angered by the fact that not only were they not telling them the truth, they were telling them blatant lies, and they were also destroying people's lives. There were people who had contacts, who the government would place in what they called, what is it the police put you in protective...? K: Protective custody, a safe house? B: Well not just custody, they create a whole new life for you. K: Oh yeah, okay. B: I have seen examples of military families' lives destroyed because... K: Because the person spoke out? B: Well, a pilot could come back from a mission, and before they got to him he said something to somebody: "My God, you should have seen what I saw up there! There was this damn ship flying along beside me and there were faces at the windows looking at me!" This went public. And this poor son of a bitch, they took him and sent him to Kwajalein. I believe it's some tiny little atoll in the middle of the Pacific, where you can't take your family. And he went off to Kwajalein for god knows how long, away from his family because he said one thing. I learned all these things. It struck me that this was not fair. That this was not right. That no government, dammit, has the right to do that to people. I came out of the closet in a BIG way. K: Right. B: Not only did I share everything I learned at SHAPE in the study, The Assessment, which is in itself dynamite. But the real dynamite is all the stuff I've learned since. And I learned even after I retired from the Army in '76. I still had clearance. I worked for FEMA. I got a what's equivalent to a Master's Degree in emergency management at the Institute in Emmitsburg, Maryland. K: Okay, but they didn't come get you and send you off to Siberia or Iceland... B: No they didn't because once I opened my big yap I had people come to me to tell me, "Bob, that's your only defense, that's the only security you've got. Keep talking. Because if they come and shut you up now, it'll be so obvious..." K: Oh, I see. B: ...to the world that you've been closed down, that what you've been talking about must be true." As I told you, I think I shared with Bill, I was intimidated. I had phone calls from people who wouldn't identify themselves. Male voices saying, "Don't you think you've talked about this just about enough? Why don't you the hell... it's time for you to shut up." (Mimics holding phone to his ear) "Who's this?" "Never mind. Keep your damn mouth shut." Click. I had a number of those. I had a little house in Tucson in a cul-de-sac. I lived there, bought it years ago. Bought it in '60-something. I'm sitting there one day reading or whatever, and I hear (imitating sound of helicopter rotor blades), a very distinctive sound. I knew a helicopter. I knew the sound of a Huey because I'd been in Viet Nam, and the Huey has a distinctive sound all of its own. I thought, you know, is it passing over? And it kept (imitating helicopter sound) and the damn thing was sitting over my house. So I go out the door into the driveway and I look up, and there's a totally black Huey type helicopter, not more than 100 feet above my house, violating FAA rules, you know, totally violating the rules. The damn thing was sitting up there and there was not a marking on it. Not one mark on it, it was totally black and that was a violation of FAA, you know. Now these guys violate the law all the time. I stood out there and I thought, "Who the hell are you"? I looked up and studied it, and there was this big circular glassy apparatus on the bottom of this thing. It was part of the aircraft. And I concluded later that it probably was one of those 360-degree windows. There were probably guys sitting in there looking at me down through this glass. But it was black, totally black. The glass was black. The thing was just sitting up there, kind of like nyah, nyah, nyah, you know. I mean what are you going to do about it? So I shook my fist pointed my finger, mouthed a couple of profanities. Called them a number of names, (pointing up with finger) "I know you, you son of a bitch! I know who you are and I know what you're doing!" K: Okay. B: And about this time I'm really giving them hell. I'm sure they thought, "All right, we got his attention", and off it went. First of all, totally black, no markings... a violation. It's hovering over a private residence... a violation. K: Sure. B: You know they don't care. It was an intimidation. This was right after I had gone public at this conference in Tucson. K: Okay. So tell me, you had friends in high places, because I know you've spent some time in Washington. Who's protecting you? Because... is it human, is it extraterrestrial...? B: Let me tell you what I think, and this is just my two cents. I think that after I came out publicly with a big mouth, and spoke and began to speak regularly at that time. From '91 on, I traveled the world, good God; I've been to 18 countries. I think going public and being out in the open probably was what saved me. Other than the phone calls and the black Huey and all the rest of it. You know I've had people come up to me at conferences, guys who would not introduce themselves, and with suits, you know what the term suits means? K: Sure. B: Three piece with vest... K: (Laughs) B: ...typical government agency type thing. "Uh, you've been speaking out pretty bluntly about this, why are you doing this?" "Well, who are you?" "Never mind, why are you doing this"? "Well first of all, the truth needs to be told". "Oh, yeah, you think you know the truth?" "I think I know some of it, how's that? As a matter of fact I know quite a bit of it. That's even better". And I've had these happen too, over the years. I had an interesting time... I spoke in Leeds at a conference. Got a call from a guy who identified himself as "Mr Sweeting". You know, typical UK name, I guess, "Mr. Sweeting". We found out Tony Dodd checked out the phone number from Mr Sweeting, who called me and said it was imperative the he speak to me before I went on. Tony and I both got in the phone booth together, crammed in there. Tony's listening as I'm talking to Mr Sweeting, and he says, " It's imperative Mr Dean that I speak to you before you go on. What are you going to say?" And I said, "Well, Mr Sweeting, if you're local, why don't you come to the conference and listen?" "Well, no, I can't do that. I just wanted to know what you plan to say." I said, "I plan to say a hell of a lot." K: (Laughs) B: And Tony checked the number. And guess where? There's an enormous US National Security Agency facility in Yorkshire, called, ah... K: Menwith Hill. B: Menwith Hill. I've driven by it. Tony took me by several times. K: Sure. B: Mr Sweeting's number was Menwith Hill. K: Okay, so what... that's it? That's the gist of your conversation? B: Well the gist of the conversation was Mr Sweeting would not say anything to me about who he was and why he wanted to talk to me. And I told him, "I ain't gonna share nothin' with him over the phone. If he wants to talk to me, come to the conference and I'd be delighted to talk to him face to face." K: Well on that issue, have you had whistleblowers, people, come out of the closet and share stuff with you since you're a whistleblower? B: Oh hell, yes. I've had people come up to me and say, "You know, I've been wanting to share this, Dean... and I think I can share this with you because you won't take my name and address and phone number and turn me in. But this happened to me and I know it happened to you." We've all been members of what we call the "old boys network". We wanted to get it out. We wanted to get it out honestly, up front, and democratically, dammit! K: So you've convinced me that you're out there, but I'm still not buying it completely because... do you think that you've had health problems? Have you had you know, mind control, and if not, then I have to ask you again, who's protecting you? B: Well let me say this about that... sounds like Nixon... (Kerry laughs) I have shared this with people several times be cause they've asked me the same question, okay? K: I'm sure. B: When I became notorious, I suppose is the best word, where I've spoken bluntly, regularly all over the damn planet, and all over the United States, to a considerable amount of positive response from people. Not only military thanking me for going public, and I've a number of old close warm friends that have retired to a level of some degree. A good friend in Roswell, a retired Army Sergeant who after he went public, his son was killed by a hit and run. And they always concluded that it was the result of his going public. K: Clifford Stone. B: Clifford lost his boy. K: We interviewed him, yeah. B: Clifford is a very close friend and his boy was killed right after he had published his book. Now you say, "Oh, coincidence". Bullshit! I have seen a lot of coincidences in my time and I don't believe in it. K: Okay. B: I don't believe there is such a thing as coincidence. In everybody's life, there is no coincidences. It's all laid out. Clifford is like me now; he's turned into a recluse. End of Part 1 Northern Lights Liberal Translation of Write-up by B. Brand and P. Keller in FIGU Bulletin #30 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Dec., 2000) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 After the peace meditation on the 3rd Saturday of each month, this time it was 16 September 2000, we deal generally, after a brief pause, with Group internal affairs. As usual also on this Saturday after the meditation, we all rushed into the kitchen to obtain coffee, other beverages, sweets and fruits, in order to survive the coming hour intact. Usually this continues on then 10 minutes after the meditation, so till around 21:20 hrs. This evening Billy, Pius, Edith, who prepared a coffee for Billy, and I were delayed over something and still in the meeting place [the "carriage" house; see map, No. 8]. Billy, Pius and I, Bernadette, proceeded outside around 21:32 in order to go into the hallway of the house [see map, No. 9]. At the house square, Billy noticed a light between the trees. Pius and I stopped and likewise looked at the light moving from the southwest to the north, which I made out to be a speedy airplane. After a few moments, I went ahead and came in to the hall while Pius remained with Billy and observed the light further. Meanwhile, the two men went to the lower courtyard lamp [a few meters west of the fountain, see map, No. 17] and watched the light further. After Bernadette left, Billy and I, Pius, further watched the light, which between the trees' branches shone even brighter. Apparently, it was in a slow climb and getting bigger. Edith, who also appeared in the parking lot and quickly had noted that Billy and I observed something, went to the courtyard lamp on the west side of the house and called us, that we should come there to better observe the light from there. We went quickly to Edith and well observed the large, bright light, next to which I had noticed a small, weaker light for a while that moved quickly. Suddenly Billy became attentive and said, "Look, there is one that belongs to the bright one!" Silvano and Patric Chenaux joined us and excitedly took notice of the two objects. At this moment Billy turned to me and urged me: "Run into the hall and bring the others!" Hardly had I, Bernadette, taken my place in the hall, when Pius rushed up the stairs and shouted loudly, "Come quickly, there are ships in the sky!" No one of course wanted to miss out, and they all came pounding out together as quickly as they could from the hall and ran eagerly down to the courtyard lamp to see what there was. Within seconds, virtually all the Core Group members stood on the concrete square in front of the west courtyard lamp and observed what was going on to the north. Now not only were there two lights to see, but already five, of which three were completely stationary. Two of them moved slowly and in addition, between them at least three aircraft moved on their courses in different directions. Of the five lights two seemed to gradually increase in brightness and radiance, while two more bright objects slowly approached them from the northeast, and in addition an eighth joined the other lights from the west. Like a constellation they stood over the northern horizon: the one big and bright, while the others were smaller and lit up weaker. One of the two gradually brightening lights became still brighter and brighter, until it had increased at least six to ten times in intensity, and shone almost like a huge spotlight. "I haven't witnessed so bright and great a shining object for many years! This is the very way it was in the early days," one heard Bernadette say. Some of the lights that were previously stationary began to move slowly, and the one or the other began to flash in an aircraft- like rhythm. Thereupon some of the Core Group members became upset, who thought it was only the headlights of aircraft, and they therefore soon departed rather than observe a small, dimly glowing telemeter disk that was moving at uniform speed directly overhead. "At least I'm sure that it is a telemeter disc," we heard Andreas say. While part of the Core Group members wandered off the objects began to move, and first one then another suddenly disappeared from the scene until there were only two left in the sky other than the brightly beaming and gently pulsating great light. Slowly the radiance of this largest and brightest object diminished, and it appeared smaller and smaller. Finally, it was no longer brighter than the navigation lights of an aircraft, whereupon it quickly began to move into the distance and, as the last object, suddenly disappeared. Only the usual aircraft, which were quite rapidly moving across the sky, remained. Behind us we could hear one or another say that it could have been only the headlights of aircraft, and that one can often see them recently since Swissair's arrival and departure flight lanes had changed. But what aircraft lights can you watch for a spanking ten minutes? And what aircraft light is so bright and strong in the sky, that you would think you were looking at a little sun? These details and the fact that the objects, in contrast to aircraft, for some time only very slowly or not at all moved from their positions, apparently escaped their skillful observations; the flashing of the objects on their flight paths quite apparently fooled those who left and didn't realize that the blinking interval was completely different from that of aircraft known to us. That it actually could not have been aircraft was confirmed by telephone on Sunday evening. Namely, Conny Gunz, the daughter of the girlfriend of Atlantis Meier, telephoned and told us that they, along with a colleague and other independent passersby of the Lorraine bridge in the city of Bern, saw a nighttime light spectacle in the northern sky on Saturday evening at approximately 21:30. Up to 20 more or less bright objects were involved, of which at least one was extraordinarily bright and large. Billy asked her to write down her experience as a small report, and to make it available to us for public release, which she assented to. On 19 September Billy then asked Ptaah in a telepathic contact about the mysterious lights, because some of us were hoping that they could have been a demonstration of the Plejarens. Ptaah made it clear that they were not Plejaren ships we had seen, and he told Billy he would trouble himself for an explanation. A few days later Billy told us that Ptaah thought it possible the lights could have been the ships of Asina's people, whose spacecraft they still had not located, however. Asinas was stranded with her ship on Earth in 1977 and was located thanks only to help from Billy; she was returned back to her home planet through the hard, creative work of Quetzal in repairing her outdated ship. At that time, her departure took place so hastily that Asinas did not have time to speak to Billy beforehand, although this had actually been planned. On September 26, Ptaah then explained that he must stop work on the Semjase Block [Contact Reports] at 22:00 instead of the usual 23:00, because he had to attend to something. To finish the work, Billy went directly into his office and locked the door behind him, apparently because he expected Ptaah [to teleport in]. As he turned around, there stood Ptaah in the middle of his office accompanied by Asina, and Asina was beaming joyfully and with a hug thanked him from the heart for his help. During the following conversation it turned out also, that Asina's people, underway on an expedition tour with an armada of 21 ships, had stopped in on Earth just to thank Billy for his help. So it had actually been the ships of Asina's people that we had seen and which on that evening materialized just above Feldberg near Stuttgart, and gave us and especially Billy their impressive demonstration. What an effective presentation as a simple "Thank you" -- yet it is for us to thank Asina for the spectacular demonstration, as for many years we have not been able to observe anything like that in the night. However, a downside is the fact that many could have watched the nighttime performance if the erring Earth people weren't so blind and prejudicially inclined throughout world history. Unfortunately everything that moves in the sky is still taken for aircraft, satellites or whatever, because one doesn't bother to make intensive observation and accurate interpretations; what a great pity. Report of a Little Sighting Liberal Translation of Write-up by Bernadette Brand in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., 2001), pp. 370-72 by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 On the evening of 1 July, 1994, around 22:20 hours, I was happy to have the long and hot day behind me and finally find rest between the cool sheets of my bed. Scarcely had I settled myself down and at the day's conclusion yet seized a magazine, when there was a knock at my door and I heard Billy ask, "Are you already in bed?" On my weak response, "Yes, sure," there followed the unmistakable request, "Englebert and I need you right away." Being well bred and obedient to the receipt of orders, I naturally knew just what I had to do. As I called out, "I'll be right with you!" I slipped into the necessary things, and not two minutes later stood before my door, where the two waited for me. Billy began bluntly, I should go quickly and bring certain concerns that we handle together. After we had quickly come to an understanding, it occurred to me that on this same day a Passive FIGU member sought me out to present an idea, which I, for my part, now relayed to Billy. I handed him the piece of paper that had been given to me and about which I had just told him. While we discussed it, my gaze went from the direction of the fairy fish pond [see map, No. 18] to the west above the roof of the carriage house [No. 8 on map], where I noticed a bright movement in the sky. With a second look it was already very clear to me that it involved a beamship that was a little brighter than the brightest star. With this recognition I immediately cried out, "Billy, look there -- a ship!" After brief doubt at first, he confirmed my conclusion. Bright and silent, the splendid stellar object moved along straight over our heads at a relatively small height. After about a minute the ship was already almost right over us, and Billy said, "Could you make somewhat more light," and it was not difficult to notice him, at the same moment, concentrating on the flying star. Indeed, on his intervention the ship began, at first imperceptively, then more obviously, to brighten, until it more than doubled the brightness it had before, and while it slowly but steadily moved away, it beamed brighter on this evening than an unusually brightly beaming Venus does. I had detected the object, which moved in a straight line from west to east completely silently at a height of only about 4-5000 meters, around 22:35 hours, and we observed it until its bright light disappeared behind the fan-shaped leaves of the bhodi tree, which grew behind the fairy fish pond. The duration of the sighting was around 4-5 minutes; an event that in the last years had become a precious rarity, at least in this form! The last time Billy and I, together with Eva, had had another spectacular sighting was many months ago. At that time we observed for close to an hour an irregularly sparkling object that moved back and forth across the whole western sky, and sporadically and completely irregularly blazed up with a whitish-grey flash; until it quickly moved to the north, where we last saw its flashes. Such observations, in which the beamship in unusual ways lets itself be seen, as for example with especially bright flaring, with an extraordinary flight path or with conspicuous lights flashing at unusual intervals, have in the last ten years become very rare. Ships [ET craft], which at very great heights pass over our sky more or less quickly as faint, non-flashing and inconspicuous lights, we see somewhat regularly. Everything else, however, has unfortunately become a rarety, and in the meantime we especially value it when we once again have the pleasure of witnessing a special performance. A Life-Threatening Supersonic Boom written by Bernadette Brand in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., 2001), pp. 199-200 as translated liberally by J. W. Deardorff, June 2011 The 18th of February, 1978, was a holiday in Schmidrüti, and as is still the custom in our town and in many places, three salutary shots banged into the sky in the early morning. Two or three seconds after the third salutary shot, an enormous thundering noise roared over our house top, which caused the entire house to shake down to its very foundation. Everything that was not nailed down clanked and clattered. To Billy the whole thing appeared to be a sonic boom, which, as he explained to us, he had already variously experienced before. He had been a witness to such an event in the Persian desert when an old shed, which he had secretly abandoned before the thundering event, had been simply destroyed by such a sonic boom; it totally collapsed upon itself as if underneath a ghostly, giant hand. He credibly assured us, in consideration of the strength of the boom that had roared over our house, this must have been what happened at the Semjase-Silver-Star-Center, just as Billy had experienced it many years before in the desert. That it did not come so far as to cause our Center house to collapse was because of the following. Billy's wife, Kalliope (whom Billy and we call "Popi," however), had for some days been in the hospital, where she had to undergo a surgical intervention. At that time Billy was concerned so much over her that he was under observation by Quetzal and Menara, who as a result were witnesses to the sonic-boom event and quick-wittingly took precautions, therefore, that we survive everything without harm. What happened was as follows: Quetzal and Menara had been situated in their beamship at a low elevation directly above the roof of the Center's house. After the two salutary shots in town they saw a triangular craft speeding towards them from the south, which, at the third salutary shot, hovered close over the house in order to shoot up into the sky, with double supersonic power, right after the third explosive bang in Schmidrüti. Quetzal, who had immediately recognized the evil intent, caused his own beamship to shoot down underneath to a height of less than 10 meters above our chimney, in order to intercept the gigantic and deadly blow from the triangular craft above, although this threatened to destroy Quetzal's ship. Luckily, however, the Pleiadian ship withstood the assault, whereby the wake of the blow was splintered and stormed down over the house, so that merely the acoustic waves themselves continued downwards, which however were still so strong that the whole house was caused to convulse. Quetzal's intervention had not only spared our house, but also saved Billy, his three children, Elsi Moser, Oma Rose, Jacobus Bertschinger, Englebert and Maria Wächter with her two children Connie and Rolf, and myself, from certain death. The ship that was chosen to destroy our Center and consequently our mission, came from the so-called Gizeh- Intelligences, who made it for mounting their dangerous and malicious attacks against us in the early years, so that, for their part, the Pleiadians had to intervene to create peace. On this morning, after a short pursuit, Menara eliminated the unmanned and remote-controlled beamship, which Quetzal knew had been the last of its kind in the possession of the Gizeh-Intelligences. The source of Billy's information, and Bernadette's: Excerpt from Contact Report No. 102, 21 February, 1978, 03:41 hours from Wendelle Stevens, Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 4, pp. 334-37 The relevant portion commences after Quetzal's sentence No. 83: Meier... Oh yes, I only wanted to tell you, on Saturday morning very soon having occurred something very strange. At Schmidrueti was a matrimony in this morning, and as is the case in many of our towns, some people sent different saluting shots into the morning sky. There had been three such shots, of which I could distinctly see the explosions occurring at Schmidrueti. After the third shot, but only two or three seconds later, suddenly roared up directly above the roof of our house, an immense thunderstroke, which roared down the chimney and caused the whole house to tremble to its basic foundations. All that was not clinched or riveted, clattered and rattled. The whole matter seemed to me like a supersonic stroke, as I felt before. For this now, the question, have you seen anything in this matter, if you and Menara had observed me during the whole night? Quetzal... 84/This occurrence is known to us, because we shared in this directly. 85/Apart from this, it is very interesting for me, to listen from you what you term the supersonic stroke, as you say, or the explosion stroke, as such itself, as truly the matter dealt of such a thing. 85/How have you found this fact out? Meier... Very simply, my son. As mentioned, I have experienced supersonic blows before, during one of which I nearly got damaged. At the time, I was inside of an old cottage on the Persian Gulf desert, near Zahedan. Suddenly a restlessness forced me out of the building and I left as fast as possible from out of it and hurried away. At about a distance of 150 meters, I suddenly heard the howling of a deep-diving jet plane, turned around, and saw rushing near at only a small height above the ground, a jet fighter machine. Only a few hundred meters from the dilapidated building, the devilish bird very suddenly shot up half inclined to the sky, flushed over the building -- and then a hellish crash rose up. Like a primary thunder, the sound rushed back over me, and then I saw, like in slow-motion time, that the dilapidated house merged down into itself, like destroyed by a ghost hand, while it somehow seemed to vibrate and the dust swirled up high. The huge thunder now of last Saturday sounded like this, as the supersonic stroke then, only this time being directly above me, and so above the roof of our house. Quetzal... 87/Your description is very good. 88/What you have noted consists of the following: 89/Menara and I were staying at low height directly above your actual Center in a non-visible state. 90/Suddenly after the first explosion in the village, a triangular ship shot along, coming from the south, as the second explosion occurred. 91/At only about 60 meters above ground, it then floated for a short time above your dwelling house, only to shoot up at once after the third explosion in the village, by twofold supersonic power upwards into the sky. 92/To me at once was evident, what this doing had to mean, and acted so within a split-second. 93/Our ship shot forward, floating already within the next moment directly above the chimney of your house, at less than 10 meters of height. 94/Then the blow came down from high above, and threatened to scatter our ship, but which fortunately resisted the wicked force. 95/The huge suction stroke of the brake of supersonic speed fanned itself by the ship and hurried over the house away, while the acoustical waves continued downward in spite of all and hit as wicked power the house, by which it was shaken very much. Meier... Then this has been our dear friends, the Gizeh-knaves, were they? Quetzal... 96/That is right. Meier... Then we have had a devilish luck. A very kind thanks for your great help. If you would not have been there, then namely our building would be gone, together with all of us who were inside: Elsi, Rose, Jacobus, the two children of Engelbert and Maria, as our children, too. Have you and Menara at least this time given a lesson to those lousy knaves? Quetzal... 97/This has been the work of Menara. 98/The Gizeh-ship, an apparatus with remote control, the last kind they owned, was eliminated by us after a short pursuit hunt. Meier... Oh yes, so you let crackle this object, haven't you? Menara... 14/This occurred similarly, yes. Meier... Thank you, my child. This delights me. Then similar attacks we likely have no more to fear? Quetzal... 99/This for sure, because those undesired intelligences own no further ships of this sort. 100/But nevertheless we futurally will prepare ourselves for such and similar machinations, and be attentive. 101/Somehow these wicked ones must have analyzed the matrimony that day and connected that to this use, because every probability points to this, to have undertaken this attempt at your destruction, because there was known to them this use of explosions, and that to such an explosion would have been ascribed the destruction of your house and your all dying. Observation of Sudor's and Inobea's Beamship Liberal Translation of Write-up by B. Brand in FIGU Bulletin #37 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Nov., 2001) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 Sunday, 26 August 2001, 21:33-22:07 hrs Observing persons: Billy, Freddy Kropf, Bernadette Brand and Silvano Lehmann From the Contact Conversation of Billy Meier with the Plejaren, Sudor, Sunday, 26 August 2001, at 22:40 hrs Billy May I ask one more question, Sudor? Your nod signifies "Yes." So then: At 21:33 hrs I observed a large luminous object in the night sky to the northwest, and for more than five minutes. Then the object moved to the north, where for a long time it remained hovering high above or behind the crest of the hills. It was then around 21:40 hrs, just as Freddy arrived in his car and said that at the beginning of his drive into the valley of Wila he had also seen the same bright object I saw. I am thinking that it could have been your craft -- your beam ship -- because it had exactly the form of your tub. For a long time Freddy and I observed the bright object, before he fetched his camera and started to photograph it around 21:58 hrs, and I hope that the photos will show something. Around 22:00 Bernadette joined us, as well as Silvano a minute later, who also observed the light object that disappeared twice briefly as aircraft approached, but then again brightly lit up. Shortly afterwards yet a second bright object appeared on the left; accordingly we have observed the two lights, of roughly football size, until 22:07, and so during a good five minutes. Then the ship on the left first disappeared, and then the other; all that was to be seen since 21:33 hrs with two or three short interruptions. Sudor The first craft observed by you was mine. The second craft was Inobea's. Billy And you showed yourselves simply unscreened? Sudor No, that we did not do, because the viewing angle is open only to your Center. Nighttime Observations Liberal Translation of Write-up by Bernadette Brand in FIGU Bulletin #46 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Feb., 2004) by J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 On the night of 29 to 30 June, 2003, I stepped out on my night watch as usual. My first route led me around the house to check whether all doors were locked. I noticed that the living room window was wide open and the night curtains not drawn, which was quite unusual. Thinking of the recent assassination attempt against Billy, I went back in and, after only brief hesitation, carefully closed windows and curtains, because I did not want that Billy, upon entering the room, should be like on a silver platter in the bright light. Then I continued my walk. The night was very warm -- 20 degrees C -- shortly after twelve, and calm. I was just at the lower courtyard lamp above the fountain when a light wind arose that promised some cooling. Thankful for the wind, I sat myself down on the second lowest step of the metal staircase, which leads up from the ground, and enjoyed the pleasant night immersed in my thoughts. Shortly after I had sat down, I heard a noise from Eva's office and noticed that Billy opened the door to the corridor, turned on the light and looked out into the hallway. He came back into his office, abruptly closed the door and then opened it again, whereupon I saw the heads of two people in the dark, who stepped into the bright hallway. One of the two was slightly smaller than the other. Immediately the door closed again and I heard the key turning in the lock. "Aha," I thought, "Billy is now going into the living room. Good, then I will tell him about the window." So, I rose and continued my tour. After the next station, which took me behind the house, I went through the kitchen into the room where I presumed Billy to be. But no one was there. I was taken aback a moment and then thought that he was now probably in the bathroom, where I of course did not want to disturb him. There was still enough time left in my night watch that I would certainly see him later-- so, I continued with my rounds. Soon I was back at the parking place and there was still a pleasant, freshening breeze from time to time. I took off my glasses and looked up at the very clear star-laden sky. And I had barely raised my head when I saw them already -- two traveling lights! The one moved quietly and smoothly from west to east, and the other was underway just as quietly and smoothly from southwest to northeast; thereby it appeared to me as if they had crossed immediately before I noticed them. I rushed out some thoughts of warmth and love to them, and watched them until they disappeared behind the tree tops that line the car park. Then, I continued my round, which I could then finish ininterrupted. In the break between the two passages of the guard Billy was then out of the office and in the kitchen, and set me straight before I could tell him anything: Greetings from Quetzal to me, and shared with me that Florena and Elektra were on vacation for another two weeks. And he told me that Quetzal was with him in order to inform him that the security measures, which he had taken as prevention against the attacks on Billy, had worked perfectly. Also, he had to clarify a question related to the computer. I asked him then when Quetzal had been with him. He explained that between midnight and 12:30 he had been leaving from his visit, and said that maybe I could have seen something. I broke in about the two ships I had seen at 00.36 hours above the rear parking lot, telling him of the sighting. "By then they were probably already well on their way," he said. So I took the second round of the guard under foot, and when I was again standing at the rear parking place in the dark, at 01:44, I once again saw a single ship that moved as a tiny point of light, pretty much from south to north. This time I had the feeling that it involved a telemeter disk, but nevertheless I sent out my greetings to this "flying star." And hardly was I again on the way, when it occurred to me, as if scales fell from my eyes: Of course, it had been just 00:26 hours when I had sat down on the metal staircase by Eva's office and made my observation -- was it perhaps possible??? During the rest of my rounds I let go the idea that I may perhaps actually have seen more, this all the more because I had seen in the living room that Eva was obviously already in bed and no longer in Billy's office. Hardly could I wait to complete the round, while setting in proper order just what and how I wanted to ask Billy. And actually, he confirmed to me that I had actually had the unusual luck to watch as Quetzal and his companion left Billy's office after the 344th Contact. Contrary to my presumption, Quetzal's companion was not Zafenatpaneach, who is equal in height to Quetzal, but Tauron, who is actually somewhat shorter than Quetzal; this is how Billy clarified my conjectures. And also he confirmed that I probably had actually observed the ships of the two around 00:36 o'clock in the rear parking lot. So really, I've had no more eventful a night watch than that for years. In my diary, however, I only wrote: Round 1 OK.; round 2 OK., and that was it for me, really. Sunday Surprise Liberal Translation of Write-up by Bernadette Brand in FIGU Bulletin #25 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Dec., 1999) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 On Sunday, the 12th of September, 1999, Louis Memper, Eva Bieri, and I, Bernadette brand, together had Sunday service. After we were done with everything, I wanted to do some personal work. I had just plugged in the iron when, through the open door, I saw Billy go in the direction of the garden. I stopped him to ask whether he saw something in the sky. While we talked, we heard the unmistakable sound of hot-air balloons. Billy said it interested him in how many balloons could be seen and where they came from. So I followed him into the garden [see map, No. 4], where we first noticed a yellow Agrola balloon in a southerly direction, followed a short distance behind by a white Sharp balloon. From the east shortly thereafter there came a yellow-red-blue balloon with the lettering "Flugplatz Sitterdorf," traveling like the other two balloons toward the west. We followed their course through the sky, and apparently, we were not alone, because I heard my son Nathan below the greenhouse talking with Selina, Billy's and Eve's little daughter, and showed him the hot-air balloons. He came up the steps from the greenhouse [see map, No. 6] with Selina on his arm while Billy and I still watched the first two balloons. When Nathan with Selina was just at the level of the monument [see map, No. 7], Nathan suddenly exclaimed,"Look, do you see the bright dot there behind the balloon?" "What is it?" As I quickly turned around, I saw a whitish-silvery object just behind the blue, red and yellow Sitterdorf balloon. I pointed it out to Billy, and after a few seconds, he spotted it. At approximately 9000 meters height, as Billy estimated, a clearly visible disk-shaped brilliantly glittering object moved leisurely in its path in the light of the soon-setting sun, standing out brightly against the blue sky. It was at this moment exactly 18:24 hours. Always at the same distance, it moved westward seemingly behind the balloon, which was at about 800 meters height. The balloons, whose number had now grown to five, moved slowly in a southwesterly direction; however, the ship, which was uniquely and very clearly recognizable as round- or disk-shaped, continued westward. When the yellow- red-blue balloon was clearly southwest from us, an airliner emerged, which in its south-to-north course at about 5000 meters overflew the balloon. Now, one could compare the size and shape difference of the three airial craft wonderfully. At the lowest level, at approximately 800 meters height, the balloons drifted at about 40-50 km/hr speed; at about 5000 meters height the airliner flew very swiftly; and again, about 4000 meters higher, the bright reflective object moved slowly away in a westerly direction at the same pace [angular pace?] as the balloons. When the airliner overflew the balloon, it occurred to me that it [the airliner], in comparison to the object located high above it, was a lot more difficult to see. To be sure we could clearly make out the airplane, but through the haze it appeared slightly out of focus and almost transparent due to the haze because it moved below the direct sunlight. However the object, which was very high above the haze and directly illuminated from below by the setting sun, reflected light so brightly that it was absolutely clear and sharply defined, though it was moving significantly away from us as was the aircraft. During all of seven minutes, from 18:24 until 18:31 hrs, we observed the ship before it lost itself in the increasingly brighter sky in the direction of the sun, and then suddenly disappeared. Freddy, who in the meanwhile appeared on Billy's call and who had been with us in the garden, came with his 500mm-telephoto camera and tripod, and spotted the beamship only after Billy had long tried to show him its exact location. When he was finally ready to photograph it, he could no longer find it. Eva came out of the greenhouse, took Natan and Selina, and disappeared in the direction of the house. She had no patience to follow Nathan's direction instructions, but sent only a quick look to the sky and withdrew. For this she complained later that she would never see something. After the ship had disappeared, I wanted to conclude my work, while Billy, Freddy, and Nathan were continuing to talk about the size of the object, which Billy described as football size, Natan as a little dot, and Freddy as not visible. After they had discussed it a few minutes and Louis, who in the meantime had come from the house, had reported of the sighting, Billy called me to the square in front of the monument and wondered whether I was also of the opinion that the object had had the size of the diameter of the contrail of the foregoing aircraft. Nathan and I found this size comparison to be correct, while Freddy claimed that at best he had seen a tiny little dot. Meanwhile some fifteen minutes passed and we still talked about the object. Freddy was allowed to hear some good- natured proverbs because he had failed to photograph the ship despite having good equipment. "It would be nice, if such an object would appear again, so you could photograph it," I said, standing with my back to the monument. I raised my head and once again saw, high over the birch trees, the same object we had seen fifteen minutes before. "Look, up there, there it is once again!" escaped my lips, and at the same moment I heard Billy say: "Look, there over the birch, it is hard to believe!" I was very excited when I saw, from the corner of my eye, that Billy looked at his watch; it was precisely 18:46 hours. The heads of Natan, Louis and Freddy spun around their necks, and already a moment later my son rushed towards the house to fetch the binoculars. The beamship was exactly vertically above our heads, as Freddy's camera clicked diligently. Billy told him that he should make sure that he also had the top of the flagpole in the image, for a size comparison. At left, the totally out-of-focus top of the flag pole. To its right, the beamship, whose disk shape unfortunately does not show up due to either its brightness or improper focus. A minute later Nathan came rushing around the corner of the carriage house, and now Billy and he observed the ship alternately with the binoculars, while we followed its path with the naked eye. This second ship was "only" about 6-7000 meters above sea level and was therefore definitely easier to see than the first object. Shiny like the first object, it reflected the light of the below-horizon sun. Just as with the first object, this ship was clearly recognizable as a disk -- and it was also moving in a westerly direction. Again, a plane flew from south to north across the sky, and we could well compare the size, shape and speed of the two objects. While the aircraft quickly jet-propelled itself across the sky, the ship moved extremely slowly along its way. After about three minutes, it tipped its angle to about 45 degrees to the left, and was then clearly recognizable as an ellipse, before it increased the angle to 90 degrees and then appeared almost cigar-shaped. With the changing of its tilt angle, it also changed its direction of flight to a south-westerly direction. The whole maneuver went with great slowness, for it flew no faster than about 40-50 km per hour. After it had completed this change of direction in a wide arc, it moved back to its previous horizontal orientation and again appeared as a disk- shaped object. We could also observe this second ship on its slow demonstrative flight until it almost merged with the bright shimmering western sky. And just before it was so far away that we could no longer see it, it disappeared from the sky simply without a trace, from one fraction of a second to the other. Now we naturally puzzled greatly over this topic of conversation for the next few days, for two daytime sightings within only a quarter of an hour had not occurred until then. We saw the second sighting actually only 15 minutes after the first, and it lasted barely a minute less long, namely from 18:46 to 18:52. Who may it probably have been? Billy was of the opinion that it had been two different ships, while I tended more to think it could have been the same ship both times. On one thing, however, we were all but certain: It could only have been our friends -- it was of course also possible that one could have been a foreign object. We waited outdoors for about another 15 minutes observing the sky in all directions in the "modest" hope of seeing something once again, but unfortunately all for nought. So I went and "finished" my ironing, while Billy and Freddy still talked outside. Somehow, I was completely "out of it," because my last daytime sighting had been 17 years ago, and at that time I only briefly got to see Quetzal's ship at the very end of the sighting. Soon, we would but again experience a surprise, because hardly had I hung up the first blouse on the coat-hanger when I heard Billy and Freddy striding urgently past my door. Quickly, I slid into my slippers and followed them a few steps while I asked whether they had seen something once again. Billy called back that he had seen a figure in a gray garment on the promenade, and that they were now keeping a lookout for whomever it involved. In my worn sandals I could not catch up with the two men, for they were too fast. I stayed a few minutes out there and kept the road in sight, before I then gave up, because I saw no one and could hear nothing more, which is why I assumed that the walker we had heard had already disappeared in the direction of Schmidrüti. Had he made a turn on his way, he would have come into my field of vision. Shortly after I had given up, Billy returned and told me that he saw a figure in a gray garment on the promenade during his conversation with Freddy. Because the grey of the wearing apparel was known to him, he wanted to know who was on the road towards Schmidrüti, which is why he immediately started towards the biotope [an ecologically natural pond-like area; see map, No.2]. Freddy followed him. He had heard steps on the way, but not seen anything, because he had turned back the other way on the road. Although Billy and Freddy had hurried outside, they could find no one. Also, I had heard the steps before the two men had zoomed past my open door, but while I stood outside and looked out at the road, there was nothing to see or hear -- the figure had just suddenly disappeared without a trace. Freddy, who came back to the promenade as a security precaution, found only a ruptured balloon with an attached map -- there was nothing and no one to find. Only on Friday evening, September 17th, did the puzzle solve itself, when Billy asked Florena whether she knew something about the events of the previous Sunday. She told him that the first beamship had been her own and that Tauron was with her. She was flying at an altitude of 9500 meters with a speed of 40 kilometers per hour over the Center. In the second ship, which we observed 15 minutes later, were Zafenatpaneach and Samjang, and they flew at an altitude of 7500 meters and at the same speed over the Center as Florena. The aircraft we had seen during the sighting were located at an altitude of between 4500 and 6000 meters. The mysterious walker, who simply disappeared without a trace, was Samjang, who was for the first time at the Center and wanted a closer look at the surrounding area. He had noticed that he became observed, and because he didn't know Freddy at all, he was a bit apprehensive, so he made sure that he could no longer be seen. Samjang's name means "lucky," and professionally he's engaged in subatomic vacuum technology, subatomic crystal physics and crystal technics. In appearance he belongs to the people of Taljdas, because he is likewise yellow skinned -- and the sound of his name reminds me somehow of the names of peoples who are based in the far East. In a certain sense I felt richly rewarded and childishly joyful, that it had been granted to me to be the first to see the second object. Also I was happy as well for Nathan and for all the others who had been present at the two sightings. It especially warmed my heart that Louis was included, because it was his first daytime sighting of this kind. For me, some of the magic of old times had returned with these events -- from the late 70s and early 80's, when we at night often "beat ourselves around the ears," to see something, as our knowledge and the mounting evidence for the presence of our distant and yet-so-close friends welded us together and helped us to accept the assaults and withstand the heavy storms, despite all the differences of our tasks. Perhaps some of this magic will return in the future -- in any case I am happy for all those who are lucky enough to be in on a sighting. Bernadette Brand Meier at the fenced-in crop-circle site on his property, mid-May 1980. From Ref. 4. My First UFO-or Beamship Sighting Liberal Translation of Write-up by P. Chenaux in FIGU Bulletin #23 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., July 1999) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 In the late evening of May 28th, 1999, a few people and I sat chatting on current events at the large table in the kitchen of the Semjase Silver Star Center. The clock hand had just barely slipped to 22:40 when Billy, with various work yet to attend to, took leave of us and left the kitchen, only to reappear shortly and tell us that we should immediately come outside into the open, because Silvano Lehmann and he had discovered something in the night sky. Billy's summons led us all, namely Freddy Kropf, Natan Brand, Andreas Schubiger and myself, Patric Chenaux, to rush outside immediately. Outdoors, Silvano and Billy with outstretched hands up to the moonlit sky pointed to where we all immediately saw, just above the Center in the distance, a big, whitish-yellow, radiant light, roughly corresponding in size to Venus in the late evening sky when it is bright and clearly shines, as was the case at this time with Mercury, which still stood beaming in the western night sky.†† It was a warm, calm and quiet night, and the last phase of the waxing Moon sent out its bright light over the whole landscape, although for us it was seen just through the tree leaves to the right of the standing trees. So we six stood on the house square [see map, south side of house, No. 9], looking up at the whitish-yellow bright flying object, which moved slowly and totally silently in its slightly wavy trajectory from west to east at a height of only about 4000 to 5000 meters and speed of approximately 50-60 km/hr, until it ultimately disappeared from our eyes over the eastern horizon behind the high trees of the forest, which occurred after about two minutes of observation time. Spurred on by this impressive experience, our curiosity was naturally and quite properly fomented, causing us to carefully search the heavens for flying objects. Compared with aircraft, whose lights are well recognizable in the starry night sky, and whose engines or jets are exceptionally easy to hear in the quiet night, we saw in less than ten minutes eight faint luminous flying objects, which apparently must have been unmanned extraterrestrial telemeter discs. It is estimated that these luminous objects flew in the 20- to 40-kilometer height range, and to be sure with non- flashing lights and in utter silence. Sometimes their trajectories were wavy or zigzag-shaped, and certainly they were not earthly aircraft or satellites. The altitude of the light objects was too enormous for the former and too low for the latter, because as we all know satellites must have a minimum altitude of 140 km. Two of the observed objects, which appeared roughly the size of tennisballs, moved singly during our ten-minute observation period from north to south, two more from west to east, and two others from south to north. The last two we saw that night flew in exactly parallel flight and constant speed from northwest to southeast. From our point of view, the estimated distance between those two flying objects we reckoned as about 10 meters, which, when converted to the altitude of the objects, certainly had to have been several thousand meters. After this last observation it was fairly quiet in the brilliant night sky, therefore we only saw the glittering stars and the bright appearing moon. So, impressed by the experience, we went back into the house. Already the next day, Billy had opportunity to ask Florena, one of his contacts from the Pleiades/Plejaren, then what it could have been -- the large whitish-yellow glowing object observed by us. The explanation was that this had been one of the Pleiadian-Plejaren beamships on a special flight, which had been flown by Florena's deputy Tauron over the Semjase Silver Star Center. This was at exactly 22:43 hrs, at an altitude of 4060 meters and with a speed of 52 km/hr. The direction of flight was from the west to the east or -- in map terms -- from Zürich to St. Gallen. ††Actually, Venus was still visible, Mercury was well below the horizon. Sighting Report Liberal Translation of Write-up by P. Chenaux in FIGU Bulletin #53 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Sept. 2005) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 Once again, it was time! My calendar on the kitchen wall told me that the 14th of May, 2005 had dawned, and what this meant to me was clear: the annual general assembly of the FIGU Passive Group was on the plan for this day. It was a very beautiful and successful day, because the passive members were numerous and the assembly proceeded like clockwork without major problems and breakdowns, so that at the end all were truly happy and satisfied when it drew to a close. As every year, the passive members were then invited by the core group in the evening to sausage, bread, tea, coffee and a cozy gathering at the central area, and although the weather was not the best and it rained at times, the mood was nevertheless quite cheerful and exuberant. Like everything in life, this beautiful evening also went slowly to its end -- by 22: 00, and the dear people at the Center in Hinterschmidrüti bid their farewells to each other. Those who didn't live at the Center and who weren't staying overnight on the Center grounds, walked slowly but surely on their way home, thus the peacefulness of night gradually made its entrance into Hinterschmidrüti. It was some time now since it rained, and the clouds moved gently and without haste towards the east, whereupon the starry sky with a crescent Moon came into view on the western horizon. There were now only a few people on the site, while we, i.e. the brothers Stephan and Anton Hahnekamp of Austria, Jan Bayer from the Czech Republic, Michel Uyttebroek from Canada, Claes Elmberg from New Zealand and yours truly were still absorbed in a very amusing round of talks behind the main building [see map, just N. of No. 9]. It was just 23:11 when Claes interrupted our gay conversation and with a quiet voice alerted us to a very brightly radiating traveling star in the night sky. We tilted our heads back onto our necks and looked carefully at the whitish-yellow appearing light, which peacefully, silently, and amazingly glided deep from the west over the Center towards the east. The light object was approximately twice as bright as Venus when Venus is bright and clear in the late evening sky. I was immediately aware that this silently appearing light could only be a beamship, which at an estimated altitude of approx. 2000 to 3000 metres and a speed of about 40 km per hour, completely silently moved in its path above the Center. Anton immediately ran into the kitchen to excitedly tell of our sighting to Billy, who immediately troubled himself to come outside and partake in the night spectacle. The event seemingly did not phase Billy, who noted immediately that it actually involved a beamship, but an unmanned one. He commented rather dryly with the following words: "This is a telemeter disk, which you will soon see -- so now we switch off its lights!" And indeed, as the ship found itself located at this moment just above the Center, its light slowly expired, just so, as if it wanted to try to prevent this in some way, while it nevertheless still calmly flew on its trajectory and the light then quickly went out and therefore could no longer be seen. The whole operation reminded me of a lamp whose light is turned off using a dimmer, leaving a kind of brief afterglow with a slightly reddish colour. The entire performance was very impressive for us anyway, because rarely does one see a telemeter disk that so deeply glides over the firmament and with its lighting even expiring. For Billy in any case, it was just not very exciting, because after doing his "chore" he went immediately back into the kitchen -- quiet and determined, as if nothing had happened. We had no choice, impressed by the experience, but to search the night sky for still other objects; we did find another beamship some minutes later for the last time that night, probably a telemeter disk, high up in the vault of heaven, at an estimated altitude of about 30 to 40 km, gliding from the south slowly to the north between the bright stars, receiving our greetings of love and peace. Circuitous Delivery of Rashid's Letter to Meier The two packets of TJ translations mailed by Rashid did not reach Eduard Meier directly, as Rashid did not know Meier's Swiss address, then in the town of Hinwil. Instead, Meier had much earlier informed Rashid of the address of his parents in Switzerland; the address that Rashid used on one packet of the TJ translations was: Hinterburg- Neuthal-Bäretswil, and on the other: Rüggental-Neuthal-Bäretswil, according to Meier's recollection. Although Meier's parents were by 1974 no longer living in that area, the postal office at Neuthal, which is only a few miles from Bäretswil and from Hinwil, was able to locate Eduard Meier's address at Hinwil and forward the packets to him. From Meier's 264th Contact Report (see also Contact 39 at bottom) Thursday, May 14, 1998, 0:55 a.m. Ptaah: Do not hesitate to tell me what you have to say. Billy: OK, fine: Once again something is preoccupying me that I cannot understand. It is linked with conspiracies and defamations which, by and large, don't bother me but they do raise several questions. You are familiar with that schemer and defamer Korff and this Luc Buergin. Together they recently taped an interview with my dear ex-wife which they intend to disseminate worldwide as a videotape in July, apparently with an explanation or "exposé" regarding the two photos of Asket and Nera that I, allegedly, photographed from a television unit, and which are said not to be Asket and Nera but two American Asket/Nera look-alikes. You mentioned them yourself in Contact 39 when you stated that two young women live in America who work in the same business, and are spitting images of Asket and Nera. Ptaah: The two photographs do show the two look-alikes from America. Billy: How do you mean that?? I personally took the pictures of Asket and Nera. Ptaah: This is a fact. However, the problem is that you never received the original photographs, which would have been printed from your original negatives. Billy: I don't understand? Ptaah: Are you really unable to remember the incident? Billy: What am I supposed to remember? Ptaah: Quetzal's and my visit on February 3, 1985, when we explained to you a few of the connections as they pertained to the photographs you just mentioned. Billy: I have no recollection of this. What happened at that time? Ptaah: We revealed to you then that you had received fraudulent pictures which depict neither Asket nor Nera. Billy: Now I don't understand anything anymore. Ptaah: Oh, now I see. You really have forgotten everything, and with certainty this is linked to your life-threatening condition at the time, including your partial amnesia. That is why you are unable to remember many of these things. Billy: Please do not keep me in suspense now. Ptaah: At the time we did not wish to deal with these matters on a public level. Billy: But I do feel that this issue must be addressed if I hold fraudulent Asket/Nera photographs, which I have been selling with such a caption until now. If this is actually the case, they're really going to go after me ferociously. Ptaah: Well, it isn’t really your fault. Blame must be directed toward your photographer. He allowed himself to be forced into such a fraudulent scheme by a group of "Men in Black," and then he cheated you with the resulting photographs. Billy: I am familiar with that riffraff. Several of them pursued my daughter Gilgamesha once when she was coming home from school. One of them chased her with a knife in his hand. When they couldn't catch her, the cowardly bums escaped in a large, black limo. Ptaah: I am familiar with the story. But hear this then: It seems that I must again relate all the information to you now, and this time in a way that brings it before the public, providing you wish to record this conversation for future use? Billy: For sure. Ptaah: All right then: From the beginning of the contacts with us you never allowed yourself to be intimidated by any of the schemes of the "Black Men," regardless of how despicable, dangerous, indeed, lifethreatening they were. Since you simply laughed at their assassination attempts and always carried a weapon---with the appropriate gun license, I must add---the "Black Men", instead, resorted to making you look preposterous and highly questionable before the world. Because they were unable to get close enough to you, they aggressively forced people who worked with you, such as photographer S., to discredit you in a future, long-term basis. They coerced S. into forging the photographs you had taken with our permission. In other words, they made him completely forge or adulterate your pictures. Several times during your early contact period with us, your own films, which you had photographer S. develop and make prints of, were substituted with totally different, adulterated films. Therefore, from the very beginning you received many counterfeit negatives and photographs or adulterated pictures. This is also what occurred with the film on which you recorded the images of Asket and Nera, and which you allegedly did receive back after several months only. But in reality what you received was, in fact, a product of the "Black Men" who had discovered and photographed Asket's and Nera's doubles in America. These pictures were then processed and given to you by S. You, of course, believed they were the originals, but they were forgeries and deceptively similar to your own, authentic photographs. For this reason you did not realize you had been defrauded, and neither did we. In fact, we were unaware of this deceit until the autumn of 1984, when we brought your photos to Asket because she, too, wanted to have them. Of course, she noticed the deception immediately, and because of this, we began investigating the matter and discovered that the "Black Men" were behind the entire scheme and it was they who had forced the photographer into their services. Upon their mandate, S. produced the forged photographs and handed them to you as though they were originals---whereupon you always assumed they were the actual photographs you had taken yourself. This was the case also with the pictures of Asket and Nera. With regard to these particular photos, we discovered that S. immediately submitted the film, which you had just handed in to him for processing, to the "Black Men," respectively "Men in Black," as people in your ufological circles call them. Within a few days they found and repeatedly photographed the Asket/Nera look-alikes, and this is how the two pictures came into being with which you are familiar and which were passed on to you. The Gizeh Intelligences play somewhat of a role in this matter too, as you are well aware, although we were unable to clarify their exact association within this plot. Clearly, however, they negatively influenced a vast number of terrestrials through their telepathic impulses, in an effort to harm, defame and even assassinate you, which they attempted several times---fortunately without success. Everything was being done to make you and your mission appear preposterous, specifically by accusing you of producing photographic forgeries. The "Men in Black" wield their impact even today, and so do the decade-old influences of the negative telepathic impulse machinations against you and your mission, which shall be destroyed. The impulses by these Gizeh Intelligences presumably affect all those people who are working against you and the mission with their schemes, defamations, and other negative machinations, although these individuals never realize they are being influenced by these impulses. Billy: What am I going to do now with the photos? Under these circumstances I can no longer use or sell them. I really feel like a crook now after claiming they were photos of Asket and Nera. Ptaah: You are not guilty in this matter. But you could simply continue selling them with a new caption explaining that the two ladies are "American look-alikes of Asket and Nera." Billy: This scheme involving the Asket and Nera photos dates back to 1975 or so, a very long time ago. And yet, the consequences are only appearing now? That's what I call a long-term calculation. This is astounding. The situation actually warrants my respect. But why didn't we record this as part of a contact report? Then we could have openly clarified this matter much sooner. Ptaah: Unfortunately, it could no longer be handled on your end. After your last contact with Quetzal on October 31, 1984, and after you had finished your OM book, your health was in such an appalling state that for several years you were closer to death than to life. For this reason you were incapable then of jotting down the contact conversations. By November 17, 1989, your health and strength had finally improved to the point where you were able to record our conversations again in writing. Billy: How is it possible that I forgot all of this . . . Ptaah: You know yourself how many things and facts you had to relearn and how many other things you were unable to relearn at all. Furthermore, your memory had been organically damaged, and this is the reason why it cannot be as active as it was previously. Just remember the power and capabilities your consciousness possessed when it allowed you to accomplish those many astonishing feats. Billy: It is unfortunate, but that's the way it is, I know . . . Billy: But now I just remembered another question regarding the "Men in Black" and their machinations with the look-alike photos and the photographer: How could the "Men in Black" find the two American women so easily and quickly, and then photograph them in the right way? Ptaah: These "Men in Black," as they are called because of the black clothing they constantly seem to wear, have always had access to unfathomable resources---or what normal people or citizens, rather, would consider them to be. It was a simple task for them to locate the two young artists. Once these extremely unscrupulous men set their mind to something, nothing remains hidden from them. The photos of these look-alikes, of whom I actually spoke during the 39th contact on December 3, 1975, were not taken in the presence of the two young women. Instead, their images were copied from movie footage to which the "Men in Black" had gained access. I believe this genre of film is called a "revue." In any case, individual photographs were copied from it and, together with photographer S., they selected those which most closely resembled your own photos of Asket and Nera. This is how they were able to deceive you. The purpose of the entire matter was to create pictures of specific situations identical to those you had taken of Asket and Nera. The objective was for you to normally, and unsuspectingly, disseminate and sell these counterfeit, or rather forged, photographs of the two look-alikes to interested parties, believing them to be original pictures of Asket and Nera. This scenario was intended to make you look deceitful one day because, so they calculated, sooner or later one of your adversaries would examine these photographs and get to the bottom of the matter---with the result that the forged Asket/Nera pictures in the so-called review film would be recognized as the photos you were holding of those look-alikes. This, then, was meant to provide the evidence for exposing you as a purported deceiver and make you and your story look preposterous and, subsequently, destroy your mission. All of this was thoroughly pre-programmed in 1975 by the "Men in Black." They concluded that the appropriate photo sequences would be found in the near future---which appears to have transpired now---and the photos would be fully exploited by your enemies soon afterwards. As far as we are concerned, there is no doubt that your and your mission's enemies are purely terrestrial beings under the influence of the long-term and still-active Gizeh impulses. Billy: Korff and Buergin too? Ptaah: Without any doubt. Billy: Now that you have brought up so much about the "Men in Black," I have another question: Quetzal told me once that these men are also responsible for an assassination attempt on my life. Which attempt was that? Ptaah: There was not only one attempt. Truthfully, eleven of the fourteen assassination attempts can be traced back to the "Men in Black." Billy: So, you are saying that on February 3, 1985, you and Quetzal explained all of this to me about the so-called Asket/Nera photos, which actually depict the American doubles you had mentioned in the 39th contact? Well, unfortunately, I simply can't recall any of this, I have really forgotten it completely. Now I want to ask you why you have not reminded me of these facts until now? If I had consciously absorbed this information, I would have removed the pictures from circulation and published the appropriate details in our quarterly publication, the Wassermannzeit. Ptaah: For all these years we were not consciously aware that you had forgotten our explanations regarding these matters, otherwise we would have, of course, pointed them out to you at the appropriate time. An excerpt from Contact 39 of 3 Dec. 1975 [Note: From Stevens, Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 2 (1990). The sentences from each Plejaren during each contact are numbered consecutively. A day or so after each contact, Meier transcribes it word for word while in a kind of thought-transmision trance in front of his typewriter. A movie clip showing the very rapid typing with his one hand while in this trance is presented in the Ref. 6 DVD.] Ptaah- 218/In respect to the narrow exposures of Jupiter, you should be troubled to hide these pictures very carefully, because your Earth scientists could perhaps reach cognitions from them, being not good for them. 219/As well respecting the pictures of me, I have to ask you not to diffuse them, and to offer them only to your group, without exception. 220/You should not produce pictures from them, and limit the matter only to the dias [diapositives], which should remain in your own possession. 221/Originally this was not provided, but now the possibility exists that I have more time to move on the Earth, thus one could recognize me, which is not allowed. 222/It has already been a great exception that you are allowed to get photographs of Asket and Nera, because besides this, we have found female Earth beings who look strikingly similar to them, and who, interestingly, are also cooperating together. Meier- Dear, that's a pity. But the women, the dopplegangers of Asket and Nera, where are they? Ptaah- 223/In the land of America. Meier- Can you perhaps give me their address, and tell more details about them? Ptaah- 224/I don't want to, for certain reasons. Meier- You always are so secretive. Ptaah- 225/In certain matters, this has to be so. On the Accumulation of Individual Probabilities by J. W. Deardorff, 2003 A heuristic approach. A simple formula allows one to provide an overall probability, P, that something is true or false -- hoax or no hoax -- if these are the only two possible outcomes, given that a collection of mutually exclusive pieces of evidence e(i) exist that bear upon the problem, each of which by itself lends an indication or judgment indicative of either hoax or no hoax. We may more correctly think of these pieces of evidence as the judgments that they invite. A probability p(i), which lies between zero and one, is then assigned as to the likelihood that each judgment is correct. If any one piece of evidence is considered so convincing one way or the other that its associated p value is assigned p = 0 or 1, then the matter is considered settled then and there. Hence, in any practical application, neither limiting extreme, 0 or 1, enters into the problem. In the Matthew- TJ verse comparisons of this website, a p value is expressed at the end of each set of verse comparisons in terms of pHoax, for which a value close to zero will suggest a small probability that the TJ verse/passage in question could have been generated by a hoaxer. A value of 0.5 indicates that one cannot decide which direction the dependency goes for that particular verse comparison. A verse comparison assigned a value greater than 0.5 indicates that, if no other information were available, a literary hoax would seem more likely than that the writer of Matthew made use of the TJ. I am indebted to Bill McKie, Earth Science Division at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, for my first exposure to the formula and its derivation, as follows: M1 P = -------- M1 + M2 where M1 = p(1) * p(2) * ... * p(n) and M2 = [1-p(1)] * [1-p(2)] * ... * [1-p(n)], the asterisk (*) denotes multiplication, and there are n values of p involved. To see how this works, consider the collection of three different pieces of evidence for which pHoax(1) = 0.1, pHoax(2) = 0.2 and pHoax(3) = 0.4. We suppose that these three pieces of evidence tell all that is known about the matter. Each piece of evidence is thought of as consisting of sub-units of evidence either favoring or not favoring the hoax hypothesis, in proportion to the estimated probability. These three cases then are represented by three strings of possible H and N outcomes, where H stands for hoax and N stands for No- hoax, as follows: H N N N N N N N N N H H N N N N N N N N H H H H N N N N N N The number of combinations of all H's among the three pieces of evidence is 8 (i.e., 1*2*4). That is, the H in the first string can be combined in two ways with the two H's in the 2nd string, and each of those resultant two ways can be combined in four ways with the H's of the third string. The number of combinations of all N's are similarly seen to be 9*8*6 = 432. All other possible combinations involve both H and N together, but these are inadmissible in a problem for which the solution is a priori known to be either Yes or No, or either a Hoax or No-hoax. They are incompatible, or non-realizable, and must be discarded. Thus the overall probability that these three pieces of evidence supply for the hoax hypothesis is: P = 8/(8 + 432) = 0.018 As a check, the preceding formula gives the same result: P = 0.1*0.2*0.4 / (0.1*0.2*0.4 + 0.9*0.8*0.6) = 0.018. It is seen that if the probabilities are each below 0.5, their resultant probability becomes lowered below that of the lowest individual probability existent. This agrees with our intuition that the more evidence the better. In particular, if there are only two p(i) involved, and should each be estimated as 0.293, then their accumulated probability is just one half of this. It can also be checked that the individual probabilities may be accumulated in this manner into a smaller number of subgroups, and then the subgroups accumulated similarly, to arrive at the same answer. If one or more values of p = 0.5 are part of the collection of individual probabilities, it can be seen that they do not affect P, as they factor out from both numerator and denominator of the formula. Values of p > 0.5 can be included in the formula right along with values of p < 0.5. It seems evident that for general validity of this approach, all pieces of evidence that bear upon the yes-no problem at hand must be included in the analysis, each with its best, unbiased estimate of probability, p. A Bayesian Statistics approach. This problem has been worked out by Peter Sturrock in his article "Applied scientific inference" in J. Sci. Exploration 8, No. 4, pp. 491-508 (1994), using Bayesian statistics as follows, except where I have made a few clarifications applicable to the plagiarism problem at hand. Let H be the hypothesis under consideration, let I be a piece of information that bears on the hypothesis, and let Z be "baseline" information, which may or may not be present or recognized at the time as influencing one's judgments about the hypothesis and information. With these parameters (but temporarily omitting Z), Bayes theorem is P(H | I) = P(I | H)*P(H) / P(I) where P(H | I) is the probability that the hypothesis H is true given the interpretion of the information, I, P(I | H) is the probability that the interpretaion of the information is correct upon assuming that H is true, the asterisk denotes multiplication, P(H) is the prior probability that H is true-the probability that would be assigned if no explicit information about H is available at all, and P(I) is the probability that would be assigned to the correctness of the interpretion of the information if there were no assumptions made about any hypothesis. However, to denote the role of the baseline information, Z, Sturrock expresses Bayes theorem as: P(H | IZ) = P(I | HZ)*P(HZ) / P(IZ) (Eqn. 2.4) The equation numbers here follow those of Sturrock. If there were no hidden assumption or subconscious baseline information (only an open mind), there would only be complete ignorance about the truth of the hypothesis and the correctness of the interpretation of the information, before any of that information is examined. In that case, P(H | Z) = 0.5 = P(H' | Z) (2.4a) where H' stands for the contradiction to H, i.e., P(H') = 1-P(H). Thus, if H is the hypothesis that the Gospel of Matthew was based upon the Talmud of Jmmanuel, then H' is the hypothesis that the TJ is a hoax based upon Matthew (assuming no other possibilities exist). We may rewrite (2.4) with that complementary hypothesis in mind: P(H'| IZ) = P(I | H'Z)*P(H'Z) / P(IZ) (2.4b) Upon dividing (2.4) by (2.4b), and noting that P(IZ) cancels out, we have P(H | IZ) / P(H'| IZ) = P(I | HZ) / P(I | H'Z) * P(H | Z) / P(H'| Z) (2.5) The three ratios in (2.5) are called "odds," which is just how odds are defined in terms of probabilities. They can take on values anywhere between near-zero and near-infinity. Thus, the ratio on the left of (2.5) is the odds on H, based upon the information I and Z. It is the post odds, which we wish to determine after all the evidence, not just one piece of it, is taken into account. The last ratio on the right side of (2.5) is the prior odds. Thus, the post odds on H equals the prior odds times the ratio of the likelihoods of correctness of I based upon H and H'. Sturrock next defines the base-10 logarithm of the odds on H, using the symbol L, as L(H | Z) = log10[P(H | Z) / P(H' | Z)] (2.6) Then (2.5) may be written L(H |IZ) = L(H | Z) + L(I | HZ) (2.7) The important final step is to realize that the information I might consist of several, or even hundreds, of individual pieces of information each with its own interpretation-n of them. These interpretations of the information may be designated I1, I2,...In. These would add in just as the last term on the right of (2.7) adds to its preceding term: L(H | I1,I2...InZ) = L(H | Z) + L(I1 | HZ) + L(I2 | HZ) + ... + L(In | HZ) (2.9) This is the same formula as derived heuristically above, except being expressed in odds instead of probabilities, and including the "baseline information" term, also known as the "prior probability." The latter term vanishes, due to (2.4a), if all the information bearing upon H has been taken explicitly into account through the P(Ii | HZ) terms. The n individual values of I need to be conditionally independent of each other, or mutually exclusive. They of course are not totally independent, since they all bear upon the same hypothesis. (In the accumulation of probabilities from the Matthew-TJ verse comparisons, those verse comparisons that are not mutually exclusive from others already taken into account are not assigned any probability, or are lumped in with one or more adjacent verses for which a single probability for the whole unit is assigned.) The fact that the log-odds are additive accounts for the finding that the information bearing on H can be taken in whatever order one wishes, and accumulated into sub-groups, if desired, before those subgroups are accumulated to give the final odds. In the problem of the direction of literary dependence addressed in this website, the sum of the probability that a piece of evidence is interpreted as pointing towards TJ genuineness, and the probability that it indicates a TJ hoax based upon Matthew, equals unity: P(Ii | HZ) + P(Ii | H'Z) = 1. Although this method provides a rational, mathematical procedure for accumulating the individual probabilities or odds, the outcome of the whole analysis will still depend entirely upon what values are assigned to the individual probabilities, P(Ii | HZ), and these in turn will depend largely upon what rules of evidence are utilized. These rules of evidence comprise some or most of the "baseline" information, Z, that the analyst might take for granted. An independently derived Bayesian formula. A Bayesian derivation of the formula was worked out by Prof. Stephen Rathbun, Dept. of Statistics, Pennsylvania State University, and then clarified in its presentation of prior probabilities by Bill McKie. Click here for the pdf version. Again, it yields the same answer/formula as the heuristic approach above. The prior probability, if one considers it to enter into the analysis, is seen to act exactly like one or more pieces of additional evidence that may have been overlooked at first. CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITINGS, AND WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT THE DATING OF THE GOSPELS by J. W. Deardorff, 2011 With time progressing downwards, below is a timeline on the dating of early Christian writings that: (a) show no definite awareness of any of the Gospels, in particular of Matthew; or (b) show an awareness of Matthew, as by quoting from it, but do not mention the name of it or any other gospel; or (c) show definite awareness of both Matthean text and its attributed name. Rough estimates of the varying error bars are supplied. The primary reference used is the comprehensive study by Arthur J. Bellinzoni, “The Gospel of Matthew in the Second Century,” The Second Century (Journal), Winter, 1992, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 197-258. We start with Paul, and find no further Christian writings until about 95 CE. Watch for (a) changing to (b), and (b) changing to (c). Shortly before (a) changes to (b) is logically when the first Gospel appeared. Shortly after (b) changes to (c) denotes the time period when it became feasible to assert, with theological conviction, that the Gospels were written by the names attributed to them.. 55+/- 5 (a) Paul’s Epistles 95+/- 5 (a) 1 Clement (contains some oral tradition and a couple of later insertions from Matthew) 114+/- 3 (a) Ignatius (contains oral tradition and a later insertion from Matthew; also, Matthew may contain several quotes from Ignatius) 117+/-17 (a?b?) Epistle of Barnabas 125+/-25 (a) Letter from Mathetes to Diognetus 125+/- 5 (b) Aristides 130+/- 5 (b,c*) Papias: as relayed mainly by Eusebius, by which time it had long been heretical to believe that a Gospel was written by anyone other than the name attached to it. 130+/-10 (b) Gospel of Peter 130+/-30 (b) Didache 130+/-30 (b) Gospel of Thomas 135+/- 3 (b) Polycarp (Letter to Philippians) 140+/-10 (a?b?) The Shepherd of Hermas 140+/-10 (b) Gospel of the Nazoreans 143+/- 3 (b) Marcion (Antitheses) 145+/- 5 (b) Epistle of the Apostles 150+/-10 (b) 2 Clement 150+/-25 (b) Gospel of the Ebionites 150+/-20 (b) Gospel of Truth, Valentinus? 155+/- 5 (b) Justin 163+/-12 (b) Ptolemy (Letter to Flora) 170+/- 2 (b) Tatian (Diatesseron) 170+/-20 (b) Protevangelium of James 172+/- 2 (c) Apollinaris of Hierapolis 177+/- 1 (b) Athenagoras of Athens (Plea on Behalf of Christians) 182+/- 2 (b) Theophilus of Antioch 183+/- 5 (c) Irenaeus 185+/-15 (c) Muratorian Canon Special discussion is needed on the entries of 1 Clement, Ignatius, and Papias. In my opinion there were two later insertions into 1 Clement: at 13:2 and 46:8. These quote quite closely from Matthew while in all other places the similarities between the two are not close enough to be deemed due to anything but oral tradition. Bellinzoni references Koester and Hagner to conclude that the writer of 1 Clement did not use any of the synoptic gospels. Regarding Ignatius, it is at Smyrn. 1:1 // Mt 3:15 that the quotation from Matthew seems too close to be ascribable to oral tradition, and looks like a later addition (Bellinzoni suggested that it may represent “an Antiochian” revision - penned in Antioch where Ignatius had served as bishop). Furthermore, the late dating of the Gospels indicated here allows that the writer of Matthew had borrowed some from Ignatius's epistles; we infer that Mt 3.15 was later inserted into Smyrm. 1.1. In addressing Papias, I would first draw attention to the lack of any other mention of a Gospel by name until about 172 CE (by Apollinaris of Hierapolis), some 40 or 45 years after writings appeared that quoted from, or were aware of, the Gospel of Matthew. Nearly two generations! How could this happen, if circa 130 CE Papias had written and spoken of Matthew and Mark as being the authors of the respective writings attributed to them? And if Papias had been very influential, as stated by Eusebius? I have not come across any NT scholars who’ve addressed this question. The most obvious solution, however, is that in his writings Papias had included statements to the effect that the Gospels had not been written by the names ascribed to them. For several decades subsequent writers would already know this, and/or would believe Papias. Yet they would recognize great value in the Gospels and would wish to quote from them. So they utilized the Gospels but omitted their attributed names. However, by the time of Irenaeus, or the changeover from (b) to (c) above, it could be assumed that the Gospels first appeared so many decades earlier that it could be stated as Christian dogma that their authors had indeed been their namesakes of the first century. By this reasoning, Eusebius circa 300 CE was forced to extract sparingly and carefully from Papias’s voluminous writings, and edit them as heavily as necessary to preserve third century theological commitment. It’s well known that Eusebius considered Papias to be a man of little intelligence, and apparently quoted from him that “things from books did not benefit me as much as the sayings of a living & abiding voice” (Hist. Eccles. 3.39.4). Both considerations together are consistent with the present hypothesis of Papias having been a “whistle blower” against those who might claim the Gospels were written by their namesakes. Whistle-blowers are often downgraded by those who maintain a cover-up of the truth. In the above chronology, the changeover from (a) to (b) occurs around 120 CE. This strongly indicates that the first Gospel appeared around that time. And from the Apology of Aristides one infers it was Matthew. Although this date may seem late, it is the obvious conclusion, especially in view of the fact that, since the late 2nd century, theological commitment has continually tugged NT scholars towards belief in the earliest conceivable date for the first appearance of the Gospels. A 120 date is consistent with the time expected of it judging from Eduard Meier’s “Epilogue and Explanation” section of the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ). It was circa 115 CE before the TJ (and a transcription of it) were delivered from the Kashmir area to the Mideast, after which it formed the basis for the first Gospel. But that is another story. Refutation of Royce J. Myers's Claims Against the Meier UFO- Contactee Case The red font below denotes Myers's words as stated in his website as of January, 2008. BILLY MEIER: UFO cult leader, claimed contact with Pleiadian aliens. First, a clarification regarding "cult." Meier is not a leader of a religious cult. Instead, "cult" here has to be defined as "a cohesive group of people devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture or society considers to be outside the mainstream" (from Wikipedia). However, his cohesive support group in Hinterschmidrüti, Switzerland, is but a tiny fraction of the number of persons throughout the world who have looked into the several intensive investigations of Meier's experiences and evidence (as reported in literary and visual media by Wendelle Stevens,1 Lee & Brit Elders,2 Gary Kinder,3 Guido Moosbrugger,4 Michael Hesemann,5 Michael Horn,6 and M. Whelan, M. Juliano & J. Steele7), and found them authentic and incapable of having been hoaxed. If these informed people form a cult, then it's a cult whose membership is spread worldwide, connected through mail, email and word-of-mouth. If Meier is considered to be the head of a personality cult, then his contacting aliens (Plejarens) must share the limelight.1-4,6,8 However, Meier does not go about promoting himself and his alien contactors. Instead he makes available what he has learned to interested persons through writings and occasional interviews. It is necessary to mention much that Royce Myers omits: the physical evidence that Meier's contactors allowed him to gather. This includes Meier's "beam-ship" photos, movie-film segments and video footage, screechingly loud beamship sounds heard by many and recorded on audio tape,1,3,4,6 the metal samples that were analyzed by Vogel,1,3,4,6 the multiple landing-craft traces in meadow grass and elsewhere,1-4,9 and much else.9 These attest to the genuineness of his contacts by Plejarens who told him they hail from a place related to the Pleiades by some sort of space-time dimensional displacement. Of course, the very large number of witnesses to UFO-related events occurring in Meier's life at or near Hinwil and Schmidrüti, Switzerland since 1975, and even before when Meier was in India, also attest to Meier's true status as a UFO contactee.9 They are unique within the field of ufology. Being very real, therefore, Meier's UFO contacts are more than "claimed." Faked UFO photos and films. The multiplicity of solid evidence over many years, as indicated above, speaks very strongly against Meier having faked any of his UFO photos or films. With this in mind, however, it cannot be denied that his alien contactors, who have long observed mankind, frequently added in special effects designed to allow negative skeptics a way out from facing up to truths that would presently be too upsetting for them. This comes under the heading of plausible deniability. A clear example of this was Meier's movie-camera photo contact of 18 March 1975. The Plejaren named Semjase deceptively maneuvered her beamship back and forth in arcs over a conifer tree adjacent to a house several hundred feet away. In viewing the video of the film copy, one can instead imagine that it was a pole-suspended model UFO close to the camera oscillating back and forth over a model tree or very small, young tree, if one ignores the several points of genuineness that have been pointed out.1 This is what plausible deniability is all about - the negative skeptic can ignore all factors that contradict his desired solution as long as he has one factor apparently in his favor. However, in this instance, the chief investigator of the hoax hypothesis for this movie-film segment, Dr. Bruce Maccabee, was aware of at least one factor pointing towards genuineness: the uppermost section of the tree once briefly swayed over, then snapped back, just as the beamship had passed close over its crown. Most important, Maccabee later noticed that one may estimate how far the tree was from the camera if it had been a model or baby tree above which a model UFO was suspended by a 14- or 16-ft string (with that length deduced from the period of the pendulum-like motions). This was because in a couple of the craft's oscillatory motions above the tree, it traveled towards and away from the camera. The distance of any such model tree from the camera could then be calculated, and turned out to be some 50 ft. The impossibility for hoaxers to handle a support pole of such a length and cause an object dangling below it to move smoothly yet suddenly stop perfectly motionless for a 14-second period, is all too apparent to anyone who has tried to simulate such an event, or even to one who has merely wielded a 9ft fly-fishing rod. In the end, Maccabee lets the reader be the judge of authenticity versus hoax. The aliens involved in Meier's contacts also have other means of satisfying the negative skeptic, including the ability to make a tree disappear. This afterwards occurred at the above location in order, apparently, that the deception they offered to the skeptic contain a bit more plausibility. While a negative skeptic has to ignore all the points of realism, a true skeptic can allow that the aliens could be smarter than us and have an advanced strategy of dealing with us, as well as possessing a level of science and technology far ahead of ours. Employed props and stop motion/cut photography to make UFOs disappear and reappear on film. Here Myers would be referring to the Berg-Rumlikon film segment of 14 June 1975 and the Bachtelhörnli- Unterbachtel film segment of 8 March 1976. The latter link points out the several points of realism on that occasion, as well as grave difficulties that any hoaxers would face. Regarding the former occasion, Meier himself has pointed out that the film copy F.I.G.U. received back from the Munich studio that borrowed it appeared to contain several cuts/splices within this segment that had not been there before. It was totally unfair of Myers to omit this other side of the story. Took photos of female claiming it was an alien, photo was actually taken off of a television screen from an episode of the Dean Martin show. The excuse offered when caught red-handed? MIB disinfo, of course! Meier apparently thought no one would figure this out. There is no evidence that Meier took the photo off of a TV. A comparison of the photo Meier took allegedly of "Asket" (alongside her alien friend "Nera") while on a 5-day space trip with his Plejaren contactors, with that of the Dean Martin show look-alike (Tara Leigh), is shown here. Other than the long blond hair parted at the center, they actually don't look very much alike to me. The face of "Asket" has a narrower chin, lack of an indent at the top of the nose between the eyes, and a lower hairline above the forehead. However, 23 years after this space trip Meier was told by his Plejaren contactor, named Ptaah, that his photos from this trip had been manipulated by the person (a Herr Schmid, by then deceased) he had given the negatives to for development at a cheaper price (there were some 700 hundred of them in all from this trip). On most other occasions in 1975-76 he had his film developed at the Bär Photo in Wetzikon.3 During this Contact #264 in 1998 Ptaah informed Meier that MIB (men in black) were also involved in these photo manipulations. Hence, Meier since has disavowed the authenticity of that photo series, without knowing for sure which of its photos could be trusted and which not. An amazing point supporting the truth of this late disclosure by Ptaah is the fact that he mentioned to Meier in Contact #39 in 1975 that Asket and Nera had doubles, or look-alikes, in America. Only 22 years later was the Dean Martin show look-alike first dreamed up by debunkers as being Meier's image of Asket! Photographed magazine pictures of dinosaurs claiming them as proof he traveled back in time. These photos were in the same batch as those Meier no longer trusts as being untampered with. Also has photos showing him with a 'laser gun' [this link obsolete in Jan 2008] - laughable at best and just painful to look at. Meier made use of his 8mm movie camera and tripod during a visit by two of the Plejarens (Menara and Alena)) at Hinterschmidrüti on 6 July 1977, when only Meier was there at his converted-barn residence. They let him look at and even test out a strange looking light-weight ray gun,3,4,6,8(vol.4),9 which he was told was a Plejaren antique. Some of Meier's still snapshots show Alena holding the gun, except that Meier had to agree to crop out all but her arm and shoulder from the frames. It may be mentioned that the gun is not anything to be found in either gun stores or toy shops. After Meier aimed and shot with it a couple times, once at a fruit tree on his property, it left a partially scorched hole clean through the tree's nearly 1-ft diameter trunk, and also left some snapped-off twigs with charred ends along a long line through the underbrush. The hole in the tree was of oval cross-section throughout, not circular. It is understandable that Royce Myers would totally omit any mention of these little details, since they indicate the impossibility of a hoax. Meier has supporters, many whom have cashed in on books, videos, and lectures about Meier's UFO hoax. It's amazing that some idiots still defend this hoax...again, you know who you are. If you want to believe in something badly enough, you'll justify it as reality any way possible - especially when the bottom line dollar is at stake. It's unfortunately a common tactic for a disgruntled skeptic, who can't find logical means of debunking an event or case he opposes, to resort to slander against those who, in supporting the case, use all the known evidence. The book shown in Myers's link above is that of Kal K. Korff (The Billy Meier Story: Spaceships of the Pleiades (1995)). Its contents slandering Meier as a contactee have long been refuted, as has also his disinformation therein about the Talmud of Jmmanuel. Interestingly, Myers has since found that he now must denounce Kal Korff, as have other ufologists after Korff came out with a book attempting to debunk the Roswell crashed UFO evidence. Beware of delusional people trying to use UFOs as a religion or as a way to get into your wallet. SEE: Picture of UFO model used by Meier Myers doesn't discuss this charred image of a model UFO or Meier's interest, back in 1975, in seeing how well a model UFO would look in comparison with his many photos of the real thing. It's only natural, however, that a person who had the opportunity to take many UFO photos, and who was subsequently accused by some of faking them by the use of models, would likely wish to see if photos of a model by his own camera would look at all realistic. Meier never tried to hide the fact that he had had a UFO model made for this purpose, and was also given a few models by well wishers. The topic is well covered in the literature of the Meier-case investigators.1,3,4 The picture shown in the link was, according to Stevens (Ref. 1, Preliminary Report, p. 288), that of "one of the models of the spacecraft photographed by Meier and his friends. These are from the negatives that were inadvertently knocked into the trash basket and carried to the incinerator, where they were found by somebody going through Meier's trash and were [later] produced as evidence of Meier's attempt to dispose of incriminating material." For years Meier kept one of the better beamship models on display in his office. and Short Piece on Meier [link obsolete in May 2008] and the article The Camera Never Lies. The latter link, also not discussed by Myers, is of an article by Peter Brookesmith whose debunking content is based primarily upon unfounded conclusions of William Spaulding of Ground Saucer Watch (GSW), and Kal Korff. Their debunking attempts of the Meier case in the early 1980s were accepted without skepticism by a majority of ufologists then, who had already assumed that all alleged UFO contactees had to be delusional or hoaxers. This is made clear in an article telling some of the history of ufologists' attempts to prevent Gary Kinder's book Light Years from being published. The role of Spaulding, Korff and other ufologists in initiating the debunking of Meier in 1979 and the early 1980s is given here. Also see Meier's "official" media rep Michael Horn's website devoted to championing Meier at the expense of all sanity and the official Billy Meier website. These sites are very worthy of in-depth study. You can also see the whacky photos of a Meier UFO here at this laughable attempt to lend credence to the case. It's painful how anyone could keep a striaght face and promote this silly case. The "wedding-cake" UFOs may look whacky to some, but no one has yet come close to duplicating this design in a model, and no one can imagine how a one-armed man could fabricate such an intricately designed model. The above link gives many reasons why those craft could be no hoax, as does a page in my own website. Those promoting Meier claim to be offering life saving information for the survival of the human race - yep, that's why they charge for DVDs, books, videos, and lectures. Beware of those selling prophets for profit. This alludes to Meier being a prophet, with many of his prophecies having come from the Plejarens. There is much presented and written on the extent and success of these prophecies.4,6,8-9 References 1. Stevens, Wendelle C., UFO Contact from the Pleiades: Preliminary Investigation Report (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1982). _____UFO Contact from the Pleiades: Supplementary Investigation Report (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1989). 2. Elders, Lee; Nilsson-Elders, Brit; and Welch, Thomas, UFO...Contact from the Pleiades, Vol. 1 (Phoenix, AZ: Genesis III Publishing, 1979). Elders, Lee and Brit, UFO...Contact from the Pleiades, Vol. 2 (Phoenix, AZ: Genesis III Publishing, 1983). _____, Beamship: The Movie Footage ((Phoenix, AZ: Genesis III Publishing, 1985); Video. _____, Beamship: The Metal (E.T. Metal Fragments Scientifically Analyzed) (Phoenix, AZ: Genesis III Publishing, 1985); Video. _____, The Meier Chronicles: The True Story of the Swiss Contact Case (Phoenix, AZ: Genesis III Publishing, 1986); Video. Savedove, Larry (Writer & director), Contact: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier (1986); Video. 3. Kinder, Gary, Light Years: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987). 4. Moosbrugger, Guido, ...und sie fliegen doch! (Munich: Verlag Michael Hesemann, 1991). _____And yet... they fly! (Translation) (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark, 2001). _____And Still They Fly! (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark, 2004). 5. Hesemann, Michael, "The Meier Case: UFO Contactee Revealed?" in Magazin 2000plus (Oct. 1998, vol. 10, pp. 64-71). 6. Horn, Michael, The Silent Revolution of Truth (DVD, www.theyfly.com, 2007). 7. Whelan, Mike; Juliano, Marc; and Steele, Jason, Through Space and Time: A Photo Journal of "Billy" Eduard Albert Meier (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark LLC, 2004). 8. Stevens, Wendelle C., Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 1 (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1988). _____Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 2 (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1990). _____Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 3 (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1993). _____Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 4 (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1995). 9. Zeugenbuch: zu Erlebnissen mit 'Billy' Eduard Albert Meier, seinen Fähigkeiten und Kontakten mit Menschen der Plejaren und ihrer Föderation, 1959-2001 [Book of Witnesses: To Events involving "Billy" Albert Eduard Meier, his Capabilities and Contacts with Plejarens and Beings from their Federation] (Hinterschmidrüti: FIGU, 2001). RETURN Refutation of Robert Price's Claims Against the Talmud of Jmmanuel by J. W. Deardorff, April 2008, Jan. 2009, May 2014 Robert M. Price is a liberal theologian turned atheist, and a prolific author of articles, books and book reviews that are critical of various aspects of Christianity. In chapter 9 of his 2007 book, Jesus is Dead, Price lashes out against the Talmud of Jmmanuel (here abbreviated TJ), perhaps because its teachings are incompatible with an atheist's beliefs, or because its story reveals more that is wrong with Christianity than he has been able to do. However, the solutions the TJ leads to, for many longstanding problems regarding the origins of Christianity, fall out quite naturally, though the truths they reveal may be unacceptable to atheists and fundamentalists alike. [Note added in 2014: This refutation refers to the early editions of the TJ, and not the the 2011 edition. The latter contains voluminous "explanbations" added throughout by Meier apparently at the urgingg of his respected Plejaren contactor, Ptaah. Pieces of the text have been altered, too. The apparent intention was to ensure that the TJ be easily debunkable by those who do not study its earlier editions and do not carefully compare them against Matthew for themselves.] A charge against the TJ that Price starts out with (with red font denoting Price's statements) on p.123 is: There is the usual pack of lies about an underlying Aramaic document being discovered in 1963, imbedded, somehow, in resin since the first century when Jesus’ loyal disciple, a guy named Judas Iscariot, wrote it down. Price is implying that the basic facts underlying the TJ's discovery involve lies, but he gives no substantive support for this charge here or later in his chapter. He makes no comment upon, nor mention of, the analysis that cumulatively, but conclusively, finds the Gospel of Matthew to have been based upon the TJ, not vice versa. When the original evidence is no longer available, the serious investigator studies reasons for its absence, and if these are plausible, studies the indirect evidence, just as is done with the New Testament Gospels whose autographs have long been gone. Price's wording here indicates either puzzlement or skepticism that the TJ would have been embedded in resin. Upon quizzing its co-discoverer and editor, Eduard Meier, circa 1995, for more detail than what he presented in the TJ's Foreword, we students of the TJ have learned that it had consisted of four rolls of sheets or leaves of Aramaic writing, along with a couple small artifacts, all wrapped in animal skin, which in turn was encased in resin. (The procedure of coating linen with hot liquid resin, for embalming and preservation purposes, had already been known for centuries in Egypt.) Despite this precaution that had been taken, Meier mentioned in the TJ's Foreword that some pieces of the writings were decayed and illegible. To deny any of this is to claim that Meier is a liar, but the very large number of credible and sincere first-hand witnesses who have come forward to attest to the genuineness of his UFO/ET contacts over the years also attest to his honesty and lack of deceit. Price makes no reference to these character witnesses. The testimony of multiple first-hand witnesses should be given much more weight than the claims of a disgruntled non-witness. Since the Gospels, in following the TJ, speak of witnessed events in the first person, it is to be expected that a disciple had written it. The TJ lets the reader know who the disciple was through its textual content, unlike any of the canonical Gospels. That he was Judas Iscariot, wrongly accused of being J's betrayer and of committing suicide thereafter, is a possibility that does not suffer the problems of the orthodox scenario, as discussed here. Price does not mention the problems with the Gospels' version. Price slipped up on another fact about the TJ's background. Its writing was not finished until shortly after Jmmanuel's death in northern India (Kashmir) in early 2nd century, probably around A.D. 115, after which its packaged original and presumably a transcription of it were carried back to the Mideast. Hence the original did not lie hidden in its Jerusalem tomb site since the first century, but rather since early second century. We can now understand why there is no trustworthy evidence for the Gospels to have existed until decades into the second century. In Price's charge of "There is the usual pack of lies about an underlying Aramaic document being discovered," his adjective "usual" may partially reflect the theme of a 1993 book of fiction called The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield, which Price has since reviewed within a chapter of his own book called Top Secret. Redfield's book involves an ancient Aramaic manuscript that had recently been translated, espousing insights that were opposed by the Catholic Church. Thus some similarities occur between the theme of The Celestine Prophecy and the TJ's story, the latter having been told in my own (1990) book called Celestial Teachings. Price may thus have placed the TJ's story in the same category as The Celestine Prophecy. Seems that an improbably named Greek Orthodox priest bearing the moniker Isa (= Jesus!) Rashid discovered Jesus’ burial cave, and Eduard Albert 'Billy' Meier spelunked further, finding the present gospel. What we are reading represents, we are told with forked tongue in cheek, only the first quarter of the very long text, the rest being destroyed, or so Father Rashid figured, by Israeli troops who were violently pursuing him. No clue is given why Price thinks "Isa Rashid" is an improbable name. "Isa" is a common enough first name in the Arab world, as is "Jesus" in Mexico, and "Rashid" is common as either an Arab first or second name. Indeed, if his name were not so common, there would be a better chance of acquiring independent background information on him (he and his family were assassinated in Baghdad in 1976, from what Meier learned). And it appears that Price was unaware that at the time of the discovery Rashid had already been an ex-priest for a few years, and that there are a number of Greek-Orthodox churches in the Palestinian area. "Forked tongue in cheek"? Such derision is totally wrong to apply to the man, Meier, who describes things as they are without trying to soften up a harsh truth. The person who studies the TJ and compares it against the Gospel of Matthew, and who then realizes that the TJ had come first and Matthew second, will understand the great heresies the TJ in its original Aramaic form presented for both the Christian and Judaic faiths. It would be unrealistic to suppose that top officials within these religions would not have taken any action necessary to destroy the TJ. In my opinion, had Rashid soon handed over the original Aramaic TJ to a New Testament scholar or paleographer for study, none of its contents would ever have come to light. The investigator of the TJ may read the copy of the letter from Rashid to Meier that includes mention of the Israeli attack upon the refugee camp in Lebanon to which he and his family had temporarily escaped. Although it is not known for certain, it was probably an air raid, not a ground strike. At this time, in 1974, the Aramaic TJ was destroyed, but the equivalent of one of its four rolls of writing had already been translated into German by Rashid and the translation mailed to Meier in Switzerland circa 1970. Price's abbreviated version of this background leaves far too many unanswered questions. Meier and Rashid had earlier, in 1963, made an agreement that Rashid, being the translator of the document, could retain possession of it, and Meier would be the one recipient of his translation of it. Meier anticipates that the orthodox and the obscurantists will alike denounce his discovery as a hoax (p. xv). Well, let me tell you, you don’t have to be particularly orthodox to denounce this thing as what we theologians like to call Bullgeschichte. Here Price resorts to derisive bombast rather than evidence and logic in attempting to put across his view. One with a theologian's background should do better than this. But as we shall continue to see, his complaints say nothing against the TJ's authenticity. Meier's prediction, in the TJ's Foreword, that the TJ would be attacked and "probably taken out of circulation" may well have helped maintain the current situation in which it is still in circulation, as authorities would be less likely to attempt an action that would validate Meier's prediction. What does the title mean? Talmud is just a Hebrew word referring to a deposit of learning. We are more familiar with its use referring to the massive collection of Rabbinical law, lore, and commentary, the Talmud of Jerusalem and the Talmud of Babylon. So here it just denotes 'the teaching of Jmmanuel.' It was refreshing to see that in the short segment above Price does give a valid summary. Of whom? Have you ever noticed something strange in Matthew’s nativity story in which Matthew says Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled by the advent of baby Jesus, and that though Isaiah says the child will be called Emmanuel, in Matthew’s story Jesus is called, well, Jesus? That is pretty odd. I’ve never heard a good explanation. But Meier tries to harmonize the two names, producing the weird hybrid Jmmanuel. The obvious explanation that does not occur to Price is that the name given to the child was indeed Immanuel, just as prophesied by Isaiah, and that some years after the crucifixion the name was altered into "Jesus." As to by whom altered, Paul is the leading candidate. As any theologian should know, the name "Jesus" stems from Yeshua = Joshua, and means "God saves (us from our sins)" (see also Mt 1:21.) We all know how concerned Paul was with sin and for its forgiveness by God and the "Son of God." This name would appeal much more to him than would "Immanuel." We know how instrumental Paul was in establishing and nurturing the early churches in Asia Minor and Greece. And we all know that Saul did not mind altering his own name, into Paul. His strong influence can then plausibly be seen as having largely effected the name change from Immanuel to Jesus. This can explain the absence of writings in the latter half of the first century about Immanuel, and near absence then of writings about "Jesus." Except for Paul's epistles, the earliest writings would have been about Immanuel. It makes sense that any and all such writings about Immanuel had to be destroyed after he became known as "Jesus" by late first century. However, a few gnostic writings that indicate his real name was not "Jesus" have survived. And in the latter half of the 2nd century Irenaeus twice referred to Jesus as "Him who was born Immanuel of the virgin," and once referred to Immanuel as "who it was that was worshipped" by the magi. The Matthean passage quoting from Isaiah further lets us know that the messiah prophecy had survived intact into the 2nd century, and had not been regarded as fulfilled centuries earlier. Somehow Price overlooked the explanation given in the Front Pages of the TJ as to why "Immanuel" is written starting with a "J" symbol (not the letter J found in the English alphabet, and not the first letter of "Jesus"). It was to honor the Pleiadian/Plejaren ETs who planned his life and mission, as a J-shaped symbol had stood for the i,j,y sounds in an alphabet of their forefathers. Thus it is in no way a harmonization with the name "Jesus." The "J" symbol substitutes for the "Ayin" in the Hebraic spelling of Immanuel, with "Jmmanuel" being pronounced the same as "Immanuel." Meier says 'Jmmanuel' means 'man of godly wisdom,' but any Bible reader knows it does not. It means God with us. At least Emmanuel does, but then I guess if you’re making up a name, you can say it means whatever the hell you want. In the TJ (1:87) the meaning of "Immanuel" is given as "the one with godly knowledge." It was god-the-ET's knowledge that was "with us," not the ET "god" himself. The addition of "knowledge" to the literal translation here is akin to the addition of "us" and "from our sins" to the literal meaning of Yeshua = Jesus = "God saves"; i.e., God saves whom? God saves us. God saves us from what? God saves us from our sins (see Mt 1:21). Thus most bible readers probably understand that a Hebrew or Aramaic name can be a short rendering of a lengthier implied meaning. So it is with "Jmmanuel," according to Meier's ET contactors. Another improbability about the frame story: how, pray tell, did the mythical Father Rashid “discover” the cave-tomb of Jesus since the book tells us Jesus was buried in the now-notorious tomb in Srinagar, Kashmir? This old structure has been promoted since the nineteenth century as Jesus’ tomb by the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam. Orthodox Muslims believe Jesus was raptured to heaven before the crucifixion, with someone else put to death in Jesus’ place. But the Ahmadiyya believe he was crucified and survived, then left the Holy Land to preach for decades longer, eventually winding up in Kashmir, where he died at a ripe, old age (110 or 120, Jmmanuel says). This site, though fraudulent, is well known. What was there for Rashid to discover? Price's perplexity here is strange, as the Ahmadiyyas were correct in much of this. Rashid and Meier discovered the site of Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, which is often referred to as J's tomb since J had spent three days and nights there. (I've used "J" to stand for either Jmmanuel or Jesus when applicable to either.) It is not clear if his final resting place, many decades later, was actually in the well known tomb in Srinagar -- the Roza Bal, or elsewhere nearby. That Jmmanuel lived to a ripe old age in Kashmir was learned by Meier from Rashid back in 1963, while Meier was still in the Jerusalem area and after Rashid had read cursorily through the TJ's rolls of writing to pick up the highlights of Jmmanuel's life, which he relayed to Meier. Meier states in his Epilogue that Jmmanuel had been buried in Srinagar without indicating whether or not it was at the Roza Bal site. Meier also learned from Rashid that it was the TJ's writer at the time of Jmmanuel's death (not Jmmanuel!) who initiated this information. From this advance read-through, Rashid learned that this latter writer was Jmmanuel's older son, Joseph, who had taken over the continued writing of the TJ after Judas Iscariot had died in Kashmir. So from Joseph's continuation of the TJ, near its end, Rashid was informed of Jmmanuel's death. Only after that time, acting upon the previous instructions of his father, did Joseph package it for preservation and journey with it and its assumed transcription back to the Mideast area, where he buried the specially packaged original in the tomb site on the south side of the Old City. It is presumed that Joseph gave the TJ's transcription to whomever in Palestine or Anatolia seemed most capable of honestly promulgating it, but that it soon fell into the possession of the writer of Matthew. All this involves important information (as well as some deductions), as it establishes that the earliest complete Gospel could not have appeared until well into the 2nd century. I refer to both Meier and Rashid as co-discoverers of the Jerusalem tomb site. From a conversation between Meier and his leading ET contactor in 1975, one learns that Rashid had been telepathically directed by the ETs to this tomb site, circa 1960, but that he was not bold enough to start unearthing it himself and after a while forgot its precise location. A few years later, in 1963 when Meier was walking with him past this same site, Meier was then directed, subtly via telepathy, to a small crevice in the hillside, which he enlarged to discover the half buried tomb, and after some excavation (mostly at night, apparently), found the buried TJ packet underneath a flat stone. By not being aware of this information, Price leaves far more open to speculation than what is necessary. And did I really say the book is supposed to be the work of Judas Iscariot? The disciple who betrayed Jesus? No, dear reader, as we soon find out, it was not Judas Iscariot who turned Jesus over to the G- men, but rather the similarly named Juda Ihariot! You see, it’s pretty easy to mix up a couple of guys with names that close. This is just unintentionally hilarious! Although precise coincidences are quite rare, near coincidences are not so uncommon. Here Price avoids telling his readers the TJ's more complete explanation: that a rumor was initiated by certain chief priests to the effect that it was Judas Iscariot, rather than a young Pharisee, Juda Ihariot, who pointed Immanuel out to the arresting party. Perhaps Price substituted ridicule here for the written information in order to discourage readers from looking into the TJ's following explanatory discourse for themselves: TJ 27: 27"While we are here together, Juda Ihariot, the son of the Pharisee in Jerusalem, is hatching an evil plot against me so he can betray me to the chief priests. 28At this very moment as we are gathered here, he is asking the chief priests for the blood money they are offering for my capture. 29Thirty pieces of silver are being offered to him if they capture me through his help. 30While they are forging this plan, they are also designing a plot against one among you, since they want to present a culprit to the people. 31As Juda Ihariot, the son of the Pharisee, will turn me over to the henchmen, my disciple Judas Iscariot will be considered the traitor, 32so that the message to the people will be, 'Behold, these fools are divided among themselves, so that one betrays the other. How, then, can the teachings of Jmmanuel contain any truth?' 33But since Juda Ihariot, the son of the Pharisee, and my disciple, Judas Iscariot, have almost identical names, the lie of the chief priests will be accepted from the beginning." However, it is understood that this explanation will not satisfy those who cannot allow for the possibility that Jmmanuel was actually a true prophet, who could foresee in real time (remote view) as well as see into the future. He was in Bethany when he spoke the above words, while Juda Ihariot was in Jerusalem. It was because this true prophet wanted his teachings to be available in the distant future, when mankind would be better prepared to receive and accept them, that years later he arranged with his elder son for the original Talmud of Jmmanuel to be packaged and secreted away so as to survive the passage of centuries. The Talmud of Jmmanuel is structurally just the same as other long-winded gospels like The Aquarian Gospel. It builds on a harmony of the four canonical gospels, picking and choosing favorite episodes and elements from them, then adding new bits of its own. Price is not a careful New Testament scholar, else he would not have erred so greatly here. It is the Gospel of Matthew, not any of the other three, which follows the TJ's order very closely, with its writer retaining material that was acceptable to him, substituting for or omitting words, sentences and more that were unacceptable, and inserting words and passages of his own. Usually the writers of Luke-Acts and John avoided extracting from the TJ what the writer of Matthew had already utilized; in all, their gospels contain only a tiny fraction of the TJ material that Matthew contains. Mark contains none (except indirectly via Matthew), probably because its writer was situated in Rome. Thus the TJ is in no way a harmony of the four canonical gospels. Price continued to avoid mention of the hundreds of comparisons between Matthean and TJ verses that point towards Matthean dependence upon the TJ rather than the opposite. And of course the TJ is totally different from the Aquarian Gospel, as the latter was channeled, while the TJ was a historical find whose co-discoverer, Meier, is still alive, as of 2014, to vouch for the reality of its discovery and genuineness of its updated contents. However, I can only agree that his acceptance of the earlier TJ editions--1992, 1996, 2001--were reasonable and proper, but not the latest 2011 edition. ... But he [the author of a false gospel] fails to see that the only reason we take seriously the words attributed to Jesus in the traditional Gospels is that they carry their own weight. By far the most of it has the ring of truth to it, whoever said it. "Whoever said it"? I believe it matters a good deal whether or not the writer of a gospel is dishonest, as by replacing the name "Jmmanuel" by "Jesus" everywhere in his text and then placing his own words into the mouth of Jesus. It means that one cannot trust the teachings of the resulting religion to be truthful. And many of the teachings in the Gospel of Matthew, for example, do not have the ring of truth or logic. Are we to believe that Joseph and the Magi took the actions they did because of what an angel said to them in dreams (Mt 1:20, 2:12, 2:19-20)? Are we to believe that Jesus survived fasting for 40 days and nights while under the influence of the devil (4:1-11)? Are we to believe that a wisdom teacher taught that becoming angry will make one liable to judgment, that whoever says "You fool!" will go to a place called Hell (5:21-22), that looking at a woman lustfully is equivalent to having committed adultery (5:27), that you should not resist one who is evil, that if struck on the right cheek you should turn the other cheek in order to invite another blow (5:39), give to whomever begs from you and would borrow from you no matter the circumstances (5:42), and love your enemies even while they may be persecuting you (5:44)? Where is the ring of truth or reality? And continuing, would a wisdom teacher advise you not to save up any money (Mt 6:19), not to take care for the next day (6:25-31,34), and not to make any judgments (7:1)? Would a wisdom teacher teach that whoever finds his life will lose it (Mt 10:39, 16:25), or imply that it's OK to enter a strong man's house to plunder it if one first binds the strong man (12:29)? Would a wisdom teacher preach that many who are first shall be last and the last first (19:30), and imply that each person is either totally righteous or totally evil so that evil persons can be identified and thrown into the furnace of fire (13:49-50)? Would a wisdom teacher in A.D. 32 (years before there were any churches) advise you to tell the church about the problems you have with a sinner (Mt 18:17)? Would a wisdom teacher suggest that workers who put in long hours should receive no more pay than those who work only briefly (Mt 20:1-15); would he curse a fig tree for not having fruit and cause it to wither at once (21:20); would he speak a parable about a king who, having invited people off the streets to a wedding party, spotted an attendee with improper garments and so had him bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness? Is this "good stuff?" Where is the ring of truth? No such inanity is present in the Talmud of Jmmanuel; it was all due to the writer of Matthew, who was no wisdom teacher. In fact, that’s how some of it came to be in the gospel in the first place! Someone heard some good saying and said, “Wow! That’s good stuff! Worthy of Jesus!” as when we say, “It ain’t in the Bible but it ought to be!” Believe me, no one is going to find himself saying that of the soporific gibberish (and worse) in this book, which 'Billy' dares to equate with the real, true, original teaching of Jesus before the fiendish churchmen, beginning with the nefarious fisherman himself, distorted the living daylights out of it. As we proceed, we shall see that Price has done his best, through misunderstandings, omissions, distortions and mistruths, combined with ridicule, to make the TJ out to be "soporific gibberish." Hopefully no one after reading and studying the TJ's enlightening and practical teachings will say that they are "worthy of Jesus," as the latter character is so different from Jmmanuel in his message as to be considered fictional. However, one will find a small number of TJ sayings that were acceptable to the writer of Matthew and his early church and were therefore copied faithfully into his gospel. The reader who takes the time to carefully go over the comparisons between TJ verses and their Matthean parallels, and who fairly examines the most probable direction in which redaction took place in each verse comparison (did the writer of Matthew copy from the TJ or vice versa?), can scarcely avoid the conclusion that the real, true and original verses resided in the TJ. It is true that in the TJ Jmmanuel got after Peter for being almost incapable of understanding just who he, Immanuel, was (i.e., not the son of the leading ET god). The exchange in TJ 18:28-35 is one instance of Jmmanuel's displeasure over this, from which the Matthean parallel (16:15-19) departs radically. The teaching here is warmed-over Theosophy, but very poorly expressed. We learn that there is a “god” who rules the earth but is essentially a long-lived mortal much like ourselves (16:55-56; 28:59). Price's word "essentially" promotes a strong distortion, because he has here omitted the great difference the TJ describes between this "god" and ourselves: TJ 28 (3rd edition): 58"Just as you are human like I am, so god is human, except that in spirit and consciousness he is very much more advanced than the human lineages procreated by him; 59god and his celestial sons are other human lineages who have come from the stars out of the depths of space in their machines of metal. 60Creation stands immeasurably higher than god and his celestial sons, who are the guardian angels. 61Creation alone is the incalculable mystery that begets life and, thus, stands immeasurably far above god and indeed all life." To ignore the spiritual-evolution side of the TJ's teachings is to ignore one of its key essences. It of course is not "warmed over theosophy," having been set in writing some 1900 years ago, if Price here is referring to the theosophy or philosophy of Madam Blavatsky of just over a century ago. But it is the same philosophy that many ETs have known for eons, parts of which may have been taught to humans by visiting ETs a few millennia ago, judging from what Meier has learned from his ETs. Above him [above god] is the 'supreme' entity, called “Creation” (16:52) which sounds something like unchanging Brahman (18:44). But then we are told that it, too, is incomplete and changing (18:43; 21:28) and defers to a still superior being (25:56). The TJ verse 18:44 speaks of Creation (and the human spirit) as being "timeless," which means immortal, not unchanging. Through a distortion Price has generated a false contradiction here. TJ 18:43 speaks of Creation as also evolving, on a very long time scale. And the idea that even Creation (25:26) knows and reveres a higher power above itself is an interesting concept, which in retrospect is no more improbable than that there is but one high spiritual entity -- Creation or the Universal Consciousness. Why should the scientific concept of evolution be restricted only to the physical side of life, if one recognizes that there is a spiritual side also? There may be no end to the extent which knowledge & wisdom can improve upon itself. The advances of astrophysics further into concepts of multiple universes, multiple dimensions and branes make less surprising to me that there could be a hierarchy of seemingly omnipotent spiritual entities. It [Creation] is one without division (21:27), and yet it possesses parts (34:39). Price seems to be inferring that there is a contradiction here, but is there really, if neighboring verses are studied? TJ 21:25"The spirit of each person is created specifically for the task of perfecting itself and gaining wisdom. 26This is so as to become one with Creation as destined by the laws, whereby Creation grows and expands within, and thus perfects itself. 27And as the spirit within a person is a unity, so is Creation a unity within itself, and no other powers exist besides it. 28Within itself, Creation is pure spirit and therefore infinite power, because it is one within itself, and nothing exists outside of it." TJ 34:39"Since the spirit in a person is part of Creation, it is one with Creation; consequently it is not two. 40And since the body is a part of the spirit in a different form and matter, it is therefore one with the spirit; consequently it is not two. 41The teachings state that there is a unity and not, in any way or form, a duality or trinity." Granted, this is heady material. As I understand it, Creation includes all the physical and spiritual components within its realm of universe(s), and thus is one within itself. No other power or entity within this realm can compare with it. At the other end of the scale is each person's human spirit, which is independent of the spirit of others, and so is a unity within itself. The innumerable individual spirits are nevertheless components of Creation, from which they originated and to which they are linked. Study of the whole TJ is to be encouraged for fuller understanding. However, if one knows little or nothing about the existence of the individual human spirit, one is apt to hold an attitude like that shown here by Price. Therefore the interested reader is encouraged to read up on the research on past lives that has occurred over the past 40 years. This research includes studies of thousands of childhood "cases of the reincarnation type" wherein an occasional child, as early as he/she can speak, spontaneously talks about being someone else and how he/she died; a sufficient number of detailed remarks are sometimes made and remembered by parents or relatives such that the identity of the child's most recent past life can be discovered and proven beyond any reasonable doubt. And through hypno-therapy, many proven past lives of adults have come to light. These studies dovetail with the findings on near-death experiences. I would recommend this bibliography. But while Billy/Jmmanuel is calling it [Creation] infinite, he says we are part of it, so that what is true of it is ipso facto true of us, too. And if we tap into that fact by enlightened knowledge, we can do pretty much anything (16:44). That is a prime case of the Division Fallacy in logic: what is true of an entity as a whole is not necessarily true in the same way of its parts Anyway, when Peter succeeded momentarily in walking on water it was because he had a fleeting grasp of this 'knowledge' and was able to suspend/defy gravity. But what sort of knowledge is it that refuses to reckon with elementary physics? Here, Price's question would have been largely answered if he had not been so selective in his choice of TJ verses. With the inclusion of a verse before and two verses following TJ 16:44, we read: "...16:43You [Peter] trusted in my words before the thunder came, but then you were frightened and began to doubt, and so the power of knowledge left you and your ability [to walk on water] disappeared. 44Never doubt the power of your spirit, which is a part of Creation itself and therefore knows no limits of power. 45Behold, there was a little bird that circled at great heights and sang, rejoicing about life, when a strong gust of wind came and made it waver. It then suddenly doubted its power to fly, plummeted down and was killed. 46Therefore, never doubt the power of your spirit and never doubt your knowledge and ability when logic proves to you the law of Creation in truth and correctness." The teaching here is that absolute knowledge of the power of the spirit is to be combined with knowledge of the law or laws of Creation, using logic. Only then is the knowledge "enlightened," or fully empowering. Upon searching the TJ for statements about just what the laws of Creation are, one finds that they are to be learned largely through studying nature, which suggests using the scientific method, but also including the spiritual side through study of life in general, as with recognition of the past-life evidence. I would also gather that training on spiritual matters is helpful (e.g., practicing meditation) if not essential for the capability of using the power of one's spirit/consciousness. All this goes along with spiritual evolution, Jmmanuel being highly evolved spiritually. In the TJ he continually encourages the evolution of one's spirit/consciousness. However, logic dictates that even if one has the capability of utilizing the power of one's spirit -- such as even to temporarily and locally suspend an ordinary law of nature, one use it only sparingly and for good purpose. Jmmanuel was using his spiritual capabilities for teaching purposes as well as for healing. The TJ confirms that most, though not all, of the miracles reported in the Gospel of Matthew did actually occur. So what are we supposed to be doing about it? Well, it is our mission to realize our potential by efforts at self-perfection over the course of many lifetimes. Even Creation (a Him? Her? It?) experiences a kind of reincarnation, a series of eons-long periods of dormancy alternating with equal periods of life and activity (34:27-34), all the coin of Theosophy, borrowed from Hinduism. I think Price actually understands that Creation is pure spirit, and therefore is an "It" and not a "he" or "she." His assumption that it is from Hinduism that the TJ borrows its teachings on Creation's eons-long alternating periods of dormancy and activity may hold some truth, however. Both Jmmanuel and Meier learned it from their contacting ETs, with Jmmanuel perhaps having learned it earlier during the so-called "lost years" of his youth in India. Meier probably learned it also from his participatory studies in Buddhism and Hinduism in the 1960s. However, the ancient Hindu writings that tell of this mystery may well have originated from the same type of ET source -- from some of the gods and goddesses that visited India several millennia ago. It may be mentioned that the information on reincarnation received by Meier from his contactors, and that which is written in the TJ, does not support the Hindu concept that rebirth could be into a lower animal rather than just into a human. What’s most ridiculous about The Talmud of Jmmanuel is its espousal of Flying Saucer religion. To get things straight here: I consider it plausible that extra-terrestrials have visited the earth. But the possibility, even the plausibility, of it does not entitle us forthwith to believe it is true. There does not yet appear to be compelling evidence for contact with Flying Saucers. Price evidently realizes that the evidence indicating the reality of UFO-sighting reports is too strong and voluminous to reject. But by his rejection of "contact with flying saucers" he evidently means contact with the aliens or ETs within these craft. Thus he rejects the idea that some UFO/alien contactees are genuine, as does the mainstream ufological community, although since the 1980s, the latter have been forced to acknowledge the reality of many UFO/alien abductees. The reality of many abductees could finally be tolerated, since they were taken against their will, whereas all contactees are rejected since their experiences can be uplifting, which then arouses the suspicions of ufologists for a hoax. The Billy Meier contactee case, however, has been overwhelmingly authenticated through study of the many clear "beamship" photos and 8mm movie-film footage he -- a one-armed man since 1964 -- was allowed to take in 1975-76 and 1980-81, by the metal samples he was given and let Marcel Vogel analyze, from the analyzed audio recordings (click on "Scientific Experts' Comments On Meier's Evidence" and on "UFO sounds" in right-hand column) of the beamship sounds he was allowed to tape (heard by many), by the prophecies he learned from his ET contactors and reported, and from the many first-hand witnesses who observed remarkable events either when with Meier or during his departure to or return from contacts. It was no lucky accident that Meier was permitted to gather all this evidence, as his contacting ETs would know he would need evidence with which to back up his experiences. Yet they apparently also act under a guideline of providing the negative skeptic with a piece of evidence here and there that can seem less than convincing. But would ETs who are ethical enough to present themselves to us only gradually over a 60-year period, never leaving enough evidence behind that would force sudden disclosure upon the world, also be ethical enough to implement a strategy of plausible deniability for skeptics? A history of the early debunkings of Meier's experiences by certain ufologists, and of the later maintenance of this debunking, is presented here. The reader will find that Price omits mention of any of the voluminous and convincing evidence of the genuineness of the Meier contactee case, apparently so that Meier will not seem credible and Price can then more easily denigrate the TJ and call it a "Flying Saucer" religion. However, the TJ is not rightly called a religion, but rather a source of knowledge about the human (and ET) spirit and its overlying spiritual architect, Creation, which many already would speak of as "true God." It does not involve worship of the UFO contactee involved, or of Jmmanuel, or of any ET. Well, “Billy” Meier belongs in the same ranks. That’s for damn sure. [Same ranks as those who tell of:] ... the Black Muslim 'Mother Plane' orbiting the earth with Elijah Muhammad in the captain’s chair, .... to the Raelian belief that aliens mutated apes to produce the first humans, to Heaven’s Gate lemmings believing a spaceship hidden in a comet’s tail was telling them to castrate themselves, to the Aetherius Society, to Unaria, etc. From statements like the above, the reader who has seriously looked into the irrefutable material on Meier that Price wrongfully omitted to even mention will have no problem calling Price's chapter on the TJ for what it is: unsubstantiated claims having no bearing on the TJ's genuineness, dished out by one who seems lacking in perceptivity. The vast amount of supportive evidence for the reality of Meier's experiences places it in a wholly different and unique context from the claims of the Raelians, Heavens-Gaters, etc. Although the beliefs of the latter groups could be called Flying Saucer Theology, Price seems unable to detect the distinction here with the validation of Meier's experiences. Does he expect everyone else also to ignore the voluminous validating evidence behind the Meier contactee case extending from 1963 into the 2000s? Nursing classic delusions of grandeur, including the persecution complex, Billy predicts his own eventual assassination: “the editor is even more endangered because he is the contact man for extraterrestrial intelligences and very highly developed spiritual entities on exalted planes who transmit to him true spiritual teachings that he disseminates without modification, thereby exposing the lies of the cult religions, which will lead to their slow but certain eradication” (p. xix). The “cult religions” are the major faiths. Here we see more of Price's penchant for drawing unjustified conclusions. In saying that he, Billy Meier, is even more endangered than other followers of Jmmanuel's teachings, one reads above that Meier did not predict his own assassination, just its possibility (being "even more endangered"). Price failed to mention that at the time of Meier's writing of the TJ's Foreword, circa 1977, there had already been three assassination attempts against him. By 1990 there had been some 18 described and verified assassination attempts (see And Yet -- They Fly! by Guido Moosbrugger, 1991, 2001, or Zeugenbuch: zu Erlebnissen mit 'Billy' Eduard Albert Meier, seinen Fähigkeiten und Kontakten mit Menschen der Plejaren und ihrer Föderation, 1959-2001 [Book of Witnesses: To Events involving "Billy" Albert Eduard Meier, his Capabilities and Contacts with Plejarens and Beings from their Federation], Hinterschmidrüti: FIGU, 2001). One of the long-term key investigators of the Meier case (Wendelle Stevens) was right there sitting on the porch with Meier at his Hinterschmidrüti residence at the time of the assassination attempt of May 1980, when a bullet barely missed Meier's head. It is not clear that Meier regards all the major faiths as cult religions. His definition, not mentioned by Price, is "Cult Religion: The most sordid pretext of maximum power in the name of false and mendacious love that literally walks over dead bodies without hesitation or scruple." The Christian religion was definitely included here, with reference to the Inquisition. Not surprisingly, The Talmud of Jmmanuel embodies UFO theology. Its Jesus (Jmmanuel) is the result of Mary’s impregnation by the angel Gabriel who is an alien arriving in a space ship for their date. The TJ of course does not speak of "an alien arriving in a space ship." It instead speaks of the aliens as "the voyagers who traveled here through vast expanses of the universe," and its descriptions of "space ship" are: "bright light in the sky," "metallic light," "radiant light" and "great light." Concerning Gabriel's "date" with Mary, Price has evidently given up all pretense of presenting an accurate or truthful account. We do not know if Mary had any forewarning of Gabriel's arrival, as in a date, or of the circumstances under which the impregnation took place. Far too much is unknown here to venture any safe claims. From comparing the TJ with the Gospel of Luke, we do know that the writer of the latter did have some access to the TJ before writing or finishing his gospel, in which he wrote: "...the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "...you will conceive in your womb and bear a son..." (Luke 1:26-31). This was evidently that writer's way of explaining and sanctifying the TJ's account, upon adding that the "holy Spirit" would come upon Mary. Jesus is eventually taken aboard the same craft, much like Brian of Nazareth in the Monty Python movie. When he 'ascends' he is stepping aboard the spacecraft, though only for a couple of stops down the line, getting off in Damascus. Why bother with Spielbergianism? Simply because Bill wants to combine the usual props of UFO-Jesus-ism (beam-up ascension) with the Asian travels/Srinagar tomb scenario. He likes ‘em both. Again, without a shred of evidence, Price falsely implies that the TJ was composed by Billy Meier, whom he here calls "Bill," rather than being edited by him. He seems to be propagating a further myth, that flying-saucer type, beam-em-up movies preceded the UFO phenomenon rather than being based upon it. All science fiction reinterpretation of Christianity, the stock in trade of Flying Saucer religions, entails a dusting off of old eighteenth-century Rationalism: what looked like miracles to the ancients must have been advanced technology, at least as we, their far-superior pseudo-intellectual descendents, imagine it. Such science fiction, too, becomes dated and laughable after a while. Thus UFO theology starts looking even more ridiculous than the supernaturalism it hopes to replace. It is but common sense to postulate that some of what looked like miracles to the ancients could have been the advanced technology of ETs, considering the hindsight we possess today upon recognition of the reality of the UFO phenomenon (which even Price found plausible, earlier). The further science progresses, from the ability to clone to the discovery of planets around other stars, the more sense it makes that "angels" were ETs. Consider that 30 years ago the scientific consensus was on the side of humans being alone in the galaxy as intelligent beings or even as life, while by now the consensus has swung the other way. Sufficient progress in physics and astrophysics has now occurred to permit scientists to begin speculating, within peer-reviewed journals, on novel means of interstellar travel that could circumvent the speed-of-light limitation. Science-fiction need not enter into the discussion, except as it helps prepare the public for the eventual shock of full revelation of the UFO/alien presence. In this case, the resurrection of Jesus is treated with a technique borrowed from old-time Rationalism rather than its twentieth-century sci-fi counterpart, though. Jesus does not die on the cross, but is taken down in a coma, then placed in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb, where he is given medical care and recovers. Usually the eighteenth-century Rationalists had Joseph call upon the Essenes to nurse Jesus back to health, but for some reason they are not good enough this time around Joseph even somehow contacts Jesus’ colleagues in India and summons them to come and treat him! Would there really have been time for this? Nowhere in the TJ does it say that the Indian friends of Jmmanuel and Joseph involved in Jmmanuel's recovery were located anywhere else than in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was on the trade routes that connected to the Silk Road. So it is likely that there were merchants from India there in Jerusalem for considerable periods of time, along with their Hindu helpers and fellow Silk Road travelers. Jmmanuel himself had taken the Silk Road caravan route back from India only a few years before, and had had ample time to make friends with some of the accompanying Hindus. Joseph may have had to travel a mile from the tomb site just south of the Old City to contact one or more of them. I guess Gabriel could have picked them up in his space ship and rushed them into the OR, but then we’d have to wonder why the aliens didn’t just revivify Jmmanuel like Gort did Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Well, anyway, Joseph gets away with the scheme, despite Jewish and Roman guards at the tomb because he had taken the precaution of designing his tomb with a hidden back entrance! Why? How could he have known this day would come? It’s all just so stupid. As far as we know, the only guards at the tomb at the time Jmmanuel exited it were Roman guards. It is interesting that Jmmanuel's aliens did not apparently directly interfere by aiding in his recovery, and almost certainly Joseph of Arimathea had had no inkling that the second entrance to his tomb would ever be used for the important purpose it did serve. One of the aliens might, however, have earlier telepathically prompted Joseph to have the second, side entrance to his tomb carved out during its construction. There are examples from Meier's contactee experiences that indicate that these ETs have those capabilities of prophetic foresight and telepathic prompting. Much UFO literature itself attests to the latter capability of UFO aliens to telepathically prompt witnesses from a distance. A question I have pondered on, however, is this: These aliens, not just Jmmanuel, are known for their ability to prophesy years in advance of the event. Is there much detail in what they can prophesy? How do they decide to what extent, if any, they should either take or avoid actions that would help make a prophecy come true? In any case, it's not totally unheard of for a 1st-century tomb in Jerusalem to have a second entrance (see Rosenthal, E. S., "The Giv'at ha-Mivtar Inscription," Israel Exploration Journal 23 (1973), pp. 72-78). This was not the temporary tomb of Jmmanuel. Although Price avoids quoting from the TJ's many inspiring passages, and educational passages, on pp. 129-130 he extensively quotes its harsh statements against chief priests, Pharisees, scribes, and other adherents to Judaism, some of which found their way into the Gospel of Matthew. The Talmud of Jmmanuel is blood-curdlingly anti-Semitic. Its appropriation of the familiar Jewish title Talmud is offensive, but that is the least of it. Here are a few choice passages: “Do not go into the streets of Israel, and do not go to the scribes and Pharisees, but go to the cities of the Samaritans and to the ignorant in all parts of the world. Go to the unenlightened, the idol worshippers and the ignorant after I have left you, because they do not belong to the house of Israel, which will bring death and bloodshed into the world.” (10:5-6) The TJ may well be the earliest known writing to make use of the word "talmud." It greatly predates the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. The above quote by Price, and his others, stem from the TJ's 1992 edition (most of my own quotes will be from the 2002 edition). It is clear that Jmmanuel regarded the Jewish religious leaders -- their scribes, the Pharisees and chief priests -- with great distaste. This is even clear from Matthew, whose chapter 23 (which came from the TJ's chapter 24), calls the scribes & Pharisees "hypocrites" six or seven times, "blind guides" twice, "blind fools" once, and "You serpents, you brood of vipers" once. Although the writer of Matthew omitted some of the TJ's excoriations against the Jewish clergy, he retained many, probably because of his disappointment that the Jewish religious leaders had not, even by early 2nd century, come around to acceptance of the new Messianic form of Judaism that he had converted to, with "Jesus" as Messiah. The above TJ quotation finds its parallel in Mt 10:5-6, where the disciples are instructed to "go nowhere among the Gentiles, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." The contradiction between this and the opposite command in Mt 28:19-20 has long baffled New Testament scholars. The TJ allows the undesired solution to be understood: the writer of Matthew altered whatever in the TJ he wished in writing his gospel, in this case changing the meaning around by 180 degrees because of his typical anti-gentile attitude, as in Mt 16:24 where we read Jesus said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." In the study of Gospel priorities, a modified Augustinian hypothesis (MAH) finds it very plausible that it was the translator of Hebraic Matthew into Greek, after the other Gospels had come out, who added in some pro-gentile passages such as Mt 28:19-20 in order to "soften" its anti-gentile passages and phrases. For further understanding of the above passage, one needs to bear in mind that Jmmanuel was a true prophet, capable of general but accurate prophecies centuries ahead. A substantial part of the prophecy may have dealt with the Israel-Arab wars since 1948, forcing several million Arabs to flee for exile in neighboring countries. However, the prophecy may refer also to wars still in our future. Hopefully such will turn out to be a false prophecy. But judging from U.S. foreign policy in the Mideast, which has seemed based almost entirely upon (a) protection of Israel against her potential enemies, and (b) maintaining our interest in access to Mideast oil at an affordable cost in U.S. dollars, the prophecy has not yet been derailed. Should a dire prophecy pertaining to a particular nation or people, made by a person with a good track record as a prophet, be considered to be of the same nature as anti- Semitism? In other statements, however, Jmmanuel came out strongly against the Israeli people themselves for having willingly gone along with their leaders' wishes, as in TJ 15:22-26, which Price quotes below: “For the people of Israel are unfaithful to the laws of Creation and are accursed and will never find peace. Their blood will be shed, because they constantly commit outrages against the laws of Creation. They presume themselves above all the human races as a chosen nation and thus as a separate race. What an evil error and what evil presumption, for inasmuch as Israel never was a nation or a race, so it was never a chosen race. Unfaithful to the laws of Creation, Israel is a mass of people with an inglorious past, characterized by murder and arson.” Here Jmmanuel combines prophecy with his sense of Israeli history, the sordid details of which he apparently acquired largely through his ability, as a true prophet, to remember events from his own past lives. Judging from Mt 16:14 and by what Meier was told by his ET contactors, these past lives included Isaiah, Elijah and Jeremiah. Hence, Jmmanuel's disgust for Israel's "inglorious past" may have singled out Israel from other nations' inglorious pasts for this reason. We cannot expect that Price would understand this, however, as he has shown no indication of having studied any of the evidence of the existence and capabilities of the individual human spirit, nor of its evolution over eons, with no inkling that Jmmanuel's spirit was highly evolved. Perhaps he would equate a highly evolved spirit with excessive meekness, or with blithe acceptance of evil, or with the desire to spend all one's time in meditation. Jmmanuel was simply not the kind of man that the Gospels in general portray as "Jesus," starting with the alterations in the TJ made by the writer of Matthew. However, a bit of Jmmanuel's penchant for speaking out the harsh truth as he saw it, and for taking non-violent action against evil, made it from the TJ into Matthew in the temple-cleansing event, when he drove out the money changers and merchants with a donkey whip (TJ 22:12, Mt 21:12, Jn 2:15), though in Matthew no mention is made of the whip. It seemingly does not occur to Price that there is any problem with Jesus being portrayed as a meek peacemaker who does not resist evil, as in Mt 5 & 6, and yet taking the action he did in purging the Temple. And so, Price speaks as if it were inconceivable that Jmmanuel would have spoken out in harsh anger against those he saw as responsible for evil deeds of the past and of the prophesied future. No, just call it anti-Semitism! Should Jmmanuel have prophesied also that such harsh language would in the future be politically incorrect, and so have avoided its use? In the TJ we find repeated occurrences of Jmmanuel's anger at having the truth be flouted, whether by scribes, Pharisees or even one of his own disciples. Yet he never inflicted violence upon any person, and he taught non- violence. It seems there's an important difference between use of the threat of violence (as by brandishing a donkey whip) and actual infliction of bodily violence. It is understandable that the writer of Matthew, when penning his gospel, would omit the TJ passages that were more offensive to Israelis in general. After all, he was still trying to recruit Jewish converts (the lost sheep of the house of Israel) into the new Messianic Judaism (also called Jewish Christianity), so he wouldn't wish to be too harsh on them. The most blatant of these omitted passages is displayed by Price below: 10:26“Truly, I say to you: the nation of Israel was never one distinct people and has at all times lived with murder, robbery and fire. They have acquired this land through ruse and murder in abominable, predatory wars, slaughtering their best friends like wild animals. 27May the nation of Israel be cursed until the end of the world and never find its peace.” Much of TJ 10:26 is confirmed from Old Testament passages in Joshua (8:18-29, 10:7-11,18-20,26, 28-42, 11:6-23, 16:10, 24:8-13) and Deuteronomy (20:10-18). In considering Jmmanuel's prophetic thoughts that led to his outburst in 10:27, two previous verses ought not be omitted. They are: 10:24"Throughout the world there will be wailing and chattering of teeth when the blood flows from all those who have made my teachings of wisdom and knowledge into false teachings, and when the blood flows from all of those who, in their false belief and through evil seduction, believe and advocate these false teachings--teachings which certainly are not mine. 25Many of these false believers will lose their lives, including many Israelites, who will never find their peace until the end of the world, because they are ignorant and unwise and deny the power of the spirit, of love and of knowledge. The prophecy of 10:25 is seen to be restated two verses later in 10:27 above as a curse. Much as supporters of the TJ wish Jmmanuel had stayed silent here, there it is. My take on it is that his knowledge of horrors of the past which he had experienced in his past lives as a prophet, and his confidence of being capable of prophesying with certainty a dire future which would in particular include Jerusalem, along with foreknowledge that his own teachings would be suppressed, was itself a curse for him that he could scarcely cope with, leading to an utterance that we all would agree was a mistake for him to have spoken. That Jmmanuel was capable of making mistakes and misspeaking should not be thought to be inconsistent with his own teachings. Consider these verses, indicating he realized he himself needed to continue to learn: 19:14 "Search for the meaning and truth in my teachings. Since I am human like you, I, too, have had to search and perceive." 26:46 Once Saul had departed, Jmmanuel called together his disciples and said to them, "You know that Passover comes after two days, when I shall be turned over to the courts to be crucified, as it is destined, so that I will continue to learn." 29:21-22 Jmmanuel spoke, "Behold, aeons ago, I returned from the realm of a higher world in order to fulfill a difficult task; and now I was begotten by a celestial son to be a prophet in this life. This came to pass according to destiny and the desire of god, the ruler over the three lineages of terrestrial humans procreated by him. Through his kindness, I have added to my knowledge in this incarnation by gaining great insight and learning true wisdom, which was imparted to me by his teachers over a period of forty days and forty nights." Unlike Christians, followers of the TJ are under no obligation to treat its main personage like a "lamb of God without sin." Jmmanuel, the son of an ET father, was continuing to learn and was thus not incapable of making mistakes. And what about the outburst below, what prompted it? 10:39“Therefore, beware of Israel, because it is like an abscess.”(1992 TJ edition) The three prior verses below suggest that J's exasperation with the Israelites was responsible. 10:35 "Do not go to too much trouble with the cities of Israel, for truly, I say to you, you will get nowhere with the people of Israel until the end of the world. 36The disciple is never above the teacher, nor the servant above the master. 37It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master. 38If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they malign those of his household? 39Therefore, beware of Israel because it is like a festering boil. 40However, do not be afraid of them, because there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed and nothing secret that will not be known." (2002 & 2007 editions) (The underlined portions are parallels with Mt 10:24-26.) So here Jmmanuel was talking to his disciples, and letting them know the conclusion he drew from his own experience with trying to get Israelites to take his teachings to heart. The "festering boil" analogy thus stood for the intransigence of the Israeli people, as viewed from Jmmanuel's perspective. It seems that 80-90 years later the writer of Matthew didn't have any better success with the Jews, in trying to put across his Messianic form of Judaism, judging from his editorial behavior and from his infamous "His blood be on us and on our children" of Mt 27:25, not in the TJ. If the TJ were a literary hoax written by Meier, as assumed by Price, and if Meier were anti-Semitic, he surely would not have omitted Mt 27:25 from his supposed fabrication, nor have bothered to include all of Jmmanuel's healings of the Jews. One may visit Meier's website and notice the absence of any anti-Semitism stemming from him or any others in the F.I.G.U. organization. Price continued with: “For the people of Israel are unfaithful to the laws of Creation and are accursed and will never find peace. Their blood will be shed, because they constantly commit outrages against the laws of Creation. They presume themselves above all the human races as a chosen nation and thus as a separate race. What an evil error and what evil presumption, for inasmuch as Israel never was a nation or a race, so it was never a chosen race. Unfaithful to the laws of Creation, Israel is a mass of people with an inglorious past, characterized by murder and arson.” (15:22-26) The content of the 2nd and last sentences we have already discussed some under TJ 10:26 above, with Jmmanuel's outrage against Israelis probably referring to some of what the writer of Matthew let slip through in Mt 23:34-35, the original TJ version of which is in this passage: TJ 24:41"Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who killed the prophets and falsified their teachings. 42Well then, fill up the measure of your forefathers and fathers; thus you will end your lives without understanding and will have difficulty learning until the distant future. 43You brood of snakes and vipers, how can you aspire to be great in spirit and in consciousness when you don't possess any understanding yet? 44All the righteous blood that was shed by your doing on Earth will befall you, beginning with the first prophet your fathers and forefathers murdered, to the blood of Zacharias, the son of Barachias, whom you killed between the temple and the altar, as well as all the blood that will be shed in the future because of your guilt. The underlined portions above may be recognized as having Mt 23:31-33,35, below, as their parallel: Mt 23:31Thus you witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32:"Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? 34Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar." Price evidently knew he should not show the above TJ passage as an example of supposed anti-Semitic text, since it was carried into (occurs in) Matthew. As a matter of interest, we may note that the writer of Matthew omitted TJ content here, as elsewhere, that deals with spiritual evolution. However, his substitution for it - of Jesus sending them prophets - has raised many a scholar's eyebrow, as the era of Jewish prophets had by then essentially ended, except for Jesus himself. Price quotes the last portion (27:12b) of another TJ verse, but it is illuminating to add the first portion: 27:12a "You [disciples] are struck with blindness, like the legitimate people of this land who are held in darkness and oppression by the Israelites, just as the prophets predicted for these people, because they have forsaken the tenets of truth,12bjust like the Israelites who plundered this land and have dominated and oppressed the legitimate owners of the land.” Here Jmmanuel is likening the ignorance of his disciples to that of the true inhabitants of Palestine due to their long- term oppression and occupation by the Israelis. Portion 12b again refers to some of what can be read in the book of Joshua. Next, Price selects TJ 30:8b, “I am the true prophet of all human races on earth: but in all truth I am not the prophet of those confused Israelites who call themselves sons and daughters of Zion.” This Jmmanuel spoke to the high priest Caiphas at the Sanhedrin "trial," not long after the chief priests and elders had him flogged. There is a good deal of Old Testament text concerning the sons, daughters and inhabitants of Zion. From its inception, Zionism has sought to strongly maintain the connections between the land of the covenant, the people of Israel and the Torah. Jmmanuel must have found those Israelites to be least receptive of all to his teachings. The last TJ passage chosen by Price to demonstrate Jmmanuel's bitterness against the Israelites was spoken right after the above: “And the time will come in five times 100 years when you will have to atone for this, when the legitimate owners of the land enslaved by you will begin to rise against you into the distant future. A new man will rise up in this land as a prophet and will rightfully condemn and persecute you and you will have to pay with your blood. […] Even though, according to your claim, he will be a false prophet and you will revile him, he will nevertheless be a true prophet, and he will have great power, and he will have your race persecuted throughout all time in the future. His name will be Mohammed, and his name will bring horror, misery and death to your kind, which you deserve. Truly, truly, I say to you: His name will be written for you with blood, and his hatred against your kind will be endless.” (30:10-11, 13-15; 1992 edition) This simply has to be rejected outright by anyone who does not accept the existence and evolution of the human spirit, one who cannot allow that there could be such a thing as a highly evolved spirit-consciousness that periodically incarnated into a human infant, and with a degree of spiritual evolution that permitted valid prophecy into the distant future, and in particular this specific a prophecy. Although Matthew mentions that Jesus was a prophet and wisdom teacher, and reports his ability to prophesy over short time periods, even many Christians doubt he had the capability of correctly prophesying over long time periods. However, one long-range prophecy from the TJ did barely manage to survive the transformation into the Gospel of Matthew, where its long-range aspect is little known. It occurs in the anointing of J by the woman of Bethany (with underlining again indicating portions that made it into Matthew): TJ 27:23"This woman has become wise and lives according to the laws of Creation. Therefore she thanks me with the precious water. 24Her gratitude will be lasting, and from now on her deed shall be known throughout the world. 25Truly, I say to you, wherever my teachings will be preached in all the world, whether falsified or true, the people will remember what she has done." Mt26:10b"For she has done a beautiful thing to me. 11For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. 12In pouring this ointment on my body she has done it to prepare me for burial. 13Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her." In looking for the direction of redaction here, one may ask if this woman would have been told that Jesus was going to die when even the disciples could not accept his prophecy that he would have to undergo a crucifixion. And, were these words from Jesus already a "gospel" at this time? Price continued with this observation: It seems anticlimactic to scrutinize this miserable travesty further. But it may be worth it after all, in case anything else is needful to discourage any adolescents who may still be interested in it. There are historical errors that would just not be possible in a writing from someone who lived in the period. Jesus is said to be born in the reign of Herod Antipas (2:1). Actually it was Herod the Great. The reader of Matthew scarcely need be told the latter supposed fact. However, we may wonder why Price does not mention that scholars have for decades puzzled over why key verses in the Gospel of Luke place J's birth in A.D. 6 (Lk 2:1-2), those verses being in regard to the decree from Caesar (the census for the 5% inheritance taxation of the Roman world in A.D. 6), and the reign of Quirinius, governor of Syria, commencing then (he could call for a needed Judeo-Syrian census at the same time). It happens that Antipas attained the dynastic title of "Herod" also in A.D. 6. In addition, Acts 5:37 has Judas the Galilean initiating his uprising "in the days of the census"; this uprising is believed to have occurred in A.D. 6, and the mentioned census must have been that of A.D. 6. On the other hand, there are ample reasons to explain why the writer of Matthew would have wanted to alter Herod Antipas in his TJ source into Herod the Great, who died in 4 B.C. However, the earlier 4 B.C. birth date (or 4-6 B.C.) is preferred by most scholars, despite the better evidence otherwise, largely because of reluctance to admit that the writer of Matthew could have made such a fraudulent change, and also because it means J was as young as 25 at the start of his ministry. Obviously, no New Age literary hoaxer would be knowledgeable enough to have figured this out if Price couldn't, or would desire to if he wished his hoax to receive scholarly support. Humble fellow that he is, Billy the Evangelist has Jesus predict him: “Not until two thousand years will an insignificant man come who will recognize my teaching as truth and spread it with great courage” (14:18). See also 15:75-81. But Jesus seems to underestimate just how insignificant the man will prove to be. Price again has it all wrong. Billy Meier didn't write the Talmud of Jmmanuel, as we have already seen repeatedly here and from unrefuted research that Price evidently has had no desire to look into. It was Jmmanuel, not "Jesus," who made the prediction of TJ 14:18 and 15:75-81 as written down by Judas Iscariot. Although Meier perhaps hasn't attracted as much attention as had Jmmanuel alias "Jesus" the first 25 years after his Palestinian ministry, he was in the UFO limelight for several years (1975-1981 and longer, and eventually worldwide) due to the great clarity, number, and variety of his "beamship" photos, until misguided debunkings by "mainstream" ufologists marginalized the first-hand investigations of W. Stevens, Lee & Brit Elders, G. Moosbrugger, G. Kinder and M. Hesemann (references given here), all of which concluded that "the Meier case" could not be any hoax. Regarding humbleness or lack of it, Jmmanuel abided by his own advice, given in TJ 24:13, "Let those who are great in consciousness consider themselves great, and those who are small in consciousness consider themselves small and those who are in between in consciousness consider themselves in between." Next, Price tries to ridicule the idea that Jmmanuel had an ET father: Jesus’ audience in the Nazareth synagogue asks, “Is he not the son of the carpenter, Joseph, whose wife became pregnant by the son of a guardian angel? From where does he get all this wisdom and the power for his mighty works?” (15:18, 72). Oh, I don’t know… could it have anything to do with his being the son of an angel?! Being the son of Gabriel was just the starting point. Jmmanuel had to devote himself to arduous learning from an early age -- traveling with the caravans on the long treks to and from India, learning much during his travels in India, and receiving intensive instruction from his ET contactors during the 40 days and nights early in his Palestinian ministry. Those in the synagogue likely didn't know anything about all that, they just recalled the story of Jmmanuel's birth that Mary and Joseph must have circulated around a bit and which must have persisted a while, likely being revived after news of his miraculous healings became known to many. On p. 131 Price continues by presenting: “A prophet is never esteemed less than in his own country and in his own house, which will prove true for all the future, as long as humanity has little knowledge and is enslaved by the false teachings of the scribes and the distorters of true scripture” (15:74). This nonsensical inflation of Mark 6:4 sounds like the rambling, bogus Ezekiel quote Samuel L. Jackson repeats again and again in Pulp Fiction! It was the writer of Matthew who utilized this TJ verse for his own at Mt 13:57b. The writer of Mark merely followed Matthew, though adding "among his own kin" to those who did not esteem Jesus. There is no nonsense here for those who can understand that it embodies a prophecy of how Jmmanuel's teachings would be long shunned in Israel and by all humanity due to those who did and would distort the teachings of truth. But The Talmud of Jmmanuel doesn’t mind taking Christian morality down a peg: TJ 5:42“Give to them who ask of you, if they make their requests in honesty, and turn away from them who want to borrow from you in a deceitful way”. In accord with the Rabbis, Jesus seems uncritical in his counsel to give to any beggar. Jmmanuel wouldn't have been known as a wisdom teacher if his teachings had been like most of those of Matthew's Jesus. The writer of Matthew was an all-or-nothing extremist. Common sense tells us that it is not wise to keep giving to beggars until you yourself are one of them. Some criticality is required, which, however, is ruled out for those who think that Matthew's "Judge not lest you be judged" was also what the wisdom teacher had actually spoken. Some NT scholars of Matthew have deduced that its writer was likely once a rabbi himself. Everybody recognizes that, if it comes right down to it, it is noble to give your life for your country and what it stands for. Religious martyrdom is the same, as long as one does not seek it out as some kind of fanatic. In the last analysis, you have to preserve your integrity at whatever price. But not according to this gospel: TJ 10:21“Flee from the unbelieving, because you should not lose your life for the sake of truth and knowledge. No law requires that of you, nor is there one that admits to such recklessness”. The above was Jmmanuel's advice to his disciples, which he himself followed when danger grew too near (until he felt the time had come to undergo a crucifixion, which he was confident he would survive). This was not advice to soldiers in an army. And it is advice from a talmud, not from a gospel. Price next selected the following verse from the TJ's 1st authorized English edition (1992): TJ 13:10“No Sabbath is holy and no law dictates that on the sabbath no work may be done” -or at least no law that an anti-Semite would take seriously, I guess. A couple words from the German had been omitted here in that 1992 English version. The TJ's 3rd and 4th editions read: TJ13:10"Truly, I say to you, no Sabbath is holy and no law of Creation dictates that no work may be done on the Sabbath." The correction doesn't affect Price's remark, except to emphasize that Jmmanuel was a follower of the laws of Creation and nature, not generally of Judaism. Nature doesn't distinguish between days of the week. The writer of Matthew (in Mt 12:6-8) strongly revised this part of the TJ, since he was a strong believer in the Torah as well as in the Messiah. Jmmanuel saith: “Do not suppose that prayer is necessary, because you will also receive without prayer if your spirit is trained through wisdom” (21:15). And yet Jmmanuel prescribes a prayer [the Prayer to One's Spirit, below, is here rendered in the language of the TJ's 3rd (2002) edition]: 'My spirit, you exist within omnipotence. 'May your name be holy. 'May your kingdom incarnate itself within me. 'May your power unfold itself within me, on Earth and in the heavens. 'Give me today my daily bread, that I may recognize my wrongdoings and the truth. 'And lead me not into temptation and confusion, but deliver me from error. 'For yours is the kingdom within me and the power and the knowledge forever. Amen.' (TJ 6:12-18) But what’s the difference, I guess, since you’d be praying to your own self? The above Prayer to One's Spirit, as mentioned in TJ 6:6-7, has a key purpose of reminding us how powerful one's spirit really is. And reminding us that a prime reason we're here is to evolve spiritually and therefore to learn from our wrongdoings, which we need to seek to minimize and not repeat. The later verse, TJ 21:15, has a narrower context, and speaks for itself. At first, one might be tempted to think this Talmud of Jmmanuel is a progressive, with-it kind of gospel for the new age: “Do away with the enforcement of the old law that woman should be subject to man, since she is a person like a man, with equal rights and obligations” (12:25) . But, Liberals, you may want to shield your eyes from this one. It looks like grief for Gays, though leniency for Lesbians: “And if two men bed down with each other, they should also be punished, because the fallible are unworthy of life and its laws and behave heretically; thus they should be castrated, expelled and banished before the people. If, however, two women bed down with one another, they should not be punished, because they do not violate life and its laws, since they are not inseminating, but are bearing” (12:6-7). How’s that again? First, it should be pointed out that the "castration" punishment has, since about 2002, been believed by Meier to be a mistranslation or misinterpretation by Rashid, here and elsewhere in the TJ's chapter 12. The original Aramaic is now believed to have utilized a brief phrase that meant for the guilty person simply to "be removed or cut off (from the community)". This then involved the guilty man or woman being expelled and banished from the community. This opinion receives some support from the TJ's first verse that introduces this penalty. It is: TJ 12:4 (3rd and earlier editions): "It is written, however, 'Whosoever commits adultery and fornication shall be punished, because the fallible are unworthy of life and its laws; thus they shall be castrated or sterilized'." [Underline added.] The writing this must refer to is in Leviticus. We see below from Lv 18:20-29, however, that the penalty for such sexual offenses was for the guilty persons to "be cut off from among their people" (emphasis added): Lv 18:29 For whoever shall do any of these abominations, the persons that do them shall be cut off from among their people. There is no mention of castration. So my own conjecture is that the translator, Isa Rashid, thinking within the context of a male fornicator while not rereading Leviticus, wrongly interpreted an Aramaic verb meaning "cut off," to mean "castrated." Then, for completeness and consistency on this point, he had to introduce a similar phrase for women fornicators, who were also to be cut off (from the community), causing him to write "sterilization" for their case. The Leviticus penalty must have been well known in Old Testament days and commonly applied, so that the TJ's writer, Judas, might not in every instance have bothered to add "from the community" after "cut off." This conjecture allows that the translator, Rashid, being human, was subject to making an occasional mistake, even a gross mistake, in translation. Possibly contributing to this suspected error, the phrase "from the community" at TJ 12:4 might have been among the various pieces of the TJ's papyrus rolls that Meier reported he observed in 1963 were illegible and decayed. Price's above remark, however, does not pertain to this, but rather, apparently, to "inseminating" gays strangely being sexual offenders while "bearing" lesbians are not. I can't help Price on this, but it is clear that Jmmanuel was very much against male cohabitation. One doesn't expect, therefore, that many gays would be attracted to the TJ. In summary, none of Price's numerous remarks give any substantive arguments pertaining to the TJ's genuineness. They instead consist mainly of sarcasm and derision, which seem to stem from an initial misbelief that the TJ and the story of its discovery and translation just couldn't be true. Accompanying this is the total absence of indication by Price that he's aware of the overwhelming amount of indirect evidence that says the Gospel of Matthew was formed out of the Talmud of Jmmanuel rather than vice versa, and the massive amount of physical evidence and eye- witness reports that say Eduard "Billy" Meier is a genuine UFO contactee. RETURN TO: Parent Page Contents Debunking and Shunning the TJ and the Meier Contactee Case Attempts to discredit the TJ There are some who have debunked the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) simply because UFO contactee Eduard Meier was its co-discoverer and the one who made it public, in 1978. These are mostly certain ufologists -- persons who have never read the TJ and have no interest in doing so, because they are under the false impression that Meier's contactee experiences are hoaxes. They assume that all UFO contactees are either hoaxers or self-deluded individuals, and so they assume Meier is one, too, who hoaxed the TJ. They don't realize that the TJ's content, fluidity, consistency, inspirational value, natural creativity and numerous details by which one can see that the Gospel of Matthew was derived from it, are beyond the capability of any scholar or combination of scholars to have hoaxed. Thus, some of their reasons for debunking or shunning the TJ consist of their reasons for trying to debunk the Meier UFO-contactee case itself. Another key reason for their attitude is that Meier is unique among UFO witnesses, abductees or contactees in having been supplied with so many opportunities to take clear daytime color photos, and 8mm movie film segments, of his contactors' craft in the skies. Any case with more photographic evidence than usual is looked upon with great suspicion, since ufologists know that scientific minded colleagues will just say it looks too good to be true. "How did Billy Meier get singled out by the ETs as being so special? Why wasn't it me?" some have asked, not realizing that they would ask the same no matter who in particular the contactee was. Still another reason that arises, for someone of this character who should happen to read into Meier's Contact Reports, is the occultism involved. That is, Meier was treated to some of the ETs' advanced technology and teachings, and this of course can seem occult -- beyond our present understanding, and may also seem self-serving. In an attempt to dispel some of this illogical, non-scientific attitude, I wrote an article that's in the ufological journal of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON UFO Journal, Dec. 1987) entitled "The Meier Case: Occultness and Ambiguity No Cause for Rejection." The "occultness" is connected both with the spirituality that Meier's ETs taught and which Meier professes, and with the advanced technology to which they treated him and which he faithfully reported. The "ambiguity" is connected with our inability to understand this advanced science and technology, and with ufologists' unwillingness to learn of Meier's explanations. I believe it is also associated with his ETs at times having fed Meier pieces of disinformation mixed in with the truth, which has helped ensure that scientists would not latch onto the reality of the Meier case but instead would assume that he was a hoaxer, in order that the UFO coverup not come prematurely unraveled through Meier having been granted so many photographic opportunities. This is the plausible deniability factor -- purposely supplied by ETs, I believe, which so often accompanies UFO sightings and encounters, and keeps negative skeptics from being forced to accept what their minds are unable to cope with. Such skeptics are of course unwilling to believe that ETs could possess the necessary intelligence and degree of ethics to implement such a strategy, and so it is a "catch-22" situation. The greater the amount of evidence the ETs supply a particular UFO witness or contactee, the greater care they seemingly must take to insure that they have also included ambiguous or deceptive evidence, which will allow negative skeptics to maintain their state of denial if they insist. This holds true for the Meier case. Those interested in speculating on alien strategy may wish to read three papers I have authored in peer- reviewed journals dealing with the likelihood of an alien presence and awareness of us, and what their strategy may be for dealing with us. There have been a few scientists like myself, here and there, who have written articles of a similar nature so as to try to inform their colleagues as to what is going on. Evidently, neither the government, nor academia, nor organized religion has been doing anything constructive to help bring about a public awareness of the UFO phenomenon, and so it is up to individuals, at the grass roots level, to do so. An attempted debunking of the TJ by Kal Korff Regarding debunkings directed towards the TJ itself, these have so far been attempted mainly by a very few ufologists who have become aware of the TJ. Its heretical, sensational and spiritual aspects are some of the reasons why such ufologists have strenuously attempted to debunk it. One of these persons is debunker Kal K. Korff, who confronted the TJ in seven pages of his book: Spaceships of the Pleiades: The Billy Meier Story. However, in just those seven pages I have noticed 9 false or unsupported claims, 12 misleading statements, 13 plain errors, and 3 innuendos with false implications: click here to read these refutations. A similar debunking attempt of the TJ has been made by Italian ufologist Maurizio Verga. It is refuted here. An attempted debunking of the TJ by James Adair An untruthful debunking has been supplied by James R. Adair, who helped oversee the development of TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism circa 1998, and who holds a Masters in Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. In a message on a TC (textual criticism) email list of 17 Sept. 1997, he stated that the TJ "was written by noted UFOlogist and New Ager Eduard "Billy" Meier." This falsifies the fact that it was written by Judas Iscariot, and only edited by Billy Meier. It fails to allow the reader to realize the TJ was a historical discovery in the form of ancient Aramaic rolls, with Meier being a co- discoverer. The testimony of Rashid's letter is entirely omitted. Everything about Meier's credibility and supporting witnesses is omitted, as is any inkling of the massive amount of indirect evidence indicating that the Gospel of Matthew was formed out of the TJ rather than the TJ being any literary hoax. Adair went on to say, "He [Meier] claims to have been contacted by aliens called the 'Pleiades' on several occasions, and he also thinks of himself as the reincarnation of Jesus Christ." Of course, these ETs were called the Pleiadians (later the Plejarens) and not called by the name of the constellation itself. Meier certainly does not think of himself as the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, since he regards the latter as a fictitious character quite unlike the historical Jmmanuel (though this might be considered playing with words). Adair is most likely as ignorant as other Christians about the reality of reincarnation, and of the reality that Jmmanuel (alias Jesus) was a human who did not die on the cross but lived on a long life, eventually dying and reincarnating. Adair then refers to the Italian website refuted above for further information. Refutation of attempted debunking of the TJ by Robert Price Robert M. Price is a liberal theologian turned atheist, and a prolific author of articles, books and book reviews that are critical of various aspects of Christianity. In chapter 9 of his 2007 book, Jesus is Dead, Price lashes out against the Talmud of Jmmanuel (here abbreviated TJ), perhaps because its teachings are incompatible with an atheist's beliefs, or because its story reveals more that is wrong with Christianity than he has been able to do. However, the solutions it leads to. for many longstanding problems regarding the origins of Christianity, fall out quite naturally, though the truths they reveal may be unacceptable to atheists and fundamentalists alike. Click here to read his claims and their refutations. Refutation of charges in Korff's anti-Meier book Regarding false ufological debunkings of Meier's experiences, a web site of Jeroen Jansen points out the multitudinous errors in Korff's book, and sorts these into categories: 46 untruths, 17 examples of omission of relevant data, 17 unsubstantiated claims against which he presents counterarguments, and other failings. This is contained within the website of James Moore under "Articles by others." A complete refutation of Korff's claims against the famous photo series in which his contactor's craft posed on all sides of a mature fir tree is given here. Critical Review of Clark's Encyclopedia Article, "Meier Contact Claims": The Initiation and Maintenance of Debunking against Meier In The UFO Encyclopedia, Jerry Clark (1998a) devotes three pages of text to a summary of Meier's experiences and ufological reactions to them, and another page to references. It is probably the most even- handed treatment of the Meier case that you will find from any "mainstream" ufologist. He briefly mentions incidents from Meier's early youth, his contacts with Sfath then and with Asket in his twenties, then with Semjase in the mid-1970s. In the 25 references that relate to Meier's experiences in the latter period, about half are serious studies while the others are of a debunking nature. Although his article avoids unsubstantiated and slanderous charges against Meier directly from himself, Clark let his feelings on the case be known through his selection of what he did and did not report on... For more, click here. An unsuccessful attempt to debunk Meier's experiences by Royce Myers Myers has a website in which he attempts to debunk a large number of names within ufology. Although some of them may deserve it, others don't. Reasons why his attempts against Meier fail are given here. Scholars' problems with the TJ Although none of the above would-be debunkers can be called New Testament scholars, it is worth noting why almost all of them must, if they hear about the TJ, leave it alone. Such scholars cannot be made interested in the TJ because: It is very seriously heretical in several ways; Its originals are no longer extant; It indicates that certain gospel events were UFO related, and the UFO topic is taboo for scholars to discuss openly in print or on the Web; It is connected with an alleged UFO contactee, and as noted above, many ufologists shun contactees; It is sensational, and scholars tend to shy away from the sensational, or from what they perceive as radical; It contains certain verses that, if taken out of context, may seem pro-Aryan or anti-Judaistic, and may be misconstrued as anti-Semitic; It indicates that Jmmanuel had been a long-range prophet, not just short-range; and It indicates that the Gospel of Matthew had come first, not Mark. Any two or three of these aspects will deter scholarly inquiry. All of them together rule it out except for the most independent of open-minded scholars. Regarding the last of these deterrents, it turns out, from my own research, that 19th-century scholars found too many embarrassments for the church and for their own faith within the early, historical testimony: namely, that Matthew had come first and had been written in Aramaic/Hebrew. A similar opinion I've seen is that certain Protestant scholars did not appreciate the emphasis that Matthew places upon Peter, out of which the concept of papal succession and then papal infallibility evolved, within Catholicism. And so they opted for Mark being the first Gospel. This decision had a huge impact on future New Testament scholasticism, pointing it in entirely the wrong direction. For more on this, I refer the interested viewer to my unpublished papers on Christian theological commitment within scholasticism (see especially Section 6), and on the Gospel priority problem (see especially Section 1). Or see the Modified Augustinian Hypothesis. So a majority of 20th-century scholars have accepted Markan priority, even though the decision appears to have been based upon theological commitment rather than logical deductions from the available evidence. A few New Testament scholars with whom I've been in contact have tried to debunk the TJ through scoffing or use of disparaging comments. These appear to have been based upon nothing more than glancing at one or more Internet sites that have offered debunking statements against Billy Meier's UFO photos and contacts, by means of false claims, distortions and omissions of relevant evidence. So far, this has been more than sufficient to deter scholars from looking into the mass of supportive evidence uncovered by the original investigators of the Meier case from 1978-85-Wendelle Stevens, Lee and Brit Elders with Tom Welch, and Gary Kinder, and of the evidence uncovered in India from 1963-65. A TJ debunking attempt by Eldberg One who has not tried to use the UFO phenomenon as reason to debunk the TJ is Åke Eldberg, a Lutheran- Episcopal minister in Sweden. However, at his website one finds large numbers of claims not backed up by substance or logic. As an example, he starts out with the following slanted summary: "Talmud Immanuel. This book is the work of 'Billy' Eduard Albert Meier who was born in Bülach, Switzerland in 1937. His rather obvious Biblical hoax has all the usual characteristics: no manuscript is available, the text only exists in modern translations, the "find story" is unlikely, and it contains anachronisms and obvious "prophecies after the event". I find it interesting because it's such a typical and predictable late-20th century Biblical hoax." Thus Eldberg assumes from the start that Meier wrote the TJ, which he misspells. A scholar obviously would not make any such rash assumption without backing it up by honest evidence. He calls it an obvious hoax when a comprehensive investigation finds it is no hoax at all; thus he is mixing up "black" and "white." He mentions that no manuscript (original manuscript he must have meant) is available, as if that proves anything; he failed to mention why the lack of extant original TJ writings should be no surprise whatsoever, and is more to be expected than not, due to the TJ's great heresies for Judeo-Christianity. By "find story" he is referring to the TJ's discovery, and of course any discovery of something new, different and important could be termed "unlikely," since it would not have occurred previously. Thus he is assuming from the start that Eduard Meier was not in on the TJ's discovery and invented the event. His statement that "the text only exists in modern translations" is especially strange, since he knows the translation exists, the original was discovered in 1963, and hence the existing translation must perforce be modern (dated later than 1963). If he was referring to ancient references to the TJ, he should realize that the TJ was just as heretical back in the early 2nd century as at present, and one cannot expect that those few who had access to it then would have allowed it to be promulgated. However, with hindsight one can realize that the TJ may have lain behind the Logia that the 2nd-century bishop Papias wrote about. It is also quite possible that the TJ was the document that Pantaenus came across in India in the late 2nd century but reported as being a Hebrew form of Matthew (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5.10:2-4). This because Pantaenus reported the tradition that one of the disciples had preached from it there in India, while scholars now know that the New Testament Gospels were not written while the disciples were still alive. Eldberg confuses "anachronisms" with prophecies that have either come true or appear to be coming true; thus he is making the not uncommon assumption that no man, however unique, could have been a successful long-range prophet. This topic is also covered within the present website, where the successful short-range prophecies of Jmmanuel (i.e., Jesus), such as Peter's 3rd denial after the cock's crow, and the long-range prophecy that the woman's deed of pouring the expensive ointment on Jmmanuel's head would become known throughout the world, are discussed. These are present in the Gospel of Matthew, so that quite a few scholars, not just Christians, allow that Jesus was a prophet. The TJ, on the other hand, indicates many instances in which the editing of the TJ by the writer of Matthew produced anachronisms within his gospel, as they do not exist in the TJ. These are mentioned in discussions in the Mt-TJ verse comparisons under: Mt 3:11, 7:21-22, 9:5-6, 11:5, 12:31-32, 14:19, 14:33, 16:24, 18:5, 21:2-3, 22:42, 23:7-10, 24:9, 26:6-13 (two), 26:25, 26:26, 26:27-28, 26:30, 26:61-62, 26:63, 27:17-18,20,22; 27:54 and 28:18-20. (In all but two of these 25 instances there is a TJ parallel to the Matthean verse.) Thus, the number of anachronisms that one may find in the TJ, upon assuming that Jmmanuel could not have been a successful prophet, are surpassed by the number of anachronisms that the TJ assists us in finding in Matthew. Anyone can write whatever they wish about the TJ, but unless it is backed up by detailed and honestly represented evidence plus logical reasoning, it may amount to no more than meaningless words. My advice is: check the TJ out for yourself, don't just accept Pastor Eldberg's word about it. More on his website file here. A Response to Clint Tibbs's Paper against TJ/Meier/Plejaren Spiritual Teachings In this pdf paper, certain claims by Tibbs in his paper, “UFOs and Spirit Communication: The Challenge of Discernment as Seen in a Comparison of Billy Meier and Johannes Greber” are refuted. Tibbs is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Delta State University. A Response to Clint Tibbs's Later Web Page against the TJ and Plejaren Spiritual Teachings This pdf paper rebuts Tibbs's poorly supported or unjustified claims against the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ), his misleading questions, while pointing out relevant considerations and facts he omitted. Return to: Contents Plausible Deniability by J. W. Deardorff (2002, updated 2006, 2013) Maintenance of the UFO Coverup That there is a UFO coverup can scarcely be denied (Fawcett & Greenwood, 1984; Good, 1988; Greer, 1999, pp. 301-312; Maccabee, 2000). It has been maintained through the voluntary wishes of about half the population, particularly persons in position of authority, as well as by the various governmental agencies that established the UFO ridicule factor. This factor has been especially effective in causing the UFO topic to be taboo for scientists. However, the coverup has also been maintained by the UFO aliens themselves (Douglass, 2001). This should be obvious, considering the several hundred-thousand screened UFO reports since 1947, many multiply attested, in which the aliens could have made their appearances definite or could have stayed in one place long enough for the news media to gather and present the event to the world-that is, if the aliens had wished to allow this and show how easily they could, in self-defense, defeat the military forces that would converge upon the scene. Instead, not only the multitudinous sightings and landing-trace evidence, but abductions, crop-circle formations and cattle mutilations have all been accomplished covertly, without leaving sufficiently firm evidence behind to satisfy most ufologists. Since such aliens did not move in and wipe us out or enslave us decades or millennia ago, the inference is that they, or the ones in charge of the coverup, maintain an ethic of not forcing society as a whole to believe what it is not yet prepared to believe. They appear to have done their homework on us, and are leaving it up to us: experiencers, ufologists, the other half of the general public, and Hollywood, to gradually make their existence, presence and capabilities known. The aliens’ role, then, is largely as catalysts and behind-the-scenes teachers, or, as Leo Sprinkle has expressed it, as messengers conditioning us towards cosmic consciousness (Sprinkle, 1999, pp. 168-169). Even from abductions-especially from abductions-we have learned much about the alien capabilities that we never could have just from UFO sightings alone. This is not to imply, however, that covertly educating us and preparing us is the only reason for the alien presence here now. We cannot expect to fathom all the reasons the various alien groups may have for being here. Where is science in all this? Its fringes have not been totally silent. In the past quarter century the hypothesis has been proposed that aliens are currently in Earth’s vicinity and aware of us, but are mainly staying out of sight, by means of their advanced technology, because they have an embargo or quarantine against us, or because they are treating the solar system as if it were a wildlife refuge (e.g., see Ball, 1973; Kuiper & Morris, 1977; Harrison, 1981; Soter, 1985). Suggested motivations for such strategies include the desire by ethical aliens to wait until we have become more civilized, to not provoke our societies into chaos by a sudden alien presence for which we are unprepared, and to ensure that unethical alien groups don’t take over. The UFO phenomenon then represents a purposeful “leak” in the alien embargo, such that when full disclosure does occur, the shock upon society will not be so calamitous (Deardorff, 1986; Deardorff et al., 2005; Sprinkle, 1999, pp. 183-184). Alien use of deception is another means by which they can uphold the "leaky embargo" while making their presence known to witnesses who can distinguish between the real features of a genuine UFO sighting versus deceptive features. As to speculated alien motivations for this, besides the ethical goal of not prematurely disrupting the UFO coverup, one is that the "good" aliens do not wish us to turn them into gods or initiate new religions. This might occur if everything they told their abductees and contactees appeared to be fully truthful and consistent, but is less likely if deception or disinformation is involved. Most people presumably don't wish their god/God to lie to them. A possible alien goal closely related to this is to discourage us from accepting their every word or action as truthful or non-deceptive. This will tend to cause those who recognize the reality of the alien presence to continue to think logically and scientifically for themselves, and not lapse into an unhealthy dependence upon the aliens for information. Instead, every alien communcation and apparent action will need to receive close scrutiny as to its veracity. The Coverup as applied to the Meier case It is consistent with the leaky-embargo hypothesis that the Meier case comprises a part of the leak in the embargo. However, its uniqueness indicates the man has been singled out for a special role. Bringing the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) to the attention of interested persons could be a major part of this role. What other document in the past two millennia could be more important for Western civilization than setting the history straight as to the origins of Christianity, and giving the true teachings of Jmmanuel, alias Jesus? The Pleiadians must have had to abide by the overall alien strategy of covertness even while setting Meier up with unique photo opportunities and contacts that would serve to attract attention to him, his experiences, his writings and the TJ. They would have had to ensure that doing this would not prematurely rupture the UFO coverup. This would be akin to abiding by a Codex Galactica as suggested by Newman & Sagan (1981), or the Prime Directive of “Star Trek.” With hindsight, we can understand how this balancing act was accomplished. The aliens themselves would have to ensure that Meier would be an easy target for skeptics, realizing that debunkers tend to ignore supportive facts while focusing upon actions that may seem suspicious of fraud. However, Meier was allowed to take so many beamship photos and collect so much other evidence (not even presented in this website) of his Pleiadian contactors’ presence that one may wonder: Why didn’t this cause rapid acceptance of the reality of Meier’s experiences? Why didn’t it cause a prompt collapse of the worldwide UFO coverup? Some of the answers to this question do not directly involve the ETs: Too many ufologists did not wish to treat a contactee case seriously; the Meier case was far too unique, and so ufologists would dismiss it like scientists do a datum point that lies too far afield; such ufologists did not wish to accept the possibility that aliens could actually work magical wonders well beyond our present level of understanding; they disliked the idea that aliens would pick for their prime contactee a man whose formal schooling did not extend nearly to the level of their own; they did not wish to receive ridicule from colleagues; they did not care for the spiritual message Meier received and disseminated, etc. Other answers involve the ETs. Here are some of the actions that Meier's ETs could and did take, apparenty to prevent the large amount of good evidence they allowed him to accumulate from rupturing the UFO coverup, and to enable skeptics to maintain Meier in a debunked state: (a) allow only Meier to come to contact meetings; (b) allow only Meier to take daytime photos and 8mm film of the Pleiadian UFOs; (c) not allow Meier to photograph any of the Pleiadians themselves; (d) cause the tree at Fuchsbüel-Hofhalden in July 1975 to disappear only days after he took his photos of the beamship hovering there on all sides of the tree; (e) shower Meier with seemingly excessive flattery at times during contact meetings, which he would object to but dutifully record in his Contact Reports; later, skeptical readers would then assume that Meier had invented self-flattering prose. However, an extensive reading of the Meier material will disclose that the Plejaren do regard Meier's spirit as being that of past prophets with whom they have worked, and that this periodically incarnating spirit is like that of a uniquely high-level avatar, more highly evolved than they. Hence much of their flattery may be considered genuine, though it serves the purpose of feeding the Meier- case debunker; (f) maneuver a beamship deceptively during one of the 8mm movie filmings (e.g., Maccabee, 1989a; Deardorff, 1989; Maccabee, 1989b), so as to make it appear rather like an oscillating UFO model; (g) provide Meier, temporarily, with a model beamship, which he photographed and reported to be a model (Meier, 1983, photo #63; Stevens, 1988a), then retrieve it; (h) treat Meier to space trips and other events involving some of the aliens’ advanced technology, which would only invite incredulity on the part of most ufologists; (i) include items of disinformation at times for Meier to transmit in his Contact Reports, which items most ufologists or scientists would either chuckle over or shake their heads in disbelief, while assuming that Meier had invented them; this may include purposely false prophecies intermixed with astonishingly accurate prophecies; (j) tell Meier at first that his contactors were from the Pleiades, then later that they were from a space- time shifted form of the Pleiades, and that they should be called Plejarens, not Pleiadians- this could make it seem like Meier learned in the interim that the Pleiades were not an old enough star cluster to have evolved conditions suitable for advanced life to develop; (k) provide Meier (in 1990) with minor corrections to insert in future editions of the Talmud of Jmmanuel (Deardorff, 2001) - this could reinforce skeptics' views that Meier had invented the entire TJ. With plausible deniability in mind, Meier's contactors appear to have taken other actions regarding the TJ also: ensuring that Meier would survive to distribute the TJ translation while taking no such action to ensure survival of the translator (Rashid) and the Aramaic scrolls/rolls themselves, after the early 1970s; causing a rockslide down over the hillside containing the tomb site in which the TJ had been unearthed (this they could easily do without raising suspicions, as skeptics could so easily say 'How convenient!'); occasionally including disinformation within Contact Reports discussing subject matter about the writing of the TJ or of the Christian Gospels -- e.g., telling Meier that the Gospel of Matthew was authored by the disciple Matthew in contradiction to the information in the TJ that the latter was not available to be the source of any gospel until well into the 2nd century. (l) providing Meier with the broken-off top of the tree that showed up prominently in a few photographs Meier took while he was on Quetzal's "wedding-cake" craft (WCUFO) taking pictures of a second similar craft just above the forest canopy (photo #838, 3 April 1981, full story here); shortly afterwards Quetzal rammed his craft into the upper part of the tree, accidentally, supposedly, causing its top to break off, while a second such ramming broke the rest of the tree off lower down. Meier considered this tree top as good evidence that he had been in the WCUFO at treetop level so he soon photographed it next to his little tractor with which he hauled it and the broken-off lower portion out of the forest (photo #862), while skeptics might assume he had later placed this identifiable tree top upright on the ground and taken pictures of a model WCUFO somehow suspended behind it. Fortunately, Meier also took a couple photos of the rest of the downed tree (photo #853), which show it had been broken off, not sawed or chopped; (m) constructing their wedding-cake UFOs to make it seem to skeptics that they were all just a model composed of household items or fixtures. A most unlikely, lengthy and convoluted explanation to Billy as to why the lower circumference of the WCUFO had features identical to a certain garbage-can lid in use at Meier's property was given by Ptaah in Contact Report #254. All of the above actions, and more, may, when examined only superficially, seem to discredit Meier, but they were well under the control of the Pleiadians/Plejarens to have implemented. Most of them are self- explanatory. In (f), the particular maneuver in the Maccabee reference mostly involved the UFO circling around the top of a tree in a simple harmonic motion, as in a pendulum movement. The skeptic’s interpretation then was of a model swinging around a model tree at the end of a string whose length could be deduced from the period of the pendular movements. Thus this maneuver fit in well with the alien strategy outlined. However, pendular UFO motions have been noted in other witnessed UFO instances (Olsen, 1989; Pine, 1993; Maccabee, 1993). Thus the UFO craft are quite capable of such maneuvers, and when this incident is examined in depth, one finds far too many very serious problems with the hoax hypothesis to advocate it. Item (i) above is especially important. By including some “silly science,” contradictions, and/or unacceptable thoughts into what they tell a contactee, the aliens can ensure that most scientists who learn of it will assume the contactee invented it. Although Meier’s Contact Reports are fascinating reading, this precaution should be kept in mind. In many instances, however, even a scientist may not be able to discern for sure just what in these reports could be disinformation as opposed to truth. These reports are very realistic in their word-for- word recordings of what Meier said in response to what his contactor(s) told him, and in contact-related events they describe what different witnesses have corroborated. Alien implementation of plausible deniability in general Thus it is hypothesized that this strategy of presenting truth plus semi-plausible deniability is implemented by the aliens while they carry out their sightings to us and their contacts. Within ufology in general, aliens sometimes present their craft at nearly the same time, and in the same general location where persons are situated who could witness it, as the occurrence of a scientifically explainable event, such as a bright meteor or a satellite reentry (Gordon, 1985, p. 8). This seems to have happened much too often to be explained by coincidence. If in any particular instance the aliens should decide that they provided too much UFO evidence to some witness, they can always provide some further, seemingly bizarre, incident for that witness to experience that will tend to discredit him or her. Alternatively, they can cause evidence to vanish: (e.g., Stevens, 1982, p. 426; Gordon, 1984; Stevens, 1988b, pp. 139-140; Kinder, 1987, 249-253; Walters & Maccabee, 1997, pp. 34-35), including “angel hair,” and similarly for fetuses that vanish from pregnant abductees’ wombs. Yet again they can send around a few Men in Black (MIB) to intimidate the witness into not speaking out further (Clark, 1998), or to cause him/her to become discredited after reporting some bizarre aspect of the MIBs or their dress or behavior. In the Meier case, the Pleiadians/Plejarens must then have been especially careful to frequently provide deceptive evidence or remove other evidence in order to maintain the UFO coverup in the face of all the positive evidence they allowed him to accumulate. Item (i) is also important in serving to prevent a UFO case from turning into some new religion, for ETs ethical enough to refrain from doing so. Who would want to turn the Pleiadians into gods and goddesses upon noticing that they have dished out disinformation along with truths? Or, how could Meier ever be treated as a spiritual teacher, or head of a new religion, if everything he relayed from the Pleiadians/Plejarens has to be considered on its own merits as to whether it is “wheat” or “chaff”? This strategy of semi-plausible deniability seems to be fail-safe, in that even disclosing it can in no way cause it to fail. Those who are intent to focus on the aliens’ deceptive actions, or the naturally occurring uncertainties in a case, while dismissing the supportive evidence, are not likely to accept the reality of an alien strategy of semi-plausible deniability. They can just assume that those who do recognize the positive, supportive evidence are under a self-reinforcing delusion. The qualifier "semi-" is used here to prefix "plausible deniability," because the UFO aliens present evidence that supports the reality of their presence and sightings as well as presenting evidence or taking actions that can raise suspicions that the witnesses were mistaken or were hoaxers. The negative skeptics implausibly ignore the former while concentrating on the latter. This behavior seems to accompany such skeptics' refusal to accept the possibility or likelihood that not only are the UFO aliens present and greatly advanced over us technologically and scientifically, but they are also more intelligent than we, and can stay two jumps ahead of our best scientists. This topic, of the contacting UFO aliens (or ETI) actually being intelligent and implementing a strategy of semi-plausible deniability in dealing with us, such that people are not forced into believing what they don’t want to believe, has been almost entirely neglected within ufology. If or when this strategy were to become widely known and accepted, the time would have arrived at which the aliens should no longer need to maintain their role in the UFO coverup. Their strategy will then have succeeded. Some advantages of this semi-plausible-deniability hypothesis are that it not only accounts for the UFO coverup by the aliens themselves, and for UFO aliens not having wiped us out any time in our past, but accounts for both the firm evidence favoring particular UFO cases and the elements that skeptics find suspicious. References Ball, J. A. (1973). The zoo hypothesis. Icarus, 46, pp. 347-349. Clark, J. (1998). The UFO book - Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial. Detroit, MI: Visible Ink Press. Deardorff, J. W. (1986). Possible extraterrestrial strategy for Earth. Quart. J. Roy. Astron. Soc. , 27, pp. 94- 101. Deardorff, J. (1989). Pleiades pendulum (Letter). International UFO Reporter 14, No. 5 (Sept./ Oct.) p. 21. Deardorff, J., Haisch, B., Maccabee, B., and Puthoff, H. E. (2005). Inflation-theory implications for extraterrestrial visitation. J. British Interplanetary Soc., 58, pp. 43-50. Douglass, E. (2001). Why doesn’t the US government tell the truth about UFOs? MUFON UFO Journal No. 393 (Feb.), pp. 6-7. Fawcett, L., and Greenwood, B. J. (1984). Clear Intent: The Government Coverup of the UFO Experience. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Good, T. (1988). Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-up. New York: William Morrow. Gordon, S. (1984). “Update on the Bellwood, Pennsylvania UFO car lift case.” MUFON UFO J. No. 200 (Dec.). Gordon, S. (1985). “Penn state sighting.” MUFON UFO J. No. 212 (Dec.). Greer, S. (1999). Extraterrestrial Contact: The Evidence and Implications. Afton, VA: Crossing Point, Inc. Publications. Harrison, E. R. (1981). Cosmology. New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 430. Kinder, G. (1987). Light Years: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. Kuiper, T.B.H. and Morris, M., "Searching for extraterrestrial civilizations." Science 196, pp. 616-621. Maccabee, B. (1989a). Pendulum from the Pleiades. International UFO Reporter 14, No. 1 (Jan./Feb.), pp. 11- 12,22. Maccabee, B. (1989b). Pleiades Pendulum (Response). International UFO Reporter 14, No. 5, pp. 21-24. In this note, Maccabee does remark that at one point, the top of the tree (but only the top) momentarily swooped over in the direction of the UFO’s travel as it passed very closely above it. Maccabee, B. (1993). Gulf Breeze lights still unexplained. International UFO Reporter 18, No. 1 (Jan./Feb.) p. 20. Maccabee, B. (2000). UFO FBI Connection. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Pubs. Meier, E. (ca 1983). Verzeichnis: Authentischer Farb-Photos. Hinterschmidrüti, Switzerland: E. Meier. Newman, W. and Sagan, C. (1981). Galactic civilizations: Population dynamics and interstellar diffusion. Icarus 46, p. 296. In this paper the authors acknowledge the statement to have derived from Arthur C. Clarke. Olsen, T. M. 1989. Pleiades pendulum (Letter). International UFO Reporter 14, No. 5 (Sept./Oct.), p. 24. Pine, C. (1993). In “Current Cases,” MUFON UFO Journal No. 305 (Sept.), p. 20. Soter, S. (1985). "The cosmic quarantine hypothesis." Planetary Report 5, pp. 20-21 (a publication of the Planetary Society). Sprinkle, R. Leo, (1999). Soul Samples: Personal Explorations in Reincarnation and UFO Experiences. Columbus, NC: Granite Publishing. Stevens, W. C. (1982). UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report. Tucson, VA: UFO Photo Archives (out of print). Stevens, W. C. (1988a). Personal communication, Feb. 10. Stevens, W. C. (1988b). Message from the Pleiades, vol. 1. Tucson, VA: UFO Photo Archives (out of print). Walters, E. and Maccabee, B. 1997. UFOs Are Real: Here’s the Proof. New York: Avon Books. Return to: Contents My Departmental Affiliation My university departmental affiliation has not been with the Department of Religious Studies, nor the Department of Philosophy into which it was absorbed, but rather with the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, which since merged into the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences. After retiring I became an independent scholar with respect to New Testament Gospel studies, as indicated in my curriculum vitae. Go Back to: Home Page Sighting Report Liberal Translation of Write-up by Harry Dicker in FIGU Bulletin #4 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: Aug., 1995) by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 It was in 1994 during the Passive Group General Assembly, to which I had come at the Center in Hinterschmidrüti, along with my mother, whom I took along for a few days holiday in Switzerland because I would be working during the day there at the Center. In the evening after the General Assembly I went from the Center back to the Freihof Inn to see if my mother was already back, and in order to tell her that I would stay a while in Hinterschmidrüti. Then, I strolled back to the Center, but on the way I observed something that I cannot 100 percent explain to this day. When I came across the parking lot, I saw Mrs. Elisabeth Moosbrugger. She was standing on the edge of the hanging-side parking lot, and looking down in the direction of the Valley. When I greeted her, she looked at me somewhat startled, and responded somewhat strangely, probably because she did not know me by name or by face, so I suspect. And it was at this moment, when suddenly a shining object flew through the Valley relatively close to the Center and completely silently. Well, I was scared and at the same time afraid that I might miss something. As a result, I ran over to the Center where the people were quite calmly eating and talking with each other. Seemingly of all those present, none noticed anything or perceived the light object I had sighted. For my part, I have of course tried to find a normal explanation for my observation. First, it is not normal that an earthly object of this type and with such a luminous appearance and such speed could fly completely silently, and secondly, it is also not normal that ordinary people would not be aware of such an object. At the least, it could not be any balloon, normal aircraft or helicopter. --The luminosity itself could not have been any reflection, because everything looked very different. The light was absolutely constant and was visible during the entire flight of the object. The sunlight was not strong enough to produce such an effect, but if that were nevertheless possible, how would this effect be able so quickly to traverse the Valley? Also, the angle of the sun's rays was not right for providing an explanation for the phenomenon. And then the flight trajectory: for a normal flying object, such as an aircraft or helicopter,etc., this would be far too dangerous and would certainly be banned. Now, for me the mysterious glowing flying object has always been, and still remains, a UFO, because I could not identify it, and also still can't today. --Perhaps I can one day explain everything: that it was just an IFO, an interplanetary flying object or simply an identified flying object. The Billy Meier case: The simple "farmer" who talked with the star people Remembering what it took to research the Meier photos two decades ago Written by: Jim Dilettoso, circa 2000 [Images omitted] Talk about mixed messages. I first heard of Billy Meier in 1977, when I was 28 years old. Lt. Col. Wendelle Stevens (USAF Ret.) and Jim Lorenzen, founder and director of APRO (Aerial Phenomena Research Organization), visited me to discuss testing UFO pictures taken by a Swiss man named Billy Meier. I had been in the music business both as a performer and producer, and my day job at that time was producing rock and roll tours for Alice Cooper and other big acts. Because of my job, I knew about the latest digital tools in both audio and digital image processing. I had an inclination of how to approach the project. The UFO photos were the first I had ever seen. They amazed me. To this day, even, they're some of the most amazing photos of UFOs I’ve ever seen. The whole story of Billy Meier was, to me, something really important, a matter that needed to be approached with utmost diligence and care. A woman from the constellation Pleiades actually had posed with her spacecraft so that Billy Meier could take pictures of her. If we just told the world about it, I thought, the world would become a totally different place. Looking back, I was totally naive. Billy Meier lives in Switzerland, a politically neutral, democratic, panoramic, and beautiful country. This Swiss countryside was a great backdrop for the 500-plus photographs Billy Meier had taken. What a picturesque place it was for a date with a beautiful space woman, whose sports car could travel at the speed of light. Even better, she had taken Meier for a ride in one of the Pleiadians' four types of spacecraft, traveled in time, and retrieved samples of their metals. At the time I couldn’t help but think, "Yeah! Switzerland is where it’s at!" In the U.S., things were a little different. Trying to locate equipment and experts in image processing, to assist in testing UFO pictures, was a little frustrating. In 1978, computers were mainframes and workstations. State-of-the-art image-processing equipment had 64K of Ram and a 5MB hard drive -- and the cost was $100,000. Desktop scanners cost $50,000 and up. Even worse, most of the equipment we needed resided in labs owned by or was contracted by the U.S. government and defense agencies. Wendelle Stevens and I made the rounds of trade shows (like the Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers), NASA labs, Americas finest companies (like IBM and Northrup), and organizations such as the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Navy. It was like "Mission Impossible." Penetrating labs like Sandia and the Jet Propulion Laboratory required special credentials, and sometimes even a masquerade in order to get people to assist us. Some said the case was a hoax, but lab results differed. We persevered, though, and eventually had found many professionals, who under secrecy and non-disclosure agreements tested these UFO pictures. The secrecy was critical. These labs were not generally authorized to perform personal projects, like testing UFO pictures. So when other UFO researchers, hell bent on getting into the case, made inquiries into some of the places we had been, they would, as agreed, deny any involvement on their part in testing the Billy Meier UFO photographs. Although not one lab found the pictures to be a hoax, UFO clubs like APRO and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) were claiming that it was a hoax, and debunker Kal Korff the natural champion. The curiosity for me was why people claiming the Billy Meier story was a hoax would display so much passion. We discovered lies and deception from debunkers -- conspiracy and deception that would continue to the present day. And like all the major cases, there was a major effort to discredit everyone from Meier and his family to the investigators on the case -- including me, the guy behind the investigation. Even though we found no evidence of a hoax, I still can see how the whole story sounds a little fishy. After hearing telepathic whispering, Meier, a one-armed farmer, rides his moped out into the woods to rendezvous with Semjase, a 400-year-old Pleiadian sage. The Pleiades form the "seven sisters" constellation venerated by the Greeks, Mohammed, the ancient Egyptians (whose Temple of Hathor is oriented toward the constellation), and the Japanese (who call that constellation Subaru). The Dogon tribe of Africa, the Lakota-Sioux, and the Ojibiwa each have had contact with people from that constellation. But not a simple farmer. Billy Meier claimed to have over 100 face-to-face contacts with Semjase. In time, these contacts would continue. Soon, I would be testing metal samples, and would be purchasing my own image-processing computer. There was even talk of some Pleiades books and a documentary film. I had to juggle work on UFO research with a busy schedule of rock and roll tour promotion. Getting down to business. We decided to go somewhere to perform testing-somewhere like NASA-JPL. I would do the research, get some names, call Wendelle Stevens, talk about it in our own code, and go. From the front gate onward, we faced little obstruction. We had credentials and access materials that literally gave us the run of the place. Although every building was available to us, we always met our confederate in the cafeteria or the ERC (employee recreation center). We took the photos in their picture form, and showed them to our contact over a hot dog or chipped beef, then proceeded to the confines of a NORAD looking room, where the latest in image-processing equipment could be found. We just had at it -- the image-processing experts sat with us in a secure facility at the Deep Space Network, looking at pictures of UFOs. Things seemed too convenient, indeed. We actually thought we were getting away with something, as we were granted free access of this place, using expensive equipment, and getting opinions from leading folks in the space program. As time went on, though, I increasingly suspected that someone knew our every move and was opening doors, if not outright sanctioning the caper. Test results were always "positive" -- no evidence of a hoax. But the situation was a lot deeper than that. These people were as amazed as we were at the quality of the pictures. This led to many ancillary discussions about the other evidence, the metal samples, the landing tracks and most importantly, the actual contacts. It seemed to us that we were actually giving briefings at a very high level. And nobody could talk about it, let alone videotape it. I had an idea. The Voyager Spacecraft fly-by of Jupiter was coming up. We were working on the world tour of legendary rock band The Moody Blues. We’d propose, I thought, to call the tour -- and album -- Voyager, get photos and video from JPL during the fly-by, and use them in the tour. NASA loved it, and so did the Moodies. At the same time, Junichi (Jim) Yaoi from Nippon TV hired us to acquire images from JPL and get them to Japan. Cameras were the key: We had a second reason to be on site. Soon, we’d be heading to every lab with a video camera. Not only were we given full-access press passes, we were given one off the press suites in Von Karman -- the media-relations center at NASA. National Geographic and Ted Koppel had to walk through our suite to get to their desks. Eventually, we got all of the video we needed. But we still couldn’t talk about our experiences. When Stevens and Welch showed up with a box of rocks, things really started to get strange. First things first: Do an inventory. In an aircraft hangar at the Scottsdale, Arizona airport, we carefully placed each specimen on a black dropcloth that was the size of a basketball court; the rock specimens covered the entire dropcloth. The chart of potential scientists to conduct the tests was almost as large. In the end, we selected Marcel Vogel of IBM. Not only had he developed colored TV phosphors and magnetic emulsion for floppy disks, he had been working in paranormal research with astronaut Edgar Mitchell and his Institute of Noetic Sciences. This was the right guy: He was credible, open-minded, and best of all, he had an incredibly advanced lab with the latest in scanning electron microscopes. Vogel was skeptical at first. But I had convinced him at least to take a look at what we had on our hands. He was as amazed about the findings as we could have ever imagined: Atomic elements 1 through 59 all were present in the same substance; organic materials were cold fused and micromachined. Vogel couldn’t imagine how it could be made. Although he had agreed to absolute secrecy, we discovered he had shared the findings with Richard Haines of NASA-Ames and Dr. James Hurtak (Keys of Enoch). We had a box weighing more than 30 pounds filled with these. The metal samples are the single most compelling evidence in the case. It wouldn’t be long, however, before some of the samples started to disappear. Word spread quickly. Like the photolabs experience, nobody could talk about it. Nobody could talk about the fact that compelling evidence was available. Here is the stuff that these flying machines are made of in order to travel through time and space. What a breakthrough for physics and the whole of the aerospace community. Not only was here the atomic soup, but Billy Meier explaining how the materials are made, and how the ship flies. Unfortunately when it did leak out it was blasted as a scam. And no one listened. Security was tight. Lee Elders and Tom Welch were ordained to keep the evidence intact, and keep the researchers quiet. My job was to find the labs, deliver the evidence, and take the debriefings. An invisible college was beginning to form. The scientists who we were visiting with the evidence were ravenous for more stuff. The UFO clubs were also ravenous that it was a hoax. Security was holding ground. No matter what the debunkers said, there would be no information released to them. This was far too important for amateurs. All would be revealed they said. In a book. This made sense: Security was going to control the leak of information by publishing a book. Lee Elders's book UFO Contact From The Pleiades came out in 1979. All hell broke loose. Everyone from Shirley Maclaine to Alan Klein (the Beatles' partner in ABKCO) wanted in on the scene. Pleiades was about to become a household word. We had meetings in the executive board room at Universal Studios with the all of the executive firepower that Universal had. There were Pleiadian books and music tapes galore. The Pleiadians were in. Barbara Marchiniak would now channel the Pleiadians. And MUFON was pissed, because we didn’t involve them in any of this. But after all was said and done, the objective of the testing was getting lost in the shuffle. Was the goal to have evidence in hand to "prove the existence" of extraterrestrials? I thought that the purpose was to validate the case so that the face to face contact could be studied. Wasn’t the most important thing what the Pleiadians had to say? Where were they from? How did they think? What did they say? Semjase had met Billy Meier face to face more than 135 times. She had brought other ETs with her-Ptaah, Asket, and Quetzel. They all looked human. They had been coming to Earth for a long time. They gave Billy Meier amazing information about everything from science to philosophy. They were concerned about us -- humans -- their little brothers. We were, and still are, destroying ourselves and our planet. Nuclear-weapons proliferation, famine, disease, and pointless religions that miss the goals of spiritual evolution were the key topics of their message. The messages ring true for me. There is something invigorating about the words of a woman from outerspace. You feel that the words are for you -- for you to do something about the human condition. The more robust the attacks from the debunkers became, the more relevant the Pleiadian message became. The books came out; a movie was made; the Pleiadians were upon the world. Return to: Previous text Return to: Contents Discovery of the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) This discovery occurred in 1963 as Swiss citizen and then world-traveler, Eduard Albert Meier, and his older friend, an ex-Greek-Orthodox lay priest, Isa Rashid, were walking along a roadway just south of the Old City of Jerusalem late one afternoon. Through sub-conscious telepathic promptings received unknowingly from the Pleiadians/Plejarens, Rashid had previously been informed of the approximate location of the site. Upon reaching this site, Meier himself was prompted to glance up the slope and notice a small opening in the ground amongst the rocks and shrubs. According to Meier's much later recollection in August of 1997, this hole was about 30 cm, or a foot, on a side. Being curious, he reached into his packsack for his flashlight and peered into the hole to notice that it continued inwards. So he and Rashid proceeded to dig away rocks and earth until the hole was large enough that they could crawl inside. It was an old tomb site, half filled in with earth. After further digging and exploring inside it they discovered, buried underneath a flat rock, a bundle which they took back with them to Rashid's abode; it was about 60 cm in Photo of Meier in length and 25 cm wide. The bundle turned out to contain the Talmud of Jmmanuel (or TJ) in the 30 Sept.,1964, Delhi newspaper. the form of rolls of written sheets, along with a few small artifacts. They had been wrapped From FIGU Press up together in animal skin which was in turn encased in resin, by then dry and crumbly, but Information recalled to have been black on the outside and yellowish-brown on the inside. There were four rolls, each of which contained many leaves or pages of Aramaic writing. They were obviously old and fragile but the writing was legible. Meier recalls that each leaf was roughly 30cm by 40cm in size, or somewhat larger than the European AID A4 size of paper, which is 21cm by 29.4cm. He is not sure if they were made of very thin, translucent parchment or of papyrus. Rashid, who could read most of the old Aramaic due to his Palestinian background on his father's side, soon noted that the TJ was heretical in several respects. For one, its title involved Jmmanuel (i.e., Immanuel, spelled with a J symbol supplying the "i" sound in place of the Aramaic/Hebrew letter "Ayin") rather than Jesus or Y'shua. For another, its writer was given as Judas Iscariot, the supposed betrayer. For a third, it mentioned that Adam's father had been Semjasa, the leader of the celestial sons, who were El's or God's guardian angels, and who were "distant travelers." Thus it was apparent from the beginning that if they wished this document ever to become public, its translation would have to proceed in secret. The Old Testament God had been an extraterrestrial leader rather than a "Father" in heaven. We shall be referring to him by his title of El, as in Immanuel. Meier's interest in the document was very strong, as he not only had been self-schooled in earth's major religions while working his way around Asia and the Mideast, and was seeking spiritual truths, but he had been informed seven years before that he would become the disseminator of this document (more on this in the following section). Rashid spent a few months reading through the TJ rolls to glean their highlights, which he reported to Meier. Then the two agreed in August of 1963 that Rashid would translate the TJ into Meier's language (German, a language which Rashid understood) and would retain custody of the Aramaic document, while sending his translations to Meier for him to disseminate. So Rashid started the long task of rendering a translation of satisfactory quality, while Meier then continued his travels and first-hand religious learning, particularly under the Buddhist leader, V.B. Dharmawara, at the Ashoka ashram in Mehrauli, India, working his way along through doing odd jobs. The 1964 New Delhi newspaper article about Meier can be read here. In 1965 Meier lost his left arm in a bus Isa Rashid in the rear, Meier on the right. accident in Turkey. Later that year he met a Photo taken in Jordan in 1963, from Plate 18 of Greek girl, Kalliope, eloped with her in 1966 and, Geheimnisse des Gemeindepfarrers by Hans Georg Lanzendorfer. after further working/traveling their way around Asia, returned to Switzerland to continue raising a family there and obtain employment in the town of Hinwil. Meier and family in 1975. The translations up through the TJ's 36th chapter reached Meier in Switzerland throughHere Meier poses in his uniform as a security guard, a job he held at the time. circuitous mail some time around 1970. They had been sent to the address Rashid From Wendelle Stevens' UFO remembered for Meier's parents. But Meier did not hear from Rashid himself until in a Contact from the Pleiades letter in September of 1974. This letter briefly explained that his translation project had become known to certain authorities, forcing him to flee from Jerusalem, together with his family, the TJ rolls and further translations, to a refugee camp in Lebanon. But his presence there became known to Israeli authorities, and the camp was heavily bombed, forcing him to flee again, this time to Baghdad, where he posted the letter to Meier. However, he and his family, like the other refugees, had to flee so suddenly that Rashid had no time to retrieve the Aramaic rolls or his further translations of them, and they were destroyed in the resulting conflagration. In 1976 Meier learned that Rashid and his family were assassinated in Baghdad, making him (Meier) the only known surviving witness to the TJ's discovery and historicity. About this time he started preparing the TJ translations for self-publication, and the German edition came out in 1978. A combined German-English version was published in 1992, and another edition, with improved English translation, was 1978 1992 1996 2001 2007 published in 1996 by Wild Flower Press. A further improved German-English translation, the TJ's 3rd edition, came out in November of 2001, and a 4th edition, further improved and augmented, was published in 2007 from its new publisher, Steelmark. Meier insists that publications of non-German translations of the TJ include the side-by-side German edition, so that discrepancies or distortions in translation be less likely to creep in. Click here for links to discussions of large numbers of TJ verses having parallels within the Gospel of Matthew, along with comparative analyses of the two. According to later information (translation here) Meier received from his Plejaren contactors in early 2011, they had overestimated the accuracy of Rashid's translation of the TJ's Aramaic into German, and underestimated the extent of his lingering Christian beliefs. Hence a further revised version of the TJ was then initiated. Return to: Contents A NEW ECUMENISM BASED UPON REEXAMINATION OF THE "LOST YEARS" EVIDENCE James W. Deardorff Oregon State University September, 1994 Updated September, 2003 PRECIS The "lost years" evidence due to Notovitch in 1894 of Jesus being in India during his youth, along with its debunkings, are reexamined and the latter are found not to have been scholarly in any sense. Later evidence fully confirming Notovitch's find is presented. The implications that Jesus taught reincarnation and karma, not resurrection, are summarized and found entirely plausible. The ramifications this has for ecumenism with respect to the Eastern religions cannot be overstated, though for Christianity they remain unacceptable. Introduction I. The Primary "Lost" Years Evidence II. The Later Evidence III. The Reincarnation Question IV. Did the Source of the Gospels Contain Teachings on Reincarnation? IV.(a) Gospel Evidence that Jesus Taught Reincarnation IV.(b) Matthean Clues Suggestive of Karma V. Implications for Judeo-Christianity Endnotes Introduction It was in 1894 that news first reached the Western world of Buddhist manuscripts existing in Tibet indicating that the "lost years" of Jesus' youth had been spent in India. The alleged discoverer was Nicholas Notovitch, Russian journalist and war correspondent, who journeyed through Kashmir and Ladakh (Little Tibet) and then wrote a book about his findings, including a translation into French of the verses in Tibetan about Isa (or Issa) existing in the library of Himis monastery near Leh.1 The find was swiftly discredited by the noted Orientalist Max Müller and by one other, though whether or not their responses were credible and fair form part of the subject of the present study.2 We shall come to find that Müller's only relevant objections were satisfactorily answered by Notovitch in an extended preface to the English translation of his book in 1895,3 and that his answers were ignored by later expositors who continued to debunk him. Upon examining the responses to Notovitch's presentation, one unfortunately finds that theological commitment played a dominant role in causing the conclusion they reached to be the only one that the Christian faith could allow -- that Notovitch was either duped by a Buddhist lama or was a deceiver and charlatan.4 Until that time, however, Notovitch had enjoyed a favorable reputation, and his decision to proceed and publish his findings, which was not made hastily, seems to have been based upon positive ecumenical feelings. Since theological commitment ought not to be allowed to play a negative role within either scholasticism or ecumenical efforts, a reexamination of this matter is long overdue, along with some discussion of the ecumenical implications for both Christianity and New Testament scholarship. The present paper is motivated also by the fact that, unknown to Western scholasticism, a complete and independent verification of Notovitch's findings occurred some thirty years after Notovitch's Asian trek. Indirect verifications have occurred more recently. I. The Primary "Lost" Years Evidence The "lost" years refer to the years of Jesus' youth from an age of about 12 until his Palestinian ministry commenced. That these years were spent in India is a rather well known story, as it was debunked, following Müller, by Goodspeed in 1931 and again by Beskow in 1983.5 To review the matter briefly, an unusual circumstance on his travels in 1887 allowed Notovitch the opportunity to gain the attention and confidence of the head lama within the Buddhist monastery at Himis. He had earlier on his Asian travels heard that some verses about Isa existed within that monastery, but he was unable to persuade the lama to show them to him and his translator. Soon after departing, however, his horse stumbled, pitching him to the ground and fracturing his leg. He requested his travel party to take him back to the monastery for aid, and there during a stay of several days and with his leg in a splint he gained the confidence of the chief lama who read the Isa verses, in Tibetan, to him and his translator, who apparently wrote them down in French.6 He was told that their earlier source had been written in Pali. The verses describe the young Jesus as having traveled to India in order to spend many years studying under the yogic masters there, and they depict in general terms some experiences he had along the way, as well as a Buddhist or Hindu view of the crucifixion after he had returned to the Holy Land. Merchants from Israel, apparently of Indian or Tibetan origin, later returned to India to bring news of the crucifixion to one or more there who had known Jesus during the "lost years."7 After acquiring this evidence, Notovitch painfully made his way back, in a litter carried by his travel party, via Kashmir to Bombay where he could receive treatment for his broken leg. An impartial assessment of Müller's paper reveals that, aside from a distressing number of points of witty sarcasm and irrelevancy, his treatment contained three potentially valid points. One was just how news of Jesus' crucifixion could have been brought, by Jewish merchants from Israel, to the attention of one or more Brahmans and Buddhists Jesus had known during the "lost" years of his youth, considering how great is the area of India. Notovitch responded to this problem in the extensive preface to his 1895 book by pointing out that the merchants in question had been indigenous to India or Tibet, and not Jewish.8 There are then any number of possible answers to Müller's question, such as the young Jesus having befriended one or more Indians who were traveling with him on the Silk Road from India back to Palestine, and a few years later one or more of them either having informed returning Indian merchants of Jesus' crucifixion and who in India should know about it, or having returned themselves to do so. Müller had assumed without justification that "merchants from Israel" meant Jewish merchants. Müller's second potentially relevant point was that these writings about Jesus should in his opinion have been listed within a Tibetan or Buddhist catalog known to Western scholars, or within one of their sacred sets of books: the Kandjur or the Tandjur.9 However, Notovitch had learned from the head lama at Himis that there was over an order of magnitude more manuscripts or books just within a monastery at Lhasa than Müller had acknowledged were listed in all the aforementioned sources, so the odds were very slim that the volume or two in question at the Himis monastery would have been listed. Besides, if they had been so listed, the existence of the "lost years" verses would not then have come as any surprise to religious scholars in the West.10 In addition, there is the practical certainty that such verses had long been recognized by knowledgeable lamas as sensitive material not to be divulged to unsympathetic or intolerant Westerners, lest it cause future problems for the monastery in question. Müller's third potentially relevant point was that he had heard that some missionaries in Tibet had claimed that no one by the name of Notovitch had ever visited the monastery.11 The evidence he presented on this consisted of a letter from an English traveler through Leh expressing this belief while at the same time severely denouncing the lamas. However, another critic to be discussed soon, a Professor J. Archibald Douglas, had to acknowledge evidence that Notovitch had indeed been to Leh at least,12 and in responding to Müller, Notovitch mentioned names of those who could attest to his having traveled there.13 And Notovitch's description of both the exterior and interior of the Himis monastery, like those of his travel experiences themselves, are sufficiently detailed without appearing in any way contrived as to dispel doubts that he had been to the monastery.14 Thus, none of Müller's three main points seem to have been relevant. In 1895 this Professor Douglas of Government College in Agra, India, wrote of his own trip to Leh and Himis in June for the express purpose of checking up on Notovitch's finds. Unfortunately we know absolutely nothing about Professor Douglas, such as his field of interest or how long he was affiliated with Government College in Agra, other than what scant information his article in the Nineteenth Century journal tells us. He apparently did not write any books, and in his paper he did not mention any colleague or other person to whom he discussed his plans for traveling to Himis or with whom he discussed his findings, except for Müller, to whom he quickly communicated his charges against Notovitch's alleged findings. He reported in an 1896 journal that the same head lama of Himis personally attested to him, through a Ladakhi translater, Shahmwell Joldan, of knowing nothing of any visit there by Notovitch or by any Russian with a broken leg.15 There is an interesing resolution to this contradictory testimony that Müller himself mentioned, though with a different application in mind. Müller noted that there indeed had been travelers to the East "to whom Brahmans or Buddhists have supplied, for a consideration, the information and even the manuscripts which they were in search of." He felt that Notovitch might have been such a victim of a Buddhist monk who supplied him with an invented story.16 However, it appears more likely that Douglas instead was the unknowing victim of a monk's discretion or subterfuge. After having learned of some potentially dangerous reactions that Notovitch's 1894 book could cause, the head lama of Hemis could either tell the truth and stir up a hornet's nest of trouble for him and his monastery's library, or he could deny to Douglas and his converted-to-Christianity translator, Joldan, any knowledge of Notovitch's visit there. The latter was a much more expedient course of action than for the lama to invent on the spot a collection of 244 verses about Isa to read to Notovitch and his translator. Moreover, the translator Douglas used, Joldan, having been the postmaster of Leh under the British Imperial Post Office, was in a position to cause continuing problems for the Buddhist library at Hemis from the information that Notovitch had exposed, as he (Joldan) had close ties to the Christian Moravian missionaries in Leh.16.1 It must have been psychologically intimidating for the head lama to be quizzed by a professor intent upon attacking a text that was upsetting to Christianity through a Ladakhi translator who had abandoned the Buddhist traditions. Click here to learn more on this from the research of A. J. Trebst. At the same time, any impartial reading of Notovitch's book discloses no good motivation why he, of Russian Orthodox belief, would have invented the verses about Isa, though he was obviously excited at the prospect of being the one to fill in this gap within the Gospels and bring the "Lost Years" information to the attention of the West.17 One of Douglas's questions to the chief lama that suggests it was Douglas, not Notovitch, who had been misled was: "Is the name of Issa held in great respect by the Buddhists?" The lama's reply is said to have been, "They know nothing even of his name; none of the Lamas has ever heard of it, save through missionaries and European sources."18 This stands in strong contrast to what Jawarhar Nehru wrote his daughter, Indira, in a 1932 letter: "All over Central Asia, in Kashmir and Ladakh and Tibet and even farther north, there is still a strong belief that Jesus or Isa travelled about there."19 It stands to reason that the lamas were even more aware of this tradition than was the general population. According to Douglas's paper in the April 1896 issue of Nineteenth Century, he wrote his paper in early June of 1895 while visiting "for a few days" at Himis Monastery. This is somewhat surprising, in that it is a 12-page writing replete with references to Notovich's book and Max Müller's 1894 paper, which would require several days of steady concentration in a familiar environment to write, I should think. Further, there is an appendage to the paper of a letter by Müller dated Nov. 15, 1895. If so, however, Douglas must have communicated his findings, whether hoaxed or not, to Müller in June, received a reply in November, submitted a revised version of his paper to Nineteenth Century journal in late November of 1895, and have received prompt acceptance followed by speedy publication in the journal's April issue of 1896. It may be mentioned that the present traditions of Jesus having lived in India during his youth indeed date far back in time. They were known to the tenth-century Muslim historian, Shaikh Al-Said,20 who wrote down some of the Hindu/Buddhist legends of Isa's travels in India. The traditions are known also in northwestern Afghanistan, centered at Herat, by some thousand devotees of Isa, son of Maryam, who live within several scattered villages. This has been brought out by O. M. Burke, who personally interviewed their spiritual leader, Abba Yahiyya (Father John), while researching Sufism in this area of the globe.21 However, these traditions are not particularly well known outside of their local areas, and there is no indication that Notovitch knew of them before coming upon word of the existence of a manuscript or two at Himis to the effect that Jesus had been there in his travels during his youth. Sadly, both Goodspeed and Beskow repeated and amplified the ill-founded accusations against Notovitch that Müller and Douglas had made, frequently assuming or implying that he was guilty of fraud, without ever mentioning Notovitch's telling responses to Müller's major questions, and without mentioning the role that Christian theological commitment and Buddhist wisdom likely played in generating Müller's third point and the charges in Douglas's paper.22 One of Goodspeed's points that may be valid in part, however, is that these Isa verses "read more like a journalistic effort to describe what might have happened if Jesus had visited India and Persia in his youth," and that they would not withstand the test of literary and textual criticism.23 This possibility is understandable, in that only after Christianity and the Gospels had made Jesus a celebrated figure in the West would Isa's earlier activities in India likely have been set into writing. By then -- mid-second century at the earliest24 -- the Buddhist or Hindu priest(s) involved would have had to rely on oral tradition nearly a century old, if not older, plus the Gospels as a supplementary aid. Yet, the Isa verses might fare no worse under present-day textual criticism than have the Gospels.25 We should note that neither Hinduism nor Buddhism would seem to have had any substantial motivation for inventing the historical context of these verses. One cannot say with any certainty when the bulk of the Isa verses, assuming they are historical, was first set into writing. However, the text strangely treats Jesus' arrest as being the full responsibility of the Romans, in contrast to the Gospels' emphasis of chief priests and Pharisees in this role,26 and this may be a clue. It suggests that this portion of the verses, at least, was formed before any of the Gospels became available, since the Indian merchants who would have returned from Jerusalem to India with the news about Isa's crucifixion in the years immediately following the event would likely have known only of the Romans' role in bringing about this end result; they would not have had the inside information of a disciple close to Jesus.27 In Beskow's discussion he analyzes the implied claim of a later Russian -- the painter, Nicholas Roerich -- of having acquired the Isa verses afresh during his Asian travels in 1924- 25, and finds this claim to be insupportable.28 Here my own analysis agrees, as Roerich indeed seems to have exhibited a strong tendency towards plagiarism, as noted by Beskow. Although a statement by Roerich of having come across word that the Isa verses existed within Himis monastery may have been truthful,29 the implication that he received a translation of those verses, which he later presented in his book Himalaya, does not seem to be. It reads too much like a plagiarism of Notovitch's verses, and missing is any description of the efforts that would have been necessary to gain access to the Isa verses. Here it has been primarily those points made by Müller, Douglas, Goodspeed and Beskow having the potential for being relevant that have been discussed. Their more numerous irrelevant or slanderous statements, and especially their important omissions, are the prime reasons why their analyses must be labeled as unscholarly.30 II. The Later Evidence The findings of the Hindu monk, Swami Abhedananda, support Notovitch's discovery in practically all respects. This monk was a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna of the Barahanagar Temple, near Calcutta. Having learned of Notovitch's find and read his book, he decided to take his own trip to Himis monastery to check it out, which he did in 1922, accompanied by some others, including an expert translator from Leh. They persuaded a lama to show them a manuscript containing the Isa verses, which he read to Abhedananda and his interpreter, who then translated them into Bengali. The Himis manuscript was in Tibetan; the original was said to have been written in Pali and to exist in the monastery of Marbour near Lhasa, all of which confirms what Notovitch had learned, and indicates that J. Archibald Douglas had either been hoaxed into confirming the conclusions he was looking for, or had engineered such a hoax himself. We have much in writing about Abhedananda and who he was, but nothing about this Professor Douglas. Abhedananda wrote his book containing their travelogue and a fresh version of the Isa verses in stages, with the help of an assistant and a later editor; in 1987 it was finally translated into English.31 The Swami ordered and numbered his set of Isa verses after the manner of Notovitch's set; however, the set he presented contained far fewer verses than the 244 within Notovitch's set, which is consistent with Abhedananda mentioning that his set was derived from just one book at the monastery,32 while Notovitch had mentioned a second book or manuscript being involved also.33 In addition, however, Abhedananda omitted publication of many verses, apparently because they contain material that could be deemed offensive to different branches of Hinduism. Comparison of those verses that are common to the two sets of Isa text indicates little difference in substance but very appreciable differences in sentence structure and detail, as is to be expected from different translators and languages of translation having been involved. One particular distinction between the two sets of verses is worth mentioning, in that Beskow had caught an evident error within the following verse from Notovitch's set: Beskow alertly pointed out that Isa verses 5:2-3 speak erroneously of a god Jaine and of worshipers of Jaine. Verse 5:2 reads: Fame spread the reputation of this marvelous child throughout the length of northern Sind, and when he crossed the country of the five rivers and the Rajputana, the devotees of the god Jaine prayed him to dwell among them.34 Beskow noted that "The Jains, or Jainas, do not believe in any god at all."35 Within Abhedananda's set of Isa verses, this same verse about the Jains is rendered in English as follows: As he was traveling all along through the land of the five rivers, his [Isa's] benign appearance, face radiating peace and comely forehead attracted Jain devotees who knew him to be one who had received blessings from God Himself.36 This translation does not contain the error of a "god Jaine," though it is independent of Beskow's observation.37 However, it is written from the viewpoint of a Hindu priest who does believe in God or a Godhead. It thus supports the likelihood that in Notovitch's version of the Isa verses the primary error had been due either to Notovitch or his translator. I have found no reason to suspect that Abhedananda's set of Isa verses was not freshly acquired from the Himis monastery source. His confirmation of Notovitch's find is not discussed by Beskow, who was probably not aware of it. According to Abhedananda, in India Jesus likely obtained the name Isa or Issa from "Isha," which means Lord in Sanskrit. "Lord" here relates to their great deity, Shiva, for which another name is "Ish."38 There have been various instances in which visitors to Himis monastery unexpectedly learned that a set of the Isa verses was located there, and Elizabeth Clare Prophet has made known three of these cases. One such visitor was Elizabeth Caspari, who in 1939 made the journey through that region in the company of a Mrs. Clarence Gasque. They were told by a monk in charge of the Himis library that "These books say your Jesus was here!"39 Madame Caspari later became noted for having established the first Montessori school in the U.S. Another visitor was the late Edward F. Noack, a lover of the high country of the Himalayas, who with his wife visited Himis monastery in the late 1970s.40 A monk there told him that "There are manuscripts in our library that describe the journey of Jesus to the East."41 A third visitor to the area who obtained information on this subject was Robert Ravicz, once professor of anthropology at California State University at Northridge. While at Himis in 1975 he learned of the "lost years" Jesus-in-India tradition from an eminent Ladakhi physician.42 It appears that word of the existence at Himis of these one or two manuscripts about Isa's "lost years" has very occasionally been leaked to Western visitors to the region, but only when the lama or monk involved felt the visitor was open minded or receptive and not inclined to take any threatening action against the monastery. If so, it is reasonable to expect that any future attempts by investigators to acquire or read the manuscripts in question at Himis or Marbour monastery will fail if the relevant lama suspects that the investigator or his sponsor in any way holds a non-ecumenical or militantly Christian attitude. As explained by V. R. Gandhi, the causes of this suspicious attitude on the part of custodians of the sacred literature of the East trace back several centuries to the Muslim invaders of India once having destroyed thousands of the Indians' sacred documents, and to early Christian missionaries having acquired and belittled some of their documents.43 This distrustful attitude persists today, at least at Himis monastery, according to Tibetologists David L. Snellgrove and Tadeusz Skorupski.44 There is a report that records exist in the Puri Jagannath Temple archives confirming that Issa had spent some time in India. Jagannath is a large city on the southeast coast of India. This report comes from Sri Daya Mata of the Self- Realization Fellowship, when in 1959 she interviewed Sri Bharati Krishna Tirtha in India; he was the Shankaracharya of Puri.44.1 In the article she says, "In 1959 I discussed this [Jesus being in India during the 'unknown years'] with one of India's great spiritual leaders, His Holiness Sri Bharati Krishna Tirtha, the Shankaracharya of Puri. I told him that Guruji had often said to us that Christ spent some of his life in India, in association with her illumined sages. His Holiness replied, 'That is true. I have studied ancient records in the Puri Jagannath Temple archives confirming these facts. He was known as "Isha," and during part of his time in India he stayed in the Jagannath Temple. When he returned to his part of the world, he expounded the teachings that are known today as Christianity.'" In the above, "Guruji" refers to the yogi Paramahansa Yogananda, and Puri is a coastal city in southeast India, where the Jagannath Temple is located. The Lost Years verses mention that Issa had spent time at this location. Yogananda has authored a couple of books, and in his The Divine Romance (1986) one may read (p. 257) that he was indeed well aware of the Lost Years evidence. The writings that Bharati Krishna Tirtha studied could well be independent of those discovered at Hemis monastery by Notovitch and Abhedananda. However, we find that the next to last sentence in the above quote should refer to a predecessor structure to the Juggernaut temple, probably a Buddhist stupa at the site; and the final sentence, to be correct, should read "When he returned to his part of the world, he expounded the teachings that were converted into the Christianity we know today." The successor to this Shankaracharya of Puri -- the current one as of 2008, Swami Nischalananda Saraswati -- has confirmed the above. In a rare interview of him granted to the producers of the documentary movie, Jesus in India (see also: this additional link), this confirmation is spelled out.44.2 In summary, the evidence that Jesus/Issa spent many years of his youth in India rests upon strong evidence additional to Notovitch's findings, so that with hindsight, one can see that his original findings should not have been dismissed. With respect to the present study, the main implication from this is that Jesus had likely learned of reincarnation and karma, basic concepts of both Hinduism and Buddhism, during his "lost" years. This raises the likelihood that he therefore taught reincarnation and karma, among many other things, during his Palestinian ministry, but that early Pharisaic converts to Christianity, starting with Paul, had no desire to propagate such teachings. This deserves serious exploration. In that case the underpinnings of Christianity share much more with Hinduism and Buddhism, not to mention the cabalistic branch of Judaism, than has been previously postulated within scholarly ecumenical thought. As far as I am aware, as of 2009, there has been only one attempted put-down of the Jesus-in-India evidence that takes into account Abhedananda's 1922 confirmation of the existence and contents of the "Lost Years" writing at the Hemis monastery. It was published by James R. Lewis and is well deserving of a rebuttal, which is given here. III. The Reincarnation Question If there were no evidence that pointed strongly to reincarnation being a reality, there would be little motivation for exploring the hypothesis that Jesus taught reincarnation rather than resurrection. However, the voluminous evidence collected in the past 30 years by investigators of childhood cases of the reincarnation type,45 by past-life hypno- therapists whose patients are adults,46 and by investigators of adults having spontaneous recall of past-life scenes,47 is all better explained or categorized by the reincarnation hypothesis than by any other. It has been a difficult topic for Western investigators to explore, due to the cultural taboo against reincarnation, which logically traces back not just to the 2nd Council of Constantinople in 553 C.E. when reincarnation was declared anathema by the church, but to the origins of Christian orthodoxy itself. Nevertheless, the data supporting reincarnation have been accumulating at such an increasing rate as to attract a considerable number of Western Ph.D. psychiatrists and M.D.s into exploring the phenomenon, utilizing past-life hypno-therapy as a powerful healing tool, and informing others through their books. The one authority in the field of religion who has looked into a part of this evidence and minimized its importance in the eyes of New Testament scholarship is John Hick. He examined a part of Ian Stevenson's evidence on childhood cases of the reincarnation type, and concluded that reincarnation "is beset by conceptual difficulties of the gravest kind."48 However, that conclusion was based almost entirely upon the observation that it is only a small fraction of children who for a time remember incidents from their past lives, and seems predicated on the notion that perhaps only they have past lives while the rest of humanity does not. Missing was the thought that some psychic mechanism ordinarily prevents us from remembering our past lives at this stage of our evolution, with the mechanism being capable of circumvention through hypno-regression or occasionally breaking down temporarily.49 Missing also was any analysis by Hick of the two other categories of past-life recall. Since the time of Hick's critical writings, other investigators have confirmed Stevenson's findings.50 IV. Did the Source of the Gospels Contain Teachings on Reincarnation? Some who have examined the apparent reality of reincarnation have looked into the Gospels for clues that Jesus actually taught the subject, and have found them.51 As to how such clues (to be discussed briefly) originated, it is usually postulated that following the 2nd Council of Constantinople in 553 C.E. the Gospels were edited so as to remove all obvious traces of teachings and implications of reincarnation. However, there is sufficient evidence from early church fathers to indicate that some of the verses to be discussed, and which exist in about the same form today, greatly predate this council.52 Hence a much more likely possibility is that the New Testament gospels themselves derive mainly from one source, and this source is what had contained Jesus' teachings on reincarnation and karma that were edited out upon first formation of the Gospels in the early second century. This source could easily have been the well known Logia referred to by the second-century Bishop Papias in his brief statement about how the Gospel of Matthew came about, as relayed by Eusebius: "Matthew compiled the Logia in the Hebrew dialect, and each interpreted them as best he could."53 This is all that is known about the formulation of Matthew; it is so terse that it may have meant that the writer of Matthew formed his gospel from these Logia, written in Aramaic.54 Because so little is recorded about the formation of the Gospels, because these Logia did not survive, and because Papias is known to have written five treatises about the Logia that also did not survive, we must treat seriously the likelihood that this source of Matthew had been very extensive and had contained heresies that needed excising before a sanctionable gospel could be compiled. Teachings on reincarnation and karma would have fallen into this category. This view implies Matthean priority, to which only a minority of New Testament scholars ascribe today. However, it can be shown that the primary impetus behind the adoption of the view of Marcan priority in the past century and a half was one of theological commitment -- to minimize embarrassments for the church.55 The embarrassing implications of Papias's statement,56 which is now essentially ignored by New Testament scholarship, are only a small part of this unknowing commitment causing Mark to be favored. Much more could be said about Papias's Logia for which space can scarcely be spared here. The late date of appearance of these Logia in Palestine would have allowed them to be considered very heretical compared to Paul's teachings and writings many decades earlier, and these Logia may then have been the cause of the late (second- century) flowering of the Gnostic movement. Suffice it to say here that an impartial assessment of Papias's statement leads to the conclusion that the Logia may well have contained heresies, and by the present reasoning some of these heresies pertained to the topic of reincarnation. We shall be referring back to these Logia elsewhere in this study as well as placing a renewed emphasis upon the Gospel of Matthew. Gospel Evidence that Jesus Taught Reincarnation It is important to examine some particular examples of these Gospel clues, since they are largely unknown within modern scholasticism. Perhaps the primary verse to this effect is Mt 11:14, "...and if you are willing to accept it, he [John the Baptist] is Elijah who is to come." The only alternative here to the implication that Jesus was talking of Elijah having been a past life of John, who would be reborn again some time in the future, comes from 2 Kgs 2:11 in which Elijah is "taken up by a whirlwind into heaven" and is seen no more. If it is assumed that this means Elijah never died but was "translated" alive into heaven, the further assumptions are then needed that he later "translated" into the body of John the Baptist and would "translate" into some other body in the future. However, this concept of translation, involving a fully human body that never ages or dies, seems unintelligible in comparison with the reincarnation hypothesis, especially since John is described in Luke's first chapter as having been raised from a baby and never having suddenly changed into Elijah's very own "translated" body. The reincarnation hypothesis here is consistent with Jesus' wording, "if you are willing to accept it." Probably only a minority of his listeners in Israel believed in reincarnation, with many, especially Pharisees and Sadducees, being opposed to the concept. Thus, Jesus at that point was speaking just to those who could accept the possibility. It is likely that the Logia had more to say here about Elijah's (John's) future reincarnation that was omitted when Matthew was formed. That Matthew's compiler left this strong a clue behind here is probably attributable to his fondness for Elijah, along with other Old Testament personages, causing him to include as much of this Logia verse as seemed feasible. Also, this compiler evidently believed in "translation," and supported this belief with his Transfiguration story. Thus he probably would not have felt that he was leaving behind a clue here that his source text had discussed reincarnation. Another strong clue is found in Mt 16:13-15, "Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, `Who do men say that the Son of man is?' And they said, `Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.' He said to them, `But who do you say that I am?'"57 Although it is quite possible that in asking the question Jesus was wondering if the people thought of him as a Messiah of some sort, their response (especially "Jeremiah or one of the prophets") indicates they had a past life in mind. That this did not cause any stir or consternation is consistent with Jesus having wondered what important past life they believed him to have had. Another clue is Mt 24:4 where we read: "For many will come in my name, saying `I am the Christ!' and they will lead many astray."58 This makes most sense if Jesus was referring to persons in the distant future who would claim they are reincarnations of him. It makes less sense to think they would claim to be resurrections of him, which would require their asserting to have first appeared on earth in their own time in the full-grown resurrected body of Jesus, never having passed through childhood. Moreover, at the time the text of the verse was spoken, resurrection or "anastasis" referred only to a general resurrection at the end times, and not to the raising up of a particular individual. Further clues consist of the "incarnation" verses: "I have come not to... but to..." Of these, Mt 5:17 and 10:34 seem here most likely to be in a form close to that of their source. If Jesus had early in life gained an understanding of what his life's mission and goals were to be -- and the "lost years" evidence supports that likelihood, he could then speak as "having come" for such-and-such a purpose. Thus the "incarnation verses" easily fit into the context of Jesus having taught that he, as well as all others, were subject to reincarnation. This provides a real alternative to the interpretation that he was incarnated once and for all as part of a Trinity. The foregoing clues are mostly absent from the other gospels, indicative of "improvements" directed towards increased orthodoxy as is usually to be expected within later works, and supporting Matthean priority. If the Logia were the source of Matthew, we then infer that other teachings of reincarnation were omitted from Matthew or were highly edited, with "resurrection" substituted for "reincarnation" or "rebirth." A verse from John (Jn 9:1-2) regarding the man blind from birth is also commonly cited as indication that Jesus and his disciples assumed reincarnation to be a fact.59 Although this instance may be an indication that the writer of John had been accustomed to interpreting fate in a karmic sense, the testimony of Papias suggests that only the compiler of Matthew was close enough to the Logia to have left bonafide clues behind from the source document. However, the writers of Luke and John may have been those referred to by the portion of Papias's statement reading "and each interpreted them [the Logia] as best he could." Matthean Clues Indicative of Karma Perhaps the most obvious of these is Mt 26:52, "...for all who take the sword will perish by the sword." It is evident in everyday life that this is often not true, with some murderers getting away with their misdeeds. However, within the context of reincarnation and karma, the verse suggests that those who do not truly repent of their misdeeds in the present life will have to suffer unpleasant learning experiences of like kind from the victim's point of view in one or more future lifetimes. Another clue on karma left behind is Mt 7:2, "...For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get." This presumably refers to the consequences of having judged falsely or unfairly. Again, we see that the warning is not necessarily a truism within a person's present life, but could well be over a succession of lifetimes. Other examples, which require more discussion, could be presented.60 It may be added that with this analysis we find, contrary to the Jesus Seminar, for example,61 that the Golden Rule (Mt 7:12) was an authentic saying from Jesus, though not of course original. By following that rule one usually avoids developing negative karma. The evidence is thus as strong as can be expected that Jesus taught reincarnation and karma, among many other things, not resurrection, if he were indeed a wisdom teacher, which is assumed here. Such teachings would have tended to attract any Hindus temporarily residing in Palestine to hear him talk and meet him, greatly increasing the likelihood that Jesus had a few Indian friends there who learned from him of his earlier years spent in India. It was Paul who established the orthodox view that the empty tomb was due to Jesus having been the first fruits of resurrection. This ex-Pharisee must already have believed in a Pharisee's view of resurrection before his conversion. However, the full implications of the Jesus-in-India evidence are much too manifold to explore here.62 V. Implications for Judeo-Christianity The foregoing evidence and supporting deductions may be unfamiliar to the reader because they have been systematically ignored in the West. However, when they are viewed together as a whole, we see a very consistent picture trying to tell us that Christianity over the centuries has been improperly sent on an unnecessarily deviant path apart from Eastern religions since the time of Paul. This is not to say that some fraction of the strange tales one may read about Jesus are not indeed fictions,63 but rather to say that a holistic perception is needed to separate probable fact from probable fiction. The practice of assuming that any tradition is false if it conflicts with one's own particular theological commitment, without having first carefully examined it with an open mind and in a holistic manner, cannot be condoned no matter how widespread it has been. If one's understanding of ecumenism is to nudge adherents of other religions towards Christian orthodoxy, the present treatment could seem to be radical. However, if the goal is instead to seek historical truth, the present approach may be seen to be conservative in the sense of being fundamental and rudimentary. It finds that Christianity itself is in greatest need of change. The picture of Jesus that emerges is not the one that Western scholarship leans towards -- that Jesus was an itinerant teacher and seditionist of Pharisaic disposition64 -- but one much closer to the view held by Hinduism and Buddhism. Obviously, this view would represent a huge step towards bridging some of the present gaps between Christianity and the Eastern religions. Ironically, appreciation of the validity of the Jesus-in-India evidence would have the dubious ecumenical value of promoting Jewish-Christian relations through a common interest in more strenuously denouncing the evidence supporting reincarnation. Before looking ahead seriously to the real ecumenical benefits that would ensue if the Jesus-in-India evidence and the non- scholastic treatment it has received were to become widely known, there are important issues to consider. As pointed out by Raimundo Panikhar, "there must be equal preparation from both sides, both theologically and culturally," before beginning an ecumenical dialogue.65 Such preparation of course entails a serious study of the evidence, and this, for many Christians, would likely be considered beyond the bounds of acceptability, or simply unthinkable. Secondly, according to Panikhar, "There must be mutual trust, which is possible only when all the cards are on the table." Should we dismiss those "cards" that indicate the reality of the Jesus-in-India evidence simply because our belief system prefers that we not know about them? Third, "The different issues -- theological, practical, institutional, etc., have to be carefully distinguished." The present topic encompasses all of these, but they are as overpowering as they are obvious. The immediate theological implications penetrate to the heart of Christianity itself. The practical implications are also overwhelming, involving how to view life and death. The institutional implications would also be dramatic if it were possible for the church to change substantially. With Christianity not susceptible to appreciable change, however, the foregoing evidence and reasoning must patiently remain as building blocks for the distant future before it will provide a much firmer basis for building ecumenical bridges between a thoroughly reformed and revitalized "Christianity" and other major religions than any seriously suggested heretofore. Endnotes 1. Nicholas Notovitch, La Vie inconnue de Jésus-Christ (Paris: M. Paul Ollendorf, 1894). In India, Jesus is known primarily as Isa or Issa. 2. F. Max Müller, "The Alleged Sojourn of Christ in India," The Nineteenth Century, (Oct., 1894): pp, 515-522. 3. Notovitch, The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ, transl. V. Crispe (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1895), xxiii-xxx. 4. Despite Müller's valuable life work of translating sacred Hindu writings into English and German, it is evident that he considered a simple form of Christianity to be far superior to any of the world's other great religions. See Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Scholar Extraordinary (London: Chatto & Windus, 1974), 70-72, 325, 335, 374-375. 5. Edgar J. Goodspeed, Strange New Gospels (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1931), 16-24; Per Beskow, Strange Tales about Jesus: A Survey of Unfamiliar Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 59-63. Goodspeed was the originator of the first American translation of the New Testament, and a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Beskow was an associate professor of patristic studies at the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences in Lund, Sweden. 6. Although Notovitch failed to clearly designate who his translator was, he did mention earlier in his travelog that he had acquired an interpreter who had been highly recommended to him by a Frenchman (M. Peychaud) who was the cultivator for the vineyards of the maharajah in Srinagar. Thus one infers that he translated them into French, which is the same language in which Notovitch wrote his book. 7. Notovitch, Unknown Life, p. 134. 8. Notovitch, Unknown Life, p. xxx (in Note to the Publisher). 9. Müller, "Alleged Sojourn of Christ," pp. 518-519. 10. Notovitch, Unknown Life, pp. xxvi-xxvii. 11. Müller, "Alleged Sojourn of Christ," pp. 516, 521. 12. J. Archibald Douglas, "The Chief Lama of Himis on the Alleged `Unknown Life of Christ'," Nineteenth Century (Apr. 1896): pp. 667-678; 669. 13. Notovitch, Unknown Life, pp. xxiii-xxiv. 14. Ibid., pp. 92, 94, 100, 110. 15. Douglas, "On the Alleged `Unknown Life'," p. 671. 16. Müller, "Alleged Sojourn of Christ," pp. 516-517. 16.1. Bishop, Isabella Bird, Among the Tibetans (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1894), pp. 101-102. 17. Notovitch, Unknown Life, pp. l-li. 18. Douglas, "On the Alleged `Unknown Life'," p. 672. 19. Jawarhar Lal Nehru, Glimpses of World History (New York: John Day Co., 1942) 84. 20. His full name was Al-Shaikh Al-Said-us-Sadiq Abi Jaffar Muhammad Ibn-i-Ali Ibn-i-Hussain Ibn-i-Musa Ibn-i- Baibuyah al-Qummi, according to Khwaja Nazir Ahmad, Jesus in Heaven on Earth (Woking, England: Woking Muslim Mission & Literary Trust, 1952) 365. 21. Omar Michael Burke, Among the Dervishes (London: Octagon Press, 1976) 107. 22. That Douglas was highly committed theologically is evident from his vehement opposition to an Isa verse that practically denies the resurrection: Douglas, "On the Alleged `Unknown Life'," p. 670. 23. Goodspeed, Strange New Gospels, pp. 16, 24. 24. Arthur J. Bellinzoni, "The Gospel of Matthew in the Second Century," Second Century 9 (1992): 197-258, see p. 235 specifically. 25. The Jesus Seminar, "Voting Records," Forum 6 (1990): 9-47. There some 86% of the verses comprised of the sayings and teachings of Jesus within Matthew, for example, are found to be probably non-genuine. 26. We may note that since World War II a substantial fraction of New Testament scholars have adopted this very view: assuming that all Gospel verses denigrating scribes, Pharisees and chief priests are redactions or reflect biased opinions of the Gospel writers. 27. This is not to imply that the Gospels were written during the lifetimes of the disciples. The author subscribes to the view that the main source for the Gospels was written by a disciple but was not made available to a church scribe until early second century. See James W. Deardorff, The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins: A Glasnost Approach (Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press (Mellen Research University Press), 1992) 11-22, 63-73. 28. Beskow, Strange Tales, pp. 62-63; Nicholas Roerich, "Banners of the East," in Himalaya (New York: Brentano's, 1926) 148-153. 29. Roerich, "Banners of the East," p. 172. 30. For full details on this, see James W. Deardorff, Jesus in India: A Reexamination of Jesus' Asian Traditions in the Light of Evidence Supporting Reincarnation (Bethesda, MD: International Scholars Publications, 1994) 103-134. 31. Swami Abhedananda, Kashmir O Tibbate (In Kashmir and Tibet), 2nd Ed., ed. Swami Prajnanananda (Calcutta: Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, 1953); idem, Swami Abhedananda's Journey into Kashmir and Tibet, Transls. Ansupati Dasgupta and Kunja Bihari Kundu (Calcutta: Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, 1987; available from Vedanta Press, 1946 Vedanta Pl., Hollywood, CA 90068; Tel.: 213-465-7114). 32. Abhedananda's Journey, p. 119. Abhedananda or his editor arranged and numbered their presented text so that it would conform with Notovitch's ordering. With only a few exceptions, verses may be directly compared. 33. Notovitch, Unknown Life, pp. 128, 205. 34. Ibid., p. 145. 35. Beskow, Strange Tales, p. 59. 36. Abhedananda's Journey, p. 120. 37. Although Beskow's 1985 book predates the English translation of Abhedananda's Kashmir O Tibbate, an earlier English translation of relevant portions of it had been made and published within the 1984 book of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Lost Years of Jesus (Livingston, Montana: Summit University Press, 1984). This latter translation also does not make the error about the Jaines. Prophet was unaware of Beskow's 1979 (Swedish) version of Strange Tales about Jesus. 38. Abhedananda's Journey, p. 122. 39. Prophet, Lost Years, p. 317. 40. He is author of Amidst Ice and Nomads in High Asia (Burbank, California: National Literary Guild, 1984). 41. Prophet, Lost Years, p. 345 (see photo caption). 42. Ibid. 43. Virchand R. Gandhi, The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ (Chicago: Indo-American Book Co., 1907) 48. 44. David L. Snellgrove and Tadeusz Skorupski, The Cultural Heritage of Ladakh (Columbia, Missouri: Prajana Press, South Asia Books, 1977) 127. 44.1. Sri Daya Mata, "Remembering Paramahansa Yogananda," in Self-Realization Magazine, Winter, 1992, p.16. 44.2. Edward T. Martin, Jesus in India: King of Wisdom (Reno, NV: Yellow Hat Publishing, 2008), pp. 102-106. 45. Lafcadio Hearn, Gleanings in Buddha-Fields (Boston: Houghton & Mifflin, 1897), Chap. 10; Ian Stevenson, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, 2nd Ed. (Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Press, 1974); Ian Stevenson, Cases of the Reincarnation Type, Vols. 1-4 (Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Press, 1975-1983); Ian Stevenson, Children Who Remember Previous Lives (Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Press, 1987); Satwant Pasricha, Claims of Reincarnation: An Empirical Study of Cases in India (New Delhi: Harmon Publishing House, 1990). 46. T. Dethlefson, Voices from Other Lives: Reincarnation as a Source of Healing (New York: M. Evans, 1976); Edith Fiore, You Have Been Here Before (New York: Ballantine Books, 1978); Helen Wambach, Reliving Past Lives: The Evidence under Hypnosis (New York: Bantam Books, 1979); Joel L. Whitton and Joe Fisher, Life Between Life (New York: Warner Books, 1986); Karl Schlotterbeck, Living Your Past Lives: The Psychology of Past-Life Regression (New York: Ballantine Books, 1987); Bruce Goldberg, Past Lives, Future Lives (New York: Ballantine Books, 1988); Brian Weiss, Many Lives, Many Masters (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988); Roger Woolger, Other Lives, Other Selves (New York: Bantam Books, 1988); John Van Auken, Born Again & Again (Virginia Beach: Inner Vision, 1989); Raymond A. Moody, Coming Back: A Psychiatrist Explores Past-Life Journeys (New York: Bantam Books, 1991); Brian Weiss, Through Time into Healing (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992). 47. Frederick Lenz, Lifetimes: True Accounts of Reincarnation (New York: Ballantine Books, 1979); H. N. Banerjee, Americans Who Have Been Reincarnated (New York: Macmillan, 1980), pp. 45-50, 149-153, 169-176. 48. John Hick, Death and Eternal Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1976) 304-308. 49. Stevenson has found that young children who remember their most recent past lives are much more prone to have suffered a violent death in that past life than is to be expected demographically. 50. Ian Stevenson and Godwin Samararatne, "Three New Cases of the Reincarnation Type in Sri Lanka with Written Records Made before Verifications," J. Scientific Exploration 2 (1988): pp. 217-238; Erlunder Haraldsson, "Children Claiming Past-life Memories: Four Cases in Sri Lanka," J. Scientific Exploration 5 (1991): pp. 233-261; Antonia Mills, "A Replication Study: Three Cases of Children in Northern India Who Are Said to Remember a Previous Life," J. Scientific Exploration 3 (1989): pp. 133-184; Antonia Mills, "Moslem Cases of the reincarnation Type in Northern India: A Test of the Hypothesis of Imposed Identification. Part I: Analysis of 26 Cases," J. Scientific Exploration 4 (1990): pp. 171-188; Jürgen Keil, "New Cases in Burma, Thailand, and Turkey: A Limited Field Study Replication of Some Aspects of Ian Stevenson's Research," J. Scientific Exploration 5 (1991): pp. 27-59. 51. Joseph Head and S. L. Cranston, Reincarnation in World Thought (New York: Julian Press, 1967), pp. 96-100; Sylvia Cranston and Carey Williams, Reincarnation (New York: Julian Press, 1984), pp. 207-210; Woolger, Other lives, Other Selves, pp. 71-73. 52. Tertullian, "A Treatise on the Soul," Chap. 35, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, eds. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), vol. 3, p. 216. Tertullian died around 220 or 240 C.E; his writing on this occurred before he broke with Christian orthodoxy to become a Montanist. 53. Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, 3.39.16, transl. K. Lake, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1953), p. 297. 54. Due to the early- to mid-second century dating of Papias's life and of the first mention of any of the Gospels by name, it is safe to assume that the Gospels came out too late to be written by the men whose names are attached to them. Yet by the time of Irenaeus in the late 2nd-century, and certainly by the time of Eusebius, theological commitment required the assumption that they were written respectively by the disciple Matthew, by John Mark, by Luke the physician, and by the disciple John. 55. Deardorff, New Testament Gospel Origins, pp. 29-30, 83, 88, 95, 97, 102-103, 124-127, 164. 56. An embarrassment for 20th-century scholars is that the statement suggests that the Logia were written in Aramaic or Hebrew, which implies that Matthew's gospel was also. The latter in turn implies that Matthew preceded Mark, which was probably the first Gospel to have been written in Greek. The embarrassment of "and each interpreted them as best he could" is that it implies that some other evangelists besides the compiler of Matthew had had some access to the Logia, but had difficulty "interpreting them" or incorporating any more from them into their own gospels than Matthew's compiler already had accomplished, because of the Logia's heresies. 57. We agree with most scholars in deducing that the compiler of Matthew substituted "Son of man" here, as in many other spots, to replace the personal pronoun, "I." E.g., see Francis Beare, The Gospel according to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981) 352. However, according to the TJ document studied thoroughly elsewhere in this website, the past life of Immanuel or Jesus was Elijah, and that of John the Baptist was Elisha. Altering his source document, the TJ, the writer of Matthew had substituted "Elijah" for "Elisha" in Mt 11:14, since Elijah was a favorite personage of his and had been "translated" up to "heaven." 58. In this verse we infer that "Christ" is a redactive substitution for his actual name, fed in by the compiler. 59. Cranston and Carey, Reincarnation, pp. 207-208. 60. Deardorff, Jesus in India, pp. 31-34. 61. Jesus Seminar, "Voting Records," Forum 6, (March, 1990) 36. 62. Instead, see Deardorff, Jesus in India. 63. An example is a story that Jesus, along with a brother, was buried in Japan; see The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 1, 1993. This conflicts with other, much stronger evidence, however heretical, indicating that his tomb is instead in Srinagar, Kashmir. 64. Philip L. Culbertson, "What is Left to Believe in Jesus after the Scholars Have Done with Him?" J.E.S. 28 (Winter, 1991): p. 2. 65. Raimundo Panikhar, "Inter-religious Dialogue: Some Principles," J.E.S. 12 (Summer, 1975): pp. 407-409. Go Back to: Contents Further refutation of Eldberg's claims Eldberg continues with the following paragraphs (as of 28 July 2002): "Meier makes extensive use of conspiracy theories to explain away the "holes in the script". Conspiracy theories are attractive because they provide an easy explanation to all the things we worry about. Somewhere, they say, there is a group of evil people who secretly control everything. Conspiracy theories are also self-proving. So what if there is no evidence for a conspiracy? That only proves how extremely powerful the conspiracy is! They are able to erase every trace of their activities! In Meier's particular case, the conspiracy consists of the religious authorities of Christianity and Judaism. Apparently, these are able to command the Israeli armed forces and to send assassin into foreign countries where they can kill people without leaving a trace. However, at the same time these powerful people are apparently incompetent because Meier claims to have survived several assassination attempts." Here, Eldberg is apparently assuming that Meier invented the entire TJ story and the person who co-discovered the TJ with him (Isa Rashid), and in particular the letter that Rashid sent to Meier in 1974 explaining how the original TJ scrolls were destroyed by the Israeli attack upon the Lebanese refugee camp he and his family had fled to from Jerusalem. Rashid told Meier in the letter that he believed the reason why the Israelis attacked that refugee camp was to get at him and the TJ scrolls (they were successful in the latter), and it goes without saying that such a reason for such a severe and savage attack would not under any circumstances have been disclosed by the parties involved, for disclosing it would have put an official stamp on the existence and importance of the TJ. In my discussion of the letter and attack, I mention that after this attack, U.S. newspapers reported how deplorable the "overkill" was in these June 20-22, 1974 air raids on the U.N. supervised Palestinian refugee camps, and that it was out of all proportion to the stated provocation. This tends to back up Rashid's claim. One does not know to what extent certain Christian authorities may have been involved in the planning of these raids, as suggested by Rashid, or even certain U.S. authorities, but then President Nixon had just returned from a Mideast trip in which he had visited top Israeli officials when the raids commenced. Although these are just faint vestiges of evidence left behind, plus speculation, they indicate that the conspiracy of silence on the matter was not entirely without trace. Added later by Eldberg: In several other cases, the Israeli military have gone into refugee camps and arrested their enemies with surgical precision. Massive attacks are only used when they expect fierce military resistance. The idea that the Israelis would commit whole regiments in a large-scale attack, cause vast collateral damage and bring upon them intermational and UN condemnations, just to take out one guy, is preposterous. It's far more likely that Meier needed to put his fictional character in a violent situation in order to explain how the manuscript was lost. A Palestinian refugee camp would be ideal. Although Rashid didn't mention in his brief letter what kind of attack the raid was that laid waste to the refugee camp, the Israeli air strikes in mid-June, 1974, best fit the timing and content of the letter. "Regiments" would not then have been involved. These raids on the U.N. supervised refugee camps did bring international condemnation. Motivation for such raids would not have been preposterous by religious standards, considering what was at stake, if the Mossad had learned that Rashid and family had fled to a Lebanese refugee camp, but did not know which one. Is it reasonable to assume that high Israeli officials, and Christian authorities, too, according to Rashid, would allow the custodian of the TJ scrolls to escape, with its important truths exposing false beliefs lying at the very core of Judeo-Christianity, if that could in any way be prevented? Rev. Eldberg has been treating the matter pretty strenuously, consider how much more so the highest religious authorities must have treated it! It should not be surprising that certain top Israeli officials would be in close communication with certain of their top religious leaders, as church and state (synagogue and state) in Israel are of course inseparable. Added later by Eldberg: Like all conspiracy theorists, Deardorff makes extensive use of unsubstantiated suggestions. "It should not be surprising" but I am indeed surprised because there is no evidence. "It goes without saying" but still it apparently needs to be said even though there is no evidence. "Meier was informed..." but no mention about by whom. "From what has been learned" with no reference as to how or from whom. "Top officials" are said to act but we don't learn who or even in what agencies they act. The more absurd his claims are, the more likely Deardorff is to insert an "of course" in his text. We are asked to accept at face value a convoluted story where all inconsistencies, all lack of evidence, all unlikely statements are explained with reference to conspiracies by unidentified government, military and religious authorities. This is not science. No matter how much is known, more questions can always arise. That's science. In this matter, I also would like to know much more. Rashid himself probably did not have any hard evidence to back up the claims in his letter to Meier, except of course the TJ scrolls until they were destroyed. Meier does not know the answer to most of these questions, except what he has been told by his alien contactor, Semjase. That does not mean that one should not speak out on what is known as reported by the TJ's co-discoverer. Meier learned in 1976 that Rashid and his family had been assassinated in that year. It would again be no surprise if that had been accomplished through the Israeli secret service, the Mossad. The assassination occurred in Baghdad, where Rashid and family had fled in 1974. The Mossad is well known for its successful operations. As noted in this website, The Israeli Secret Service [ISS] was created by Prime Minister David Ben Gurien in 1948. In a short period of two years it had gained the respect of the world intelligence community. Allan Dulles of the CIA commented in 1950 "The ISS is the second best in the world". Since then, Israel has relied on its intelligence for its very survival, time and again." Its ability to keep secrets was noted in passing in the London Times, 2 August 1996, which mentioned, the operational structure of Mossad, Israel's secret intelligence service, which has always prided itself on weaving a cloak of impenetrable secrecy around its covert operations, has been disclosed by a British specialist journal. Added later by Eldberg: Considering the political tensions between Irak and Israel, do you honestly believe that an assasination like this could pass without a major outcry from the Irakis? Even in Irak, you can hardly wipe out a whole family without authorities and/or media taking notice. The person(s) who actually did the assassinating would hardly have informed Iraqi officials about it, to let them know what government was behind it. The topic ought to be investigated, though, in case it did happen to make it into a Baghdad newspaper. In that case, however, the matter would probably still be uncertain because Rashid would, in all likelihood, have been living there under an assumed name. In his letter he did request of Meier to keep his name secret, which is consistent with all else we know. I also notice here that what has elsewhere been presented as a fact (that Rashid was killed by Israeli agents) is now suddenly just an unsubstantiated suggestion: "it would be no surprise if". What Meier learned from his ET contactors was that Rashid and family were assassinated by "elements of the Israeli command" (Contact Report #66 of 10 Nov. 1976). This would likely imply involvement of the Mossad, though not necessarily. What an ET says is of course not hard evidence, but is what is known to investigators of Meier's experiences. Regarding the assassination attempts against Meier, by 1990 there had been 13 of them (see Guido Moosbrugger's And... Yet They Fly, pp. 251-269, 343-345). One doesn't know what fraction of these were made by persons incensed with Meier's UFO experiences and his photo evidence supporting them, versus the fraction incensed at Meier for bringing the TJ to light, or if any of the latter were associated with the ISS. One does learn from reading Meier's Contact Reports that his Pleiadian contactors played some role in protecting him from assassination. This does not mean that the ISS was incompetent! Early on Meier was forced to take protective measures around his converted farmhouse abode, with different F.I.G.U members standing guard duty at night. Next, one reads Eldberg's comment: "For some reason, Meier and his followers insist on misspelling 'Immaniuel' [sic] with an initial J instead of an I. I have found no explanation for this, but it should still be clear what I'm referring to, 'TJ' = 'Talmud Immanuel'. If Eldberg were to read the TJ's Foreword more carefully, he would find part of the explanation there, in its front pages. There it states that "The spelling of Jmmanuel with a 'J' is no mistake, for according to the Pleiadians, this name is traced back to their forefathers, who spelled the name Jmmanuel in written language with a 'J'." Additional information I've learned is that Meier was shown the alphabet of this language by his contactors, in which the "J" symbol stood for the "i,j,y" sounds in this old language, and that Jmmanuel had, also. To honor his Pleiadian contactors, Jmmanuel had his disciple-writer, Judas Iscariot, write his name starting with the J symbol from their language. First Rashid, then Meier, have honored that wish. Added later by Eldberg: Unlike Deardorff, I prefer to treat manuscripts in a scholarly manner, as documents written by human beings, and without reference to divine intervention. Since neither the existence of God or of space aliens can be scientifically proved, I perform my analysis without taking their possible actions into consideration. In fact, any theory which presupposes the existence of such supernatural or unexamined forces, has no scientific value whatsoever. Most persons who are up on the UFO phenomenon know better than to equate space aliens with the divine, i.e., with God. In fact, one of the key teachings of Jmmanuel was the distinction between "god" or "God" ("El" or "Yahweh," space aliens) and true God, referred to as Creation. Even without mention of the UFO phenomenon, there have been quite a few theories, or hypotheses, regarding extraterestrials (ETs), their likely existence, and solutions to Fermi's Paradox within the peer-reviewed scientific literature, since 1970. Those who have admitted the UFO phenomenon into the problem can point to government documents of the past half century in which the possibility of UFOs being ET craft was treated seriously (references supplied upon request). Eldberg continued with his version of the TJ discovery: "The manuscript is said to have been found in 1963 by a "Greek catholic priest" (the terminology is uncertain, it might mean an Orthodox priest, or perhaps a Uniate, i.e. Eastern rite but Roman Catholic allegiance, I don't know which) by the name Rashid. It was found in a hidden cave. Meier claims to have visited the cave with his friend Rashid, but says that it is now filled with sand and earth. However the two friends excavated it and found evidence supporting the genuineness of the manuscript. The manuscript consisted of several scrolls written in Aramaic. Rashid translated them, which took until 1974. During the work, Rashid was constantly persecuted by "the church" and Jews who were out to stop the publication of the manuscript. Just after the translation was finished, Israeli military forces attacked the house in Jerusalem where Rashid was living and he barely escaped with his family. The scrolls were taken by the Israelis and probably burned. Rashid found shelter in Bagdad, where he was subsequently assassinated by Israeli agents in 1977." This account leaves some incorrect impressions. From quizzing Meier's associates over the years, I've learned that Rashid had been a Greek Orthodox priest in Greece, never in Palestine. (His mother had been Greek, his father Palestinian.) So I believe the mention of his having been a Catholic priest, in the TJ's Foreword, is incorrect or misleading. In one of Meier's contacts with Semjase, she mentioned that Rashid was a priest of the Greek-Catholic church; if correct, perhaps he had been a Uniate then. From additional information I've gathered, Rashid was informed of the scrolls' whereabouts through Pleiadian mental telepathy of which he was left unaware. This was a few years before 1963, when he did go to the tomb site but didn't take any action then except for studying up on the ancient Aramaic language, again through Pleiadian prompting. He had left the church well before 1963. The burial cave was not entirely filled up with sand and dirt. Rashid's translations were not completed by 1974; only the first portions have survived, which had been translated up to a time circa 1970, when Rashid mailed them to Meier in Switzerland. However that first portion extends several years past the time of the crucifixion. There is nothing in Meier's TJ Foreword or Rashid's letter to say that Rashid was "constantly" persecuted. Presumably he kept the secret of his translation work on the TJ quite well for many years after 1963, so that his lengthy translation did proceed. Persecution may have set in some time around 1970 or somewhat later, since it was "long before" 1974 or 1976 that Meier had last heard from Rashid. Rashid didn't say when or how Israelis learned of his work on the TJ in Jerusalem, and caused him to flee, and whether or not they attacked his residence there. It was the houses in the Lebanese refugee camp that were destroyed by the fires from the Israeli raid in 1974, at which time the scrolls were destroyed, too. There is no definite indication that the Israelis obtained the scrolls, with Meier learning otherwise from his chief alien contactor. Meier was informed by his contactor, Semjase, that Rashid and family were assassinated in March of 1976, not in 1977. This is the only source we have to go on. From this and previous responses, one sees that Meier's UFO/ET experiences cannot be separated from the discovery of the TJ. Eldberg then continues with typical questions: 1. The location of the cave is not given. Why? Meier was informed that some time after 1963 the tomb site had been covered over by a rockslide. Added later by Eldberg: How convenient. It remains that as long as the site has not been identified and examined by archaeologists, its existence must remain pure speculation. It's not pure speculation, but a report affirmed by just one witness. Nevertheless, when ufologist Michael Hesemann researched the matter, Meier cooperated in informing him, via cell phone, just where to walk along the south side of the Old City to find the general location where the tomb site had been (at Hakeldama, it turned out). This is discussed here, where one of Michaels's photos of the speculated region of the site is shown. Hesemann (in private correspondence of Aug. 1988) has reported that he indeed located the landslide that apparently covered up the tomb site. He has a background in archaeology, and would like to take part in a dig there some day if political conditions were to permit it; however, I have serious doubts that the Israeli government would allow it. 2. Why are there no records of the alleged excavation, and no information about what finds were made and how (in what scientific way) they supported the genuineness of the alleged scrolls? Meier had earlier been informed, in a contact in 1956, that he would come into the possession of such a document, and that it would be part of his mission to promulgate it. He would not be able to do this if he had dutifully handed the scrolls over to Jordanian officials upon their discovery. So it's not written up in any archaeological records, and no archaeologists were in on the dig or informed about the matter. After learning from Rashid in 1963 of the essence of some of the TJ's gravest heresies for Judaism and Christianity, both he and Rashid of course realized that if the scrolls were to be turned over to authorities, or even to scholars, it would never see the light of day. So the translation project proceeded in secret, with Rashid to retain possession of the scrolls and Meier to be the recipient of Rashid's German translation. Added later by Eldberg: Anyone with the least interest in matters of truth and evidence should realize that documenting a find site is as important as retreiving the finds. You don't just dig a hole and pick up the goods. You shave off the dirt in small increments (ca 4 inches at a time, less when you reach a layer with finds). You draw maps of each new layer you uncover. When a find is made, even if it's just a piece of broken pottery, you draw it onto the map and take a photograph of it where it lies, before removing it. Neither Meier nor Rashid was an archaeologist or scientist. They had no one they would have wished to show a map or photograph to, since, as I've mentioned before, they needed to keep Rashid's translation project a secret until the TJ would be published. They had what they wanted -- the scrolls. In addition, Meier himself feels no need for further evidence, as he knows that his experiences all did happen as he has reported them, and feels no need to kick the crutches out from under those who would be unable to accept the reality of those experiences if backed up by firmer evidence. His experiences, and this website, too, are just for those who have done their homework relative to the UFO phenomenon and the reincarnation evidence, and who are curious to learn more. Added later by Eldberg: As I have pointed out before, there are plenty of ancient manuscript finds with heretical contents which have not been suppressed. There are different degrees of heresy and threat that documents like the Gnostic gospels or Dead Sea scrolls might pose for organized religions and to individuals. None of them exposes all the basic fallacies of Christianity in a lengthy document that furthermore indicates precisely the manner in which one of Christianity's principal documents was falsified, as the TJ does with the Gospel of Matthew. None of them exposes basic fallacies in Judaism like the TJ does, in a manner now understandable in light of the UFO phenomenon and recent advances in astronomy. However, the above refers to the TJ when it was in the form of its original scrolls; with those scrolls destroyed the whole matter is debatable and neither religion need feel threatened. There are also quite a few non-religious scholars around who would be delighted to get their hands on an ancient document with anti-Christian or anti-Jewish content. Somehow I doubt that Meier and Rashid, in 1963, upon discovering the TJ scrolls, would have known, or have been able to locate, a non-religious scholar who, if they turned the scrolls over to him, could have guaranteed that they would get fully translated and made public. Most, if not all, non-religious scholars are turned off by the topics of long-range prophecy, reincarnation and spiritual evolution, and UFO-like vehicles, especially if presented within a document that would have been checked out via radio-carbon dating and paleography as being some 1900 years old. No, the TJ is much too unique to be compared with any past finds of ancient documents. If Meier and Rashid had any intention of making their find believable, there still remains no reason for why they did not photograph the scrolls. The same reasons remain: Rashid had the scrolls and didn't intend to give them up until after translating their entirety. At that point he might have photographed them, if he and the scrolls had been allowed to survive. Until then, he was to work on them secretly so that a translation would ultimately be available for Meier. Photographing them would have risked exposing them to scrutiny by others, and it's possible (one doesn't know) that Rashid did finally take this risk around 1973 or 74, leading to the persecution that forced him out of the Jerusalem area to a Lebanese refugee camp. In Meier's Foreword to the TJ, he mentions that some items were found in the cave along with the scrolls. Later information suggests these were a crystalline piece of feldspar, and a couple clay figurines, which had been placed inside the scrolls. Hesemann has seen one of the figurines, and believes it may have come from India. However, we know of no way of dating these items, and therefore do not see that they provide any scientific support for the scrolls, which Meier recalls as having been four in number. It should be mentioned that a part of Meier's philosophy borrows from that of his ET contactors: People should not be forced to believe what they cannot tolerate, or what they are not at all yet prepared to believe. (The UFO phenomenon has been proceeding under this same guideline.) Hence Semjase at times omitted material from Meier's Contact Reports that had occurred during their conversations, and it is possible that Meier is withholding information that would directly tend to validate the TJ's genuineness. Added later: So evidence exists but is being kept hidden? Meier wants to present the truth -- but not so that we are forced to believe it? He is intentionally making his case weaker so that there will be room for doubt? I've now italicized the word "possible" in my sentence above. It's a consideration worth speculating on, because Meier's philosophy tends along those lines. In other words, Meier does not want rational, scientifically trained people to believe his story. Evidently he prefers to be believed only by the gullible. Many scientists or scholars who have been trained to believe in only what they can see or reproduce in the laboratory or satisfactorily understand, would be terribly shocked to learn that UFOs are real, for example, though we do not understand the advanced technology that propels them. It seems that Meier, like his ET contactors, doesn't want that type of person to be forced to believe something that is "unthinkable" to him/her. It should be noted that being curious and open-minded is not the same as being gullible. 3. Why are we not given any information about Rashid? What was his full name? Where was he ordained? Under which bishop did he serve as a priest? The churches keep records which should verify at least that he existed. In Meier's Contact Reports, before 1977, Meier had referred to Rashid as "M. Rashid," to provide him with some anonymity (Rashid being a very common Palestinian name). This was to help protect him and his family from further persecution. Also, in the 1978 TJ he kept him anonymous in the Foreword, though not in the copy of Rashid's 1974 letter published in the rear of the TJ, which he may have attached only after learning of Rashid's assassination in 1976. He has since desired to keep the name of the village anonymous in which Rashid and relatives had lived in Palestine, to protect the latter from possible assassination, as it can be imagined that some of them may have been aware of Rashid's translation project. Added later: How convenient. Doesn't it strike you as odd that there are so many holes in this story, all of which are covered up with reference to mysterious conspiracies, convenient land slides, commands from space aliens and other circumstances which are obviously designed to put all claims safely out of the reach of serious scholarly and scientific examination? If Eldberg were to examine the evidence that supports Meier's experiences, witnesses, photos and all, plus that of the rest of the UFO phenomenon, he would need to start looking at the alternatives to the hoax hypothesis, rather than "conveniently" avoiding them. Most of what he alludes to above has already been covered in our discussions. As to a rock slide down a rather steep slope, I don't believe that's beyond the capabilities of a UFO to have induced, if Nature didn't. (E.g., credible reports involving a UFO lifting or transporting a car are not at all unheard of.) From what has been learned, Rashid had been a lay priest in Greece some time before 1948, so I suspect he was never ordained. If Meier knows where he preached in Greece, he is not disclosing that, either, for the same reason, since Rashid's mother and some of her relatives may have lived in that place, and may have been informed of Isa Rashid's involvement with translating the TJ. Added later: There is no such thing in Greek Orthodoxy as "lay priests". A layman who preaches might exist, but would need a special permission from the bishop, which means there must be records. I would be interested in seeing such a record, too. 4. The letter from Rashid speaks of him traveling with his family. Where are they today? They ought to be able to verify some of the information about him. As noted previously, and also in the TJ Foreword, they were assassinated in 1974 along with Isa. 5. At which university did Rashid learn Aramaic? Universities keep records, so we should be able to verify not only that Rashid existed but also what subjects he studied. He already knew Syriac from his father and from having lived in Palestine since 1948. Meier was told in a Contact Report that he was helped through mental prompting from Semjase in learning the old Aramaic. So it isn't known if he in addition attended any university, or consulted with any university professor, for additional help in learning the old Aramaic. 6.How did Rashid get to know Eduard Meier? Why did he select Meier and no-one else as his coworker in the manuscript publishing? The most I've learned about that is that both Rashid and Meier were mutual friends of one Roger de Polatzki of Belarus, who is presumably deceased by now. The only known photo of Rashid was taken there, according to Meier. 7. Since he had the scrolls for 11 years, why did he not make a single photograph or xerox copy of them? We don't know for sure that he didn't. If he had, though, to whom would he have shown it? Not to any scholars, for then he would have lost possession of the scrolls, or his persecution would then have commenced. Not to others, for then the secrecy of his translation project would be lost. 8. How did "the church" and the Jews find out about his manuscript find? One doesn't know. Apparently Rashid became a little careless at some point, perhaps confiding in someone who could not keep the secret. It would have been difficult for Rashid or anyone to keep such a project secret 11 years, translating every few days or nights at a table with a scroll spread out in front of him, in a small house with a wife and two or three children, perhaps in a neighborhood where friends would drop in unannounced for visits. 9. How could the "church" or the Jews know that the scrolls contained material that would be damaging to their religions, when not an iota of the material had been published and the only two people who had seen the scrolls were Rashid and Meier? See replies to 7.) and 8.) above. Rashid must have confided to one or two others besides his wife, after quite a few years, unless it was she who failed to keep the secret about its existence and general contents. I don't see that he could have kept it from her. 10. Is it consistent with what we know of church and Israeli behaviour in other cases when faced with other manuscript finds, that they try to suppress them or murder the finders? I believe it is, in this sense. Israeli officials who had been informed would have regarded Rashid as being a terrorist of the worst sort, since the TJ's revelations of truth could, at the most, have caused the basis of Judaism (not to mention Christianity) to start to crumble if made public, provided the scrolls would have survived scholars' examinations and have been aired. At the least, its heresy that Israelites were not God's chosen people, and that this "God" was but a leader of guardian angels and celestial sons (ETs), could cause American sympathy and funding towards Israel to start drying up. And we know how Israel has treated whomever they consider to be terrorists, whether they have been located in Gaza or in Lebanon. Eldberg summarizes this by writing: The answer to all these questions is simple and obvious. The cave, Rashid and the scrolls never existed. This conclusion can come only if one's mind is already made up. It doesn't come from analysis of the TJ passages versus the Gospel of Matthew, and once one understands from that that the TJ had actually existed as scrolls, whose truths posed great problems for Judeo-Christianity, then one also understands why top officials, once they were informed, would have stopped at nothing to destroy the TJ and those witnesses who might be able to vouch for the scrolls' existence. One might then also understand that the ETs involved with Meier as contactee, and the ETs in charge of overseeing the UFO phenomenon, would wish to avoid massive chaos that could result from the genuineness of the TJ being thrust upon millions of Christians and Jews, through a strategy that includes plausible deniability that ensures only a very gradual realization of truth. Added later: My mind is made up beccause I have examined Deardorff's evidence and found it to be utter balderdash. All he has managed to do is to systematically withdraw every piece of real evidence for the TJ from scientific examination. The presented reasons for their unavailability are far-fetched, to express it mildly. In contrast to him, I am using a scientific method which involves asking for evidence. For the TJ, there is NONE. The evidence favoring the TJ's reality lies in the several hundred comparisons of TJ versus Matthew verses/passages. These represent the main thrust of my website, but have not been discussed at all by Eldberg. It is indirect evidence, but nonetheless extremely telling evidence taken altogether. Eldberg continues with: According to the accompanying information, the document was written by Judas Iskarioth, the only true disciple of Jesus. All the Biblical gospels are fakes, produced by the church and censored to fit in with their dogma. The first of these forgeries is the gospel of Matthew, which is an altered version of Meier's scrolls. In reality, this means that Meier has simply re-written the gospel of St Matthew to fit his own ideas. He borrows freely from other hoaxes and his own special contribution is the information that the events in Jesus' life were orchestrated by aliens from another planet. The TJ doesn't say or indicate that Judas was the only true disciple, because it indicates that Jmmanuel had 11 other disciples. For example, Judas fled with the other 11 (all the disciples fled; see Mt 26:56) following the arrest, and so Judas was no braver than the rest then. (But perhaps we should wonder, why would Judas have had to flee the arresting party, if he had sided with the chief priests and elders against Jesus?) The TJ does say that Judas was the only disciple who could read and write, hence Jmmanuel chose him to be his writer, as well as treasurer. Thus he was the most useful disciple to Jmmanuel, and accompanied him on his travels after the crucifixion. The TJ doesn't say anything about the Gospels; it's only through careful comparison of it against Matthew that one finds that Matthew was mostly a falsified version; then similar deductions about the other gospels follow. One finds that the scholarly group called the Jesus Seminar was roughly correct in its assessment that most of Matthew's verses are non-genuine (i.e., Jesus didn't speak the words, or the events didn't happen), though mostly incorrect on which verses it voted on as being genuine. In addition to "censoring" out material from the TJ that the writer of Matthew did not wish to have in his gospel, he altered words, phrases and sentences as he saw fit, and invented other sentences and passages. Similar, though more limited, editing can be seen to have occurred on the part of the gospel writers who came afterwards. Then Eldberg, though ignoring all the evidence to the contrary, states his assumption that Meier re-wrote the Gospel of Matthew. One might wonder, since when is it logical, or scholarly, to ignore the evidence that contradicts one's desired outcome on an issue? Eldberg assumes that Meier borrowed from other literary hoaxes, while never alerting the reader to the evidence that indicates what he presents as hoaxes instead represent reality. This will get discussed further below. Various books, as well as this website, present and discuss the evidence that (some) of the events in Jmmanuel's life were orchestrated by aliens (see, e.g., The God Hypothesis (pp. 266-272,304-309,) by Joe Lewels). Eldberg then wrote: The text has a clear anti-Christian leaning, denying most of the central Christian teachings and putting words to that effect in Jesus' mouth. This is even more outspoken in Meier's own commentary to the text, where he expresses abject hate for the Christian religion, accusing all churches of being power-hungry, ruthless, loveless, bloodthirsty oppressors. In Meier's opinion, the church wrote the Bible to hide the real truth about Jesus and fool people into obedience for ecclesiastical authorities, whereas the real Jesus was the son of a human woman and a space alien. More correctly, the TJ expresses what happened, and what Jmmanuel said, while early Christian editors altered its philosophical message into a Jesus-worship message. Meier knew for a fact that the TJ is genuine and that what's in it is true. Thus, when he wrote his Foreword to the TJ he pulled no punches, and allowed his anger to surface concerning how millions of people over the past two millennia had been swept into the falsified religion. This contrasts with the tone of the TJ text itself and its matter-of-fact narration by Judas. In his Foreword, Meier blames the unscrupulous behavior of Christianity at times, especially by the "Holy See" during the Inquisition, on the heretical doctrines of those who manipulated the TJ's truth (TJ, 2001, p. xvii). As I see it, this points primarily to the Gospel writers, and secondarily to Paul. Meier didn't accuse any particular churches of anything except for the Holy See. I don't find in Meier's Foreword any statement about "the church wrote the Bible," or "the cult wrote the Bible." If this is Eldberg's impression of how the Gospels were written, it seems quite misleading. If "the church" had written any of the Gospels, surely we would know who wrote them, when and where. The fact that all that information was never reported simply accords with the "heretical" TJ having been the source of the Gospels, with this factor, along with TJ's author and the late date of writing of the Gospels, explaining the paucity of information on Gospel origins stemming from early Christian sources. Several passages in the text are obviously intended to explain away certain Christian ideas, e.g. the story of Saulus and his conversion which is dealt with at length in this "original gospel" whereas the story actually belongs in the Acts of the Apostles, written by Luke. No such thing is obvious unless examined from the viewpoint that the Bible has to be correct, and anything else is unthinkable. Comparison of the TJ against the other Gospels indicates that the writers of Luke and John also had some access to the TJ, while the writer of Mark did not. In Luke itself there are a few passages borrowed from the TJ, and since practically all Bible scholars agree that the writer of Luke was also the writer of Acts, and since the conversion story of Saulus chronologically occurs after the Gospel stories, it only makes sense that after the writer of Luke extracted it from the TJ, along with editing it some, he placed it in Acts (Acts 9). Other characteristics of the text are also typical for hoaxes, e.g. • Jesus travelled to India before his work in Palestine. Eldberg fails to give any hint that there is strong evidence to support Jmmanuel's early travel to India and back, primarily the document once at the Hemis monastery in Ladakh. Although attempts have been made to debunk this information, as by e.g., Per Beskow (Strange Tales about Jesus), he and others did not treat the Nicholas Notovich report fairly at all, and entirely ignored the independent, confirming evidence of this document collected by Swami Abhedananda some 30 years later. • Jesus did not die on the cross. Eldberg gives no hint of all the reasons for believing that the historical Jesus survived the crucifixion. It explains the empty tomb; it explains the "sign of Jonah," in which Jonah survived his three days and nights inside the belly of the big fish; it explains the man's appearances to his disciples afterwards; it explains why there's no evidence to support the Pharisaic concept of resurrection; it explains why the "resurrected Jesus" didn't appear openly to all people, while a "resurrected" body wouldn't need to fear being killed; and it explains all the traditions indicating that the man traveled a great deal in the years after the crucifixion, after having stayed incognito a couple years in Damascus. • After fleeing the grave, Jesus again travelled to India. See the above link for many references to this. However, according to the TJ, he did not go directly towards India, but after leaving Damascus traveled northwards through Anatolia apparently to the shores of the Black Sea, then west as far as Ephesus before heading towards the land of India. •The Essenes are said to be a secret order. (Here, they seek to enroll Jesus who declines to join.) This event occurred in Ephesus, where Jmmanuel was recognized by a merchant who was an Essene. The TJ gives support here to those who view the Essenes as having been a secret order (e.g., John Allegro, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth, p. 31). Also, Allegro deduced that the Essene order extended "far out to the towns and villages of Judaea and very possibly beyond, into Egypt, Asia Minor, and to Rome." (Ephesus was at the western edge of Asia Minor.) A likely reason Jmmanuel declined to join them is because he felt he needed to bring his teachings to those in the land of India. Having been there before for many years in his youth (the "lost" years) would make it relatively easy for him to communicate with the people there. •Jesus preaches reincarnation He must have learned all about it in India in his youth. The evidence supporting the reality of reincarnation really is strong; I give a lot of references on this here. There are plenty of anachronisms, e.g. •"The laws of nature", a concept formulated in renaissance times. The idea of "The law" itself is no anachronism, as the term was used very frequently when referring to the Torah. The idea of "nature" was no anachronism, as the concept of "nature" was known to Paul (e.g., 1 Cor 11:14), and in the sense of nature teaching us. There was a word for "nature" in Hebrew and Aramaic. So there was nothing to prevent a wisdom teacher from connecting the "the law" with "nature" (the TJ does use the phrase "law of nature" some three times, using "law" rather than "laws"). Moreover, when Jmmanuel was taught the "wisdom of knowledge" by his contacting ETs during his 40-day instruction period, he quite likely was exposed to the idea of the "laws of nature." Thus we can't be sure that Jmmanuel himself coined the phrase "laws of nature," but it would be silly to assume that such a unique individual as he was not the first person to have spoken this or that. E.g., one of his original sayings is "Truly, I say to you, many dogs will kill a hare, regardless of how many turns it makes" (TJ 29:29). •"The horn-bearing kings" denotes the peoples of Scandinavia, later Vikings -- who did not wear horns at all. This reference occurs in: TJ 28:54 "One of them [one of the populations that 'god' oversees] is here in this country, which you have deprived of its rights and subjugated; another is in the east as far as the land of India, and the third is in the north from the land of the king with horns to the sea where icy mountains drift in the water." Here in the third instance Jmmanuel is apparently referring to the land commencing northward from the Black Sea. "From the land of the king with horns" then refers to a land farther south than Scandinavia. Eldberg has also somehow misread "king" to mean peoples of Scandinavia and even Vikings, perhaps because many Swedes are known to be sensitive to the fallacy that the Vikings wore helmets with horns, as perpetuated for example by the comic strip "Hägar the Horrible." This Indo-European land was long under the influence of the Celts, whose important god Cernunnos had horns, and was worshiped as late as the 1st century A.D. He is shown on the right. [Revised 2/04:] In the expression "the horned king," The Celtic god Cernunnos, from www.lugodoc.demon. the word "king" does seem to have been used loosely, to refer to a co.uk/cernunos.htm primary deity or king of the gods rather than a human king. However, this need not be seen as surprising, as "king" was used loosely also at TJ 16:10 with Matthean parallel at Mt 14:9. [Added Jan. 2006:] The land of the king with horns is now better seen as referring to the general region of Macedonia where Alexander the Great hailed from, and to the southeast. He was often depicted with horns, and the coin of Lysimachus on the left shows the curved ram's horn on Alexander's head. His successors, the Seleucid kings, were then also This coin shows the ram's horn on the side of Alexander's head. characterized by horns, as indicated in coins picturing Antigonus (3rd century B.C.) and Seleucus (2nd century B.C.) wearing horned helmets, and Diodotus Tryphon (142-139 B.C.). Their kingdom was that of Medo-Persia including Syria, and their empire (much reduced from that of Alexander) lasted until about 60 B.C. The custom of wearing a helmet embellished with an ibex horn on special occasions was evidently carried on by many Seleucid kings, because in the book of Daniel (Dn 7:7-8,24) the referral is to ten horns, which Josephus easily interpreted as meaning successive kings who reigned over the Medes and Persians (Antiquities Book X, Chapter XI, paragraph 7). (Daniel's reference to the "little horn" is often taken to refer to Antiochus IV.) The land of the Medes and Persians could therefore be characterized as the land of the horned kings even down to the time of Josephus in mid-to-late 1st century A.D. So this TJ verse seems to refer to the land to the north of Israel starting from Syria and extending northwest over Europe all the way to the North Atlantic, where icebergs emanating from Greenland and Svalbard drift. Those wishing to continue discussion of this or other TJ topics are free to do so in my Blog. •"Five hundred million" and other large numbers occur; ancient texts never mention such large numbers, anything beyond a hundred thousand or so is "a myriad" or "countless as the stars". Without the original Aramaic TJ we cannot know just how such a number was written, as in TJ 12:20. There is no reason not to believe, however, that it wasn't written as "five hundred myriad," and it was up to the translator to figure out what number to put in for "myriad." For example, in Rev. 9:16, "two myriads of myriads" (in Greek) has been translated as "two hundred million," although "hundred" in Greek was a well known word, as it was in Aramaic and Hebrew (meah). The translator/editors put in what seemed like the most reasonable figure. Similarly Rashid very likely inserted "million" as the most likely figure for myriad here. If he had not, Meier would have later when he edited the TJ, since he has been told by Semjase that 500 million is an optimal number of people that Earth can support, which is the context of TJ 12:20. Note added in June 2012: There need not have been any uncertainty over the million figure. It has been brought to my attention that "myriad" frequently referred very definitely to ten thousand (see Sokoloff’s Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, p.513). Moreover, in biblical Aramaic "a million" was written as a "thousand thousand"; to see the Aramaic lettering for it, look on p. 32 of Franz Rosenthal's A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Wiesbaden, Germany: Otto Harrassowitz, 1974), or on pp. 87-88 of Alger Johns' A short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University, 1966). The latter also supplies the Aramaic word for "times" (multiplication), as in "ten thousand times ten thousand" (Dan 7:10). •The appearance of Muhammed is predicted, by name. He will appear in 500 years from now, says Jesus. This is radically different from all OT and NT prophecies which are never that precise. The prophecies about Jesus, for instance, do not say anything about the time distance from the prophecy to its fulfillment, nor do they give his name or address. Clearly, this is a prophecy after the event. Other prophecies after the event are abundant, e.g. the Second World War and bomb planes. It turns out that Jmmanuel was the greatest prophet of all (someone has to be the greatest), just as he appears to have been an even greater healer than any of the OT prophets. The TJ indicates that along with this capability to heal, stemming from great evolution of the spirit, goes commensurate ability to prophesy. Jmmanuel (i.e., the historical Jesus) did make a rather precise prediction in time of when Peter would deny his lord the third time (Mt 26:34), since the time is rather well known when the cock first crows in the morning. However, my own speculation on how Jmmanuel could be such an accurate long-range prophet is given here. More in response to Rev. Eldberg here. Return to: One level up Return to: Contents Refutation of Eldberg's claims, page 2 Rev. Äke Eldberg reproduced portions of text from my website, as below; under that comes his remarks in italics, and beneath that my response. From my website. Without the originals, as in the case of the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ), one has only its surviving co-discoverer's word that it had been in the form of scrolls, somewhat crumbly in places despite the resin encasement in which they had been preserved. However, this is much more than scholars have to go on with respect to their studies of the New Testament gospels, for example, of which neither the originals nor their first translations or copies, nor their second copies... exist, and for which of course no eyewitness testimony exists. The word of one living person is "much more" than the existing manuscript evidence for the New Testament? Hilarious. For the credibility of the real NT, see under "Has the Bible been censored?" on this site. Scholars know that soon after the 2nd quarter of the 2nd century commenced, citations from the Gospels, especially from Matthew, began to appear; somewhat later came mention of the Gospels by name. Entirely missing is how the first Gospel came into existence, when and where, and any explanation of why so late. After Matthew did appear, however, Christians used it, with some pieces of its manuscripts surviving, starting a century later still. This isn't being disputed. It's the source for the first Gospel that is of primary concern, for how faithfully could it have been incorporated into the existing Gospels if no one wished to preserve it, after using it? Scholars know next to nothing about it, but the TJ fulfills the qualifications for being it. Having a witness to its discovery in 1963 still alive, especially when many persons have vouched for his honesty, gives us invaluable information not available in regards to the Christian Gospels. The TJ, whether in the form of the original scrolls or as a translation, allows us to readily understand why the Gospels came out so late, and with attributed authors only, not to mention learning of the historical Jesus' original teachings. From my website. When the TJ scrolls were translated into German during the years between 1963 and 1974, occasional peculiarities within the Aramaic writing found their way into the German text, through having been translated rather literally. These are called Aramaisms. The most definite ones that have come to this investigator's attention are as follows: (full text of examples omitted here) Among the examples of Aramaisms presented by Deardorff, we find "fell on their faces", "and not", "if not through", "they, the celestial sons", "A stone will turn into bread", "Amen", and "Behold!" It is irrelevant whether they are real Aramaisms or not. But it is very relevant that most of them occur in the New Testament and in ancient apocryphs. Anyone intentionally imitating the literary style of the Bible would of course seize upon expressions which are untypical for his own modern language. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of these cannot be appreciated without their contexts, which are filled back in below: 2.) TJ 5:30 "If a thought causes you annoyance, eradicate it and ban it from your brain. It is better to destroy a thought that incites annoyance and not to bring the whole world of thought into an uproar. 3.) TJ 15:14 "What would be better to make them come alive and think, if not through speaking in parables!" 4.) TJ 4:51 "So spoke they, the celestial sons between the North and the West, before they brought Jmmanuel in the metallic light back to Israel..." In normal German as translated into English, 2.) would use than and 3.) would use than by or than through. Aramaic didn't have the "than" type of comparative, so alternate words had to be used to get the meaning across, which were later translated rather literally into the German. In 4.) the awkward "proleptic pronoun" stems from a distinctly Aramaic usage. Eldberg is making Eduard Meier out to be a New Testament linguist and connoisseur, when his schooling didn't finish the high school level, and he took no advanced study later (except what he learned from his contacting ETs). It is quite improbable that he could have learned 2.) - 4.) from casual contact with the German Bible. The other four types of Aramaisms listed are more evident to a reader of the New Testament, as Eldberg indicates, yet a New Age hoaxer who's a non-scholar could well have slipped up and not thought of using them in invented passages. Hence these Aramaisms speak more to the TJ's genuineness than not. From my website. Because there was no punctuation within the ancient texts, it was frequently the custom in Aramaic to alert the reader to the beginning of a quotation through use of an expression like "He answered and said...," with the "said" indicating the start of the quotation. [Five examples of this were given, plus mention of there being at least ten more, in TJ verses not paralleled by any Gospel.] This is a type of expression not just found in Aramaic but in many ancient texts from before the invention of punctuation. It is quite frequent in the Bible, and many modern Bible translations have kept the redundant "and said". Of course an imitator would notice this as a characteristic formula, and use it in his forgery. This could be the case, possibly though not necessarily, if Meier had tried to turn himself into some sort of New Testament scholar. However, those who have investigated his life have learned that prior to about 1967 he was far too busy doing odd jobs for a living as he traveled around the Mideast and India, and after that, upon getting married and moving back to Switzerland, was again too busy trying to earn a living and raise a family, to have engaged in any such Gospel "imitating" skullduggery even if his character had been of that sort. I pointed out this mark of genuineness because a New Age hoaxer could well have slipped up and forgotten to insert such "and said" expressions. It obviously counts more towards genuineness than hoax, for if such expressions were not present in TJ material not paralleled by Matthew, you can imagine how Eldberg would have jumped on that as indication of a hoax! From my website. Sometimes the lack of any quotation marks leaves doubt as to where a quotation ends and the narration recommences. Then the translator or editor may misplace the end-quotation mark. There is one spot in the TJ where this appears to have occurred: TJ 12:4-5 4It is written, however, "Whosoever commits adultery and fornication shall be punished, because the fallible are unworthy of life and its laws; thus they shall be castrated or sterilized." 5If unbetrothed men and women bed down with one another in disgrace and without loving each other, they shall be punished also, for those fallible are unworthy of life and its laws; thus they shall be castrated or sterilized. The quotation marks are shown here where the German editions of the TJ have placed them, at least up through its 2001 edition. However, the clause "because the fallible are unworthy of life and its laws..." must be where Jmmanuel's words have resumed (...) Proves nothing except that Meier made his quote a bit too long for Deardorff's taste. Perhaps the editor didn't make the quote too long; the reader can try to decide this for him/herself. [Added later; I now believe that the end of the quotation in the 2001 edition of the TJ occurs at the proper place, though the text contains an error of translation. See below.] The quoted passage is interesting from other points of view though. It speaks of sterilization of women, a surgical procedure which requires opening the abdominal cavity. Such surgery was unknown before the 19th century. This is clearly an anachronism. I certainly understand Eldberg's point. Below I replace an earlier response I had made on this point with the opinion I've since learned that Meier himself has on the matter. Meier believes that the words translated as "entmannt" (castrated) and "entweibt" (sterilized) were mistranslations by Isa Rashid of the original Aramaic. He suggests that the Aramaic had utilized a phrase like "cut off" or "cast out" for the penalty; hence the guilty ones were to be expelled and banished. This is actually a plausible explanation for the appearance of "sterilized" in these verses. TJ 12:4 reads, "It is written, however, 'Whosoever commits adultery and fornication shall be punished, because the fallible are unworthy of life and its laws; thus they shall be castrated or sterilized.'" But where is anything like this written? The closest one comes to it in the Scriptures is at Lv 18:20-29. There, however, the penalty is for the guilty ones to be cut off from their people (or to be executed: Lv 20:13). It seems that Rashid, reading of the punishment for a fornicator, having male fornicators in mind, assumed that "cut off" (krt or karath in Hebrew) meant castrated here. He evidently did not take the time to review Lv 18:29. So for offenses that could involve women as well, he had to add "or sterilized" for completeness. Thus, not only was "sterilized" incorrect, but also "castrated." These verses of TJ 12, taken by themselves, admittedly would seem like a "smoking gun" against the TJ's genuineness, and for them I have assigned PHoax a value of 0.99 (see also Mt 5:28 discussion). However, in translating some 1,748 sentences or verses of Aramaic into German, with little if any outside help, Rashid should be allowed to have made a few mistakes. The phrase "bed down with one another in disgrace and without loving each other" is also an obvious anachronism which reflects the modern idea of "falling in love" as a precondition for sex. An ancient text speaking of careless extramarital sex would simply have said "fornication". Here the TJ's words "in lovelessness" do not imply "without falling in love." Instead, bedding down "in disgrace and without loving each other" to me conveys the idea of "sex for the sake of sex." Fornication was covered in the previous TJ verse. From my website. Another indication that the original had been an ancient text lacking punctuation is that in many places within the TJ's German text there is a series of three or more nouns, adjectives or verbs in a row, each separated by "and" ("und") rather than by a comma and a final "and." A similar clue involving or (the German "oder") occurs at TJ 20:24 and 33:10, where three nouns or prepositional phrases are connected by two or's without use of intervening commas, as in "A or B or C," rather than the modern structure "A, B or C." In Meier's Foreword to the TJ (1978 version, p.8; 1996 version, p. xvi) one may notice that he uses the modern structure. The same applies here; these peculiarities are characteristic of non-punctuated text (including NT manuscripts) and have been retained in some translations, which is probably where Meier picked them up. Meier is again being assumed to have been a biblical scholar. There is no basis whatsoever for this assumption. From my website. Even a brief comparison of the TJ against the Gospel of Matthew discloses that one depends upon the other. The correspondence in order of events and sometimes in wording is too close to permit any other possibility. In comparing them, then, we continually raise the question: Is it more plausible that the writer of Matthew based his text upon the ancient TJ scrolls, or that a 20th-century literary hoaxer based the TJ upon Matthew? Deardorff presents a table of parallells where numbers in blue and green color indicate that the Matthew text has received "valid questions and criticisms" from scholars, "to which the TJ is not subject". He then claims that the number of criticized passages in Matthew is greater than the number of criticized passages in "Talmud Immanuel", and takes this as proof that TJ is the original and Matthew the distorted rewrite. I don't recall having written what Eldberg says in his last sentence above, and don't find it in my website. Scholars haven't yet gone over the TJ and judged its verses, especially those having parallels with Matthew, and how could they do that fairly if their standards involved assumptions stemming from Christianity? However, one can fairly tally the logical criticisms that such scholars have heaped upon Matthew, and notice the multiple numbers of times that the TJ does not evince the problem despite often possessing parallels to the Matthean verse in question. Counting the "greens" and the "blues" gives some 235 verses/passages for which this applies. Eldberg didn't mention that with the insight gained by having the TJ on hand, I myself, an independent scholar, could pick out some 156 more such instances. This is the sort of outcome one would expect would happen if the true teachings of the historical Jesus were discovered and compared against the most relevant Gospel. Thus, Eldberg has tried to dismiss the guts of my analysis without even coming to grips with it. From my website: In these comparisons, the Matthean verse(s) are listed first under "Mt," followed by the parallel or cognate Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) verse(s) when the parallels exist. To access those Matthean verses that have received scholarly criticism or question, just click within the Table below. Explanations follow the Table. (long table omitted here) This is very unscholarly. It's like putting two cars beside each other, subjecting car A (but not car B) to a thorough technical inspection -- and then presenting the examination results of car A as proof that the unexamined car B is better! He digs up "criticism" on passages in Matthew from scholars, but presents no results of similar scholarly examinations of TJ. Probably because there are none; serious scholars wouldn't touch TJ with a ten foot pole. The website viewer may see for him/herself that car "B" (the TJ) is examined in all its verses that possess parallels to criticized Matthean verses, and many others are presented as well. Then discussion follows as to the probability that a hoaxer would have known about the criticism, or have thought of it for himself, versus the implications of the Matthean verse being non-genuine as pointed out by the scholar, plus other considerations. To save a little space, I did not present comparisons of the TJ and Matthew in the small percentage of cases in which their parallels were essentially the same. However, in analyzing one scholar's criticisms of Matthew, that of F. Beare, I noticed that he had relatively fewest criticisms to make of those Matthean verses that scarcely deviate from the TJ, and most to make of verses that deviate the most from the TJ (in Celestial Teachings (Wild Flower Press, 1990)). It's true that most scholars won't touch the TJ; I gave several reasons for this here. However, these are not valid reasons why true scholars should turn off their curiosity. It simply wouldn't make sense to judge the TJ on the basis of standards that are false or invalid due to a majority of present-day scholars having bought into false assumptions of theologically committed scholars of the 19th century. In fact, it is the other way around. The genuine ancient text of Matthew is the result of a complex process where information was gathered from various sources such as the synoptic text and others, which scholars try to analyze from Matthew's text. What we have today is a collection of Jesus stories and sayings edited together to form a whole. The very fact that it is not the work of a single writer, strengthens the probability that it is not a hoax. A problem- free, polished "biography of Jesus" would have a higher hoax probability. The TJ allows us to deduce that since the 19th century mainstream Gospel scholarship has gone farther awry, in assuming that Mark, not Matthew, was the first gospel, in order that the writer of Mark not seem so unchristian if he had utilized Matthew but omitted its Sermon on the Mount and many parables and discourses. The TJ allows us to understand that Matthew derives from the TJ, not from Mark or from any hypothetical "Q." Thus the situation is simpler than might be imagined, except that Matthew as derived from the TJ was first written in Hebrew and/or Aramaic, and was later translated into Greek. At the latter stage, it appears that some additional alterations crept in then at the hand of the translator. Further alterations over the centuries due to multiple transcriptions by scribes are very numerous but are also quite minor. In his last sentence Eldberg seems to be setting the stage for saying that if the TJ, when judged by logical standards, is found to be essentially problem free, then it would have a very high probability of being a hoax, whereas in his talk of "car B" (the TJ) above, he implies that the more problems it has, the more likely it would be a hoax. One can't have it both ways. I think most scholars would disagree with the former. From my website. I have tried not to present "invalid" criticisms based only upon assumptions that with hindsight appear to be false, even when they support the TJ's text over the Matthean text. The most common "invalid" assumptions are: (a) The supposition that a Matthean verse is non-genuine merely because it or a portion of it is not found in Mark; (b) The supposition that a Matthean verse is non-genuine merely because it or a portion of it is found in Luke but not in Mark (i.e., the scholar assumed it had been contained in the hypothetical document called "Q" and therefore was not original with the writer of Matthew); (c) The supposition that a Matthean verse or words within it are non-genuine merely because of an argument that overlooks the likelihood that Matthew was written first in the Hebraic tongue, as attested by the external evidence, with its translation into Greek coming only after Mark and/or Luke were written; (d) The supposition that no person, no matter how unique and how well attested to have been a short-range prophet, could validly prophesy events in his distant future as well; this would include certain OT prophets in addition to Jesus/Jmmanuel; (e) The supposition that no such thing as the human spirit, its evolution and power, along with the spiritual world, could exist; (f) The supposition that angels must not be equated to ETs or their means of transport to UFOs. Deardorff attempts to make his presentation look more scholarly by discarding a number of suppositions that would seem to support his case. He does not tell us where these suppositions come from and it would be highly surprising of they were the products of 20th century Bible scholars. It's clever. He invents some obviously false ideas which (if they were true) whould strengthen his case. Then he discards them to give us an impression of scientific honesty. However, in terms of relevance he might just as well have discarded the supposition that drunkenness is caused by pink elephants. Let Rev. Eldberg be surprised, then. It is understandable that as a pastor, not a scholar, he would not have had much time to look into what scholars have had to say about the Synoptic Problem (i.e., the relative priority of the Gospels). Supposition (a) has very frequently been made. Scholar F. Beare did it many times in his commentary The Gospel according to Matthew (1981), and so have others because of the majority view that Matthew is based mainly on Mark (therefore, the reasoning goes, certain verses in Matthew not in Mark were added by the writer of Matthew on his own volition). Supposition (b) has been invoked many times by Davies and Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (1997), for example. This is because the concept of Q has gained ground in recent decades despite no reasonable explanation why, if it was used by the writers of Matthew and Luke (and even Mark), it never survived, and was never mentioned in any literature. However, the assumption of the one-time existence of Q was crucial for scholars who wished to assume that Luke and Matthew were written independently. With respect to (c), a majority of scholars have discarded the previous belief, held up through the 18th century, that Matthew was first written in the Hebrew tongue (as attested by Papias, Irenaeus, Origen, and others). As I see it, that's because after assuming that Mark came first, and was written in Greek, then Matthew, if based upon Mark, should also have been first written in Greek (there are many places in Mark and Matthew where exactly the same Greek wording is duplicated over 20 consecutive words; however, there's an alternate explanation for this). One may check this out with any modern textbook on Gospel origins. Thus, the scholarly consensus cannot allow that the writer of Mark altered Hebraic Matthew, and then, when Hebraic Matthew was later translated into Greek, that the translator made a few alterations, some of which were more reverential in nature relative to Mark. Mt 8:25 is an example; it uses "Lord," while its Markan parallel, Mk 4:38, uses "Teacher." F. Beare criticizes Matthew for this, the TJ finds the whole stilling-of-the-storm pericope to be a redaction, while my website Mt-TJ verse comparison did not make use of Beare's criticism. Regarding (d), an example is that most scholars place no credence in the nativity story (Matthean or Lukan), for one reason because they feel that the Isaiah prophecy of a messiah named Immanuel to appear in his distant future could not possibly have been fulfilled, and therefore the prophecy must instead have been intended as a very short-range prediction. I did not treat this as a valid criticism in my comparison of Matthean and TJ verses. Suppositions (e) and (f) come into play when examining TJ verses that speak of rebirth (reincarnation) or of guardian angels, who are of human form and could travel around in the cosmos. Having studied much literature supporting the reality of reincarnation and of the UFO phenomenon, I cannot criticize the TJ on those grounds. The evidence supporting the reality of both reincarnation and the UFO phenomenon continues to grow, year after year. I see no "drunkenness" or "pink elephants" in this. He also fails to define what he means by "genuine" in this context. Bible scholars discuss which of the many sources of the gospels a passage comes from. Questions of "genuineness" would only be relevant if we assume that the gospel of Matthew was the work of a single writer, into which other material had been inserted later, or from which original text had been deleted -- which is clearly not the case. Many scholars' works on the Gospels involve the word "redaction" very frequently; mine also. A redaction is where one gospel writer is deduced to have altered what another has written to suit his own taste, where the verses can still be determined to be parallels of each other. Each redaction involves a non-genuine aspect -- Jesus didn't say this, but said that; or he and the disciples didn't go here, but there, etc. If one of these is correct (genuine), the other is non- genuine. The Jesus Seminar, as will be noted, finds that a very large percentage of the sayings of Jesus within the Gospels are non-genuine; this means they deduce that he never spoke the words that were placed in his mouth. From my website. To each of the verse/passage comparisons in the table above a probability has been assigned that it could be a hoax, while avoiding the invalid suppositions listed above. Each probability, labeled PHoax, is a fractional value lying between 0 and 1; a value of 0.5 represents complete uncertainty whether the TJ is a hoax or not, judging from the particular verse comparison, a larger value represents probability that it is a hoax, and a smaller value represent probability that it is not a hoax. I estimated probability values to the closest 0.05 only, and have combined them for each Mt-TJ chapter's set of verse comparisons according to the rules for accumulating probabilities. (table omitted here) Scholars have long debated to what extent the utterances of Jesus in the gospels are genuine quotes, or have been formulated by the gospel writers. The difference is subtle. Let's say that I heard a famous person speak, a few years ago. His words made a lasting impression. Today I write a book about him. I think back and remember a couple of phrases he used. But most of what I remember is the gist of the speech, not the exact words. Now, in our time, we are careful to differentiate between quotes and attributed sayings. Ancient writers did not make that fine distinction, but put quotes as well as their own formulations in the mouth of the person they were writing about. What Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew is probably a mix between real quotes and utterances formulated by the author to capture the gist of what he actually said. When the Gospel writer puts his own formulation into the mouth or head of Jesus, when it was not there in the Gospel he was copying/editing, that introduces a non-genuine phrase or verse. It's often not subtle. An example is in the "walking on the sea" episode, where the last part of Mk 6:48 reads, "He meant to pass by them," while the Matthean parallel to the episode is essentially the same except it doesn't contain this remark. So the writer of Mark allowed Jesus to walk way out on the water to the vicinity of the boat in the windy weather, and would then just have him pass by the boat, ignoring the disciples, except for happening to see them? It's primarily instances of addition, alteration or omission of words, phrases, sentences and passages like this that have caused scholars to try to determine which Gospel writer was at fault. The above example makes it seem that Jesus could care less about his disciples, if Mark is based upon Matthew, and scholars are aware of many other examples of this. This seems to have been a very strong reason why 19th-century scholars opted for Mark having come before Matthew, so that the writer of Matthew would have smoothed out the "warts" in Mark. The TJ indicates that the writer of Matthew put much of his own material in the mouth of Jmmanuel, while omitting huge chunks of it also, and otherwise altering words and phrases. Of course, any such formulation is subject to the risk that the writer may remember inaccurately or let his words be affected by church doctrine. But Deardorff makes no allowance for a possibility other than "genuine" or "hoax". In his view, the gospel either reports every word exactly as Jesus said it, or it is an intentional distortion of the truth, designed to deceive readers. This is where he is wrong. Regardless of what percentage of "real quotes" from Jesus we guess are present in the gospel, none of this proves that the existing utterances are intentionally faked to say something Jesus would never have said. Only an advanced conspiracy theory could make such a conclusion seem valid. It is in the comparison of Matthew and the TJ that I state that either Matthew was based upon the TJ, in which case Matthew is the fraudulent writing, or the TJ is based upon Matthew, in which case the TJ would be the hoax. When it comes to looking at where scholars have found Matthew to be questionable or non-genuine, there I made estimates of the probability of the direction of dependence in each independent instance. I would allow for the possibility that the scholars were wrong, or that a TJ hoaxer could have been aware of the scholars' objection, or that he could have thought of the logical objection himself. There were no "either-or" assumptions there, as the estimated probabilities usually ranged between 0.2 and 0.5. Examples abound in the Mt-TJ comparison section of this website, while Eldberg does not give any particular examples of his complaint. Hence, the method I used did not assume that "the gospel either reports every word exactly as Jesus said it, or it is an intentional distortion of the truth, designed to deceive readers." Earlier in this debate I have in fact mentioned my belief that Jmmanuel no doubt dictated most of his teachings years after the fact to his disciple/writer as best he recalled them, which would not likely have been precisely as they had been spoken even assuming he possessed a remarkable memory. Moreover, even if the evidence pointed to a serious distortion of Jesus, perpetrated by the gospel writers, this would say nothing whatsoever about the genuineness of the TJ. It would still remain an obvious hoax. There are several hundred TJ-Mt verse comparisons indicating that Eldberg's hoax claim needs to be reversed. He hasn't yet delved into even one of them to say how and where my logic or conclusions may be incorrect. Further, the probabilities which Deardorff has assigned to the verses of Matthew and TJ are subjective. I've said that myself. That's the level where the debate should be held -- at each verse/passage comparison, making as unbiased an estimate as possible in each instance of how much the probability leans one way or the other: if scholars have found one or more logical reasons why a Matthean verse/passage is non-genuine or highly questionable while the TJ does not suffer from the criticism, yet one of the verses/passages is obviously dependent upon the other, what is the best sober estimate of the TJ being the hoax? Let me do my own version of math here, in similar way. Facts and their assigned probabilities for that TJ is a hoax: 1. The manuscript is not available: +100 zillion 2. Only one living person has ever seen the manuscript: +100 zillion 3. It only exists in a modern-language translation, not even a copy exists in the original language: +80 zillion 4. No real scholar has examined, much less endorsed, the text:: +70 zillion 5. Translator is unavailavle (dead or never existed): +28 zillion 6. Only living witness is a professional UFO activist and by "coincidence" the alleged manuscript supports all his UFO ideas: +200 zillion 7. Conspiracy theories are used to explain away all these shortcomings: +50 zillion So there it is, scientifically and mathematically proved: The probability that TJ is genuine is one in 628 zillion. And I'm not even a mathematician! :-) There does seem to be a drunken, pink elephant here! ;-) In 1.) (By manuscript, Eldberg means the original TJ scrolls.) He fails to consider that if the TJ is genuine, it would be so upsetting to those in position of authority who learned of it that it is very unlikely that it would survive or ever be made available to scholars or to the public. His own reaction above is but a faint indicator of this. However, upon taking this consideration into account, the probability I would assign there is 0.5 at most, since there are two polarized ways of looking at the matter, each with an extreme probability assigned, which counterbalance each other. Regarding 2.), precisely the same reasoning applies. However, we have a copy of the written testimony from the witness who was assassinated, in addition to the oral and written testimony from Eduard Meier. At most, for PHoax here I would assign 0.5. There are two sides to the matter! If 3.) applies to a copy (transcription) of the TJ made some 1900 years ago, which is not now available, the same reasoning also applies. It was just as heretical then as now, and the custodian of the TJ transcription at the church where the writer of Matthew was located would have kept very close watch over this document, which was likely destroyed some time after Hebraic Matthew was translated into Greek, due to the TJ's terrible heresies from the Christian viewpoint. PHoax is 0.5. Regarding 4.), the reasons why "reputable" biblical scholars cannot touch the TJ, or report on their findings if they were to seriously examine it, are quite evident. Any two or three of these reasons keep scholars away, all eight certainly do. Yet the reasons ought not, scientifically and scholastically speaking, keep scholars away who are curious and courageous. I would again assign PHoax of 0.5 (maximum uncertainty); Eldberg is again counting on lack of evidence here. Re 5.), it is not at all independent of 2.). Re 6.), Meier's UFO activism extends only to his own UFO experiences, photos, movie film and videotape. He does not go around vouching for the UFO experiences of others, and does not travel far from his own home. Someone else maintains his website. Hence I wouldn't label him a "UFO activist." It is not surprising that the TJ pretty well supports his ideas, since it is the other way around also: his ideas mostly agree with what's in the TJ. Those ideas were promulgated nearly 2000 years ago by a UFO contactee named Jmmanuel, whose ET contactors were from the same group as is Meier's main contactors. Meier has learned from them as well as from his own experiences. Those who espouse the (real) truth about a matter tend to agree on it. The question boils down to: Is the UFO phenomenon real or not? The UFO witnesses and their close friends and researchers, plus others who've looked into the matter, say "Yes, beyond doubt." Many non-witnesses say in effect, "No; show me a UFO I can touch and then I'll believe." American polls on the subject over the past 4 decades would assign an average value of PHoax = 0.5, as to whether UFOs are real or just mistakes and hoaxes. Re 7.) there are only two conspiratorial themes involved. One is that Christian or Jewish leaders who learned about the TJ and its contents would strongly desire to remain silent about it, so as not to upset their own religion and their own faith. The other is that those in on the bombing raid that destroyed the TJ scrolls and tried to destroy Rashid, and those who were involved in his later assassination, would wish to remain strictly silent about their nefarious activities. Such conspiracies of silence are only to be expected, and would be self-imposed if not ordered by authority. I would like to remind the reader that for accumulating probabilities on a given yes-no matter, the procedure is not quite so simple as just multiplying them together if they're not all very low or very high probabilities. Why is Eldberg remaining silent about the particulars of the Matthew-versus-TJ verse comparisons and not looking into their probabilities? Is this also a conspiracy of silence? From my website. The reader is reminded, however, that many scholars exist who insist that Matthew is dependent upon Mark, that a hypothetical document "Q" once existed, that no such thing as the spirit world exists (they haven't studied the past-life, NDE and OBE data), and that UFOs aren't real and associated with extraterrestrials (they haven't studied the UFO phenomenon). Scholar's research results (on the sources of NT texts) are here mixed with their personal religious beliefs (denial of the spiritual world) and opinions about UFO phenomena. All of which are lumped together to show how prejudiced they are. The polarizations I speak of are very real. A scholar who has been raised to believe that Mark preceded Matthew usually has no interest in looking into a matter that would prove otherwise, etc. Such prejudices are real and sometimes admitted. By the same logic, we can assume that all scientists who don't believe in a spiritual world or UFOs, will produce false scientific results. Nonsense, mr Deardorff! Eldberg's first sentence is indeed nonsense, and in no way represents my views or writings. In my website I have repeatedly used scholars' results that are based on logic and not on false premises, even though some of the same scholars' other findings may be based upon false premises. Truth and falsehood often come mixed together. From my website. The group of scholars who are best known for their deductions of genuine versus non-genuine Gospel verses is the Jesus Seminar. This group, once larger than 100 scholars, devoted one of their major efforts towards discussing and voting upon the genuineness of Matthew's teaching/discourse verses (see "Voting Records" in Forum 5, No. 1, March 1990). They judged 86% of these 719 Matthean verses to be non-genuine or probably non- genuine. The "Jesus Seminar" started with an agenda. Their basic approach was that "Christianity as we know it did not originate with Jesus of Nazareth". Rather, the religion was formed later by Paul and others who assigned to Jesus the role of Messiah. From that basic, pre-conceived assumption, the Jesus Seminar set out to distill from the NT the "real historic Jesus" by stripping away everything that smacked of Christianity. The TJ supports what Eldberg describes as the Jesus Seminar's basic agenda. They are not the first to attempt this "demythologization" of Jesus. Regardless of whether they are right or wrong, it should be pointed out that the Jesus Seminar represents a radical, extreme position in modern exegetics. NOT a general scholarly consensus of any sort. As a matter of fact, their individual views were quite wide ranging, and the impression should not be left that the individuals within the Seminar all concurred; their conclusions merely represent consensus views obtained through voting on the degree of perceived genuineness of each verse or passage. In their discussions of individual passages, their conclusions resulted from a wide range of individual criteria much more than from the agenda Eldberg mentions. Their membership included a fairly large fraction of liberal scholars, and to my mind this and their method of achieving consensus are what most distinguish them. The point was, scholars who are less bound by theological commitment than most have found the Gospel of Matthew (and the other Gospels) wanting in genuineness. Continued from my website. Although this percentage is not so far from what the TJ indicates, this Seminar had few valid clues as to what was genuine and what not, and their batting average in this respect was dismal. They mainly assumed that "Jesus" genuinely spoke only weird or illogical, impractical utterances, such as "Turn the other cheek," "Love your enemies," and the parable of paying the workers in the vineyard the same wage whether they had worked one hour or all day. Deardorff finds it incredible that Jesus could have made "weird or illogical, impractical utterances". In other words, a "Jesus utterance" can only be genuine if Deardorff agrees with it. With this fallacious reasoning, Deardorff reveals himself not only as an anti-Christian, but also as a lousy scientist. Whether we agree or not has no scientific value whatsoever in assessing the genuineness of a historical quote. Eldberg has failed to state the arguments I've used. The historical Jesus was known by the people as a wisdom teacher, among other things. This much has come through even within the Gospel of Matthew. But a wisdom teacher (e.g., compare with Solomon) does not advise travelers to not wear sandals, to not store up any savings, to not resist evil, to never call anyone "father," plus other things listed above. Institutional NT scholars, not just myself, have commented on some of these weird utterances, and the TJ allows one to understand in some instances why the writer of Matthew fed them into his text. From my website. The 1992 German version of the Talmud Jmmanuel (TJ) edited by Eduard Meier differs very considerably in detail, though not in substance, from his 1978 German version. For scholarly, investigative reasons, the 1978 TJ may be preferable to the 1992 and later editions. Thus these differences are discussed here. Meier made the alterations at the prompting of one of his Pleiadian ET contactors named Ptaah... [for the purpose of correcting errors] If there are space aliens around who know the exact wording, we should be able to get a complete version from them, no? Why even bother with trying to prove the TJ manuscript's genuineness when it is not needed for the information? Eldberg does not understand that space aliens, or ETs, do not go around giving out information that, if confirmed, would force millions of people to go suddenly berserk or end up in deep despair. This includes Rev. Eldberg. As once noted by Carl Sagan and co-author, the advanced ETs could well be obeying a Codex Galactica requiring them to treat emerging societies delicately. That's us. Throughout the UFO phenomenon they appear to have followed a strategy that includes plausible deniability, and Meier's ETs have appeared to follow the same policy. Meier had to work hard for the information he received from his ETs, and there is no guarantee that they didn't include some disinformation along with what they told him, as would appear to be the case with other contactees and abductees, so that science would not catch on too soon and the UFO coverup would not come unraveled prematurely. Fortunately, the TJ is no channeling from aliens or spirits, but is historical, though because it is only a translation, no one is forced to believe it if it goes against their faith or prejudices. End of response Return to: One level up Return to: Contents FIGU CH-8495 Schmidrueti ZH Switzerland (www.figu.org) Flashing Light from a UFO Posted on behalf of Joseph Trainor. UFO ROUNDUP Volume 7, Number 2 January 8, 2002 Editor: Joseph Trainor http://ufoinfo.com/roundup/ RECTANGULAR UFO FLIES OVER AMMAN IN JORDAN On Monday, December 31, 2001, at 8 p.m., a rectangular UFO flew over Amman, the capital of Jordan, and was seen by hundreds of residents. The UFO, described as "a self-luminous rectangular object," first appeared over the Jorm district of the city. It flew in a southwesterly direction across Ameena Bint Wahab Street and over the top of the Jebel al-Hussein (hill). After passing over the Jebel al-Weibdeh (hill), the UFO "emitted a bright flashing light." As it flew over the Weibdeh section or west end of the city, the UFO was seen by hundreds of residents. Many Jordanians voiced the opinion that the object was "a satellite," while others claimed it was "an alien starship." The UFO was also seen by residents of the Shmeisani section. Police stations at Abdali and Wadi Abdoun were flooded with telephone calls reporting the UFO's flyover. Flying Weather Liberal Translation of Write-up by Silvano Lehmann in Zeugenbuch 1959--2001 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., 2001), pp. 419-21 by J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 On July 6th, 2000, having just come back from Wil/SG [in the canton of St. Gallen in east Switzerland], I, Silvano Lehmann, wanted to go in the garden to fetch some vegetables [see map, No. 4], while Billy happily settled himself in the kitchen with some coffee [see map, No. 9]. But suddenly he shot up and shouted: "Enjana is flying by to the west of the Center." So we ran outside to view the telepathically announced beamship as Billy quickly reached for the ready-to-go camera in the house, in case he could take a picture. Hastily we ran to the west side of the Center and searched the interspersed greyish-white and nearly cloudless sky, and after a brief moment of searching saw, actually at 2:55 pm, a flying craft at a considerable distance. Hurriedly the camera with its 200mm telephoto lens on zoom was steadied upon the flying object, wherein it could clearly and undoubtedly be recognized as a Plejaren beamship. Quickly, a picture was taken [by Silvano], before the ship suddenly disappeared from the scene, following which it was no longer observable and thus not seen by Natan Brand, who had now joined us. In the early evening of the same day, both Billy and I (Silvano Lehmann) had been occupied with coiling up the garden hoses and started on the way to the Center’s main building, when Billy said: "Come quickly, Silvano, the Plejaren Enjana is flying again in the western sky.” Immediately, we ran back to the garden and searched the sky, which was now beautifully blue, in contrast to the afternoon, and which exhibited two or three sporadic clouds. However, there was nothing to see, and we wanted to return to work, when Billy received another telepathic call from Enjana. He said: “The ship will appear out of the glaciated cloud and fly northward.” So we watched the cloudscape intensely, and there, all of a sudden, Enjana’s ship surfaced. It looked to be the size of a large grapefruit [at some distance away!], and we saw it at precisely 8:13 pm. Suddenly the beamship disappeared into the cloud, however, causing us to want to go back to our work. But again, Billy picked up a telepathic call and said: “Enjana’s ship will appear once again, to the right and below the end of the cloud.” So we remained at the place and waited for about half a minute, to see how the beamship again shot out from the cloud and how a small elliptical form lit up in the sun’s reflection, then simply disappeared without a trace. This repeat was at 8:45 pm, at which time the sightings were finally over. Unfortunately we did not have the photo camera on hand at the last two sightings; thus, only the extremely successful photography of the afternoon at 14:55 remains to allow the clear recognition of a Plejaren beamship. My First True "UFO" Event by Christian Frehner in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 351-2 translated by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 It was in the early 1980s when I repeatedly looked closely at the starry night sky and often observed traveling (i.e., flying) points of light, which moved in different directions and with different speeds across the firmament. I always asked myself, in each case, whether it involved a satellite or a so-called UFO. To me, it was known that satellites are only visible when they reflect the sunlight. An object which travels in the so-called Earth's shadow and at the same time radiates light would therefore certainly be no satellite! -- Gradually, however, I ceased being concerned about the matter, and, for example, about the orbital height of the satellites, or the extent of the Earth's shadow in relation to the time of year and night. Anyway, it became not so important to me to know whether the point of light was a so- called UFO or a satellite. Then, in the night of 1-2 June 1991, I was finally allowed to experience my first certain sighting of an extraterrestrial object, as set forth here below. It was almost midnight after our monthly Core Group General Assembly at the Semjase-Silver-Star-Center, when I, together with other Core Group members, stood on the west side of the carriage house [see map, No. 8] and saw, in a southwesterly direction in the cloudy sky, three bright spots of light moving in large elliptical-shaped paths. At first I thought that it could involve a laser projection being beamed up at the night sky from a discotheque or open-air festival, etc., for advertising purposes. Such I had already been able to observe occasionally on weekends at home, nevertheless at times only a single point of light moved, and in swift hectic movements (understandably if one thinks of the hectic music and the intended effect of advertising!). -- On the aforestated evening I must consequently admit that Billy was right, as he excluded this laser-show possibility because the three lights actually moved too slowly and over too wide an expanse of the night sky. The flying craft were not hot-air balloons or insect swarms, so what then? -- The riddle's solution finally came as a consequence of Billy's next meeting with Ptaah, which occurred on the 20th of December, 1991. Ptaah explained that we had seen the shining ionization envelopes of three very large space ships stemming from the DAL Universe. This only for research purposes involving very large spaceships of a great fleet that moved high above the high cloud deck, in order to be able to persue their research work undisturbed in the region above Pfäffiker Lake and Greifen Lake. A Fantastic Spectacle by Madeleine Brugger and "Billy" Eduard Meier in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 352-5 translated by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 In the early morning hours around 01:30 on 2 June, 1991, we of the Core Group at the Center, after our gathering, could observe the following: We were still sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee when Elisabeth Moosbrugger came running in and called upon us to follow her outside, because something was going on high in the sky that we should not miss. So we all hurried outside, namely Billy, his wife Kalliope (Popi), Jacobus Bertschinger, Christian Frehner, Andreas Schubiger and I behind Elisabeth, who had quickly left the kitchen again. Outside, we ran on the road to the parking area by the FIGU monument [see map, No. 7]. Near our destination, three enormous shining lights attracted our attention (of Elisabeth and me), which were to be seen in the west in the high hanging clouds, and which moved until they were high over our location by the flagpole and the carriage house [map, No. 8]. The three disk-shaped light-spots, which stood out clearly through the thick cloud, could be discerned clearly, one pulsing and turning to the right. The shining lights themselves were a whitish color and gigantic -- a reasonable estimate is about 300 meters in diameter, each one of the three. Naturally we puzzled over this phenomenon, about what it could involve -- but without any solution. Then, after observing them for about an hour, the shining lights suddenly disappeared. We discussed the event still further for some time in the kitchen, where the possibility was mentioned that it might have involved a laser projection. However, this idea was quickly thrown out because everything spoke against it, including to be sure the immense size of the light spots and also the pulsing and rotating motions, and above all, also, because it was clearly visible that the cloud was not illuminated from underneath or even from the ground, but that this happened from the upper half of the cloud. Finally it so happened that Billy, who also had no explanation, himself offered to ask Ptaah, the spaceship commander and Ischwisch [spiritually evolved leader] of the Pleiadians/Plejarens, on his next visit, whether he or some other persons in his group knew something about the phenomenon, or whether perhaps the Pleiadians/Plejarens themselves had played a role in it. On Friday, the 20th of December 1991, around 00:28 hours, the long expected contact with Ptaah occurred, whereby we came to learn from Billy the explanation for the shining lights of 2 June. As his Pleiadian/Plejaren friends explained to him, it involved three large spaceships from the neighboring DAL universe -- the twin universe to ours, which is the DERN universe, as the Pleiadians/Plejarens name these. The ships were here for exploration and research in our universe, whereby they also closely examined the Semjase-Silver-Star-Center. They sheltered themselves behind the thick clouds, in order that they not attract the attention of the spiritually underdeveloped earth humans; one was able to see only the light of ionization of the hulls as well as the rotating to the right and pulsing movements of the white shining lights, which offered us the observation of a fantastic spectacle. Following are exerpts of this sighting/observation from the written, not-yet-released 239th Contact Report of 20 December 1991, which occurred in the first morning hour around 00:28 hours: Billy Something else. Is there anything known about something special that happened on June 2nd of this year? It was on the night of our monthly gathering and, on the one hand, occurred during our meeting and, on the other hand, afterwards and to be sure after midnight, high in the sky? Ptaah... If your question refers to the three circular shining lights that were visible, high in the sky behind the clouds during several hours, and which continuously moved around in showy circles in the same space many kilometers in diameter... Billy... But now what was with the comical lights, which must have been several hundred meters in diameter, putting on a show -- and... Ptaah... Naturally I must not fail to explain: The three great and circular shining lights, which showed up for several hours, involved three spaceships that belong to a large fleet of our friends from the DAL universe, and which were visiting the Earth. They stayed for several days in Earth space and even over your Center and in its close vicinity. On that night they circled over Lake Pfäffikon and Lake Greifen, in order to conduct research on them. In order, neverthelss, to be shielded against the inquisitive eyes of Earthmen, they remained well above the high clouds, through which, nevertheless, the ships' radiant ionized hulls could be seen from the Earth, glistening through the clouds, though they could not be observed by many people. Billy... That would already have been when they allowed us to see them. Was Asket perhaps there also? Ptaah... No, she did not come to our universe. The entire fleet involved craft that were equipped only for research purposes, so also the three which you could observe. Garret Moore's experiences with Korff NOTE: For those who may be unaware of Kal Korff, he is the person whose fraudulent debunking of Meier’s UFO photos, physical evidence and information formed the foundation for the vile, relentless, attacks against Meier’s character…and his life. Now, as the time is dawning when the truthfulness of Meier’s contacts with the Plejaren, and the accuracy of his prophetic information, is, and will continue to be, confirmed more and more by unfolding events, it’s quite fitting that Korff’s role in the decades long disinformation campaign finally be revealed to the public. And the best way to do that is to let you hear it from the man who, unwittingly, contributed to Korff’s deliberate falsifications and lies about Meier. I first met illustrator Garret Moore several years ago at the Bay Area UFO Expo, where he introduced himself to me and explained how he had gotten involved with Kal Korff, many years ago. He explained, with much regret, how he had been contracted by Korff to provide him with airbrushed UFO illustrations - based on Meier’s original, authentic UFO photos - that Korff then published, claiming they were proof that Meier had hoaxed his photos. I recently found Garret again, accidentally, while I was browsing an internet forum. I asked him if he’d be willing to write down his experiences with Korff for online publication. Despite the possibility of attacks against him, Garret agreed to tell his story and to attempt to set the record straight about Korff’s vicious and degenerate hoax, for which Kal Korff alone is accountable. Michael Horn, June 2008 www.theyfly.com Knowing Kal I was asked about my experience with knowing Kal Korff. I had mentioned him when at a conference talking to someone about Billy Meier. I had had an experience that involved Kal many years ago that proved to be the beginning of a trail of unfortunate and sad stories I would hear over the next almost 30 years. I might have been one of the first to know his tree’s fruit, bitter as it was proved to me to be. Early in my career as an illustrator and graphic designer, when I was 23, a best friend of mine, Bill, who was a writer for Astrology Magazine, among other publications, told me about someone he knew who was publishing a book and needed illustrations. Illustrations of mine for one of Bill ‘s magazine articles had already been published but, as a young artist and graphic designer, I was looking for as much valid paying work as I could to build my portfolio. My friend, a talented writer himself, introduced me to a younger man, Kal Korff, around 18-19 years old I thought, who told me with a convincing air of authority that he was a UFO investigator. He said that he was publishing a book exposing a hoax with then noted author Bill Moore (no relation) who, he said, was also a well-known authority on UFOs. He said that they needed several illustrations for this book based on photos that where allegedly taken of an alien craft by a certain Billy Meier in Switzerland. I was shown glossy photographs of the photos, and additional images that looked like photos that were subjected to darkroom effects. Until then I had only seen a few of these images in magazines and articles. His opinion seemed to be pretty clear about Billy Meier personally and he was convinced he was a charlatan who needed to be exposed. I was told that Billy’s photos had been taken to NASA in the south San Francisco Bay Area, Ames Research Center, and were subjected to photographic study by the NASA photographic study lab. Back then, I was of course intrigued by Kal’s [forthcoming 1981] book and had already decided to do the work for the excitement of the subject alone, if not the perfect portfolio subject matter. I was, however, unfamiliar with the Meier information and wanted to know more, as I was very interested in scientific subjects then. Always infatuated with space science, physics, astronautics and UFOs since a small boy, I absorbed anything and everything to do with the subjects. That this guy, Kal, who was a bit younger than me, was a bit pompous and over confident did not bother me, as these facts where obscured in the blind spot of my enthusiasm for the subject, and the possibility of also being published for the work. It was a life lesson ripe for the picking. While Kal said that “they” (I assumed Bill Moore and NASA people) could not find any overt attempts at fakery in the Meier UFO photos, the photos did, according to Kal, show signs of suspension, or supporting strings, through the then early “edge enhancement” and “color enhancement” photo processes. I could not actually see the evidence, and do not remember the reason he gave for the discrepancy, other than that he did not have the evidenced images or that the images he had only showed slight indications I was not seeing. Kal then gave me the images to copy that he said were from Billy Meier’s original negatives and said that, due to copyrights, he could not use them in his book, and so came to me, knowing through my friend that I was a photographic illustrator. We discussed the need for using the images to demonstrate Kal’s theories and the need also for some concepts of how this was done for the camera, assuming these images were faked. I remember being very impressed by the pure clarity of Meier’s photos. I was already very familiar with film and photographic print work, and film study in college was part of my wide interests in graphics and illustration. Kal wanted me to make direct copies, i.e. black and white airbrushed illustrations, of the photos he loaned me. We thought, in our ignorance, that this was somehow legal. At that time, I was only partially aware of the details of copyright law, having only studied enough to protect my own work. As I was not interested in copying other’s works, I had not yet gone deeper into the law. And doing such at that time, 20 years before the internet, was dependent on a trip to the library or a letter to the Government Copyright Office. And, while I did frequent the library often for research and reading, as well as sending away for forms to the Copyright Office in Washington DC, I did not at the time of Kal’s request fully understand or have the legal knowledge about this. He seemed as ignorant as I was but, knowing his character better now, I might believe otherwise. I did become sort of an expert later in such matters, after a few events of being plagiarized myself, unfortunately. Kal also seemed very interested in my ideas of how such fakery could be done. Having a good mechanical reasoning ability, and being the creative person I was, I entertained a few ideas and told him I would think about this. I do not remember being told by Kal how I would be paid other than I would get credit and copies. I was never paid a dime. I began the process of illustrating the photos. I remember loving the process, having the photos next to me while I worked, thinking all the time on how such images were even possible. At that time, while I believed that such things as aliens and ships that could transit deep space were likely, I was an ethical person and the idea of faked contact, photos and/or hoaxed accounts that could only cloud the UFO issue had me concerned. Blinded somewhat by the fun of the project, and somewhat convinced by Kal’s convincing contentions about Meier, I came up with some rough ideas I thought could work for suspending a large object well away of any tall pole or structure. I don’t think though it was really possible. The concepts were just thoughts on paper however, and never intended to be included in any final conclusions. I thought about it, as I told Kal I would, and they were the first ideas I had. I drew them out, but did not do finished illustrations for them, thinking Kal would only consider them. After a few weeks, I had finished several airbrush illustrations based on the actual photos Kal had given me. I gave them all to Kal, along with the balloon suspension sketched concepts, thinking that the next time I saw him he would be returning the illustrations, and a couple copies of the book with my credits published beside each illustration. This, however, I found was not to be the case. Time passed and I did not hear from Kal. I do not remember much from him in the way of communication, but eventually I did meet with him and he gave me one copy of a spiral bound, well… book, that indeed had Bill Moore’s as well as Kal Korff’s authorship printed on the cover. It was a largely typewritten copy with my illustrations and credits, but not the “commercial bound book” I had expected. Kal told me that Omni Magazine had written a review of it and stated that, as far as the Meier case was concerned, this book was like shooting an ant with an elephant gun. In other words, overkill for what the magazine considered nothing at all important in subject or scope, typical for a pop science magazine. That it was actually printed was all fine and good, but I wanted another copy, and my original art back, which included several airbrushed images representing a considerable number of hours of work. The book was out, already reviewed and he did not have another copy for me. Close to four weeks of work and nothing in return, except what looked to the entire world more like a book transcript than an actual book. I think I was stunned, and I do not remember the reasons Kal did not have the artwork; he might have blamed it on the other guy, Bill Moore, or the printer but I was assured that he would get the art for me and another copy. Also, later upon glancing through the book I saw that, without my permission, he had used my simple diagrams for how the photos could be faked with the balloon system. I did not hear from Kal again. I did not have any contact information for him as he had moved, and my friend who was my original contact for him had written Kal off himself and lost contact. I didn’t blame him in the least. So, I eventually cut my losses, and wrote Kal off as an ass, a user and a cad. I did see Kal many years later at a conference I was attending. I did approach him very nicely, more as an old friend, and asked if he had found the art, or had an additional copy of the book for me, but was told he was in a hurry and I could contact him. He treated me like an unimportant fan, and I sensed more than a bit of concern on his part, seeing me at such an inopportune moment. He handed me his card and was off and out the door to another room where he no doubt was pawning his theories on other unsuspecting conference people. That was it. He now had no credibility as a person for me. His character seemed plain, and when I offered a friendly reconnect, my own business card and very nonconfrontative request for my work for a promised copy of the book, I was dismissed with less than a friendly apology. He seemed to be building on what I already knew of him. I did sense it was catching up with him however eventually. I did not follow his works, as I don’t like watching tragedy or negative news much, just enough to know the weather, so to speak. More recently I found his works had done much damage to people I might soon be working with. It seemed the trail of destruction had some more recent history as well. He was gone from the country, in a completely new world in Eastern Europe; I could easily formulate the reasons. You know a tree by its fruit, it is said. I have over the years caught wind of Kal’s exploits as a writer, UFO debunker and a media personality. I have seen the very real emotional and life damage Kal has done to ruin several good people’s lives by his seemingly destructive and plainly mean tactics, with seemingly no empathetic or compassionate sense whatsoever. His sole purpose, it seemed, was to destroy the lives of people whom he himself judged as wrong. Even if wrong, or just innocently misinformed, no one deserves such caustic and unrelenting poison as Kal continually delivered publically in books, lectures, media and articles. I sense that Kal has nothing of value for anyone, unfortunately, not even for himself. For Billy Meier, I would apologize for any harm done in my youthful ignorance. And, I also thank him for his and his celestial friends’ hopeful and positive materials, which if either true or imagined, are still worthy of deep consideration at the very least. It is also the material we are given to imagine as true, so we can make it real, even if we are told it is not. For until those who would attempt to squelch such beauty can show us something more, filled with more hope and such good for this life’s dimension, I will continue to face the warmth and the light, following and believing my heart, and never another’s angry words. Garret Moore, June 2008 Garret23 at aol.com Event at the SSSC by Christina Gasser in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 348-49 translated by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 It was on the evening of April 28, 1990. Atlant Bieri, at that time a 10-year old youngster, had recently received a telescope as a present. Naturally he wanted to try it out, and so he asked me to help him carry it to the house square [just south of the house; see map, No. 9] and set it up. Whoever knows Atlant will know that this undertaking would not occur without much hullabaloo over the matter. When the telescope was finally standing, Atlant was eager to search the sky with it. It was a clear, starry night and the third day after the full Moon; Atlant now wanted to inspect the Moon, which was still almost full. However, it was not so simple to fine-tune the telescope properly, as he would soon notice. I would gladly have helped him, not least because I myself was burning to finally see something. Yet, for no price was Atlant prepared to give up his place. In the meantime Edith Beldi was also attracted by the tumult and joined us. She would also have liked to cast a glance through the telescope at the very beautiful Moon, which presented itself before us so bright and fascinating. Yet with her "Please" to Atlant she had just as little success as I, and there remained nothing left for us than to exercise patience. Christian Krukowski and Adrian Fischer, who had worked at the Center this Saturday and now were ready to drive home, remained standing with us. We all looked up into the endless expanse of space and exchanged a few words. Atlant broke into our meditative mood, when he suddenly cried out that he had discovered a new moon, and how uproariously he danced around the tripod! Billy, who also had come to the front of the residence, appraised this new discovery and explained to Atlant, that it was only a reflection in the lenses. Finally the telescope was correctly adjusted, and with many "Oohs" and "Ahs" we now took turns observing the Moon with its craters. At times we scanned the skies for the known constellations, until we suddenly noticed a so-called UFO, the size of a star, which gradually moved along its way over the Center. Attentively we followed its movement, when Billy asked Atlant whether he should cause it to brighten up. Atlant enthusiastically assented to Billy's question. We all looked expectantly at the sky, and had scarcely breathed in and out, when the flying object increased threefold in size and shined brightly. While we others were silently bewildered, Atlant wanted for sure to know how it functioned and how one could do that. Billy explained to him that this was an unmanned telemeter disk, and he had only to concentrate in a certain way, in order to get such an object to brighten up. This night we discovered still more telemeter disks, and it was as if each of them flashed a short greeting to us. The telescope stood to one side deserted; we had forgotten our playful tussles for the supposed best place at the telescope. Our horizon had been broadened in the truest sense of the word. We then each again went his way, though I'm sure that the memory of this experience will cling to each of us for a long time. Experience at the Semjase Silver Star Center by Christina Gasser in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), p. 366 translated by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 On the night of 29-30 June, 1993, when I, on my night-watch rounds detected a UFO in the sky over the Center area, I remembered Billy's words. His explanation, that such a flying object can be caused to flash, prompted me to venture an attempt one time. So I concentrated in a suitable way thereon -- with the result that the object flashed brightly repeatedly. Nevertheless, contrary to expectation I wanted to place no true joy over my experience. Startled and upset by this unexplained sorrow, which even had an aggressive tone mixed in, I spoke later with Billy about it, who then could explain this phenomenon to me. He said that through this -- making only a short contact-- unknowingly the love vibrations and harmony vibrations might be noticed in which the Peiadians/Plejarens have lived the past thousand years. If now somewhat unaware of this observation, one suddenly attains awareness and thereby recognizes the barbaric conditions we still have here on the Earth, then this could have catastrophic consequences for the dismayed human, which could even lead to suicidal thoughts if this perception were not dealt with. After Billy's explanation, the thought forced itself upon me that apparently many people, who perhaps in a trifling sense also wish or even demand one time to see a UFO, could be unacceptably surprised in the result that such an event can produce. Sighting Report: 1 Aug 1999 Liberal Translation of Write-up by Christina Gasser in FIGU Bulletin #24 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Sept., 1999) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 Date of observation: 1 August 1999 Time: 18:40 hrs Duration: 3 min. Observing/land: Semjase-Silver-Star-Center/CH Direction: north Atmospheric conditions: blue cloudless sky Sound: silent Object description: disk-shaped UFO, silvery white, football size Altitude: 4000 meters Speed: approx. 100-120 km/hr Witnesses: AroonaWächter, Maria Wächter, Freddy Kropf, Billy Meier and Christina Gasser "Come quickly!", called Billy in the kitchen [see map, No. 9]. With such a call one must not deliberate long. Everyone lying down or standing up left -- Maria and I ran behind the house [on the north side] where the UFO noticed by Billy showed up over the crowns of the trees. Very slowly and completely silent, it flew from the southeast to the north. Brightly radiant in silvery-white color in the blue night sky, it was clearly seen. Aroona, who at this very moment ran to us, came unexpectedly -- as most of the time -- her first UFO sighting. But today not only celebrated a first for her, because for Freddy, Maria and me it was the first time that we saw a UFO in the daytime. Even that afternoon I had told two students, who visited the Center and studied the photo albums, that I had seen two UFOs, but that this had been at night. Not in the remotest would I have thought that this could so quickly change. Freddy would have liked to take pictures of the event, but as it sometimes is -- classically, the film in the camera was used up and no fresh film was on hand. Nevertheless he fetched his camera, because he was hoping to see something more through the lens than we could see by eye, which unfortunately was not the case. So we tried in vain to identify somewhat more clearly the type of vessel, but this unfortunately was not possible due to the large distance and the dazzling effect of the object's bright radiance. Billy at first suspected that it had not been any Plejaren. But meanwhile it was explained [to Billy] by Ptaah that it was Tauron, a Plejaren, who had made a sighting visit for us. It's apparently fun for him to appear here and there at times. In addition, I was told that it had been possible only from our location, in the Center, to see the ship because it was shielded against widespread view. Also, if the questions: "Who was that -- What do they want?" have answers, they very much remain open, and the experience leaves a strange mixture of moods between joy, longing and sadness. But nevertheless, with each individual "UFO" experience or each beamship sighting of the Plejarens, the strength grows to defy the invective and defamation that are spread around the world about us. Christina Gasser, Switzerland The TJ's Genuineness Aramaisms Antiquity deduced from lack of punctuation Ancient history elucidated The dependence of Matthew upon the TJ Differences between the 1978 and 1992 TJ editions The dating and genuineness of an ancient text is customarily investigated or affirmed through radiocarbon dating and paleography -- comparing its writing style with that of known ancient documents, and by noting the type of paper or parchment it is written on and its degree of aging. Without the originals, as in the case of the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ), one has only its surviving co-discoverer's word that it had been in the form of four rolls of writing, whose leaves were somewhat crumbly in places despite the resin encasement surrounding the leather in which they had been preserved. However, this is much more than scholars have to go on with respect to their studies of the New Testament gospels, for example, for which neither the originals nor their first translations or copies, nor their second copies... exist, and for which of course no eyewitness testimony exists. Thus the genuineness of the TJ has to be determined through indirect means. The question as to whether or not it could be a hoax then may continually arise. The conclusoions below apply primarioly to the early editions of the TJ up through the 2001 edition, but not to the 2011 German edition and its later translations. Aramaisms When the TJ rolls were translated into German during the years between 1963 and about 1970, occasional peculiarities within the Aramaic writing found their way into the German text, through having been translated rather literally. These are called Aramaisms. The most definite ones that have come to this investigator's attention are as follows: 1.) TJ 3:30-31 When Jmmanuel had been baptized, he soon came out of the water of the Jordan, and behold, a metallic light came down from the sky and rushed over the Jordan. Consequently they all fell on their faces and pressed them into the sand while a voice from the metallic light spoke: "This is my son..." Here "fell on their faces" is an Aramaism meaning "to bow down or cower before." In this case the expression can be taken more literally than usual due to the fear that a close-up UFO encounter would instill in bewildered witnesses. Now, the Old Testament has many instances of this usage, and even Matthew has four (at Mt 2:11, 17:6, 18:29 and 26:39). Hence a knowledgeable hoaxer could have built this Aramaism into his fabrication. Yet, there is a definite possibility that it would not have occurred to a New Age hoaxer interested in UFOs, who might have written something like, "...they all trembled in fright." The first and fourth of these Matthean Aramaisms have parallels in the TJ (at TJ 2:16 and 28:10), which the writer of Matthew appears to have carried over into his gospel, while including the other two within his fabricated insertions. On the other hand, the TJ has two other Aramaisms of this kind not in Matthew -- at the Gethsemane event at TJ 28:13,15. In these latter two, as well as in TJ 28:10, the German text states that Jmmanuel "fell on his face" and spoke, though the English translation used the expression "prostrated himself" in all three, thereby removing the Aramaism. The question may arise, why didn't the writer of Matthew use the same "fell on his face" expression in his parallels to TJ 28:13,15 at Mt 26:42,44? The answer is unknown, but could be that in his opinion it displayed an excess of weakness and fear on Jmmanuel's part. 2.) TJ 5:30 "If a thought causes you annoyance, eradicate it and ban it from your brain. It is better to destroy a thought that incites annoyance and not to bring the whole world of thought into an uproar. This is a literal translation of the German, in order to bring out the Aramaism, which is "and not." (The expression is present in all German editions of the TJ but edited out of the English editions.) If the translator, Rashid, had been concerned with rendering this into better German, he would have used the common German word "als" here, meaning "than," instead of "and not" (und nicht). Evidently, he made a rather literal translation. The Aramaic language lacked the capability for expressing this comparative sense in the manner we are used to (e.g., see M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels, 3rd Ed., 1967, Oxford Univ. Press, p. 117), not possessing the direct equivalent of "than," and so other language was used to put across the intended thought. Although this TJ verse is not closely paralleled by the German Bible's Mt 5:30, both utilize "und nicht," as do their immediately preceding verse. Hence the evidence for TJ originality in this instance can be no more than suggestive, as a literary hoaxer might have been astute enough not to slip up by using "als." 3.) TJ 15:14 "What would be better to make them come alive and think, if not through speaking in parables!" This may also be an Aramaism, of the same nature. "if not through" ("wenn nicht durch") here could more conveniently have been rendered "than by" if its equivalent had been present in the Aramaic language, which doesn't contain a word for "than". This verse refers to Jmmanuel's explanation as to why he spoke in parables to the people on that day. 4.) TJ 24:14 "It is unwise and foolish for people to let others consider themselves greater or smaller as they really are." Here, the word used, in all German editions, in the comparison was "so," which means "as" or "so" in English. Although in translation from the Aramaic into German and Denglish the comparative endings "er" to "great" and "small" were properly expressed, the appropriate comparative word, "than" ("als" in German) was not. In the English translation, "than" was used, so that the Aramaism does not show up there. A very definite Aramaism occurs in the following transliterated German sentence, from: 5.) TJ 4:51 "So spoke they, the celestial sons between the North and the West, before they brought Jmmanuel in the metallic light back to Israel..." (The German, in all the TJ's editions, reads, "So sprachen sie, die Himmelssöhne...") The italicized words constitute the Aramaism, called the proleptic pronoun (M. Black, p. 96). It involves the use of a pronoun in the nominative case (they) preceding a noun (son) to be emphasized. It is uncommon in German, but was not uncommon in Aramaic. 6.) TJ 13:6 "Truly, I say to you, you brood of snakes and vipers: A stone will turn into bread before no work may be done on the Sabbath." TJ 13:6 in the German: Wahrlich, ich sage euch, ihr Schlangen- und Otterngezücht: Eher wird ein Stein zu Brot werden, ehe an einem Sabbat keine Arbeit verrichtet werden darf. This verse does not occur within the Gospels; in Matthew, Mt 12.6 replaces it. A saying about turning a stone into bread would not likely have been used in the original Aramaic unless the two words bore some special relationship to each other. The Aramaic word for "bread" could have been (in transliteration) "repha," and for "stone" was "kepha," according to Frank Zimmermann (New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1979; p. 78) in his analysis of Mt 7:9. This possibility has been confirmed to me by professor Bruce Chilton, Dept. of Theology, Bard College (private communication). Thus it was likely the rhyming wordplay in Aramaic between the two words that prompted their usage here. The same wordplay occurs again in Mt 7:9, which is a parallel to TJ 7:13. A similar wordplay in English would be like: "Sticks and stones may break my bones but..." The writer of Matthew omitted this and adjacent TJ verses. This was probably because they much more strongly oppose the law against violating the Sabbath than he could condone, and because they go on to speak of logic and the laws of nature and of Creation. Jmmanuel spoke frequently of "logic," a word of Greek derivation. Since the TJ indicates that Jmmanuel had been to the land of India and back, before commencing his Palestinian ministry, he had ample opportunity to learn of Greek thought and the rules of logic during his travels along the Silk Road. And his education from the extraterrestrials, as during the 40 days and nights with them, likely exposed him further to the concept of logic. One TJ verse indicates with certainty that Jmmanuel had received some education in Greek thought: TJ 36:25, where he states that a principle of the oldest wisdom is that "humans are the measure of all things." This expression appears to derive from Plato (in Theaetetus) in the 4th century B.C. Besides this, it is definitely known that there was an Aramaic word for "logic" in Syriac as well as the Greek loan word for "logic" in Syriac, which was the dialect spoken right next to Palestine. Although it might be claimed that the foregoing Aramaisms were fabricated by a clever hoaxer, who may have known of it from Mt 7:9, it really is not very probable that a New Age hoaxer would have been sufficiently knowledgeable to have done so. 7.) "Amen" or "Truly." The use of "Amen," which means "truly" and is usually translated as such, is a Semitism when occurring at the beginning of a sentence or quotation. In the TJ it occurs 56 times in addition to those occurrences in Matthew that parallel this TJ word. In another 11 places in the TJ it occurs in repeated form: "Truly, truly," which does not occur in the synoptic gospels. However it does occur frequently in the Gospel of John. The writer of that gospel is seen, from comparison of several of its verses with the TJ, to have had access to the TJ. 8.) "Behold!" It was a very common Semitic word, which is "Siehe!" (See!) in the German, "idou" (look or behold) in the Greek, and simply "ha'" in Aramaic. Because of its frequent use in the Gospels, scholars, such as M.-J. Lagrange, have known since the early 20th century that it represents an Aramaism. Besides the many instances of its use within TJ verses having parallels to verses within the Gospel of Matthew, there are 42 other instances of its use in TJ verses having no parallel within the Gospels. Now, a literary hoaxer would likely have been intelligent enough to notice frequent uses of "Behold" and "Truly" in Matthew and build them into his work, just as the writers of Matthew, Luke and John are deduced to have done in expanding upon Mark -- the usual scholarly assumption. However, the further occurrences of "Amen" and "Behold" in the TJ is, at the least, consistent with its genuineness. 9.) "two times a thousand years" This expression in the German: "zweimal tausend Jahre(n)" occurs five times in the TJ. The ordinary way of expressing it in German is as "zweitausend Jahre," as in English (two thousand years). The explicit use of "times" to represent multiplication in large numbers is known from various biblical passages up through the Gospel of Matthew (see link). However, this phraseology does occur in some old-style German literature, of which a would-be hoaxer might be aware. Nevertheless, it is listed here, along with "Behold!" and "Amen," as an example of where a hoaxer may have slipped up and just written "zweitausend Jahre." That doesn't occur in the TJ. Antiquity deduced from lack of punctuation ANSWERED AND SAID. Because there was no punctuation within the ancient texts, it was frequently the custom in Aramaic to alert the reader to the beginning of a quotation through use of an expression like "He answered and said...", with the "said" indicating the start of the quotation. When this carried over into the German, its English translation was often rendered as "He answered, saying,....". A TJ example of this, upon rendering the German literally, is: TJ 28:41 But Jmmanuel answered and spoke: "Truly I say to you: You may succeed for a long time in accusing Judas Iscariot of treason in front of the people, but the truth will come out and be known by all in the entire world." Notice the two verbs "answered and spoke." English translations of this often omit the redundant "and spoke," which indicates how easily such an Aramaism can be lost through translation. Two more such instances occur, with a literal translation of the German, in: TJ 29:45-46 Slowly the screaming stopped, and the governor raised his voice a third time and asked and spoke: "Which one of these two shall I release?" The people cried out and spoke, "Free Barabbas!" Two others occur in the following: TJ 31:12-13 But Mary asked and spoke, "Yet he was dead and lay here dead, how can he rise?" But the guardian angel answered and spoke, "Why are you seeking someone alive among the dead?" The above examples occur in verses not having parallels within the Gospels, since these verses were unacceptable to the early church and could not be extracted from the TJ for use in Matthew when that gospel was being written, unless they were to have been heavily altered. There are at least ten more such instances, plus still others if one considers verses that Matthew does have parallels to. SUCCESSIVE "AND". Another indication that the original had been an ancient text lacking punctuation is that in many places within the TJ's German text there is a series of three or more nouns, adjectives or verbs in a row, each separated by and ("und") rather than by a comma and a final and. That is, one finds frequent usage of the "A and B and C" structure and scarcely any usage of the conventional, present-day "A, B and C" structure. This is indicative of the original text having dated back to a time before the concept of the comma had been invented. This ancient structure then oftentimes carried over into the German translation of the TJ (1978 version), whether or not the text has a parallel within the Gospel of Matthew: e.g., see TJ 4:15, 6:40 (6:50 in the 1996 and later versions), 10:10, 10:26, 14:26, 18:35 (18:36 in '96 and later editions), 18:49, 18:58, 19:15, 22:10, 22:17, 24:31 (24:35 in '96 edition), 25:10, 28:45, 29:11 (29:4 in '96 and later editions), 30:14, 30:34, 31:36, 31:48, 32:40 (32:39 in '96 edition), 33:14, 33:33 (33:35 in '96 and later editions), 36:3, 36:5-6, 36:14, and 36:40-41 (36:37-38 in '96 and later editions). Of these, the 1996 English translation preserved the ancient structure only once (36:3). On the other hand, Eduard Meier in his various German writings dating as far back as 1975 does use the ordinary "A, B and C" structure; e.g., in the "Vorwort" (Foreword) of the TJ, 1978 version, pp. 9,10 (four instances), and in the 1996 version, p. xx, lines 3-4, 8, 15 and 22-23; and in the Epilog (lines 14-15), rather than using the ancient structure. SUCCESSIVE "OR". A similar clue involving or (the German "oder") occurs at TJ 20:24 and 33:10, where three nouns or prepositional phrases are connected by two or's without use of intervening commas, as in "A or B or C," rather than the modern structure "A, B or C." In Meier's Foreword to the TJ (1978 version, p. 8; 1996 version, p. xvi) one may notice that he uses the modern structure. Ancient history elucidated A suggestive kind of verification occurs when some poorly known circumstance of history is mentioned and/or elucidated. I myself did not learn of the realism underlying the following TJ mentionings until after 20 years of investigating the TJ. AN HERB CALLED MERAMIE. TJ 24:28 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites who tithe mint, meramie, dill and caraway seeds but neglect the most important things in the law, namely justice, freedom of knowledge, and the truth of Creation...." The Gospel of Matthew has a close parallel to the first part of this verse, in its Mt 23:23, but it omits "meramie." After much fruitless research within the botanical and herbal literature, I was notified by a Brazilian researcher of the TJ of his finding. The German word Meramie is the German transliteration of the Arabic name for the shrub called "Maramiyya." (See also under the discussion of Mt 23:23). Its Latin species name is "salvia fruticosa," known in English as the "three-lobed sage" and as "Greek sage." It is a common sage shrub in the eastern Mediterranean having a habitat of sunny dry, rocky hillsides. It has long been used as a medicine or medicinal tea. Its leaves, or the oil therefrom, is used internally for the treatment of digestive and respiratory complaints, menstrual and infertility problems, high blood pressure, depression and nervousness. The "mara" root of the word means "bitter" in Hebrew, and the name of the plant in Hebrew is "Marva." "Maramiyya" is a bitter astringent, strongly suggesting that the meaning 'bitter" lies at the root of the word. It seems likely that when Isa Rashid translated the word he gave it the name it is still known by in the Palestinian region: "Maramiyya," or "Meramie" in German. Thus we learn that meramie was a commercial herb that was subject to taxation along with mint, dill and cummin. I have speculated that the writer of Matthew omitted mention of this plant because it was known to be of important medicinal value. Use of it would likely have grated against his Scriptural, leave-it-to-God theology concerning one's health: Let God take care of you; don't take matters into your own hands or rely on therapeutic herbs. THE LAND OF THE HORNED KING. TJ 28:54 "One of them (one of the three populations) is here in this country, which you (Israeli priesthood) have deprived of its rights and subjegated; another is in the east as far as the land of India, and the third is in the north from the land of the king with horns to the sea where icy mountains drift in the water." Until recently (1/2/06) I had not learned of the likely abode of the "king with horns" despite intermittent research over the years. Then I learned that there are many different coins depicting Alexander the Great (356-334 B.C.) with ram's horns. This wearing of horns on a ruler's head or helmet served the twofold purpose of being portrayed like some of the gods had been (e.g., the Greek god Pan, the Celtic god Cernunnos, the Egyptian god Amon-Ra) so as to take on the authority of a god, and to emphasize strength and virility. I learned further that his successors, the Seleucid kings, were then also characterized by horns, as indicated in coins picturing Antigonus (382-301 B.C.) and Seleucus (312-280 B.C.) wearing horned helmets, and Diodotus Coin showing the ram's horn on the side of Alexander's head. Tryphon (142-139 B.C.). Their kingdom was that of Medo-Persia including Syria, and their empire (soon reduced from that of Alexander) lasted until about 66 B.C. The custom of wearing a helmet embellished with an ibex horn on special occasions was evidently carried on by many Seleucid kings, because, as I finally learned, in the book of Daniel (Dn 7:7-8,24) the referral is to ten horns, which Josephus easily interpreted as meaning successive kings who reigned over the Medes and Persians (Antiquities Book X, Chapter XI, paragraph 7). Daniel's reference to the "great horn" between the eyes of the he-goat (Dn 8:5) is taken to be Alexander the Great; his reference to the "little horn" is often taken to refer to Antiochus IV, king of Syria, 175-163 B.C. The land of the horned kings (plural) could therefore be interpreted to be the land of the Medes and Persians during the time of Josephus in mid-to-late 1st century A.D. Since the land of these kings had also been Alexander's land, it could also be called the land of the horned king (singular). The German TJ verse words it as "the land of the horned king." So this TJ verse seems to refer to the land to the north of Israel starting from Syria and extending northwest over Europe all the way to the North Atlantic, where icebergs emanating from Greenland and Svalbard drift. WARRIOR WOMEN. TJ 35:1 It came to pass that Jmmanuel, his mother Mary, and his brother Thomas traveled on into the cities at the sea in the north. Since olden times, warrior women inhabited the area, but their descendants were now peaceloving. The sea that is mentioned apparently refers to the Black Sea, as the previous last placement of Jmmanuel and his traveling party was in Damascus (TJ 33:34). According to Diodorus Siculus, a Sicilian-Greek historian in his Book #17 on Alexander the Great, Alexander had an encounter with a queen of the Amazons name Thalestris and the 300 Amazons traveling with her; she hoped to have Alexander sire a son with her. And according to the Russian historian, Viktor Yanovych of Kiev: The Ancient Greek historian [Herodotus] claims that the Sauromatians [or Sarmatians] were produced by a cross of the Scythians and Amazons. The latter are generally known to have been a female fighting community that lived without men. Many believe that it is just a romantic myth, yet it is an historical fact that the Amazons did exist. There are different sources pointing to their deeds, names, and Amazon settlements dating back into the mist of centuries. Henning opines that the Ancient Greek legend about the Amazons dates from before Homer. Greek sources have it that the Amazons first lived in the Transcaucasus and then appeared by the Sea of Azov, not far from the Scythians. A number of cities in Asia Minor (e.g., Ephesus, Smyrna, Mytilene, Sinope, etc.) were believed to have been founded by Amazons. The warlike women more often than not pitched camp on the river Thermodontus, on the south coast of the Pontus Euxinus, as the ancients called the Black Sea. According to Aeschylus, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Pausanias, their main city was Thermoskyra, not far from Amysa and Amasia. The latter community is located in the northern part of central Turkey, just south of the Black Sea. From that very region, apparently, Jmmanuel and his companions then traveled inland and through mountains until reaching Ephesus. Although experts on the topic are aware of the woman-warrior aspect of the Sarmatians, it is not likely that a New Age literary hoaxer would be aware of it, or would know that their influence had extended to the south side of the Black Sea. The dependence of Matthew upon the TJ Even a brief comparison of the TJ against the Gospel of Matthew discloses that one depends upon the other. The correspondence in order of events and sometimes in wording is too close to permit any other possibility. In comparing them, then, we continually raise the question: Is it more plausible that the writer of Matthew based his text upon the ancient TJ rolls, or that a 20th-century literary hoaxer based the TJ upon Matthew? In these comparisons, the Matthean verse(s) are listed first under "Mt," followed by the parallel or cognate Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) verse(s) when the parallels exist. To access those Matthean verses that have received scholarly criticism or question, just click within the Table below. Explanations follow the Table. Mt 1: 1 , 3,5,6 , 16-17 , 18-19, 20**, 21**, 22*, 23, 24*, 25 2: 1-2, 4-6, 7, 9*, 10, 11, 13-14, 15*, 16-18, 19-20**, 22*, 23 3: 1, 3, 5-6, 7*, 8-10, 11*, 16, 17* 4: 1-11**, 12-13*, 14-16, 17, 19*, 23 3**, 4*, 5*, 6, 7, 8*, 9*, 10, 12, 17-18*, 19-20*, 21-22a*, 22b, 23-24, 25-26**, 5: 28, 30*, 34-35, 39*, 40, 41, 42, 44-45*, 46-47, 48* 6: 1, 2, 3-4, 5b, 6, 7-8, 9-13*, 14-15, 16b, 19, 20-21, 24b-25*, 27, 30-32, 33*, 34* 7: 1*, 6*, 7-8*, 11, 15, 19, 21-22, 23, 28-29** 8: 4, 10, 11-12, 20, 23,24-25,26,27* 9: 2-3*, 5-6**, 8, 10-11, 13, 14-15*, 16, 27-33*, 35, 37-38* 10: 2, 5-6, 7*, 9-10*, 15*, 18, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29-31, 32-33, 34**, 35-37, 38, 39, 40-42 11: 2-3*, 5*, 11, 12, 14*, 19, 20-24, 25-26, 27, 28-29, 30* 6-8, 9, 11-12*, 14**, 15-17*, 18-21, 22-26, 27-28, 29, 12: 30, 31-32, 33-37, 38-40, 41-42, 43-45, 46-47, 48-50 13: 1, 3-11*, 12, 13-14*, 19-23, 24-30*, 31-32, 36-43, 44, 47-48**, 49-50, 54 14: 1-4a**, 9*, 13*, 14, 17**, 19**, 21, 23, 29-31*, 33 15: 1-4, 11,18, 12**, 13-17, 19-20a, 21, 22-28, 29-31, 32-39 16: 1, 4, 4b-5*, 10, 12*, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20*, 21-22*, 24, 25*, 26**, 27, 28* 17: 1-9, 10-13, 14, 17-18, 21, 22-23, 24-27 18: 1, 3-4*, 5*, 6*, 8*, 9-10*, 11, 12, 13-14, 16-17*, 18, 19, 20, 21-22, 23-35 19: 3-5, 6, 7-9a, 12, 13-15, 16-17, 18-20, 21-22, 24,25-26, 28, 29, 30** 20: 1-16, 17-19, 20-28 21: 2-3*, 4-5, 7, 9, 11*, 12-13, 15, 16*, 18-23, 28-32, 42*, 43, 44** 22: 1-14, 15-16, 30*, 31-33*, 34-35, 36-40**, 42, 43-46 23: 1-2, 3*, 7-8,9,10**, 11-12*, 13**, 14*, 17-19, 20-22, 23, 26, 31, 32, 33, 34-36, 37, 38-39 24: 3-4, 5, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15-16, 20, 27, 28*, 30*, 31, 33*, 34, 35*, 37-41, 42-44, 45-50, 51 25: 1-13, 14-30, 31-34, 35-40,41,42-43, 44-45, 46 1-2**, 3-4, 5, 6-13**, 14-16**, 17-18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26*, 27-28, 29, 30, 31-33**, 35, 36-46**, 26: 47, 49-50, 51-52*, 53*, 54, 55-56**, 57, 58, 59, 61-62*, 63, 64*, 65, 67-68**, 69-70, 74 1-12**, 13-14*, 15*, 17,18,20,22, 25, 26*, 27, 29, 32, 33*, 35, 37, 39-40, 27: 41-42*, 43-44, 45, 46-47, 48-49, 50, 51, 52-53, 54, 55-56, 57, 59*-61, 62-66 28: 1, 2-3, 4*, 6, 7**, 8, 9-10, 11-15, 16, 17, 18-19,20** COLOR KEY Matthean verses or passages in blue received valid questions and criticisms, to which the TJ is not subject, from scholar Francis Beare. Those in italics indicate there is no TJ cognate. Verses or passages in green received valid questions and criticisms, to which the TJ is not subject, from other Gospel scholars. Verses or passages in red receive criticisms of Matthew raised by myself with the aid of TJ hindsight. Matthean passages receiving criticisms, to which the TJ parallel passage is not subject, and whose arguments for TJ genuineness are not at all easy to reverse, are marked by an asterisk (*). Matthean verses whose TJ parallels exhibit too much creativity combined with realism to have been credibly hoaxed at all are marked by two asterisks (**). An occasional Matthean verse not receiving criticism (in brown) is listed in the Table when the TJ verse it substitutes for is especially interesting or informative. Non-italicized verses do have TJ parallels. When criticisms of two or three categories apply to the same verse or passage, priority in color-coding is assigned first to blue, then green, then red. Some passages contain a verse or two that did not receive criticism. These are then included to help fill in the context. In the brief discussions following the verse presentations, the criticisms or questions raised by various scholars regarding the Matthean verse(s) are first aired. Then follows a brief explanation of why any parallel TJ verses do not suffer from the scholar's criticism or question. The scholar whose criticisms are presented most frequently here is the late Francis Beare, using his commentary The Gospel according to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981). He is referenced by name and page number (e.g., Beare, p. xxx). His text is most heavily utilized here because it post-dates the TJ, is comprehensive, and is critical. However, I have tried not to present "invalid" criticisms based only upon assumptions that with hindsight appear to be false, even when they support the TJ's text over the Matthean text. The most common "invalid" assumptions are: (a) The supposition that a Matthean verse is non-genuine merely because it or a portion of it is not found in Mark; (b) The supposition that a Matthean verse is non-genuine merely because it or a portion of it is found in Luke but not in Mark (i.e., the scholar assumed it had been contained in the hypothetical document called "Q" and therefore was not original with the writer of Matthew); (c) The supposition that a Matthean verse or words within it are non-genuine merely because of an argument that overlooks the likelihood that Matthew was written first in the Hebraic tongue, as attested by the external evidence, with its translation into Greek coming only after Mark and/or Luke were written; (d) The supposition that no person, no matter how unique and how well attested to have been a short-range prophet, could validly prophesy events in his distant future as well; this would include certain OT prophets in addition to Jesus/Jmmanuel; (e) The supposition that no such thing as the human spirit, its evolution and power, along with the spiritual world, could exist; (f) The supposition that angels must not be equated to ETs nor their means of transport to UFOs. These highly questionable suppositions are listed here because it would not make good sense to judge a source text (e.g., the TJ) that uncovers multitudinous falsehoods within a derived text (Matthew) by standards of the derived text (Matthew or other Gospels). As once noted by Dr. Jean Houston, We won't solve problems using the mindset of those who caused the problems. This mindset is one of denying or failing to recognize truth, due to having bought into false assumptions. However, it is worth mentioning that many of the Matthean redactions uncovered by the TJ involve considerations other than the non-validity of the above suppositions. The verses/passages marked by an asterisk indicate ones that point quite strongly to Matthew having been dependent upon the TJ and/or ones that seem quite unlikely a literary hoaxer could have been creative, clever and knowledgeable enough to have invented. There are 80 of these, involving arguments that are difficult to reverse. The 32 additional passages marked by a double asterisk point even more strongly towards Matthean use of the TJ. The remaining passages are also consistent with the TJ being genuine, though some might equally be argued the other way around. To each of the verse/passage comparisons deemed essentially independent in the table above a probability has been assigned that it could be a hoax, while avoiding the invalid suppositions listed above. Each probability, labeled PHoax, is a fractional value lying between 0 and 1; a value of 0.5 represents complete uncertainty whether the TJ is a hoax or not, judging from the particular verse comparison, a larger value represents an estimated probability from that verse/pericope comparison alone that it is a hoax, and a smaller value represents the estimated probability that it is not a hoax. Generally I have estimated probability values to the closest 0.05, and have combined them for each Mt-TJ chapter's set of verse comparisons according to the rules for accumulating conditionally independent probabilities. Some Matthean verses do not receive any criticism or question here; they parallel TJ verses sufficiently closely that no claims of redaction could be made. If these had been included in the probability analysis, they would receive hoax-probability estimates around 0.5, which would not affect the outcome. The resulting accumulated probabilities for hoax are listed in the table below. Mt Hoax Mt Hoax Mt Hoax Mt Hoax Chap. Prob. Chap. Prob. Chap. Prob. Chap. Prob. 1 3.3 x 10-5 8 7.7 x 10-2 15 2.2 x 10-2 22 5.3 x 10-3 2 2.0 x 10-4 9 2.9 x 10-5 16 3.0 x 10-7 23 1.0 x 10-6 3 2.2 x 10-3 10 1.0 x 10-4 17 3.0 x 10-1 24 1.0 x 10-5 4 8.6 x 10-4 11 2.1 x 10-4 18 1.0 x 10-4 25 3.5 x 10-1 5 0.6 x 10-8 12 2.9 x 10-4 19 1.4 x 10-2 26 1.8 x 10-13 6 6.3 x 10-5 13 4.4 x 10-5 20 3.5 x 10-1 27 8.0 x 10-8 7 9.4 x 10-4 14 4.1 x 10-5 21 1.4 x 10-4 28 7.0 x 10-5 What is the resultant probability, then, based on the hypothesis that either the TJ is a hoax constructed from Matthew or that Matthew was constructed out of the TJ, that the entire TJ could be a hoax? Upon accumulating the above probabilities for the 28 Matthean chapters, one finds the overall chance that the TJ is a hoax to be about 10-111. This is no misprint. These are odds of about 1 in 10111, a number that far exceeds the number of atoms in the whole Earth. These infinitesimally small odds for a hoax explain why this investigator has not often used language in this website that sounds hesitant or uncertain whether the TJ is genuine or not. However, this value does not take into account the "prior probability," which emerges from the derivation of the statistical formula for accumulating the estimated probabilities. The prior probability is meant to account for any unspecified evidence not explicitly taken into account in one's analysis. In this instance, it might be an unsupported belief that Eduard Meier is not honest and fabricated the story of the TJ's discovery and provenance, or that the TJ's translator (Isa Rashid) never existed, or that it seems very improbable that any relevant document like the TJ would be discovered at this late date, or that it is improbable that there could be such a thing as a person (Jmmanuel) who is so highly evolved spiritually that he could prophesy validly both short range and long range, etc. The Bayesian-statistics derivation indicates that if one can identify and assign estimated probabilities of certainty to such "prior" considerations, they are to be treated in the analysis just as are the interpretations of the more explicit (textual) evidence. Although these priors have not been included here, the present website gives evidence that if they were to be included, the probability for hoax would be driven still smaller, by taking into account that the TJ's co-discoverer and custodian/editor of the translations is still alive to vouch for the genuineness of the discovery, that many persons have attested to the truth of his UFO experiences, as does the Meier-case photo evidence. And it would decrease still further if the testimony of 2nd-century bishop Papias were to be taken into account, and interpreted as indicating that the writer of Matthew formed his gospel out of a Hebraic document that Papias referred to as the Logia, which did not survive. And even further decreased if the Jesus-in-India evidence were taken into account, and the massive amount of evidence supporting the reality of reincarnation. The method of accumulating probabilities used herein needs to have all the evidence taken into consideration in order that there be no initial bias favoring either hoax or genuineness (the "prior probability" for hoax is then 0.5 and the simplest expression of the accumulation formula then becomes valid). Although I find that the above vanishingly small odds for hoax would then become even smaller when these other considerations are taken into account, I have not attempted to quantify them, and the prior probability has simply been set to 0.5. The reader is reminded, however, that many scholars exist who insist that Matthew is dependent upon Mark, who must then insist that a hypothetical document "Q" once existed, that no such thing as the spirit world exists (they haven't studied the past-life, NDE and OBE data), and that UFOs aren't real and associated with aliens or extraterrestrials (they haven't studied the UFO phenomenon). They may be theologically committed and may not mind ignoring the logic of the arguments presented in the Mt-TJ verse comparisons. Such scholars can simply state, in an authoritative tone of voice, "The TJ looks like a hoax to me," and add 0.3 to 0.4 to each individual probability I have assessed. Then they will end up with an overall probability favoring the TJ being a hoax in their minds. Is there precedent for an early Christian writer to have closely followed an earlier writing but altering it so as to make it more appealing to the church? The answer is affirmative, with the case in mind being the long recension of the epistles of Ignatius, as compared with the shorter version that scholars prefer as being much more genuine. (See the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Roberts and Donaldson, eds., vol. I; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993, pp. 45-104, where both the long and short version are printed alongside.) The anonymous writer of the long recension inserted many quotations from the Gospels, among other changes, in order to upgrade its christology. A substantial number of the Matthean alterations to the TJ are of this same type, wherein its anonymous writer utilized mainly the Old Testament (or Hebrew scriptures) for his quotations. The editors (T. E. Page and W.H.D. Rouse) of The Apostolic Fathers, vol. I, wrote that the long recension of Ignatius's epistles is "greatly corrupted by obvious interpolations." The TJ was just as obviously, but even more greatly, corrupted by the writer of Matthew. The similarity here between the two cases extends to the anonymity of the falsifying writers (the writer of the long recension and the writer of Matthew) and the failure of originals of the documents in question to have survived. As suggested above and indicated much further upon examination of the Mt-TJ verse comparisons, even "mainstream" scholars have had large numbers of criticisms to make of Matthew and the other Gospels. The group of scholars who are best known for their deductions of genuine versus non-genuine Gospel verses is the Jesus Seminar. This group, once larger than 100 scholars, devoted one of their major efforts towards discussing and voting upon the genuineness of Matthew's teaching/discourse verses (see "Voting Records" in Forum 5, No. 1, March 1990). They judged 86% of these 719 Matthean verses to be non-genuine or probably non-genuine. Although this percentage is not so far from what the TJ indicates, this Seminar had few valid clues as to which particular verses were genuine and which not, and their batting average in this respect was dismal. They mainly assumed that "Jesus" genuinely spoke only weird or illogical, impractical utterances, such as "Turn the other cheek," "Love your enemies," and the parable of paying the workers in the vineyard the same wage whether they had worked one hour or all day. However, these, the TJ indicates, had been among the many inventions of the writer of Matthew. On the other hand, the TJ lets us know that some of the verses that the Jesus Seminar found to be non-genuine, such as the Golden Rule, had actually been spoken by Jmmanuel (though he did not claim credit for that particular precept). Furthermore, the Jesus Seminar could not realize that the Gospel of Matthew is even more corrupt than they suspected, in that its writer had the truth available to him in writing, and purposely edited out practically all the TJ's spiritual teachings because the true teachings conflicted with his own beliefs and that of the early church. Differences between the TJ's 1978, 1992 and later editions The 1992 German version of the Talmud Jmmanuel (TJ) edited by Eduard Meier differs very considerably in detail, though not in overall substance, from his 1978 German version. For scholarly, investigative reasons, the 1978 TJ may be preferable to the 1992 and later editions. Thus these differences are discussed here. Meier made the alterations at the prompting of one of his Pleiadian ET contactors named Ptaah, who, according to what Meier has learned, presently holds a position of authority in overseeing Earth that corresponds to the position that the ET with the title El held 2000 years ago. He informed Meier during contacts occurring in 1989-1991 that there were many minor errors and some omissions in the 1978 version. Ptaah went on to inform Meier of the alterations needed, which were said to stem from knowledge stored within the Akashic Records. The errors and omissions of the 1978 version were incurred partly when the ex- priest, Isa Rashid, made the translations from old Aramaic into crude German starting in 1963, but mostly, according to Meier, when Meier's typist, Frau Krauer, in 1977-78 paid insufficient attention to the details of her task of readying the rough manuscript for publication, and relied too heavily upon the Gospel of Matthew from the German Bible when typing in TJ verses having close parallels to Matthean verses. In addition, Meier could not take the time then to carefully read over the final, typed manuscript himself, due to being in the midst of having rather frequent ET contacts, transcribing their content, having photo sessions of the associated UFOs subject to the ETs' rules, and answering the many questions from his group of supporters, called F.I.G.U., and from hundreds of visitors to Schmidrüti, Switzerland. As well, he was trying to raise a family of three children during this time. Worse, he never received the rough manuscript back from Frau Krauer, who lived in a different village, despite having requested it more than once. Hence he could not proofread the final typed manuscript against the rough one. In addition, however, at Ptaah's urging Meier also made numerous minor alterations in the German text and/or the verse numberings in order to satisfy the requirements of the code he was supposed to incorporate in all his writings. Only Meier and his contactors know what this code is all about. As already mentioned, whatever it was, it did not significantly alter the meaning or substance of the text. First, concerning the verse numbers, these were altered in many of the 1992 TJ's 36 chapters when Meier usually decided that each sentence (in German), no matter how long or short, should receive a separate verse number. Involved in this editing, of course, were numerous decisions by Meier on when a sentence should be broken into two or more, with commas or semicolons replaced by periods, and when to progress in the opposite direction. Such decisions in this case were naturally at the discretion of the editor to make, since the text of the original Aramaic rolls of course had contained no punctuation. Of the 1,721 verses in the 1978 TJ, 44% received altered numbering as a result, with the 1992 TJ ending up with 1,783 verses. Aside from the effect of renumbering and redefining verses, only 42% of the 1992 TJ's verses remain identical in text to those of the 1978 version. In producing the 1992 version, Meier made minor grammatical editorial adjustments in 23% of the TJ's verses, often multiply within verses. These involved items such as: revisions of word endings for corrections in number, case or gender; interchanging the order of two or more words; choosing a more appropriate preposition, conjunction or pronoun; filling in or omitting an implied verb; merging two adjacent words into a compound word or splitting a compound word into two; and correcting the prefix or tense of a verb. Alteration or correction of the spelling of a name, or introduction of a word of unknown spelling (and meaning), occurred in some 2% of the verses. An example of an unknown word of this type is "allso." Possibly this is part of the "code" requirement Meier abided by. Most of the alterations in the spelling of names occurred within the genealogy, where an "i" was often replaced by a "j," with no change in pronunciation, just as the "I" in Immanuel was replaced with a "J." The use of the "J" symbol is said by Meier to have been present in the TJ rolls themselves, as translated into German by Rashid, and is explained by Meier within an introductory page of the TJ from information he received from his ET contactors. The substitution of one significant word or phrase for another in order to clarify its meaning occurred in 10% of the verses. Examples are: "Bewusstein" (consciousness, or awareness or sensibility) replacing "Geist" (spirit or mind), and "vertrauen" (to trust) replacing "glauben" (to believe). The insertion of additional words and phrases of substance, presumably either to correct for their previous omission or to better convey the supposed meaning of the Aramaic text, occurred in some 18% of the verses. These amplified upon the theme already under discussion. (When three or more words of substance replaced one, I classified them as an insertion rather than a substitution.) In only 8 verses of the 1,783 was a word of any substance from the 1978 text omitted without replacement in the 1992 text. In 3% of the verses a whole clause was inserted, and/or a new verse itself. Again, these amplified the existing topics under discussion. When this editorial work by Meier is added to the amount he must have performed prior to 1978 in bringing the first version of the TJ into print, it is possible that Meier expended as much effort on the project as had Isa Rashid in first translating the Aramaic into crude German. However, it may be difficult to believe that he expended four times Rashid's effort, as stated in his Foreword to the 1992 TJ. Overall, the impact and meaning of the TJ remained unchanged between 1978 and 1992, though certain details were altered and a few minor contradictions thereby eliminated. In forming an opinion of how genuine the TJ is, it is important to keep in mind that if one starts with a document that is genuine and consistent, the effect of errors in translation and editing is to introduce inconsistencies. Correcting the errors then eliminates these inconsistencies or contradictions. The 2007 German TJ contains the change from "Geist" (spirit or mind) to "Bewusstsein" (consciousness or awareness), and their adjectival derivatives, in a preponderance of occurrences, though treated as equivalent in certain places. The alongside 2007 English version has in addition undergone: changing to the German spelling of persons' names, starting more sentences with "And" or "But" as in the German, using British English spelling rather than American English (in the verse comparisons of this website I retained the American English spelling), and occasional minor word changes that were usually accomodated in this website. Any biblical scholar who should become interested in the TJ might wish to start with the 1978 version of the TJ, since it purports to be historical except for its errors and omissions, while the 1992 and later versions contain some input that is akin to channeling, coming largely from an ET. One cannot be certain that everything Meier was told by his ETs was truth rather than disinformation (though Meier presumably is certain), since different contactees are told different things, sometimes contradictory, by their ET contactors. There is good reason to believe that ETs purposely supply us with disinformation along with truth, so that we must continue to rely upon our own discernment as to what is truth and what is not, and not come to rely upon them for enlightenment. Hence one may not be certain that all the changes in the TJ's 1992 version go in the direction of truth, which might lie somewhere in between the 1978 version and the 1992 and later versions of the TJ through 2007. The 2011 edition of the TJ, though its English translation is still underway as of this update (May, 2014), is quite different from the earlier editions. It contains very lengthy "explanations" throughout involving a mixture of truth and fiction. I would conclude that it contain too much disinformation, supplied by Meier's ET contactors, to be at all reliable. Among many other things, it leads the unwary reader to believe that the Gospel of Matthew was written well before the packaged TJ (and a transcription of it) were brought from northern India to the Mideast; consequently one is led to believe that the writer of Matthew did not have the TJ on hand when penning his gospel. This last edition of the TJ seems designed to undermine any scholarly analysis that finds the early editions of the TJ to be basically genuine, and dispel any thought that Matthew was dependent upon it. The earlier editions of the TJ have now become extra valuable. Return to: Contents My First UFO Sighting, Summer 1975 by Gilgamesha Meier in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 37-38 a liberal translation by J. W. Deardorff, June 2011 It was in the year 1975 in Hinwil/ZH [Switzerland]. My parents, Kalliope and Eduard Meier, sat together in the garden of our house. It was around 9 p.m. in the evening, and hence time for me to go to bed, for I was then only 8 years old. So I obeyed my mother, reluctantly to be sure, as I truly wanted to stay outside a few minutes more because it was such a beautiful evening and the sky was full of stars. Therefore I went to bed, but I could not sleep; so I was wide awake when Mom came into my room about a half hour later and stepped up to my bed in order to check if I was actually asleep. When she determined that this was not the case, she gave me a goodnight kiss and said, before she left the room, that I should now get to sleep. I then endeavored to go to sleep, but somehow something still kept me awake, and with the best intentions I could not find sleep. And so about 45 minutes later I was still awake when I heard Pop say to Mom, out in front of the house, "Look there on the horizon," whereupon Mom answered, "Yes, I see it." And when Mom said that, I noticed that her voice sounded quite sad, but I could not find any reason for her sadness. Mom and Pop's words caused me to quickly climb out of bed and hurry to the window, and there I saw it, namely a whole row of UFOs, which moved along the near horizon. Thus I could truly say, "I have seen 16 ships all at once." Without knowing why, I became aware of an odd and peculiar feeling that I can in no way describe. I only know that to me it was very strange in spirit and for me a very thrilling, unforgettable event I would hold in my memory all my life. 2ND- AND 3RD--CENTURY CHRIST-RELATED WRITINGS in which “Jesus” is either not mentioned at all or is outnumbered at least ten-to-one by other titles J.W. Deardorff, Oct. 2013 Annotations (**) give reasons for believing the writer was or was not an advocate of docetism. According to one hypothesis, if docetic, he might have been avoiding mention of “Jesus” because he believed in a Savior who was not in flesh form and who either escaped the crucifixion or did not suffer from it, while “Jesus” represented the Savior in the flesh. A. APOCRYPHAL AND/OR GNOSTIC CASES (31) (from Early Christian Writings website and The Gnostic Society Library website) • Apocryphon of James (“Jesus” once; “Savior” 6 times, “Lord” 14 times, “Son” or “Son of Man” 6 times) **”And five hundred and fifty days after he arose from the dead, we said to him..,” i.e., the Savior had been human and died, as opposed to a docetic viewpoint • Apocryphon of John (“Jesus Christ” once, tacked on at very end; “the Savior” 8 times, “Lord” 9 times, “Christ” 6 times, “Master” once) **And it happened one day, when John, the brother of James - who are the sons of Zebedee - had come up to the temple, that a Pharisee named Arimanius approached him and said to him, "Where is your master whom you followed?" And he said to him, "He has gone to the place from which he came." The Pharisee said to him, "With deception did this Nazarene deceive you (pl.), and he filled your ears with lies, and closed your hearts (and) turned you from the traditions of your fathers. When I, John, heard these things I turned away from the temple to a desert place….” This Pharisee had known that the “master” was a human and a Nazarene, and hence not a docetic phantasm. And John did not deny it.. • Dialogue of the Savior (no “Jesus”; “the Savior” 5 times, “the Lord” 42 times) **Here the Savior responds to questions from his disciples, in particular Matthew, Judas and Mary (Magdalene presumably). This is prior to the crucifixion (since Judas is alive), and there is no hint that the Savior was not in his normal human body. • Elcesaites (apparently no “Jesus”; but according to Hippolytus: “Son of God” once, “His Son the great King” once, and “Christ” once) **From John Chapman’s summary in the Catholic Encyclopedia: According to Hippolytus, Alcibiades, who possessed the book of Elchasai used by the Ebionites, had taught “that Christ was a man like others” among other things (i.e., no docetism there). St. Paul and his writings were said to be rejected by Alcibiades. • Eugnostos the Blessed (no “Jesus”; Savior” 3 times, “Son of God“ once, “Son of Man” 3 times) **Highly Gnostic, too slight a Christian influence to say anything about docetism • Excerpts of Theodotus (no “Jesus”; “the Savior” 6 times, “our Savior” once, “Lord” frequently, “Christ” 2 times, “the Son” 5 times) **The Savior is repeatedly treated as having had a physical body. Also, “Now the Lord with His precious blood redeems us, freeing us from our old bitter masters, that is, our sins,” Hence it is non-docetic. • Gospel of Mary (no “Jesus”; “the Savior” 13 times, “Lord” 3 times, “Blessed One” once, “Son of Man” 2 times) **The Savior tells his disciples things from Matthew or the other Gospels spoken before the crucifixion. In particular, “They wept greatly, saying, How shall we go to the Gentiles and preach the gospel of the Kingdom of the Son of Man? If they did not spare Him, how will they spare us?” I.e., their Savior had not been spared from being crucified, so the disciples feared for their own lives. • Gospel of Peter (no “Jesus”; “Savior” once, “Lord’ 14 times, “Son of God” 4 times) **It’s all about the crucifixion of “the lord,” hence not at all docetic: “Give him to drink gall with vinegar. And they mixed and gave him to drink”; “they drew out the nails from the hands of the “Lord.” • Gospel of the Egyptians (no Jesus; ”the Lord” 5 times; “the Saviour” or “Savior” 3 times) **The surviving fragments show a resemblance to the Gospel of Thomas, with the Saviour making some enigmatic statements which, however, do not speak one way or the other about a belief that the Saviour was or was not human. (On the other hand, the Gospel of Thomas, which is lengthy, does not speak of the crucifixion or resurrection yet mentions “Jesus” over 100 times.) • Gospel of the Savior (Papyrus Berolinensis 22220) (no “Jesus”; “Savior” 8 times, “Lord” 3 times: as confirmed by Charles Hedrick, Oct. 2 & 10, 2013 emails). **Though very fragmentary, its reference to the Savior rising in three days indicates acceptance of the crucifixion of his human body. • Julius Cassianus, as quoted by Clement of Alexandria in Stromateis (III.13.91-92) (no “Jesus”; “the prophet” once, “the Saviour” once, “the Lord” once, “Christ” once) **The few available, very short quotes do not seem to allow any judgment on whether or not Julius Cassianus consider the Savior to have had a human body or not. However, he is believed to have been a student of docetism. • Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840 (no “Jesus”; “the Savior” 3 times) **In this non-canonical fragment, a Pharisee complains to the Savior that he and his disciples had not bathed were not clean enough to be walking around in the temple; hence the writer was describing a savior who was of human flesh and not any docetic phantasm. • Ptolemy the Gnostic: Letter to Flora and the Proem to the Gospel of John (no “Jesus”; “Savior” 19 times, “Christ” once, “the Lord” once, “Son” 6 times) **The former emphasizes the teachings of the Savior, and quotes so much from Matthew, that it seems apparent he treated the Savior as the human he was portrayed as in the Gospels during his ministry (non-docetic). The latter discourses on John 1:1-5. Ptolemy quotes, favorably, from Paul but does not quote any of his sentences containing the name “Jesus.” He is said to have been a pupil of Valentinus, hence no definite conclusion here on docetism status.. • Shepherd of Hermas (no “Jesus,” “the Master” 21 times, “His Son” 8 times, “the glorious man” 2 times, “the Lord” a few times as in “when you heard the revelation which the Lord revealed unto you”) **It is concerned with Christian virtues, not theology, and so does not have anything to say about docetic beliefs. Of special interest here is the statement, "no one shall enter into the kingdom of God, except he receive the name of His Son,” which is repeated: "a man cannot enter into the kingdom of God except by the name of His Son that is beloved by Him.” However, the name of the Son is not supplied (no “Jesus,” no “Immanuel.”). • Sophia of Jesus Christ (no “Jesus” except in the title; “Savior” 25 times, “Lord” 16 times) **It commences with, “After he rose from the dead, his twelve disciples…” So there was no docetism here. • Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (no “Jesus”; “Saviour” 6 times, “Lamb of God” 2 times, “Christ” once, “His Son” once) **The following indicates there was no docetism here either: “For our father Israel shall be pure from the ungodliness of the chief priests who shall lay their hands upon the Saviour of the world.” • The 1st Apocalypse of James (no “Jesus”; “Lord” 14 times) **It is considered to be Gnostic Christian. It obliquely mentions the crucifixion, and so its writer was probably not a believer in docetism.. • The 2nd Apocalypse of James (no “Jesus”; “Lord” 5 times) **The following indicates that “the Lord” was raised in the flesh: “He said to me [James], "Hail, my brother; my brother, hail." As I raised my face to stare at him, (my) mother said to me, "Do not be frightened, my son, because he said 'My brother' to you (sg.). For you (pl.) were nourished with this same milk. Because of this he calls me "My mother". For he is not a stranger to us. He is your step-brother.” According to Charles Hedrick, “The document clearly falls within the Christian-Gnostic tradition. Yet the author shows remarkable restraint in treating the usual Gnostic themes and draws extensively from Jewish-Christian tradition.” • The Apocalypse of Peter (“the living Jesus” once; “the Savior” 7 times, “Son of Man” once, “Lord” 2 times, “Christ” once) **The Risen Savior discourses with Peter and the faithful. Nothing is mentioned about his corporeality, though the risen Savior is evidently in bodily form since he was sitting in the temple. • The Book of Thomas the Contender (“Jesus” 2 times; “Savior” 15 times, “Lord” 10 times) **A Gnostic text without hints of docetism, • The Concept of Our Great Power (no “Jesus”; “the man” who: “will speak in parables,” “he raised the dead”; “he destroyed his dominion -- that of the ruler of Hades -- ,” “He is from the Logos of the power of life.") **This Gnostic treatise is docetic: “"the nature of his flesh could not be seized." • The Interpretation of Knowledge (“Jesus” once; “Christ” 3 times, “the Son” 5 times, “Great Son” once, “Savior” 2 times, “our Head” once, “the Head” 8 times) **It is probably not a docetic treatise, as it speaks of Christ having been crucified, and as having suffered. However, it does perhaps use the metaphor of Christ having been “held on to” in the church to reflect having been nailed to the cross. • The Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah (“Jesus” once, plus two times in the context of “…who will be called Jesus”; “Lord” some 20 times often as “my Lord,” “the Lord’s Beloved”once, “Son” 2 times, “Christ” 2 times, “Lord Christ” 4 times, an indescribably “glorious angel” once, the “Only-begotten” once) **It is may be more Pseudepigraphic than Gnostic. “Who will be called Jesus” need not be interpreted as his having been named “Jesus” at birth. Instead it is consistent with: “When I [the glorious angel] have raised thee [Isaiah] on high … degrees] and made thee see the vision, on account of which I have been sent, then thou wilt understand who I am: but my name thou dost not know.” I.e., before being called “Jesus” he had had a different name not divulged. • The Odes of Solomon (no “Jesus”; “the Savior” 2 times, “Messiah” once, “Son of the Most High” once, “Son of God” once, “the Lord” several times) **The Odes seem more Christian than Jewish, and slightly more Gnostic than orthodox. Although the “Odes explicitly refers not only to Jesus, but also to the ideas of virgin birth, harrowing of hell, and the Trinity,” it never mentions the name “Jesus.” It seems uncertain if its writer was docetic, in that it speaks of “you who are saved in Him who was saved,” which doesn’t say how that the Savior was saved from death.. . • The Sibylline Oracles (no “Jesus” except once in the (later) Preface; Christ is referred to in various ways: (bk VI): “great Son,” “pure flower,” “God… outstretched”; bk VIII: no “Jesus”; “He himself who is born the mighty God”; “a holy Lord of all the earth,” “the King…to judge all flesh,” “the rod of David”; possible exception - an acrostic formed from first letters of 34 lines in Greek preceding line 184 secretly spells out “Jesus”….) **They are a “chaotic medley” of Gnostic, Jewish and Christian ramblings attributed to the oracle. Non-docetic.. .• The Sophia of Jesus Christ (‘Jesus” appears only in front & end titles; “Savior” 25 rimes, “Son” 12 times, as in “the Son,” “Son of God,” Son of Man”; “Lord” about 8 times, “Christ” once, “First Begetter” once ) **It doesn’t deal with docetic topics, and starts out, “After he rose from the dead, his twelve disciples and seven women continued to be his followers, and went to Galilee onto the mountain called "Divination and Joy". When they gathered together… • The Testament of Solomon (no “Jesus”; “Son of God” once, “Saviour” once, “The 'great among men,' who is to suffer many things at the hands of men,” “For never before doth arise a king like unto him, one frustrating us all [us demons], whose mother shall not have contact with man.”) **It is evidently non-docetic. It names “Immanuel” explicitly 3 times as representing the secret name-number 644, thereby exposing the secret of the author; this indicates that these three brief explanations of 644 were insertions by a later redactor.. • The Traditions of Matthias (no “Jesus”; “Lord” 2 times, “the Savior” once, “the Son of man” once) **No indication of docetism • The Tripartite Tractate (“Jesus” 2 times; “Savior” 18 times, “Son of God” or “the Son” 2 times, “Lord” at least 5 times, “Redeemer” 3 times, “Christ” 7 times, “the Well Pleasing One” once, “the Beloved” once) **It is Gnostic but accepts that the Savior existed in the flesh: “he had let himself be conceived and born as an infant, in body and soul. • Trimorphic Protennoia (“Jesus” once; “Christ” 4 times, “the Perfect Son” 2 times, “the Son of God” 2 times, “the God who was begotten” 2 times) **Docetism uncertain, as Jesus was placed on the cross then carried off the cursed wood and taken to the dwelling place of the Gnostic Father. Did he suffer? Was he carried off dead or alive? • Zostrianus (no “Jesus”; “the Savior” once) **This Gnostic work is too slightly Christianized to determine if it has docetic implications. Its one reference to “the Savior” sent by the kind Father nevertheless raises the question of why was “Jesus” or “Jesus Christ” not used instead of “Savior”? If a Christian editor inserted the “Savior” word, the same implication arises: he knew that many Gnostics much preferred “Savior” over “Jesus/” : - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - B. “NON-APOCRYPHAL” CASES (10) (from Early Christian Writings website) • Apollonius of Ephesus ) (no “Jesus”; “our Lord” once, “the Lord” 3 times, “Christ” once) **He was possibly a Bishop of Ephesus. Seems to have been very ortthodox. • Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus (no “Jesus”; “Saviour” 2 times, “the Lord” once, “Son” 7 times, “the Word” 5 times) **An anonymous apologia for Christianity • Mara Bar-Serapion (no “Jesus”; “Wise King” 2 times) **The Wise King was executed by the Jews but lives on because his “new law” lives on; his execution was avenged by God because afterwards the Jewish kingdom was abolished (in 70 CE?). So this king had to be “Jesus.” He may have been known as the Wise King instead of the King of the Jews. • Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis (via Eusebius) (no “Jesus”; “the Lord” some 18 times-3 via Irenaeus, “Christ” 4 times, “Saviour” 2 times, “the Son” 4 times) **Papias may have known what the Gnostics knew concerning the name “Jesus.” But having been a Bishop, he can hardly be considered to have been a Gnostic, or docetic Gnostic himself. His reference to “Mary the mother of the Lord” (i.e., he had been born as a human baby) suggests he did not hold docetic views. • Pliny the Younger (late 1st-century Roman lawyer and magistrate) (no “Jesus”; “Christ” 3 times) • Quadratus, Bishop of Athens (no “Jesus”; “our Saviour” once, “the Saviour” once) • Suetonius, a biographer on Pliny’s staff, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, in V. Claudius (no “Jesus”; “Chrestus” once) • Tacitusm, late 1st-century Roman senator and historian, in Annals, bk 15 (no “Jesus”; “Christus” once) • The Report of Pilate to the Emperor Claudius (no “Jesus”; God’s “holy one” once, “Son of God” once) **Though a Christian forgery, it briefly summarizes Christ’s ministry, arrest, crucifixion and arising from the tomb from Pilate’s point of view as derived apparently from the Gospel of Matthew. Although the Report never mentions Jesus by name, the Matthean text it follows calls him Jesus some 13 times from the trial before Pilate to his rising from the tomb. • The Teachings of Silvanus (”Jesus” once; “Christ” 43 times, “Lord 4 times, “Son” 3 times) **”One of the Nag Hammadi texts. However, it is not a Gnostic text, but has some anti-gnostic warnings, along with orthodox Christian teachings” - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Conclusions: 1. Avoidance of the name “Jesus” was much too prevalent among early Christ-related writings that acknowledged the Savior’s existence in the flesh to attribute the practice to a belief in docetism. And in A Valentinian Exposition (presumably of docetic authorship) Jesus” is used 10 times - more than any other title., 2. Some 41 2nd- or 3rd-cemtury (or even three 1st-century) Christ-related writings are identified above that utilize the title “Jesus” only sparingly or not at all in comparison with their utilization of “Savior,” “Lord,” “Christ,” “the Son,” “and/or ”Son of God” and the like. 17 of these are from the Nag Hammadi Library. 3. Of the 52 given Nag Hammadi documents, 32 are Gnostic-Christian or were at least slightly Christianized. Of these, 15 used “Jesus” a significant number of times while 17 noticeably avoid use of “Jesus.” The remaining 20 are either totally non-Christian or contain no Christ figure. On M. Goodacre's Arguments of Matthean Fatigue In an article published in NTS 44, 45-58 (1998), Mark Goodacre argues in favor of the writer of Matthew having exhibited "editorial fatigue" while forming his gospel out of the framework of the Gospel of Mark. The idea of "editorial fatigue" is actually not far-fetched, since, as defined, it represents one of many different ways in which an editor's (or redactor's) alteration to the text he is working from leaves a clue behind that he may have made one or more changes. Goodacre's definition is made clear in his statement, "Editorial fatigue is a phenomenon that will inevitably occur when a writer is heavily dependent on another's work. In telling the same story as his predecessor, a writer makes changes in the early stages which he is unable to sustain throughout." The lack of sustaining the change, which is considered to be a change characteristic of the redactor, then shows up later as an inconsistency or lack of logic after the redactor has continued utilizing his source without making a further change that would eliminate the inconsistency. Goodacre gives four apparent examples of this, with respect to Matthew and Mark. 1. Herod the tetrarch, not "king." The first example is the formally improper use of the word "king" in referring to Herod, in Mt 14:9, after he had first been referred to correctly as the tetrarch, then as Herod three times. On the other hand, in Mark's version of the story (of the beheading of John the Baptist in Mk 6:14-28), Herod is referred to as king four times, as just Herod five times, and never as tetrarch. Goodacre's assumption, based on the belief that the Gospel of Mark preceded Matthew, is that the writer of Matthew at first corrected Mark's improper use of "king," calling him tetrarch, but then overlooked the correction of one of the others. Goodacre argues that since Matthew differs from Mark at the beginning of the pericope, when its writer was writing characteristically (mentioning the correct title, "tetrarch"), while uncharacteristically differing near the end, it indicates that Matthew depends upon Mark in this pericope. His conclusion: editorial fatigue. Goodacre fails to mention that the fact this pericope in Mark (and most of the others, too) is significantly longer in Mark than in Matthew is normally considered to be an indication of editorial action on the part of the writer who lengthens the stories. Most importantly, however, he fails to consider the matter from the characteristic point of view of the writer of Mark-a writer in Rome who felt it imperative to write a gospel that would not contain Matthew's slurs against gentiles and against discipleship for gentiles; in so doing and writing a gospel for gentiles, he denigrated the Jewish disciples and omitted much material from Matthew that he deemed to be inappropriate for, and/or non-understandable to, gentiles. Thus, even if he knew what a tetrarch was, he believed his gospel's audience probably would not know; therefore he used the word "king" throughout. The fact that "king" was used loosely once in his source (Matthew) could well have been what suggested this course of action to him. Conclusion: not editorial fatigue. The scholar Pierson Parker has discussed a lengthy list of instances in which the writer of Mark displayed his ignorance of Jewish matters (see "The Posteriority of Mark" in New Synoptic Studies, W. F. Farmer, ed. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983), pp. 73-75). Goodacre also fails to consider that if the writer of Matthew had a source other than Mark, its writer may have used the word "king" loosely once. Being a prince with a dominion of his own, Herod the tetrarch could once loosely be called "king" by either Matthew's source or the writer of Matthew. This is as likely as not. 2. Was Herod grieved? In the same pericope, Goodacre points out that in Mt 14:9 Herod was sorry of the daughter's request for John's head, whereas earlier in Mt 14:5 we are told that Herod wanted to put John to death. On the other hand, in Mk 6:19-20, though Herod is said to have feared John, he is also said to have regarded him as righteous and wanted to keep him safe; thus in Mk 6:26 Herod was very sorry to have to order him beheaded. Thus Goodacre assumed that the writer of Matthew first made an alteration of Mark to indicate Herod would be glad to see him dead, then later continued with Mark's story of Herod being grieved over ordering the beheading. His conclusion: editorial fatigue. However, Mark is inconsistent on Herod's feelings prior to the beheading. He had had John seized and put in prison, and furthermore feared John; later he ordered him beheaded at the request of his wife's daughter.. These actions are quite inconsistent with Herod being grieved over ordering John's beheading. Conclusion: not editorial fatigue. Goodacre's problem here was in assuming that Mark is coherent where it is incoherent. With the help of the TJ, we can understand that for various reasons the various inconsistencies involved both Matthew and Mark. However, without having any interest in the TJ and its solutions, the typical NT scholar cannot be expected to arrive at a creative solution like this. 3. Did the cleansed leper need to stay silent? In Mt 8:4 the cleansed leper is told to say nothing to anyone about his having been healed, but to show himself to the priest as required for official recognition of his cleansed status. However, in Mt 8:1, crowds had followed Jesus down from the hill after the Sermon on the Mount, and they were presumably still around at the time of the leper's cleansing. Goodacre assumed that the crowds would have overheard Jesus' warning to the leper to stay silent about the matter, so that it does not make sense that crowds would have been present. In Mark, the crowds indeed are absent in this instance, so that Jesus' warning there (Mk 1:44) makes sense. Goodacre's conclusion: editorial fatigue. What Goodacre failed to take into account here is that the writer of Mark, if following Matthew, had omitted Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, and in so doing the crowds from that Sermon were not present during the cleansing of the leper. Thus Mark escapes the criticism against Matthew here. Furthermore, Goodacre's assumption that most or all of the crowds saw the leper being cleansed and overheard Jesus' warning to him is only that-an assumption. The warning would have served its purpose of suppressing somewhat the spread of the news of this healing miracle whether or not a considerable fraction of the crowd had witnessed it. In Matthew and its TJ source there is no mention that the ex-leper then later went about spreading the word freely, only in Mark. This development in Mark, however, can be seen as a "change for the sake of change," as it is a fairly safe assumption that the man did spread the word, at least to some extent. Hence, the writer of Mark could assume this and write it in, to help his gospel take on a different appearance from Matthew. Without being able to think from the point of view that Matthew had actually preceded Mark, a scholar like Goodacre cannot be expected to even be aware of this and many other "change for the sake of change" allegations against the writer of Mark. Conclusion: not necessarily an example of Matthean fatigue at all. 4. Did the pericope on Jesus' mother and brothers take place in a house? In Matthew (12:46) it is implied, though not stated, that a house was present, since Jesus' mother and brothers stood outside. In Mark's parallel of the incident, Jesus had been in a house since Mk 3:19b or 3:20, which initiates a pericope not in Matthew. Thus in Mark's parallel about Jesus' mother and brothers, Jesus is definitely situated in a house. So Goodacre assumed that the writer of Matthew, after omitting Mk 3:19b-21, resumed following Mark, thereby leaving his gospel with only an implication that the event occurred inside a house. His conclusion: editorial fatigue. However, it is not at all surprising that the writer of Mark's extra pericope, occurring some nine verses before the pericope in question, would involve a house, since its introduction involved the difficulty Jesus and the disciples had in eating, due to the crowd that had formed. My conclusion: this example is a very weak example of editorial fatigue, and one of omission at that. In discussing the matter of editorial fatigue once with certain knowledgeable members of the Synoptic-L list, I was informed that Goodacre's definition of it did not pertain to a redactor making an omission and then not sustaining the results of the omission, but only of making some positive change and not sustaining its consequences. Final conclusion: not even a weak example of editorial fatigue by Goodacre's definition. If the definition were generalized to include changes of omission, then many instances of "editorial fatigue" suggesting Markan dependence upon Matthew would be noticed. However, in just using the positive-change definition, I have found seven instances of "Markan fatigue" relative to Matthew (search for "fatigue" in the following two links). All of these examples involve more extensive alterations than mere nuances in the Greek; if one were to use the latter as the basis for a conclusion of editorial fatigue, one could easily be mistaken if one failed to consider that Matthew was written first in the Hebraic tongue, and that it was this Hebraic Matthew that the writer of Mark made use of. Finally, it must be mentioned that 28 instances of editorial fatigue on the part of the writer of Matthew relative to the TJ have been noticed. Return to: Contents My First UFO Sighting by Elisabeth Gruber in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 282-83 a liberal translation by J. W. Deardorff, June 2011 For a few days I lived with my family in Hinterschmidrüti. On the spring morning of 23 April, 1982, around 9 a.m, I was sweeping the area between the residence and the chicken yard [in the back of the house; see map, between No. 9 and No. 13]. Unexpectedly Billy came out of the kitchen. I saw that he was attentively looking up at the sky. Apprehensively I tried to track his gaze, and followed along after him a few steps. After a few moments he spoke to me, "See, there is Quetzal with his ship," and at the same time showed me its position in the sky with outstretched arm, by which he indicated the exact position of the object. A joyful shock flashed through me -- indeed, I could unmistakably and quite clearly see the disk-shaped ship moving along in the morning sky. From my standpoint the ship looked to have a diameter of about 70 centimeters, hence it was of enormous size. It seemed to frequently change its orientation, for one time I saw it shaped almost as a girder, and then again as a proper disk. Immediately the thought flashed through my head that this would also be a special event for my man, so I yelled out to him. However, the good man is unfortunately not there when I need him, and I had to conclude, to my regret, that he was not within hearing range. Later I learned that he had been out at the Menara-landing site [several hundred meters away where Menara's ship had once left landing tracks in the meadow grass]. At the same time Billy called for Bernadette, who was in the bathroom. Upon her question to him as to what was up, he summoned her to come immediately, that Quetzal's ship could be seen. In the meantime, Billy and I observed that the speed of Quetzal's ship had increased, and immediately Billy pointed out the reason for this action. In the same direction of flight an airplane was to be seen, and it appeared almost as if Quetzal's ship was being followed. Very quickly then Quetzal's ship became smaller, and when it was already at a great distance and appeared very small, only then did Bernadette finally arrive at our spot. Billy showed her the position of the craft and we then all observed it together, as with ever increasing speed the object quickly distanced itself until it could no longer be seen. Subsequently Billy clarified for us that he had been in front of the house when he had been telepathically called by Quetzal. Quetzal had greeted him and communicated to him that his ship was to be seen in the sky over the house. Billy explained to us that he had tracked the ship (which looked to be of 1-meter size [if seen from a distance like 1/2 mile]) from in front of the house through the kitchen to the back side of the house, in order to keep it in better view. Thereby I was outside for a sighting of exceptional delight, which was even more appreciated for having been a daytime sighting. For me this event remains unforgettable, for although the Pleiadians have often allowed their ships to be seen at night, it was an extraordinary rarity for them to have granted us this event in the daytime. Wendelle Stevens' email to Scott re the Meier-Menara gun incident Date uncertain, probably around 1990 Dear Scott: I never saw the "raygun" myself, only the 20 some color photographs of it. To me it looked rather hokey, like a compostion toy gun, so we undertook a search to find a copy of it for our own interest. We visited all the toy stores in Meier's part of Switzerland, with the pictures, and inquired of where we might purchase a copy. Nobody ever recognized it, or could give us any leads. We never found anything even resembling it. When I asked Billy to take me to the place where he stunned a rabbit in mid-jump, he also pointed out a path through the brush where he fired a fine stream or concentration of energy, and it left a seared path, arrow straight through all the bushes to the impact point in the ground of a rise. ...cleanly served and said that was another shot. Now this was in a part of the woods where the trees grew so thick and close together that it would have been impossible to get a ten foot ladder through, much less a 30 foot one, and where would one find a 30 foot ladder. If he had one there would have been no place to prop it against to reach that severed branch. The severed section was still laying on the ground there. What I found interesting is that the charred area was only about 1/8th of an inch in depth. What could burn that cleanly and not char the wood about an inch or more on each side.... of home with me, intending to get some kind of analysis to determine just how much heat it would have taken to make that kind of a burn. On the day Nera came to pick up the gun, I came home from the store to find Billy kneeling by his prize plum tree in the front yard. He said I had just missed Nera who came for the gun. He was examining a smoking hole, a little over an inch in diameter, burned into the 11 inch diameter plum tree trunk. the tree sap was still bubbling and smoking form that burn cleanly through the whole diameter of that trunk. The charred depth again was under 1/4 inch deep, and it cleanly penetrated the whole trunk. When it cooled a little, I stuck my finger in that opening and found that the hole was oval in cross section. Regards, Wendelle Go back to: source page Sighting Report Liberal Translation of Write-up by Barbara Harnisch in FIGU Bulletin #35 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Sept., 2001) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 On the evening of 18 August 2001, Andreas and I disengaged ourselves from the few FIGU core-group members in the kitchen at Hinterschmidrüti, who, after our monthly spiritual-teaching hour, had also briefly stepped into the kitchen to help out a bit. Most core-group members were already driving home. Around 10:50 pm we both went to our cars, which we had parked above the garage. It was a very nice night, and in the distance one could see the flashes of light from lightning, yet it was quite warm and clear with stars. Quite automatically I looked up to the heavens, because the sight of the glittering splendour of light always fascinated and delighted me. Almost immediately I saw, high above, a traveling light (#1) approaching from the west, and drew Andreas's attention to it. We stopped and said, both as from one mouth, "No, there are two!" Parallel to the first, a second light flew slightly below, and then I discovered yet a third light, which traveled at a right angle and at a somewhat further distance from the second light. The three lights moved from west to east, at a very leisurely pace and in an unchanging formation. It looked as if an acute- angle triangle were moving across the sky, whose sides were not extended. Sketch A: For a good three minutes we looked at the lights that journeyed, equally spaced, and of equal size and brightness. Our necks were already hurting from looking up by the time the lights were over the forest next to the turret[?]. Now it looked as if its "structure" would change direction and now, with the upper light at the bottom, very slowly settle downwards. Sketch B: Probably that description worked only for us, because the relatively short distance between the garage and forest at our location [see map, at No. 11] must be converted to hundreds of kilometers high in the sky. Then the front (or bottom) light was suddenly no longer to be seen, and the other two also seemed to lose their brightness. We were distracted by noises in the hiking trail above the house, and when I looked up at the sky again, I could see only stars. Very impressed and pleased, I drove home around 10:55 pm. UFO Report Liberal Translation of Write-up by Barbara Harnisch in FIGU Bulletin #29 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Sept., 2000) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 From June 1-4, 2000, I spent a short break in Saig, above Lenzkirch in the Black Forest, Germany, with my parents, my cousin and her boyfriend. After a hike along the Schluchsee, we sat on the terrace of our hotel in the early evening of June 3rd, where we enjoyed the wonderful views and the warm wind. This Saturday it was very hot and humid, and it looked almost as if a thunderstorm was brewing. The cotton-like clouds moved with great speed across the otherwise steel-blue sky and quickly changed their shape and color. Such natural spectacles have always fascinated me, which is why I watched, enchanted, as ever new "figures" from the cloud masses formed and dissolved again. When the sun was obscured by a huge cloud and its rays were glistening visibly on the cloud, I had to think of my friend who loves such feelings as well as I. For this reason I picked up my camera and pointed it upwards toward the sky to take three or four appealing pictures. While taking the snapshots, I very briefly thought that a "ship" could be close by. Possibly Yes, but immediately I rejected this idea because the Plejaren certainly have better things to do than what we were doing -- gazing at the Black Forest! Two weeks later I showed my photos to some of the Core Group members in Hinterschmidrüti, because to my mind they had turned out really well. Hans-Georg Lanzendorferlooked at the cloud formations, handed me a picture, and said that there was a ship there. Laughing, I answered him, "For sure already!", because for me the black dot between the clouds was more like a passing bird. Below: Enlargement from photo by Barbara Harnisch Yet Hans-Georg was not persuaded by this presumption, and showed the photo to Billy, who immediately took his magnifying glass to hand and showed me the contours of the vessel. Astonished and very glad, I handed him the negative, which he wanted to take to the Photographers for an enlargement. Two days later he told me that I had captured the ship of the Plejaren Zafenatpaneach, who apparently had had something to do in the Black Forest. If Zafenatpaneach wanted to make me happy, he has succeeded masterfully, even though I noticed absolutely nothing while taking the snapshots other than just those brief thoughts, which however have almost appeared a little cheeky to me! The Hasenböl/Fischenthal Photos The location of this site is about 10 km northeast of Hinwil, Meier's residence at that time. On March 29, 1976, Meier was telepathically summoned by his ET contactor to gather up his photographic equipment and ride his moped to a location up a hill that looks downwards off to the south and west, and to wait and watch for her beamship to appear. He spotted it when it was just a speck in the distance, and started taking pictures then (Stevens, 1982, p. 345; 1989, p. 429). THE APPROACH OF THE CRAFT. On the afternoon of that day Meier proceeded to take four rolls of beamship pictures with his 35mm camera, starting with photos of the craft as it was still rather distant and approached closer; of these, two rolls were somehow "lost," but 34 pictures from the other two rolls have survived his loaning them out in the late 1970s (Stevens, 1982, p. 343). Fig. 2. Photo #179, from Meier's Hasenböl poster. Horizontal Fig. 1. Photo #163, scanned from Meier's Hasenböl poster. line near top is a crease in the photo. One of the first of these photos (Fig. 1) shows Meier's moped in the foreground, with the saddlebags in the rear into which he had stuffed his 35mm camera, his 8mm movie camera, rolls of film, a collapsible tripod, a pair of binoculars, extra clothing, and perhaps some food and water. A later photo, after the craft had approached relatively close, is shown in Fig. 2. From six of these photos, Fig. 3 shows how the apparent size of the craft on the film increased as it neared. From #163 From #150 From #153 From #167 From #173 From #179 Fig. 3. Cropped sections from Meier's large 34-photo Hasenböl poster, with relative angular sizes preserved. The photo numbering is not strictly chronological. In these photos the ratio of the craft's apparent diameter when closest versus most distant is 9. If in #179 this had been a model some 3 meters distant from the camera, it would therefore need to have been emplaced some 27 meters (88 ft) distant for photo #163. It could not have been closer than 3 meters and still have been in satisfactory focus, since the focusing mechanism of Meier's camera was jammed just one stop short of infinity during 1975-76, and because his moped in the foreground of photo #163, about 3 meters away, exhibits some slight blurriness in its edges relative to the sharpness of the more distant tree branches, judging from the unscanned version. (The depth of field for Meier's camera with its f-stop jammed at f-11, a focus setting corresponding roughly to 20m, and a focal length of 42mm, ranges between about 4m and infinity.) Thus in this case the hoax hypothesis would require at least two models of similar appearance, one nearly an order of magnitude smaller than the other. If one model were 45cm (about 18 inches) in diameter, for example, the smaller one would need to be about 5cm (2 inches) in diameter, if positioned 3m from the camera. Either model would be difficult to construct, considering the craft's multiple protuberances around its rim and upper section. Consistent with this, those few who have given beamship models to Meier, to photograph with his camera to see how they turn out, have always supplied him with a model having a simple, smooth silhouette all around. One photo, #152, taken when the craft was at a distance similar to that of #153 in Fig. 3 above, shows intervening branches of nearby trees; see Fig. 4 below. Fig. 4. Photo #152, from Meier's Hasenböl poster. Although it would be much preferable if Meier's original slide of this could be analyzed, the thin twig intersecting the right edge of the craft's image does appear to lie in front of the craft. The awkwardness, or extra effort, then required of one or more hoaxers to suspend a model beamship on the other side of the bushes or trees that extend well above the camera's view, becomes apparent. For a model 30cm in diameter, the photo indicates its distance from the camera would have been about 11.8m, or 38.7ft, with about 2.6m of clear sky extending above it, and correspondingly greater distances for a 45-cm model. A hoaxer standing just behind Meier would then have needed to support a pole, from which the model UFO would be suspended, some 14m (46ft) or more in length. This would have been a very unwieldy implement, providing unsteady support and total entanglement with overhead tree branches. On the other hand, if the craft is imagined to be a model on the near side of the twig, a very small model indeed would be required, as noted. If the original color slide were available for analysis, along with other photos of this series, the expert could also check for the haze effect. However, as noted elsewhere, by 1979 Meier had learned better than to loan out his originals and expect to receive them back again and in good shape. A photo taken when the craft was at a rather high angle overhead is shown in Fig. 5. From the ratio of long to short axes, its elevation angle can be calculated as being 59°, assuming the craft's orientation was horizontal as in most of the other shots of this series. The region of sky above the craft in the photo, in which no support apparatus to dangle a model from is evident, extends over an angle of about 9°. This means that if a hoaxer collaborating with Meier had been involved, standing behind him or off to the side and holding a long pole, the pole utilized would need to have been roughly 5 meters (or some 15-16 feet) in length from which to suspend a model UFO, in order that the top of the pole be out of sight above the top edge of the photo. An alternative would be for two collaborating hoaxers to stand off to each side of Meier, each holding a somewhat shorter, less unwieldy pole with an invisible line stretched taut Fig. 5. Photo #168, between them from which a model UFO would be suspended. As noted from Meier's Hasenböl poster. elsewhere, however, no collaborators have ever come forward to claim credit for their supposed handiwork, while those who have investigated Meier closely have noted he is not the type of person who would consider falsifying any pictures, but rather is entirely honest. THE CRAFT AT ITS CLOSEST APPROACH. A cropped section from one of the three best known photos in this series is shown in Fig. 6. According to Meier's records that he later published in his Verzeichnis, this photo, #164, was taken around 6 pm on March 29, 1976, shortly before sunset. This scan-up derives from one of Wendelle Stevens' large, high- quality 1990 calendar pictures, which in turn was derived from one of the numerous photos he acquired from Meier that are only one or two generations away from Meier's original color slides. The golden "rays" may constitute a lens flare associated with the sun being only partially obscured by the upper-right edge of the craft. (Although Meier recalls this having been the position of the sun then, and the variation in sky brightness seems to support this, Stevens believes the late afternoon sun lay off to the right-hand side of the photo, with the golden rays being reflected sunlight (Stevens, 1989, p. 430).) Stevens (1982, p. 352), judging from his high quality reproduction (first generation) of Meier's original color slide #164, believed that a branch could be seen crossing over in front of the craft at its very left edge (see Fig. 6), thus proving the tree was in front of the craft. Similarly, a close acquaintance of Meier, Harold Proch, once examined Meier's Fig. 6. Close-up view of the beamship and part of the tree. From Stevens' calendar reproduction of Meier's photo #164. photo of this scene very carefully, and could state with certainty, "You can see that the branches are in front of the ship, not behind. You must be blind not to see that" (Kinder, 1987, p. 42). Stevens wrote that he noticed a slightly broken symmetry between the left-most edge of the flange and the right-most edge due to a branch at the far left. However, from the photo material available to us, it would seem that the effect would look the same whether the branch continued on to the right in front of the dark underside of the craft's rim, or behind a model beamship. Subsequent measurement of the tree's distance from the approximate position of Meier and his camera is given as 52 yards, or 47.6 meters (Elders et al., 1979, p. 36). From photo #64 and the "camera equation," and knowing the camera's focal length was 42mm and the original slide was 35mm in width, the beamship is deduced to have been 81 meters away, if it was 7 meters in diameter as Meier had been informed by his contactor. This diameter is consistent with the geometry of the swirled patterns of meadow grass (i.e., crop circles) left behind after some of Meier's ET contacts in 1975-76. In them, the swirled grass, though bent over but not broken, remained in the bent- over orientation for weeks and months afterwards. The locations of 15 sets of these is presented by Stevens (1989, pp. 213-220). See also Elders et al. (1979, pp. 60-61), Kinder (1987, pp. 32-34, 155 facing), and Moosbrugger (2001, pp. 112-114 and Figs. 37-44). The question arises as to why neither of the two limbs extending upwards on the left of Fig. 6 show up there, if they cross over in front of the underside of the craft. The answer, of course, is that if they are of practically identical darkness as the underside of the craft, they should not show up, due to lack of contrast. It might be thought that they should exhibit a yellow-brown color, as these and other branches do elsewhere in Fig. 6 or in the enlargements in the photo-album of Elders et al. (1979, pp. 2, 36), and thus show up in front of the craft's dark underside. However, inspection of an enlarged portion of #164, as in Fig. 7a, reveals that this coloration to the limbs of the several treetops in view exists only where the background is of the sky, with its yellowish smoggy- Fig. 7a. Enlarged view of a treetop in photo air tinge when the sun is in the general vicinity. Where the background #164 having different backgrounds. changes to the darker hill in the background, the limbs, though still lit by From Elders et al., (1979), p. 3. the sun on their backside, appear entirely dark from the camera's view opposite the sun. This yellowish tinge to the edges of the higher limbs was no doubt caused by one of the flaws associated with a camera's lens - lateral chromatic aberration, an inherent defect that has been partially overcome in more modern cameras. Differing colors do not get focused to precisely the proper spots on the film, due to the dependence of the index of refraction of the lens upon the wavelength of the light. The yellow tinge to the limbs thus derives spuriously from the yellow tinge of the immediately adjacent background. Therefore, limbs crossing over in front of the craft's dark underside would not exhibit any bright or yellowish edge; instead, they would have almost the same color and degree of darkness as the central stem of the tree in Fig. 6, which may be compared with the left underside of the craft in the same figure. Tree limbs do show up in front of the background hill of Fig. 7a, however, since the distant ridge has acquired a lighter appearance due to the haze effect, to provide a somewhat contrasting background. Two more of Meier's photos show the craft in nearly the same position. A partially cropped picture of one of them, #175, is shown in Fig. 8a below, Fig. 8a. A portion of Meier's photo Fig. 8b. Enlarged section of Fig. 8a (slightly tilted #175 from his large Hasenböl relative to Fig. 8a), contrast enhanced using poster. F.I.G.U. (1998). Adobe Photo Deluxe, with circle added. and an enlarged section of it in Fig. 8b. (A greater enlargement of Fig. 8a is shown in Elders et al, (1979, p. 37)). At this time the craft had tilted its front-facing side downwards ever so slightly, giving a front-on view that allows a thicker slice of the upper surface of its saucer rim to appear, which is bluish where it reflects the overhead sky, in slight contrast to the more yellowish-white tinge of the background sky. In Fig. 8b the circled area shows two faint limbs whose background very close above the craft's dark underside appears to be the craft's sloping saucer rim and not background sky. This photo is discussed further here. The narrower tree limbs tend to fade in and out of view along their length, which adds uncertainty to their location relative to the beamship. This washing out of details is largely due to the camera having faced into the brightest portion of the sky adjacent to the sun. Eyewitness observations by several others besides Meier of this same craft in the daytime occurred two months later. The report by one of them, plus a drawing of the craft made by Meier's oldest son, then aged 6 or 7, is presented here. See also Kinder (1987, p. 17) and Moosbrugger (2001, pp. 158-159). DEBUNKING ATTEMPT. Over two decades ago, Kal Korff attempted to debunk the more spectacular of these particular photos. In one magazine, he claimed that the photos resulted from Meier having photographed a model UFO in front of a model tree (Korff, 1981a). However, a photograph of one of the members of Stevens' investigative team, standing alongside what is clearly the same tree, which towers above him, is shown in the volume by Elders et al. (1979, p. 44). The tree was obviously real. In the same year Korff (1981b, p. 8) claimed that photo #175 was of a model UFO on a suspended string with the tree in the background, while also claiming on the same page that it was the result of superposing a negative of a model UFO upon a negative of the background scenery. In his more recent debunking attempt, Korff opted for the scenario of a model UFO in front of a real tree (Korff, 1995, Fig. 73, p. 206). There he exhibited a version of Meier's photo #164 that had been manipulated such that its dark underside matched the same level of brightness as the surrounding sky. The manipulation had evidently involved use of the embossment routine of a photo-analysis program such as Adobe PhotoShop. This detail was not mentioned by Korff. The craft's flange was thereby highlighted with a bright strip around its girth, its underside with a black strip, and the tree limbs rendered similarly, where the contrast was sufficient. The rest of the image was the uniform gray that the embossment routine can supply. Since the tree limbs did not show up in front of the craft, due to the contrast being too poor to allow it there, while they did show up just below the craft, and since the edges of the craft were heavily outlined by the embossment routine, the impression was left that surely the limbs should have shown up crossing the underside of the craft if they had been present. The reader was not informed that dark limbs in front of the craft would not show up in front of the similarly dark underside of the UFO in his picture copy in the first place, due to lack of contrast. The inability of embossment software to detect a continuous edge that is present, such as the edge of a hill, when objects of very nearly the same intensity and color lie adjacent to it, is shown in Fig. 7b. The embossment routine could not tell that the edge of the hill (nearly horizontal, interrupted white line) actually should continue along without breaks, with the upper tree limbs lying behind the edge of the hill. The contrast between the foreground hill and the upper limbs of the tree beyond it was insufficient. Conversely, an embossment routine is incapable of showing shaded limbs in front of the dark underside a UFO when insufficient Fig. 7b. The image of Fig. 7a (above) after subjecting it to the embossment routine contrast is initially present bewteen the two. of Adobe PhotoDeluxe. Korff further attempted to debunk photo #164 using an edge enhancement of it that showed a short, sloping line segment above it and off to its right (Korff, 1995, Fig. 75, p. 207). It has the general appearance of Fig. 9 below and on the right, which contains a line segment I have added using the Windows "Paint" software. No such indicator of a possible hoax was detected by Stevens' investigative team. Korff suggested that this extraneous line segment on his photo copy was a tethering line, which, however, does not lead up to any tethered balloon or blimp or other object, nor does it extend on downwards toward the ground! Instead, a fishing pole, or similar pole, supporting a vertical line would be the obvious choice from which a hoaxer would suspend a model UFO. The line segment would have needed to be 1/3 longer in order to simulate a pole to whose tip an invisible support line was attached. Fig. 9. A section of photo #164 in black & white, with a line segment added, in Korff stated, "By shooting deliberately in the direction of the setting sun, simulation of Korff's rendition. Meier was able to use its glare to help obscure any supportive structures or 'strings' that were used to suspend the model" (Korff, 1995, p. 204). Of the 34 surviving photos in this series, however, only three ended up being shot towards the sun. It appears to be no accident that Meier's photo evidence here may not seem to constitute proof positive to negative skeptics. According to the plausible deniability hypothesis, the negative skeptic should not be presented with totally undeniable proof, lest it drive him to despair, violence, insanity or suicide, and lest it cause the UFO coverup to fall apart prematurely. Instead, in this photo series the beamship pilot, Semjase, did not allow her craft to become clearly eclipsed behind any tree or object at a considerable distance from the camera, within its range of good focus, except for three photos for which she had maneuvered her craft in front of the sun and behind only the extreme periphery of the tree. Those three photos do constitute proof positive, upon close examination. However, the skeptic who does not look closely can simply claim the opposite, and thus the UFO coverup is maintained. The other exception is in the Fuchsbüel-Hofhalden photo series, where the negative skeptic was mollified by a different means. In conclusion, the hoax hypothesis has little or nothing going for it in this series of photos. Although the photos in this case may not absolutely rule out a hoax, the pains a hoaxer would have had to go to in obtaining the 34 photos of this set, whose essence no skeptic has ever duplicated using a model, strongly argue against a hoax. Return to: Previous text Return to: Contents REFERENCES Elders, Lee J., Nilsson-Elders, Brit, and Welch, Thomas K. (1979). UFO...Contact from the Pleiades. Munds Park, AZ: Genesis III Productions. F.I.G.U. (1998). Poster of 34-photos from the Hasenböl-Fischenthal photo series of 29 March, 1976, made available by the Freie Interessengemeinschaft für Grenz- und Geisteswissenschaften (F.I.G.U.), CH-8495 Schmidrüti ZH, Switzerland. E-mail: info@figu.org. Kinder, Gary (1987). Light Years: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. Korff, Kal K. (1981a). "The Billy Meier hoax," Frontiers of Science, March-April, p. 31. (Magazine no longer in print.) Korff, Kal K. (1981b), with editorial assistance of William L. Moore. The Meier Incident: The Most Infamous Hoax in Ufology. Self-published. Korff, Kal K. (1995). The Billy Meier Story: Spaceships of the Pleiades. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press. Moosbrugger, Guido (2001). And Yet... They Fly. Tulsa, OK: Steelmark LLC). Stevens, Wendelle C. (1982). UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report. Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives (out of print). Stevens, Wendelle C. (1989). UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Supplementary Investigation Report. Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives (out of print). Recent Analyses of Meier's Hasenböl Photos Shows their Genuineness A key set of Eduard “Billy” Meier’s beamship photos for which its main investigators of 1978-1982 could claim genuineness and absence of any hoax was that of his Hasenböl-Langenberg series taken on March 29, 1976. One of a trio of photos shot after the craft had approached closest to the camera is shown on the left. In UFO...Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report (1982, p. 352) Wendelle Stevens pointed out that in his acquired photo of this scene, a branch of the deciduous tree on the far left of the UFO could be seen to lie in front of it. But this was not perfectly clear because the sun was directly behind the UFO, or barely peaking past one edge, in this trio of photos; hence there was a lack of contrast and detail due to glare. Also, the branches in question were thin, and there is lack of contrast between their shaded sides facing the camera and the shaded underside of the UFO, or beamship. Although Stevens’s copy of photo #164 was only one generation Fig. 1. Meier's photo #164. The sun is believed to lie behind the right-hand side of the craft. removed from Meier’s original, other prints more available to the public From Stevens’s “Best of Meier UFO photos,” vol. 4 (CD). were further generations removed. So this “smoking gun” of the Meier case, one of many, has lain smoldering. However, from an enlarged view of the craft and tree, a rather strong case can be made that Stevens and others on his investigating team were correct. Fig. 2b. Enlargement from photo #164 from Fig. 2c. Fig. 73 from Korff's Fig. 2a. Blow-up of a section of Fig. 1. Moosbrugger's ...und sie fliegen doch! Spaceships of the Pleiades (1991) as examined by Jeroen Jansen. (Prometheus Books, 1995). Fig. 2a shows the point Stevens was making. Due to a branch on the far left, the left edge of the beamship is not quite symmetric in shape with that on the far right. On his print, Stevens and team could discern that the cause was due to the branch being in front of the craft. In Fig. 2b, a lower portion of the tree limb indicated by the arrow does seem to be faintly visible as it crosses upwards in front of the craft's shaded underside, thanks to the ability of the human eye to pick out linear structures. Although it helps, in discerning it, to see the limb below as it begins to cross up in front of the craft, this does not seem to be essential. Because of a presentation of the same scene by Kal Korff, however, shown in Fig. 2c above, an outcome of hoax has seemed certain to some. In his analysis, automatic edge-enhancement processing was performed, in which the upper sides of significant edges are automatically marked white, the undersides black, and the rest is portrayed in grey. Due to lack of contrast, the limbs in front of the craft’s dark underside do not show up, but the unwitting viewer is led to think they should show up strongly there if it weren’t a model UFO in front of the tree. (Other faint limbs, even with sky background, are not visible in Fig. 2c due to the program’s threshold for edge detection being insufficiently sensitive.) Thus the claim of a Meier-case hoax due to this presentation by Korff is still heard in some quarters. Actually, any apparent absence of limbs in front of the craft is not nearly as significant as the presence of a limb in front, in determining hoax or no-hoax for this trio of photos. That is because the scene in the immediate vicinity of the craft and bright sky surrounding it was rather washed out due to camera glare. Meier's photo #159 shows the same tree about the same distance away but off to the side, when his camera was directed 28° more to the left (south), and out of the sun's glare, compared with Fig. 1. The tree's image in #159 exhibits two or three times more total limb substance than is seen in #164. Absence of evidence in these sun-glare photos is thus not necessarily evidence of absence. In the trio of photos with the sun behind the craft some slim outer limbs were washed out in their entirety, others appear in broken segments. Fresh insight on these photos comes from close examination of the other two photos of the trio taken at about the same time. When Meier took photo #175, a section of which is shown in Fig. 3 below, the craft's forward facing edge was tilted downwards about 8° relative to Fig. 1 or 2a. (See also the overall scene or a cropped version of higher resolution.) This greatly extends the amount of the sloping saucer-rim surface exposed to view, and gives more contrasting background for certain faint tree limbs on the left. We can understand that, except in front of the craft’s superstructure, the saucer's sloping rim surface reflects the color of the cleaner sky farther above than that of the more polluted background sky. Hence a slight color contrast occurs that helps delineate the extent of the sloping saucer-rim surface. My estimate of the approximate location of the upper edge of the saucer-like surface on the left and right has been dashed in. On the left, two or more of the faint tree limbs do appear to cross in front of the sky-reflecting saucer rim. This is shown more graphically in Fig. 4 below. Fig. 3. Cropped from Meier's #175, in UFO...Contact from the Pleiades, vol. 1 (1979), p. 44. Dashed lines added. Fig. 4. Analysis by Sean Gibbons, H.Dip. Digital Media. Meier's #175 bump mapped on image manipulation program 'Gimp'. Although this bump-mapping analysis loses most of the contrast between the exposed saucer rim and background sky, by comparison with Fig. 3 one sees that two or three of the limbs on the left in Fig. 4 do have saucer-rim background. This strongly supports the 1979 observation by Tom Welch, from photo #175, that branches of the tree lie in front of the space craft (Lee & Brit Elders, UFO...Contact from the Pleiades, vol. 1, p.37). A blow-up from the third photo of the trio, #174, shown in Fig. 5, additionally exhibits eclipsing evidence from the thicker tree branch on the far left. It eclipses the left edge of the leftmost protuberance, which is not totally visible judging from the corresponding apparent width of the protuberence on the far right. And the lighter brown of the left edge of the tree limb contrasts slightly with the brownish-black of the protuberance. The fifth of these nine visible protuberances is very slightly to the right of center, so that the angular width of the first protuberance on the left, if it were not partially eclipsed, should be slightly greater, not less, than that of the ninth one on the right. There should now (as of March, 2009) be little doubt of the genuineness of this Fig. 5. . Cropped from Meier’s photo #174 trio of Meier’s photos. One does not need the originals in showing this, available from Michael Horn's web site. Black circle although the lower the generation of the print, the better. The craft was on the on left is centered around the partially eclipsed far-left protuberence. Pointed out by Jeroen Jansen. far side of the tree, whose existence and location when in leaf has been documented. The tree was about 150 ft away from the camera. Meier’s other 31 surviving photos of this series, which show the very same beamship at greater distances from the camera and exhibit the expected haze effect, must then also be genuine. Once this is realized, an even more amazing realization is that the UFO pilot, Semjase in this instance, was so skillful and creative in supplying Meier with photo opportunities that would not force negative skeptics and ufologists alike to accept the intolerable. This strategy, of plausible deniability, is seen throughout the Meier case and the UFO phenomenon as a whole; it allows the aliens involved to make their existence, presence and messages for us known to those who can accept it while not prematurely disrupting the UFO coverup. Go Back to: Contents The Hasenböl Movie Segment Meier shot this movie segment in the late afternoon and early evening of the same day he took his 35mm photos, at the Hasenböl-Langenberg location looking southward. He began filming with his movie camera just after he had used up a couple rolls of 35mm color slides. This episode is briefly described by Wendelle Stevens in UFO...Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report, pp. 283-284, and to a greater depth in his UFO...Contact from the Pleiades: A Supplementary Investigation Report, pp. 284-291. In all, Meier shot two 2-minute rolls of 8mm movie-camera film on this occasion. The history of this movie film is briefly described here. In the first 2-min segment, the craft started out by hovering near the left side of the movie frame. It then moved steadily to the right along a shallow arc, stopped abruptly with no tilt or over-swing, and hovered there motionless for 26 sec. The arc was up to 25 beamship widths in length. Continual motions of tree limbs in the near foreground indicate that a stiff breeze was blowing. Fig. 1. 8mm movie-frame capture, using the Apple G-5 "Final cut" software. From the Genesis III video, "Beamship: The Movie Footage." The craft then moved back along the same path to the left side of the frame, pausing out of sight on the left for some 20 seconds. This same performance repeated itself five more times, but with variations in the length of time spent hovering on the left and right, and in the total distance of left-right travel. The time required for each traverse averaged 4 to 5 sec. On four of these traverses from left to right, the craft would execute a rocking motion, or wobbles, in the plane of the movie during the lower half of the arc-wobbles of up to ±5°. On its left-to-right traverses Nos. 4 and 6 it displayed no perceptible wobbles. On its return arcs from right to left, such wobbles were weak or non-existent, with the exception of the return of run No. 2. The wobbles appeared to occur about the craft's center of gravity, at a rate of 2 or 3 per second. No such wobbles ever occurred at right angles, towards and away from the viewer. Neither did the craft exhibit any swinging motions left-and-right or to-and-fro. The path traversed by the craft on its run No. 4 is shown in Fig. 2 below. Fig. 2. The craft's track during its left-to-right run No. 4, obtained using the Apple software "Motion"/"Trails." In forming it, a track of the first 2/3 of the arc was superimposed over a track of its latter half. Subsequent image was enhanced in brightness and contrast. Problems with the hoax hypothesis. The first third of the beamship track of Fig. 2 can be approximated by an arc whose radius is 40 beamship widths in length. However, not only would this require an impossibly long support pole from which to dangle a model UFO, the rest of the track shows less curvature still. The absence of any swinging motions further rules out the possibility of a model supported by a string (of over 10 model- UFO widths in length) tied to an extremely long pole extending out above the field of view. Instead, the track resembles a catenary curve.[1] So the skeptic in favor of the model hypothesis can hardly postulate anything other than the presence of a non-visible support wire sagging under its own weight in the shape of a catenary curve but not sagging from the weight of a model UFO attached to it. This support wire would be imagined to be attached to two tall vertical poles off to the left and right, respectively. Their tops, equipped with pulleys, would need to be some 18 model-UFO widths above a level ground; for a model of 1-ft width, the poles themselves would thus need to be considerably taller than 18 ft since the ground slopes down away from the camera. It must further be postulated that the poles have guy wires to support them. For a 1-ft diameter model, the poles' distance apart would need to be over 37 ft in order that they remain out of the camera's view. The idea would be that the hypothesized model UFO would have a ring mounted at its top through which the catenary wire would have been threaded. Two hoaxer's accomplices would be stationed off even further to the left and right, respectively, holding similarly long poles, to each of which a long string would be attached that in turn attached to the rim of the model UFO. At signals from the master hoaxer, they would both trot to the right and then abruptly stop, causing the model UFO to slide along the catenary to the right and come to an abrupt halt. They would then pause and trot back to the left, repeating this five times, taking care never to step into the field of view. (As an alternative, the two accomplices remain stationary, holding very long fishing poles with reels attached with which they can crank line in and out at up to 7 ft/sec.) The impossibility of such a scenario. It is not difficult to find several fatal problems with the above scheme. 1. In order that the wire hang like a catenary curve, it must be both flexible and rather heavy; a chain is the typical example. Yet, in order to not be visible in a movie while allowing a device to slide along it, the wire must be very thin and smooth, since it would not be very far away from the camera. These two requirements seem to be fatally opposed. If a sufficiently thin wire were to be practicable, however, the stiff breeze that was present, when gusting upon the model, would cause the whole catenary with its model UFO to sway towards and away from the camera. No such swaying occurred. 2. The movie indicates that the craft remained oriented parallel to its track. In order that a model UFO exhibit this behavior, it would have to be suspended from two hoops, one fore and one aft, not just one hoop at its top. Or else the strings attached to its rim would themselves need to be guided along the catenary wire. But then the model could not exhibit the pronounced fore-and-aft rocking motions observed, while rocking motions at right angles, which are not observed in the video, likely would occur. 3. In the above scenario the pole tip of the hoaxer's accomplice on the left would have to traverse to the right at the very same speed (or have its line reeled out at the exact same rate) as the speed at which the pole tip of the right-hand accomplice traverses to the right (or has its line reeled in), to allow the steady motion observed in the video. And vice versa when traversing back to the left, and consecutively six times in all. The impossibility of satisfying this requirement would show up as jerkiness in the motion of the UFO model, while the movie shows no such jerkiness in the craft's movements left to right and back. The next level of scenario that would stand a chance of succeeding would require constructing towers some 50 ft apart supporting a high catwalk from which a model UFO could be dangled and managed like a puppet on strings. It is no wonder that no supported claims of negative skeptics to have simulated this film segment have surfaced yet in 25 years. Highlight of the second reel. A little later in the evening, after taking more still shots with his 35mm camera and reloading his movie camera, Meier was again given the opportunity to turn the latter back on and let the craft maneuver into its field of view. Perhaps its most interesting feature is that during several approximately half-second periods the craft flashed one or two two lights of some kind on then off, in tandem. Two or three times, Meier was able to zoom in on the craft until it appeared two to three times larger. On one of these occasions a light flashed. Fig. 3a. Two bright lights flashed on Fig. 3b. Zoom-in on Fig. 3c. Zoom-in on briefly at this time. craft, light on. craft, light now off. Fig. 3. Portions of frames from the evening Hasenböl 8mm movie, from "The Meier Chronicles" video of Genesis III. The light beams seemed especially coherent to Stevens, who was one of those who watched the movie film itself while it was being projected onto a screen and video taped at Meier's residence in 1979. Although they occurred on the side of the craft that faced the western twilight, they were clearly no reflection of sunlight, being too intense. Also, by that time the sun had set far enough below the horizon that it does not seem to have directly illuminated the top of Mt. Aurüti, a neighboring hill to the south, and only high cirrus clouds remained partially illuminated by the pale golden and reddish hues of the twilight. Further, the craft was stationary in orientation as the two lights flashed on then off. Reports of UFOs emitting beams of light of varying kinds and appearances are not infrequent; a report of a recently occurring example of this may be read here. Motivation seems missing for an unknown hoaxer in 1976 to have gone to the effort and expense to have remote-control technology be built into a never-discovered model UFO of complicated design, complete with lamps, battery and circuitry, just to flash its lights briefly. ENDNOTE 1. An equation for a catenary that roughly approximates this curve is: y/L = 4.5[cosh(0.222 x/L) - 1] where the x,y origin is taken at the lowest, flattest point of the trajectory, x is positive horizontally towards the left, and y is positive upwards. L is the horizontal distance between the origin and the upper starting point of the curve. "cosh" stands for the hyperbolic cosine. Return to: Contents Event Report by Marcel Hirt in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), p. 320 translated by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 It was 14 years ago (in the summer of 1985) when I was able to experience a weekend sighting on my visit with Billy Meier in the Semjase-Silver-Star-Center in Hinterschmidrüti. The sun had already set a few hours before. I was on a walk in the area of the Center and enjoying the mild, warm evening, when I suddenly looked up at the sky and saw a large light flying just over the Center, from west to east at a height of about 7-8000 meters. It could not be an aircraft, for it was absolutely quiet and no motor noise was heard. In addition, the light from the object was not the same as the flashing from an aircraft. I was, on this evening, firmly convinced that my sighting involved a beamship, and I am of the same opinion today. WAS HIS NAME ORIGINALLY JESUS, OR IMMANUEL? James W. Deardorff December 1990 Revised May, 1998 Revised June, 2012, Nov. 2013 First, dispense with theological commitment The prophecy-was it fulfilled? Clues from New Testament evidence Clues from external evidence and the Gnostic Gospels What was this mysterious name? The smoking gun Who changed his name, and why? Could it really have happened? End notes FIRST, DISPENSE WITH THEOLOGICAL COMMITMENT This article was originally just a paper, entitled “Was his Name Really Jesus?” initiated in 1990. However, it has since been merging more closely into a web page associated with this web site’s research on the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ). The question of whether “Jesus” was the prophet and teacher’s original name, or whether it had been “Immanuel,” stems from the appearance of the TJ document in 1978, of which I became aware in 1986. To avoid any confusion, we shall at times use “J” here to refer to the person who became known as “Jesus.” A revised version in a more scholarly, pdf format is presented here. Although students of the TJ realize that it contains many subjects and issues of greater importance than the man’s original name, to New Testament (NT) scholars it would be quite shocking-even sensational-if they had to conclude that his name had not been Jesus but had originally been Immanuel (spelled “Jmmanuel” in the TJ document).1 The article below presents the facts, extrapolations and deductions without dwelling upon the sensationalism of this and other aspects. We do not intentionally wish to deter scholars. There are certain theological questions that demand careful consideration from a logical viewpoint, but which have not yet received this consideration because an unexpected answer would be theologically upsetting. As noted by E. P. Sanders, an essential task for biblical scholars to become engaged in is “the effort to free history and exegesis from the control of theology; that is, from being obligated to certain conclusions which are pre-determined by theological considerations.”2 The question posed in the title of this web page is one such issue. As a corollary, we may add that one’s studies should also be free from the control of any scholastic consensus that may have fallaciously evolved out of very early theological commitment. Although academic consensuses may generally be correct, here and there they are bound to be wrong as long as so many outstanding NT questions remain unresolved. It is therefore in the best interests of NT inquiry that some small fraction, at least, of its scholarly literature derive from sources free from the pressures of theological control or scholastic consensuses, whether the pressures are subtle or evident. The following study is offered in this spirit. There are several indications and clues that J’s name had been changed to “Jesus” from an original name of “Immanuel,” besides the emergence of the TJ. To piece them together into a coherent whole we must start with Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy and follow through until at least the time of Bishop Irenaeus near the end of the 2nd century CE. THE PROPHECY-WAS IT FULFILLED? Isaiah’s messianic prophecy. One dips back to the 8th century BCE to reach Isaiah’s time and his prophecy (Isa 7:14, RSV Bible): Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. This is the primary and most specific Old Testament prophecy for a messiah. “Immanuel” was to be his name, according to the text, not just a characterization he would later receive. However as the pre-Christian centuries passed, we find no record that anyone named Immanuel came along, until we read in the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus could be thought of as being Immanuel although he is said to have been given the name Jesus at birth (Mt 1:21- 25). Plainly, the writer of Matthew thought of Jesus as being the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, even though it was actually a failed prophecy if the child had not been named Immanuel at birth. However, the writer of Matthew made it clear that the reader should believe J had been named Jesus at birth, not Immanuel. We shall keep this strange contradiction in mind. Was “Immanuel” a name or a characterization? To replace the absence of scholarly questioning of this contradiction, there exists the inference that “Immanuel” was symbolic-a title or characterization, not an original name.3 This inference could carry some weight if the name or title “Immanuel” had been first bestowed upon J during or after his ministry. Then “Immanuel” could be called a characterization based upon J’s actions and teachings. However, if it had indeed been prophesied (as by Isaiah) that upon birth the special child, J, would be given the name Immanuel, then that would confirm it was intended to be a name, not a characterization supplied only later. Further support for the name interpretation comes from the Qumran Great Isaiah Scroll, dated to around 125 BCE- by far the oldest known copy of Isaiah. In it, “Immanuel” is written as a single separate Hebrew word, which indicates it was intended as a name, and not written as two words: “Immanu El” as if to express it by the title “with- us God.” The next most ancient text of Isaiah is the Masoretic text, which dates much later, to 826 CE. In it, “Immanuel” at Isa 7:14 is written as the two words “Immanu El.” The comparison is shown below: Above, Isaiah 7:14 from the Masoretic text, upper, and from the Isaiah Scroll, lower. Words were separated by gaps in the actual writings. From Jeff A. Benner video. Underlines have been added here to “Immanu El” and “Immanuel,” respectively, above. Above two lines from the actual Isaiah Dead Sea Scroll contain Isaiah 7:14. From Fred Miller. “Immanuel” underlined in red here, “name” in blue. Above, English transliteration of the two Hebrew lines containing 7:14 from the Dead Sea Scroll, by Fred Miller. The much older reading of the Scroll (above) is to be preferred. In the Isaiah Scroll, each of its three mentions of “Immanuel” (Isa 7:14, 8:8, 8:10) occurs as a single word, unlike in the Masoretic text where all three are as two words, “Immanu El.” The Hebrew writing system of separating words by spaces (or by dots or vertical lines) dates way back to Isaiah’s time. A single name was written as one word, while a title often contained two or more separate words. Thus, Isaiah’s intent that “Immanuel” would be the name of the prophesied child seems to have been maintained down through the centuries to at least 125 BCE. Early believers in J being Isaiah’s Immanuel. Besides the writer of Matthew having been one who believed J was the fulfillment of the Immanuel prophecy, there is a definite probability that before him Paul also had. In his epistles Paul very frequently refers to Old Testament passages. In particular, in Rom 15:12 he quotes Isa 11:10, saying, and further Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse shall come, he who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles hope.” Here the prophecy about the root of Jesse could well refer to the same person prophesied within the preceding four chapters of Isaiah, starting with Isa 7:14, namely Immanuel, since the Immanuel prophecy was addressed to the House of David, and not to King Ahaz.4 However, most scholars believe the prophecy was just a short-term one to be fulfilled in Isaiah’s own time, because succeeding verses in Isa 7-8 refer to prophecies known to have been fulfilled in the time of King Ahaz or Hezekiah, and supposedly in the time of the prophesied messianic child also.5 Yet the absence of anyone of importance named Immanuel then or in the succeeding six centuries leaves the short- range-prophecy hypothesis unconvincing. Now the fact that Paul knew of Isaiah’s messianic prophecies, but did not quote from Isa 7:14 about Immanuel nor even mention Immanuel in any epistle, might cause one to assume he thought as do many modern scholars, that the Immanuel prophecy applied only to the distant past, the 8th century BCE. The root-of-Jesse messiah (Isa 11:1) might then be thought of as applying to someone other than Immanuel in the indefinite future, as there is no mention of Immanuel in the rest of Isaiah. If so, however, how does one then account for later followers of Pauline Christianity, who were fully knowledgeable of Isaiah, believing that Immanuel was both the Messiah and the root of Jesse? Not only the writer of Matthew, but Justin Martyr and Irenaeus believed that Christ was the fulfillment of the Immanuel prophecy and was the same person as the root of Jesse in Isa 11:1,10.6 So can we assume that Paul didn’t believe likewise? This question will be answered later, along with our reason why the name “Immanuel” was used so sparingly before 200 CE. John the Baptist can probably also be included as one who, from oral tradition, accepted that J was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s long-range messianic prophecy. His question, “Are you he who is to come?” (Mt 11:3), indicates this, and J’s reply about his healings of the blind, the deaf, and the lame, evidently in fulfillment of Isa 35:5-6, indicates that Isaiah was the prophetic source in mind. And if J’s name had been Immanuel, John would certainly have been convinced! Our resolution of the short-term versus long-term problem. The present solution to this problem takes account of human nature as well as the above facts. It starts with Isaiah’s prophecies about Immanuel and how he would be glorified by gentiles (Galilee of the nations-Isa 9:1) and even regarded as Mighty God (Isa 9:6). And if Immanuel were also thought to be the “shoot from the stump of Jesse,” the gentiles would be seeking after him (Isa 11:1,10). We assume that Isaiah made these prophecies, and more, known to the people of his time, and thereafter they were passed on as oral tradition. On the negative side, certain priests and custodians of the sacred literature must be assumed then to have made alterations in Isaiah’s writings that would discredit any long-range Immanuel prophecies so that the gentiles would not be seen as receiving so much favor, and the God of Israel would not be eclipsed by a new Mighty God. The alterations accomplished this by insertions indicating that Immanuel had already come and gone in the 8th century BCE (in particular, Isa 7:15-16), while at the same time the essence of the oral tradition was upheld. The priests had little or no control over the oral tradition itself, and dared not simply wipe out its essence from Isaiah’s writings. These particular redactions were probably made in the late 7th century BCE, or soon after Isaiah’s death. This is not to imply that other redactions were not also made at this time and later. Thus the undesired prophecies associated with Immanuel, in Isa 7-11, would be of no concern to those who interpreted the Scriptures literally. The idea is not at all new that the Book of Isaiah contains many redactions.7 But it is understandable if most biblical scholars prefer to think that the Immanuel prophecy was just a short-range prediction, and ignore the above facts and arguments to the contrary; no mechanism that would explain a successful, explicit prophecy centuries into the future is known to science. CLUES FROM NEW TESTAMENT EVIDENCE We briefly return to the Gospel of Matthew and restate the primary clue coming from it. It is totally implausible that at birth J would have been given two names at once: Jesus and Immanuel. We may then ask why the compiler of Matthew would have inserted a verse instructing Joseph to name his stepson Jesus if, two verses later, he included an original passage (quoting Isaiah) saying that his name would be Immanuel. The most straightforward explanation is that this compiler was aware that J’s name had actually been Immanuel, but that that name had been supplanted by the name Jesus for many years or decades before he wrote Matthew, for reasons yet to be set forth. The reader must already be aware, however, that if internal evidence analyzed in this web site is taken into consideration, the writer of Matthew was utilizing the TJ in forming his gospel.8 He thus would obviously have known from the TJ that J’s name had once been “Immanuel,” written as “Jmmanuel” in his source. This provides the most obvious explanation of how the writer of Matthew was aware of this fact, if he had not already known it from suppressed traditions. However, we shall keep in mind the paradox that he at the same time insisted upon calling him “Jesus.” This conclusion can further be restated as follows. If J’s name had not been Immanuel within the source document for Matthew, there would have been no point in its writer bothering to try to make the case that J was the messiah prophesied by Isaiah. That is, anyone could claim that some person had been born of a maiden or virgin-that in itself would carry no evidential weight. Only if the person had also been correctly named Immanuel, as foretold, could the birth of a baby boy so named have gained attention. Yet, if J’s name had been known as “Jesus” for some decades before Matthew was writtern,9 as found here, its compiler would have felt obliged to alter J’s name from Immanuel in his source to Jesus in his gospel. There is a minor clue that is consistent with the writer of Matthew having tampered with his source document concerning J’s name. Mt 1:25b states that J was given the name Jesus at birth. We note that 1:25a contains information the compiler could not have had any access to, namely that Joseph did not “know” Mary until after J’s birth. This would have been private information unavailable to anyone besides Joseph and Mary. The verse furthermore continues the theme of Joseph’s righteousness, which NT scholar Charles Davis found to be excessive and therefore inauthentic within Mt 1:19.10 With 1:25a being a redaction, we must suspect its connected clause, 1:25b, to be inauthentic also, especially since it belabors the point that J’s name had been designated “Jesus” after this was already indicated in Mt 1:16, 1:18 and 1:21. Two epistles shed light on the matter. Phil 2:8-9 states: And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name It need not be thought that Paul was careless here and let slip the information that after the crucifixion there had been a name change (havingf a most glorious name bestowed upon him then). At that time, in the early 50s, everyone knew that the man's name was Immanuel and that Paul was insisting he be called Jesus the Christ instead. The name "Immanuel" was no longer to be mentioned because this was the name that Immanuel's supporters, Pauls' key opponents,was still promoting. Similarly, Heb 1:3-4 mentions the same occurrence: ...When he (God’s Son) had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent than theirs. Again, at some stage J is said to have obtained a really excellent name. That name must of course be the orthodox one “Jesus Christ,” whereas before the crucifixion it is indicated to have been something different-could it have been “Immanuel”? Although it might be argued that going from “Jesus” to “Jesus Christ” was the intended name change here, that seems unlikely, as “Christ” is just a title added to the same name. Moreover, in the Gospel of Matthew “Christ” is referred to some 14 times before the crucifixion, in a contemporary sense indicating that the qualifier “Christ” was to be considered part of his title at all stages of his life, not just after he emerged from the tomb. Clement of Rome, in 1 Clement 36, quotes Heb 1:4, in his epistle to the Corinthians which extolls the glory and name of Jesus. It is not too surprising that a few traces of the name change were left behind, unnoticed, within the canonical books of the NT. We should expect more to hasve survived within non-canonical writings that managed to survive. CLUES FROM EXTERNAL EVIDENCE AND THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS In the writing of Justin Martyr,11 he says this: So also in Zechariah, Christ Jesus, the true High Priest of the Father, in the person of Joshua, nay, in the very mystery of His name, is portrayed in a twofold dress with reference to both His advents. At first He is clad in sordid garments, that is to say, in the lowliness of suffering and mortal flesh: then the devil resisted Him, as the instigator of the traitor Judas, not to mention his tempting Him after His baptism: afterwards He was stripped of His first filthy raiment, and adorned with the priestly robe and mitre, and a pure diadem. So why was there a mystery in his name? Was it a mystery that he was supplied with the same name as Joshua of the Old Testament? Or did some tradition persist to at least mid-2nd century that his name had originally been something different (i.e. Immanuel), which name for some “mysterious” reason was not supposed to be uttered? Was he stripped of his earlier not-to-be-spoken name (Immanuel), which was to be shunned like a filthy, sordid garment, and then adorned with the post-crucifixion name “Jesus Christ”? There are several gnostic writings that also support this name-change hypothesis. One is verse 9.5 from the Ascension of Isaiah (150-200 CE) : ...and he who gave permission [for Isaiah to ascend to the seventh heaven] is thy Lord, God, the Lord Christ, who will be called Jesus on earth, but his name thou canst not hear till thou hast ascended out of thy body. Similarly relevant from Act 13.163 of the Acts of Thomas (200-225 CE) is: And Misdaus said [to Judas-Thomas]: “What is his [your master’s] name?” Judas said: “Thou canst not hear his true name at this time... but the name which was bestowed upon him for a season is Jesus, the Christ.” Another is found in the Gospel of Philip, 10-11 (150-300 CE), Wesley Isenberg’s translation: Names given to the worldly are very deceptive, for they divert our thoughts from what is correct to what is incorrect… One single name is not uttered in the world, the name which the father gave to the son; it is the name above all things: the name of the father. For the son would not become father unless he wore the name of the father. Those who have this name know it, but they do not speak it. But those who do not have it do not know it. The most important enigmatic portion, “the name which the father gave to the son, it is…the name of the father,” has an easy interpretation here. The father is “God,” and “Immanuel” being “God with us” is basically the same, namely El or God. Hence the father gave the son the essence of his own name: Immanuel, which was not to be uttered. The penultimate sentence above makes sense if “Those who have this name” is interpreted as “Those who are aware of this name,” which is Immanuel. The last sentence makes sense if it has an extended meaning of: “those who are not aware of this name never heard of it because it has not been uttered for such a long time.” Hence there is some external evidence, previously unexplained, of “Jesus Christ” having had a different name that was not supposed to be uttered, of this name suppression extending even into the 3rd century, and, enigmatically, of this name being Immanuel. WHAT WAS THIS MYSTERIOUS NAME? THE SMOKING GUN Let us now look into the Testament of Solomon, with thanks to RJ of the University of California for bringing it to my attention as well as the Gospel of Philip verses. As noted in this webpage, its “text is an Old Testament Pseudepigraphic catalog of demons summoned by King Solomon, and how they can be countered by invoking angels and other magical techniques. It is one of the oldest magical texts attributed to King Solomon, dating First to Third Century A.D. Translation is by F. C. Conybeare.” What is known about its provenance and historical background may be found here.12 The story or novella contains no christology. The first of three revealing passages is: 29. I [Solomon] said to him [a demon called Ephippas]: “Tell me by what angel thou art frustrated.” And he answered: “By the holy and precious name of the Almighty God, called by the Hebrews by a row of numbers, of which the sum is 644, and among the Greeks it is Emmanuel.” We shall soon discuss this disclosure of “Emmanuel.” For now we just notice that only in Greek do the number designations of the letters in “Emmanuel” sum to 644, as noted by the translator.13 52. So I [Solomon] said to him [another demon]: “I adjure thee in the name of the God Sabaoth, to tell me by what name thou art frustrated along with thy host.” And the spirit answered me: “The ‘great among men,’ who is to suffer many things at the hands of men, whose name is the figure 644, which is Emmanuel; he it is who has bound us, and who will then come and plunge us from the steep under water. He is noised abroad in the three letters which bring him down.” Even if the name weren’t spelled out, it is evident that the “great among men” is Emmanuel alias Jesus, who was to suffer from scourging and crucifixion, and who at Gadara had sent the demons into the swine, which then plunged down the steep and drowned in the sea (Mt 8:32). The name-number designation in this case can also be expressed by chi+mu+delta (600 + 40 + 4) or χμδ, the three letters to be called upon to bring Emmanuel down from heaven. A little further into the story, we find this: 65. “... And then we [demons] shall go forth in great power hither and thither, and be disseminated all over the world. And we shall lead astray the inhabited world for a long season, until the Son of God is stretched upon the cross. For never before doth arise a king like unto him, one frustrating us all, whose mother shall not have contact with man. Who else can receive such authority over spirits, except he, whom the first devil will seek to tempt, but will not prevail over? The number of his name is 644, which is Emmanuel. Wherefore, O King Solomon, thy time is evil, and thy years short and evil, and to thy servant shall thy kingdom be given.” 66. And I Solomon, having heard this, glorified God. And though I marvelled at the apology of the demons, I did not credit it until it came true. And I did not believe their words; but when they were realized, then I understood, and at my death I wrote this Testament to the children of Israel, and gave it to them, so that they might know the powers of the demons and their shapes, and the names of their angels, by which these angels are frustrated. And I glorified the Lord God of Israel, and commanded the spirits to be bound with bonds indissoluble. Again it is apparent who this great frustrator of the demons is. But except for his name having been immediately expressed, his true name of Emmanuel would remain a mystery unless one could figure out whose name would contain the proper choices and number of Greek letters whose numeric values sum exactly to 644. After some thought, it should become evident that a primary intention of the author of this story was to extol J while keeping his actual, mysterious name a secret to be deduced only by those most knowledgeable and who could accept the fact. To achieve this goal, he needed to avoid mention of the name, so that his story could survive purging by the custodians of the literature, while at the same time convey the name in some secret form, which a demon might be thought to employ. This means that the “which is Emmanuel” type clauses were inserted by some later redactor who wished to eliminate the secret. Otherwise, if it had been the author himself who had supplied the “Emmanuel” identifications, there would have been no reason at all for his having first expressed the name enigmatically as 644. No reason at all. It was probably at some much later time, after the tradition of “Emmanuel” being taboo was practically forgotten, that this redactor defused the mystery in the name by exposing it directly in no uncertain terms.14 In his first addition into Sec.29 above, however, this redactor seems to have erred a bit, when altering a sentence whose sense had been, “...called by the Hebrews by a row of numbers, of which the sum is 644 among the Greeks,” into the one translated as, “...called by the Hebrews by a row of numbers, of which the sum is 644, and among the Greeks it is Emmanuel.” The Hebrew alphabet has its own letter-number designations, in which the numeric total for “Immanuel,” i.e. לאןנמע, is quite different. We date the story to some time between about 125-250 CE,15 while the particular redactor involved may not have made his brief additions until years, decades or even centuries later. In summary, the redactor’s method of rendering harmless the old taboo against the name Immanuel came at a price: Illogic crept in, which all but confirms that a long-lasting taboo against the name had once existed. WHO CHANGED HIS NAME, AND WHY? It should be evident that there is no candidate other than Paul to have supplied the new name for Immanuel. Paul’s primary role in shaping or forming Christianity is well known.16 That Paul was the first to expound early Christian theology on “being saved” through the sacrifice of God’s Son is also evident.17 His background as a Pharisee (Phil 3:4-5, Acts 23:6, 26:5) and an assiduous student of Judaism (Gal 1:13-14) indicates he would have been acquainted with the concept of offering human sacrifice in hopes of deliverance (2 Kgs 3:27). Thus he would have had the motivation to change Immanuel’s name to “Jesus” (or Joshua or Yeshua/Yahushua with meaning “Yahweh/God saves”) in support of his theology. Since Paul changed his own name from Saul to Paul, we know that he was not averse to altering a name. The name Joshua or its Greek equivalent of Jesus was of course already well known to Paul, and though it was not a rare name, through frequent attachment of the suffix “Christ” or prefix “Lord,” Paul could ensure that the intended man was understood. Renaming him from Immanuel to Jesus would link his name to the more contemporary expression for the Divine Name: Yahweh (LORD), which name came to predominate over El or Elohim (God) in the biblical tradition.18 From Exodus 6:2-3 one sees an example of the name Yahweh taking over from El, and similarly in Jer 32:38. Hence this consideration may have contributed to Paul’s renaming of Immanuel to “Yeshua the Messiah” or “Jesus the Christ.” However, a prime motivation for Paul to have altered Immanuel’s name quickly comes to mind. After Saul’s conversion, there should be no doubt that he would have wished to minimize in his thoughts the name of the man he must have hated with a passion in order to have been the arch persecutor of Immanuel and his disciples.19 Thus in speaking or writing of “Jesus,” or “Jesus Christ,” Paul would have a new image to dwell upon, not his previous image of the detested Immanuel. In propagating his message of forgiveness of sins through faith in a resurrected Jesus Christ, Paul would then speak only of Jesus, and avoid mention of Immanuel if possible. Consistent with this is Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor 12:7), which detailed study has suggested may refer to an “opponent” or “opponents” rather than to any physical ailment.20 The chief opponent would then have been Immanuel himself. By altering Immanuel’s name to “Jesus the Christ,” the post-conversion Paul could more readily keep this “thorn” from piercing into his memory every time he prayed to his Savior. Thus the salvation aspect of the name “Jesus” would well suit Paul’s need to pray for forgiveness for his terrible past sins of persecution. This, then, can go a long way toward explaining why Paul, in referring to Isaiah in his epistles, never mentioned “Immanuel” or Isaiah’s prophecy of Immanuel, though in mentioning the root of Jesse as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, he came close. However, still another reason exists to help explain not only this, but why, for nearly a century after Paul’s evangelizing, the name Immanuel and Isaiah’s prophecy of him were taboo topics. The supporters of Immanuel had to be silenced, which meant silencing the name they venerated. COULD IT REALLY HAVE HAPPENED? Opponents to the change in name and message. Surely strong opposition to the name change must have been encountered from most of those who had known Immanuel, including from some of the disciples, especially Peter.21 By what argumentation could Paul have convinced others to listen to him and not to his opponents such as Peter? We must first look into this question in some detail, and from a realistic viewpoint. After the crucifixion, Immanuel had most certainly revealed himself to his brother James (Paul acknowledges this: 1 Cor 15:7) and other family members, as well as to his disciples. They must have been pretty well convinced that he was alive as before and not in a strange resurrected state as Paul and the Gospel writers would later insist.22 They accepted, at least tentatively, what they had seen with their own eyes: Immanuel had miraculously survived the crucifixion. Hence, for persons closest to him, Immanuel was still the same prophet, healer and wisdom teacher they had known the previous year or more, who had somehow survived.23 They were the Immanuel believers, or Immanuelites as we shall call them.24 But according to the TJ, they had been warned by Immanuel to keep his survival a secret, which they probably did to varying degrees for only a few years at most. Obviously Immanuel would not have wanted news of his survival to leak too soon to the Jewish clergy or Roman authorities, lest they believe it, and then have him be sought out and brought back to Jerusalem to undergo a second crucifixion, which would be fatal. At first when some of the disciples and James did eventually speak out, we suspect that few would believe them. All others who had heard of Immanuel “knew” that he had died, except for a growing minority of doubters who became aware of the spreading rumor of his appearances or survival. These open-minded ones began to meet together in small groups, initiating the earliest churches. By the time Paul appeared on the scene in the late 40s, and for years afterwards, these people had to choose between the Immanuelites’ views and Paul’s gospel of a resurrected Jesus Christ. Paul’s powers of persuasion evidently enabled him to lay the groundwork for his oral gospel eventually to win out, but one must speculate a bit on just what argumentation he used in promoting his gospel. This much is certain: In the course of his travels Paul needed to marginalize the Immanuelites- they were among those who were preaching “a different gospel” (Gal 1:6-9), which must have emphasized their awareness that Immanuel had survived the crucifixion, and had never wanted to be worshipped or treated as divine. If accepted, their views would destroy Paul’s own gospel, which demanded that J had died on the cross (1 Cor 15:3-4), and had subsequently been raised in a resurrected state (1 Cor 15:4-19) as the Son of God. So it was imperative to Paul that he work on this goal of suppressing the Immanuelites as well as the goal of proselytizing the gentiles. As already implied, Immanuel’s brother James of Jerusalem must have been one of the Immanuelites.25 When Paul was in Antioch he accused Peter along with other Jews of acting insincerely and being “not straightforward about the truth of the gospel” (Gal 2:11-14). This occurred when certain men from James-from his church in Jerusalem- arrived in Antioch, whereupon Peter withdrew from the presence of Paul and apparently joined the men from James as well as joining with other Jews present there in Antioch. So Paul accused the latter and Peter of insincerity and of not following his own gospel. This interpretation is consistent with Peter having shared the views of the Immanuelites with the other Jews present, though it may be clouded by the issue of circumcision, which intervenes in an ambiguous manner.26 The realization that both Peter and James, the half-brother of Immanuel, were Immanuelites allows us to make better sense of another ambiguous passage in Galatians (1:18-20; 2:1): Then after three years [after the crucifixion] I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother. (In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!).... Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas... The most prevalent explanation for Paul’s parenthetical sentence is that he wanted it known that his gospel of Jesus Christ came straight from God, not from “flesh and blood” (Gal 1:16b); therefore he did not confer with the other apostles. Here, however, we suspect that James was the most outspoken of the Immanuelites, having probably spent the most time with Immanuel (who must have remained incognito, hidden or veiled following the crucifixion until eventually traveling east). During the preceding fourteen years some of the Galatians would have heard of Immanuel’s survival from James or others, as well as hearing of Paul and his gospel message. They would know that besides Peter, James especially was an opponent of Paul. Hence they would be surprised to learn that Paul had visited his principal opponents-to-be extensively; and he really had! He was not just making it up, but had actually challenged them. It makes no sense to reason that Paul’s “I do not lie!” remark was meant to emphasize he did not confer with the apostles when he admitted he did confer with the primary two apostles who were “pillars” of the church. And it would make little sense to suppose that Paul was concerned that his having conferred with them might be regarded as a contradiction to his earlier remark of not having conferred with flesh and blood (Gal 1:16b-17), since that remark applied only to the relatively short period of time after his conversion when he went to Arabia then Damascus before going to Jerusalem. Without usually pointing out James and other Immanuelites by name, in his proselytizing Paul could nevertheless denounce them as mistaken, silly or confused, and even accursed (Gal 1:6-9). If Immanuel had survived, where was he? Why can’t we meet with him? And a resurrected person should be spending most of his time with God the Father, it could be argued, and only occasionally make an appearance of his own choosing in the physical world, like what had seemed to happen.27 Also, the popular belief that Immanuel had indeed died was strong.28 Moreover, around 62 CE James was executed by stoning according to Josephus,29 quite likely because the brash new chief priest, Ananus the Younger, was a Sadducee who, along with his father, could not have liked the claim promulgated that Immanuel had survived the crucifixion and foiled the desires of the Sanhedrin 30 years previously. James’s execution must then have had a chilling effect upon the Immanuelites. So as the number of gentile converts grew, the Immanuelites became a smaller and smaller minority within the churches. They gradually dared less and less often to speak out their “silly” views on Immanuel’s survival-it just generated unnecessary dissension within the churches as well as being personally dangerous. Paul’s tireless evangelizing and persuasive letter writing had laid too strong a groundwork for the Immanuelites to overcome. We realize that much has previously been postulated about Paul’s opponents.30 Although such studies have been helpful in many respects, they are basically flawed in two ways: (a) none consider the possibility that J survived the crucifixion, which sheds a whole new light on the situation,31 and (b) none are aware that his name had been Immanuel, which name, as we shall see, had to be avoided or silenced for a long time after Paul’s views prevailed. Because of (a) it was not realized that James and Peter themselves, and the disciple John at least, were Gnostics of a kind, and not Jewish Christians.32 Because of (b) it was not realized why there has been no surviving written response by some Gnostic opposing Paul. The present solution allows that Paul had opponents on two fronts: the Immanuelites, and the Jewish Christians whose most radical element were Judaizers. Of these two, the Immanuelites must have been by far the most serious threat, as their gospel could destroy Paul’s gospel, while Paul neither advocated circumcision nor uncircumcision (Gal 6:15). Paul could easily discuss problems with circumcision and the Law, but could not specifically discuss the gnostic Immanuelites lest he draw attention to their cause. “Jesus” displaces “Immanuel” in earliest Christianity. Occasional writings that debated whether or not Immanuel had died, and which either supported the Immanuelites or supported Paul and his gospel, must have cropped up from the 40s on for several decades. It took a half century before Paul’s views fully won out over the Immanuelites, as gauged by the first appearance around 95 CE (1 Clement) of a christological writing that (repeatedly) mentioned Jesus, while of course not mentioning Immanuel. And as mentioned earlier, 1 Clement did quote from the name- change verse of Heb 1:4, as if to justify the repeated use of "Jesus" and the total taboo against the name "Immanuel." Some 15 years later Ignatius of Antioch similarly used the "Jesus" christology despite the existence of lingering "evil" heretics who apparently still disputed the name "Jesus." This is suggested in Chap. 7 of his Epistle to the Ephesians: For some are wont of malicious guile to hawk about the Name, while they do certain other things unworthy of God. These men ye ought to shun, as wild beasts; for they are mad dogs, biting by stealth; against whom ye ought to be on your guard, for they are hard to heal. [Thanslation by J.B. Lightfoot] This chronology presumes that the first Gospel did not appear until still later, about 120 CE,33 after which time various verses from (Hebraic) Matthew were frequently alluded to, or quoted, by later Christians. During all this time and even later, the voices of the Immanuelites had to be silenced, along with the name of the man they venerated. Otherwise Pauline Christianity itself could not have survived. Hence, sufficient time elapsed, between about 95 and 120 CE, for the name “Jesus” to become well established for use within early Christianity and the Gospels. However, well before this time the tradition would have spread within the churches that the name “Immanuel” was to be avoided, and any former or contemporary literature containing it was to be totally destroyed. Acceptance of Paul’s gospel, and the emerging Christianity, required nothing less. The four lost epistles of Paul may have been victims of this purging, had they contained too many mentions of Immanuel or his followers to edit out. As noted by Ehrman, “One of our greatest losses is a written response from one of them [Paul’s opponents]. But if any such reply was made, it has disappeared forever.”34 The Immanuelites had never been strong enough or cohesive enough to form an organization that could preserve any writings originating from among their supporters. Although there were various early “ordinary” Gnostics who shared some views with the Immanuelites, their writings did not fare much better. We know no other scenario that can explain the dearth of 1st-century writings about Jesus (or Immanuel), outside of Paul’s epistles. This consequent scarcity of such writings about Jesus eventually led to the spawning of the hypothesis that Jesus did not exist, which presently is almost a respectable scholastic subject.35 But, one may ask,was there no other way that those who still remembered that his name had been Immanuel, not Jesus, and who valued truth, could express this view in writing without it being subject to destruction or suppression if the name "Immanuel" were mentioned? There does seem to have been one way, but a devious way. In their writings, they could avoid mention of the name "Jesus" to signify it wasn't the man's real name, and perhaps also in retaliation for being forced to avoid mention of "Immanuel." Bishop Papias (~130 C.E.) may have been the one to initiate this practice for the non-orthodox. Instead of using "Jesus" he called him anything else respectful, namely "Savior," "Lord," "the Son" and "Christ." Others could then follow suit, especially Gnostics and other writers of apocrypha who knew the true oral tradition. Some 44 2nd- and 3rd-century writings have been identified in which this practice appears to have been followed.35.5 The taboo against mention of “Immanuel” was briefly lifted by Justin Martyr around 145 CE,36 in the same manner as it had been in the Gospel of Matthew. Had there been no such taboo, we would expect that early Christian writings would have proliferated in the latter half of the 1st century and throughout the second, celebrating the fact that Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy had been fulfilled. Although Justin twice quoted from Isa 7:14 and thereby mentioned “Immanuel,” he said nothing about why the “Immanuel” part of the quotation should be considered to have been fulfilled in the figure of “Jesus.” Instead, he more safely argued why the “born of a virgin” (not “young woman”) phrase was fulfilled in Jesus. The Matthean contradiction regarding the Messiah’s name was not addressed. The mention of "Immanuel" through reference to Isaiah's Immanuel prophecy became the one rare exception to the taboo against its mention-if necessary, with its meaning of “with-us God,” it could be illogically argued that Isaiah's messianic prophecy had been fulfilled upon regarding Jesus as God. Another forty years passed before “Immanuel” again appeared in the literature, this time through Irenaeus.37 In his section III.21.4 he spent more space on vindicating the belief that Christ was the fulfillment of Isa 7:14 than did Justin, but appears to have followed Justin’s lead in dwelling almost entirely upon its “virgin” aspect and not the “Immanuel” versus “Jesus” contradiction. The closest Irenaeus comes to connecting the Emmanuel prophecy with the name “Jesus” appears to be in inferring from the name “Emmanuel” that J was God, and from there inferring that J could save men from their sins, and then leaving it to the reader to further infer that his name could thus be “Yeshua” or “Jesus” as well as Emmanuel. Hence Irenaeus did not resolve the Matthean contradiction either. In fact he strengthened it by speaking of “Emmanuel born of the virgin,” and by three times speaking of Emmanuel as a name (in III.21.4), not a characterization or title. It would appear that by about mid-3rd century virtually all traces and memories of Jesus having originally been Emmanuel by name had been lost or wiped out within early Christianity. Some time around 230-250 Origen wrote his homilies, some of which were about Isaiah and one being on Isa 7:14. From what we know of this homily, as stemming from Eusebius over a half century later, different interpretations of the meaning of the prophecy were set forth and debated just as done today,38 with no suggestion that J's name might have been Emmanuel from the start. However, we cannot be certain that in his extensive library Eusebius didn't possess writings still extant that addressed some aspect of the coverup, which he would not have chosen to reveal or perpetuate. The Jewish taboo against “Immanuel.” The Jewish clergy appears to have independently aided early Christianity in this endeavor to alter history. From the crucifixion on, they would not have wished the utterly blasphemous teachings of Immanuel to be remembered or spread,39 and would detest that name at least as much as Paul had. They would also have been reluctant toward writing down anything about “Jesus” for many decades following the crucifixion, knowing that “Jesus” had not been his name and did not represent any savior figure that they would ever worship. As a result, along with the lack of acceptance of Immanuel as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s messianic prophecy by Pharisees, Sadducees, and Jewish clergy, the latter would have still less to say about Immanuel than about Jesus. They did not even leave writings behind that would indicate they had pondered or debated the possibility of fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Even as late as the 4th century CE there is no known Jewish mention of Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy. However, from the Talmudic Tractate Pesachim 54a, which probably dates to the Mishnah and its early 3rd-century oral tradition, there is this much: Seven things were created before the world was created, and these are they: The Torah, repentance, the Garden of Eden, Gehenna, the Throne of Glory, the Temple, and the name of the messiah... The name of the messiah, as it is written, His name shall endure forever, and has existed before the sun! Despite the importance of this Messiah, his name is kept secret. Later, in the Jerusalem or Babylonian Talmud (4th century and later), there is much discussion of over a dozen names of various messiahs, none of them being Immanuel. Thus any mention of “Immanuel” was avoided, and within Judaism the name has been lost in the crowd. Still later with the appearance of the Masoretic text of Isaiah, we see that its writing of the messiah as “Immanu El” or “with-us God” each of the three times rather than as the one-word name “Immanuel” each time (as in the Isaiah Dead Sea Scroll) is consistent with the Immanuel taboo having been initiated in mid-1st century and persisting for centuries within Judaism. In addition to the Jewish clergy’s avoidance of the name “Immanuel,” it probably took a couple centuries longer than it should have before they utilized the word “talmud,” due to its occurrence in the Talmud of Jmmanuel title.40 When the TJ first appeared on the scene circa 115 CE it probably became known to a select few Jewish clergy in the course of its initial limited circulation and subsequent use by the writer of Matthew, plus peripheral use by the writers of Luke and John. Thus a certain few knew of its devastating heresies that would require its subsequent destruction. Thereby a double taboo against mention of the Talmud of Immanuel became entrenched within Mishnaic and early Talmudic Judaism as well as within early Christianity, due to the TJ’s heretical contents and forbidden name “Immanuel” both. Precedents. There is an Old Testament precedent for a name change of this nature-one for which the changed name is mentioned 220 times. The reference is to Joshua, who had originally been given the name “Hoshea” until renamed “Joshua” by Moses or by the writer of this portion of the Old Testament: see Num 13:16. Except for this verse, we would not know that the name change had been effected. The new name was apparently bestowed upon Hoshea, son of Nun, to honor him for his role in the decisive victory over Amalek’s people (Ex 17:8-15). It signified that Joshua’s leadership had saved the Jews through the help provided by Yahweh’s magic rod. The best known precedent for purposeful Christian concealment of undesired information and literature is probably represented by the Gnostic Gospels.41 During the second century some of the gnostic writers evidently learned that if their writings were to stand a chance of surviving, they needed to avoid mention of the name Immanuel. A precedent for a Jewish tendency to wipe out undesired names from their holy writings occurs in 1 Enoch, Chap. 105: 21Another book, which Enoch wrote for his son Mathusala, and for those who should come after him, and preserve their purity of conduct in the latter days. You, who have laboured, shall wait in those days, until the evil doers be consumed, and the power of the guilty be annihilated. Wait, until sin pass away; for their names shall be blotted out of the holy books; their seed shall be destroyed, and their spirits slain. They shall cry out and lament in the invisible waste, and in the bottomless fire shall they burn. In conclusion, the centuries-old cover-up of “Immanuel” as having been J’s original name was sufficiently successful that few scholars even have any intimation of it. Fortunately, however, ample clues have been left behind to allow the truth to emerge if theological commitment and uncritical professional commitment are set aside. END NOTES 1. In this spelling the symbol “J” is said to represent the “i,” “j,” and “y” sounds within an old language of the extraterrestrials who have been contacting “Billy” Eduard Meier since 1975, and who had earlier, in 1963, prompted him and a Palestinian friend into discovering the TJ document in Jerusalem. The spelling “Immanuel” stemming from the Hebrew is usually used herein for the prophet’s name, as the “Jmmanuel” version came later. However, sometimes the “Emmanuel” spelling is used when quoting from a Greek source translated into English. 2. E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 333-334. This also means one should not allow fear of offending theologically committed colleagues, editors or book publishers deter one from exposing apparent truths. 3. E.g., see John Walvoord, Jesus Christ Our Lord (Chicago: Moody Press, 1969), p. 88; Kermit Zarley, The Restitution of Jesus Christ (ebook: http://servetustheevangelical.com/buy_the_book_8.html, 2008), p. 263; Alfred Eldersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the messiah (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1953), p. 587. For online material see the article by Gregory S. Neal, or in Wikipedia. 4. As stated by Edward E. Hindson, “Isaiah’s Immanuel,” Faculty Publications and Presentations, (Grace Journal). Paper 147 (Lynchburg, VA: Liberty University, 1969) p.6: It is also important to notice that the sign is directed to “you” (plural) and is not evidently directed to Ahaz who rejected the first offer. In v. 13, Isaiah had said: “Hear ye now, O house of David” and it is apparent that the plural “you” in v. 14, is to be connected to its antecedent “ye” in v. 13. Since the context tells us that the dynasty of David is what is at stake in the impending invasion, it would seem proper to interpret the plural “you” as the “house of David” which is the recipient of the sign. This being true, then, all objections to the relevancy of a messianic prediction to Ahaz’s contemporary situation are nullified. The prophet did not direct the sign merely to Ahaz and therefore, a strictly messianic interpretation of the sign is not out of the question. 5. See John Witmer, Immanuel: Jesus Christ, Cornerstone of Our Faith (Nashville, TN: Word Pub., 1998), p. 33; or Herbert M. Wolf, “A solution to the Immanuel prophecy in Isaiah 7:14-8:20,” J. Bibl. Lit. 91 (1972), pp. 449-456. Or see the online study by Allen Ross. According to Isa 7:16-17, before the Immanuel child had reached an age where he could choose good from evil, the two kings of Ephraim (Israel) and Syria, which were enemies of Judah under King Ahaz, would be destroyed and/or their lands devastated (there are several different interpretations). The two kings were indeed slain, circa 733 BCE. 6. For Justin on the “root of Jesse,” see Dialogue with Trypho, Chaps. 86-87, and on Immanuel, see Chaps. 43,66. For Irenaeus on the “root of Jesse,” see Adv. Haer. III.9.3, and on Immanuel, see III 9.2,19.1,20.3, and 21.4. 7. See, e.g., Gary V. Smith, The New American Commentary: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture, Isaiah 1-39 (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing Group, 2007). 8. An extensive analysis showing that Matthew was derived from the Talmud of Immanuel (TJ) is presented here. Some 75 instances that reveal Markan awareness of Matthew are shown here, and some 58 examples of Markan improvements and reverential upgradings of Matthew are shown here. Refutations of the argumentation given by 11 scholars who place Mark ahead of (a Hebraic) Matthew are given here. Regarding the name Immanuel, its preferred interpretation according to the TJ (1:87, 2nd and later editions), is “the one with godly knowledge.” However, this is a more than literal translation: “knowledge” is inferred, and “god” refers to “the ruler of those who traveled from afar,” who centuries previously had conveyed the Immanuel prophecy to Isaiah. Similarly, the name “Jesus” (or “YHWH is a saving cry” or “God saves”) is interpreted as meaning considerably more (“God saves us from our sins”) than its literal name implies. 9. Moreover, as will be indicated later, a strong taboo against calling J by the name “Immanuel” had been in place for several decades before Matthew was written. 10. Charles Thomas Davis, “Tradition and redaction in Matthew 1:18-2:23,” JBL 90 (1971), pp. 404-424; see pp. 412-13. 11. Justin, “Treatise against Marcion” in Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., Bk 3, Chap. 7. 12. Sarah Iles Johnston, “The Testament of Solomon from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance,” in J. Bremmer and J. Veenstra (eds.), The Metamorphosis of Magic (Leuven, Belgium: Leuven, 2003), pp. 35-50. Its original is believed to have been written in Koine Greek. 13. Emmanuel = Εμμανουηλ = 5+40+40+1+50+70+400+8+30 = 644. 14. Otherwise, if the "Immanuel" identity had been exposed at a significantly earlier date, the revealing document would not likely have survived. 15. It must have appeared after the Gospel of Matthew’s date (and that of the other synoptic gospels) because we regard the temptation story (Mt 4:1-11) as a redaction; otherwise the other descriptive summaries could have derived earlier from oral tradition. 16. See Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (Boston: Beacon Press, 1943), pp. 440-442, 513-524, 581-582; and H. Conzelmann, “Current problems in Pauline research,” Interpretation 22 (1968), p. 172. 17. See Rom 5:6-10,15 & 14:15; 1 Cor 8:11 & 15:3; 2 Cor 5:14; Gal 1:4; and Col 1:14. 18. David Leeming, The Oxford Companion to World Mythology (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005) p. 118. 19. From the New Testament we do not know for sure if Saul had confronted J before the crucifixion. But from 1 Cor 9:1 it seems he had: “Have I not seen Jesus our lord?” Although in 1 Cor 15:8 Paul wrote: “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me,” it is clear he was speaking there of J’s appearances after the crucifixion; during his Road-to-Damascus confrontation he had not seen J, having been blinded by the light. Hence if he had seen J it was before or during the crucifixion. And if 1 Tim 1:12 can be trusted: “I formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted him,” Saul had indeed confronted Immanuel before the crucifixion. The TJ (26:30-45) agrees. This would well explain how Saul quickly recognized and accepted that it was Immanuel’s voice that was accosting him on the Road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-9). It allows us to understand that he must have disagreed with most of Immanuel’s teachings, thereby explaining why Peter and James, among others, would in turn be opponents to Paul’s gospel. The fact that Paul’s Epistles refer relatively little to J’s teachings is also consistent with this reconstruction. Also consistent is Paul’s failure to have more clearly admitted his contact with J prior to the crucifixion-this most shameful persecution mode of Paul’s life was just too disgraceful to describe. His failure to have described his Road-to-Damascus event could be due to not desiring to open the possibility in people’s minds that it had been a covert confrontation at night by his enemy who had survived the crucifixion (see TJ 33:1-29). 20. See Terrence Y. Mullins, “Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh,” JBL 56 (1957), pp. 299-303; and Jerry W. McCant, “Paul’s thorn of rejected apostleship,” NTS 34 (1988), pp. 550-572. 21. From Gal 2:9-14 we know that there was dissension between Paul and Peter, and in addition from 1 Cor 1:11-13, where some were saying they “belong to Cephas [Peter]” or to some other leader. Hence Peter seems to have been one of those who was preaching “a different gospel” (Gal 1:6-9). In saying that another man was building upon Paul's foundation, 1 Cor 3:10 probably refers to Peter. Also, we notice from Acts 12:12 that Peter was a close friend of John Mark, and that John Mark had had a falling out with Paul (Acts 13:13, 15:37-39). From Clement of Alexandria we know that at some stage Peter went to Rome, along with (John) Mark who served as his interpreter (see Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. 2.15.1-2; we know this also from Bishop Papias via Bishop Eusebius). Rom 15:18-24 is consistent with Paul having avoided Rome while Peter and (John) Mark were most active there. It appears that the writer of Luke-Acts reveals his preference for Paul over Peter at this point, as he loses track of Peter in Acts 15 before Peter went to Rome, and never mentions him thereafter though continuing on about Paul for another 13 chapters, including Paul’s eventual trip to Rome. 22. In his epistles Paul scarcely gave any description of what a resurrected being should be or look like: either spiritual (1 Cor 15:42-46), or physical (1 Cor 15:5-7). In his gospel the writer of Matthew utilized and redacted only a fragment of the last of the TJ’s four accounts of Immanuel’s post-crucifixion appearances, while altering a related encounter. The writer of Luke heavily redacted the TJ’s second appearance, totally altered the context of the third, highly redacted the fourth (in Acts 1), and invented two more brief appearances. The writer of John utilized the TJ’s first appearance but formed it into a doublet, and redacted the third appearance. The writers of Luke/Acts and John further added brief clauses or present participles that would indicate that Jesus could abruptly appear and disappear or pass through a closed door. The writer of Matthew apparently had control over the TJ; the writers of Luke and John had only limited access to the TJ, while the writer of Mark had none. 23. There is an astonishing amount of cumulative evidence of J having traveled around after the crucifixion, going as far east as northern India, where he lived a long life. This literature is essentially ignored within NT scholarship. 24. The Immanuelites can be considered a particular type of Gnostic, having been exposed to Immanuel’s teachings, which include the evolution of the human spirit. They should not be confused with the somewhat later Jewish-Christians of Jewish background, who became followers of Paul’s christology except that they continued to uphold the validity of the Mosaic laws. 25. Paul spoke demeaningly of James as a “reputed pillar” of the church (along with Peter and John, Gal 2:9), and had little to say about him although he had visited him (Gal 1:19). From Acts 12:16-17 we learn that Peter was a close friend of James, and since both were looked upon by Paul as reputed “pillars,” James and Peter both must be regarded as being Immanuelites. It was probably on his first visit to Jerusalem that Paul learned from James that he had seen or met with Immanuel after the crucifixion (1 Cor 15:7). On Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem it was agreed that he and Barnabus would proselytize the gentiles while Peter, James and John would do so with the Jews (Gal 2:9), thus tending to keep the Immanuelites’ “different gospel” or “wrong gospel” away from the gentiles. 26. According to Gal 2:11-14, when Peter withdrew from Paul and his gentile converts, it was because of “fearing the circumcision party.” But Peter, born a Jew, had almost certainly been circumcised from an early age, and had no reason to fear a circumcision party, if that had been involved. Hence it is presumed here that an early transcriber of Paul’s letter to the Galatians (in early 2nd century) altered his text by inserting the circumcision issue at this point, in order to divert attention away from any thought that those in James’s church, and James himself, were also opponents of Paul’s gospel. In so doing, the transcriber/redactor introduced some ambiguous illogic. 27. This argument is more easily turned around. If “Jesus” had been resurrected, he would no longer have to fear a premature death, but could openly proclaim himself to all of Jerusalem and Israel. 28. It would be several decades before the observation of Josephus would become at all known that on one occasion during the war of 66-70 “I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to [gain] their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician’s hands, while the third recovered” (The Life Of Flavius Josephus, 75). Immanuel must also have had medical assistance afterwards, within the tomb-see J. W. Deardorff, Jesus in India: A Reexamination of Jesus’ Asian Traditions in the Light of Evidence Supporting Reincarnation (San Francisco: International Scholars Publications, 1994), pp. 153- 67. 29. See Antiquities XX.9.1. The charge mentioned against James and companions was just a general one of “breaking of the law.” A differing account comes from a fragment from Saint Hegesippus (Hypomnemata Book V) in Eusebius Eccles. Hist. 22.23.4-18), in which James is persuaded to ascend to the top of the Temple and preach to a crowd of disbelievers in Christ, but he instead extols Christ and is then thrown down from the Temple and beaten to death by a fuller’s club. Here Josephus’s 1st-century account is preferred over Hegesippus’s 2nd-century account relayed by Eusebius. It seems evident that the characteristics of James we deduce here are quite unlike the pious picture stemming from the 4th century (e.g., Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men, Chap. 2)-that James had “camel knees” or calloused knees from having spent so much time in the Temple on his knees, praying. However his later nickname of “James the Righteous” or “James the Just” (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 2.23) might be the result of his having insisted on speaking the truth about his brother Immanuel despite Paul’s gospel to the contrary; early church fathers then gave him a label that put the best face forward to the controversy. 30. An especially thorough study is that of Walter Schmithals, Paulus und die Gnostiker: Untersuchungen zu den kleinen Paulusbriefen (Hamburg: Reich, 1965); or Walter Schmithals, Paul and the Gnostics, J. E. Steely, Trans. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972). Schmithals lets us know of the many conflicting views on who Paul’s opponents were. He rejects the idea that Paul had to battle both a Jewish Christian group or Judaizing group and a gnostic or pneumatic group, and pretty much rejected a gnostic group as being among Paul’s opponents on the grounds that no known sources tell of it (p. 16). 31. The possibility that J survived the crucifixion, thus explaining his appearances afterwards, has not been treated seriously by more than a handful of NT scholars since the debunking work of David Friedrich Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, vol. 1, 2nd ed. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1879), p. 412. Omitted was the thought that J could have received medical attention inside the tomb. 32. We cannot be certain that some of the disciples may not later have changed their minds and sided with the Pauline Christians. The two groups did share the belief that J was a Messiah of sorts, as prophesied. The investigator who has perhaps come closest to the present solution as to who Paul’s opponents were was H. Schlier in 1949 (see Schmithals, Paul and the Gnostics, p. 16). Schlier referred to Paul’s opponents as “so-called Judaizers” who were not of Pharisaic background but rather were Jewish Gnostics. 33. See this chronology of early Christian literature. 34. Bart Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 98. 35. With so much “smoke,” it seemed like more “fire” should have been visible. See G. A. Wells, Did Jesus Exist? (London: Pemberton, 1986). Then also, there were miraculous stories within mythologies that preceded Christianity of which it could be claimed that Christian versions were just copies, such as virgin births. See Acharya S, The Christ Conspiracy (Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press, 1999). The traditional scholastic view has recently been upheld by Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2012). However, Ehrman gives no adequate explanation, as presented here, for the scarcity of surviving contemporary written and archaeological evidence for Jesus’ existence. He advances the argument that one should not even expect Jesus to have been mentioned in pagan sources despite his “many miracles and fantastic deeds” without one having first established that he existed; “only then can we revisit the question of why no one, in that case, mentions him” (pp. 43-44). Upon revisiting the question, he could only offer that the traditions about Jesus’ marvelous deeds were simply not relevant to others aside from the Gospel authors (pp. 137-39); i.e., no explanation. And must one really have positive evidence on hand before explaining the lack of same? 35.5 List of 40 early Christ-related writings conspicuous by their absence or near absence of the name "Jesus." The ones from the Nag Hammadi Library that do and do not qualify, respectively, are shown here. 36. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chaps. 43,66. Even then, “Immanuel” was only mentioned within the one approved context of quoting from Isaiah 7:14. 37. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. III.9.2 (it was Emmanuel who was worshipped by the magi), and also in III.19.1, 20.3 and 21.4. 38. Michael J. Hollerich, Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on Isaiah (New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1999), pp. 52-53. 39. Only from the TJ do we know about this. The worst blasphemy is that the God of Israel was an advanced human-like being, not the Creator of the Earth or universe, who had come to Earth out of the depths of space with his celestial travelers (TJ 28:52-62). Today these are labeled extraterrestrials, of course, by those who have thoroughly examined the UFO phenomenon and “ancient aliens” literature. The writer of Matthew would not have wished even to mention this blasphemy, if he could have understood it, and so substituted a much lesser one for it (Mt 26:61). In the TJ, Jmmanuel speaks much about Creation-“true God” or the Great Spirit of the universe. 40. The root word of “talmud” is “talmid,” which occurs in 1 Chr 25:8, where it means “pupil” or “one who learns.” First Chronicles is believed to have been written in the 5th century BCE. The Jerusalem Talmud, the earliest known aside from the TJ, dates to the 4th century CE. Click here for further discussion. 41. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (NY: Random House, 1979), p. xxiv. Go Back to: contents Reexamination of the Meaning behind the Incarnational Passages James W. Deardorff Feb. 1988, revised Mar. 1998 SUMMARY The possibility is examined that the incarnational passages reflect language that would have been used had Jesus believed in, and taught, reincarnation. Various clues from certain Gospel passages, redaction criticism, and Gnosticism, as well as modern evidence, supports this anagogic prospect. Introduction Resurrectional Redaction Shreds of Evidence The Post-Crucifixion Appearances Concluding Thought End Notes Introduction The New Testament (NT) incarnational passages are of the nature "I have come not to...., but to...."1 They are usually interpreted to mean that God sent Jesus to Earth, once and for all, to provide redemption for mankind's sins. Then, in these passages Jesus explains certain aspects of why he came. However, a somewhat different interpretation is open in light of modern evidence that supports the concept of reincarnation.2 Although the evidence is controversial, it is voluminous and ever accumulating. It is thus important that the incarnational passages be examined from this different viewpoint, and that other synoptic gospel evidence be examined that may support this interpretation. Failure to do so would be tantamount to scholarly withdrawal from controversies of the real world. What does the reincarnation viewpoint consist of in this context? It posits that the human soul exists, that it evolves in wisdom and power over innumerable lifetimes, and that Jesus' soul had likewise experienced previous lives, with his probably being the most advanced -- most evolved -- soul on Earth. Within this spiritual framework, and with the aid of more advanced spirit guides, the soul between lifetimes is thought to choose the timing and location of its next human experience.3 The choice is believed to be made with the potential for certain goals to be fulfilled in the soul's next life that would further its evolution, and perhaps the evolution of other souls as well. From this viewpoint, therefore, Jesus could have spoken of "having come," if he somehow had become aware of the purposes of his soul's reincarnational choice. To "have come" can imply "having come again" as well as it can imply "having come for the first time." With this rarely expressed interpretation, the mystery shifts from his mode of coming to the manner in which he learned his wisdom and destiny. Again, it is the accumulating evidence supporting reincarnation as a reality that forces a new look at this problem. Irenaeus apparently did not have any such evidence at his disposal when asserting that the soul cannot remember any past-life experiences.4 The childhood "cases of the reincarnation type" investigated by Stevenson instead indicate that in perhaps one child out of a hundred thousand or so,5 something goes awry that permits explicit pieces of the previous life's memories to be recalled up to age 5 or 7, before gradually fading away. Also, Irenaeus did not allow for the possibility that in matters of conscience (or of the right-half brain), the soul may at times be able to influence human behavior, thus permitting moral evolution, a concept inevitably accompanying reincarnation.6 Irenaeus may well have been wrong in assuming that reality of reincarnation should imply that everyone be able to recall one or more of their past lives. If that were to happen before mankind was morally prepared, or sufficiently evolved spiritually, it would lead to mass obsessions with the past. Instead, one may note the similar faulty reasoning if someone were to assume that dreams during sleep do not occur because they do not remember them later in the day. There has been a singular lack of attention paid to the reincarnation concept and its supportive evidence by western biblical scholars. It might be thought that this neglect means that the concept has been defused by more recent scholars of philosophy and religion. This is not actually the case, however. The scholar and author, John Hick, for example, in one of his later works, was aware of some of Stevenson's data, but did not make use of them or similar data in his main discussions.7 He instead argued how futile it would be to attempt to prove for the bulk of the world population, in the absence of past-life memory evidence for them, that the reincarnation concept is true for them. However, this argument does not bear upon the reality of rebirth, but merely upon an aspect of it that may be disliked or not understood. A more meaningful approach would be to ask if it is only the one child out of every one-hundred thousand or so possessing past-life memories who has a soul (or a past-life memory-retention mechanism). Hick, in effect, answers this question in the affirmative. However, the negative seems more likely, on the grounds that no great difference is noted otherwise between these particular children and others, though Stevenson finds a small intellectual advantage and E. Haraldsson a significant one.8 As these children grow into their teens, however, they appear essentially normal in all present-life respects. Again, the dream analogy is pertinent: Are people who remember their dreams different from others? Do only those who remember having dreamed, dream? Several decades ago the answer to the latter question might have been thought to be affirmative. Now psychology knows it to be negative. It might be thought that the usual fading of these past-life memories during childhood growth could mean that the mechanism responsible for the recall is of short term and cannot therefore be linked to the soul with its concept of immortality. However, such a linkage appears to be long term; memories from various ages of the past life are recalled, including those of youth as well as of the later mode of death. Thus, if the past-life person had lived a fairly long life, the memory-retention mechanism was operating throughout that life, available in rare instances for the next life personality to tap in its first few years. The mechanism did not become inoperable as the previous personage grew up. And of course if we expand into the past-life data of the hypno-therapists, we find that a single person may, during repeated hypnotic sessions, recall events from many different past lives. One may note that the phenomenon ties in well with the Hindu concept of reincarnation, though the data does not support recent past lives in the form of lower, non-human animals (transmigration). However, it does not tie in so closely with the concept of rebirth held by some Buddhists wherein the individual's sense of continued identity is not retained. With the reincarnation interpretation, the likelihood that Jesus taught it, not resurrection, needs thorough exploration. Simply because western biblical scholars were raised in an environment in which reincarnation is rejected or ignored by mainstream Judeo-Christianity and by atheism also, is insufficient reason not to explore its supportive evidence This possibility could not be sustained, of course, unless apparent New Testament contradictions with it can be explained or eliminated. Although such an endeavor has been carried out,9 it can only be outlined here. It is unfortunate that the topic is practically undiscussed within scholarly New Testament literature, and there are essentially no previous works to draw upon other than negative declarations such as by Irenaeus or the Second Council of Constantinople, which pronounced reincarnation an anathema. Here, attention will be centered primarily upon the Gospel of Matthew. Resurrectional redactions In order to explain apparent redactions within Matthew, it will be necessary to postulate that a proto-Gospel derived from his teachings received extensive redaction at the time Matthew was written, which altered teachings of reincarnation into teachings of resurrection. And if Jesus had indeed been the teacher of wisdom that even the Gospel of Matthew professes (Mt 11:19 and 13:54), he should have known of the reality of reincarnation and have been teaching that, not resurrection. Thus when we come to Mt 22:23-32, we find this to be a section wherein original teachings on reincarnation could easily have been altered into teachings on resurrection with simple one- word substitutions. In Mt 22:23, "resurrection" could have been substituted for "reincarnation" or "rebirth," since the Sadducees believed in neither. The same would have occurred in Mt 22:30, which reads peculiarly, as redactions are apt to do. That is, resurrection pertains to the dead, yet "resurrection" in 22:30 is contrasted with "resurrection of the dead" in 22:31. Also, the fact that the attempted explanation of resurrection in Mt 22:31-32 seems to apply only to the patriarchs and says nothing about what resurrection would be like for the people who were listening, does not bode well for the authenticity of those two verses. Hence it is important to ask if motivation for such alterations would likely have been present. Among Pharisees there would have been such motivation, because most of them had already believed in resurrection since at least the first century B.C.10 Also, Paul was once a Pharisee, judging from the two affirmations of this, in Acts 23:6 and Phil 3:5. Regarding his conversion event on the Road to Damascus, he would thus likely have interpreted his encounter with the light and the voice of Jesus (Acts 9:3-9) as an encounter with a resurrected form of Jesus. By the time Matthew was written, which would have been several or many decades after Paul's conversion,11 Paul's views had already largely been accepted by the early churches. And since the writer of Matthew in all probability had been a Jew before converting to early Christianity, and even a Pharisaic scribe,12 his motivation to eliminate all reincarnation heresies from his source by substituting resurrectional redactions would have been strong. It is all too evident from the writings of Irenaeus and other church fathers that suppression of heresy was of prime concern to the early church.13 Decisions as to what constituted heresy can be traced in large part back to Paul's teachings as the basis. Following this line of reasoning, other teachings by Jesus on reincarnation that might originally have been present within the source for Matthew would simply have been omitted en toto if they were not amenable to simple word, phrase or verse substitutions favoring resurrection. Simple insertions may likewise have been made in order to suggest that in his post-crucifixion appearances, Jesus was not only still physical in nature, but at the same time was in some nebulous resurrected state wherein he could walk through closed doors.14 Shreds of evidence Could redaction of such great extent have been carried out without some shreds of evidence being left behind? Awareness has been growing that much clever editing was performed upon the Old Testament writings.15 There is no reason to suspect that the New Testament Gospels could not have been edited very extensively with comparable cleverness, when the motivation was to suppress heresies and uphold the faith. Yet one can nevertheless look for shreds of evidence left behind in Matthew. Of Mt 11:14, the interpretation in this regard is that Jesus was saying that the soul of John the Baptist had been Elijah in a past life, and that it would be reborn in someone else in the future. Of course, if he had instead said that his past life had been that of some other patriarch, such as Elisha, the writer of Matthew could well have altered that name into Elijah because Elijah had last been seen caught up in a "whirlwind" (2 Kngs 11), whereby the belief among some Pharisees had grown that he had been "translated" into heaven alive. Thus, the writer of Matthew could have substituted Elijah's name here without necessarily supporting the reincarnation concept, and could later have had the "translated' Elijah appear (in Mt 17:3). However, it doesn't make sense to think that John the Baptist's grown body had at some stage been taken over by the "translated" Elijah, especially since in Lk 1 John the Baptist is described as having grown up from babyhood. Hence the reincarnation concept is preferred here as underlying the Matthean verse. Within the reincarnation framework, Mt 16:13-15 indicates that Jesus, talking with his disciples at Caesarea Philippi, was asking who the people thought he (his soul) had been in a past life. Had he been asking only about who they thought he was (e.g., the Messiah), the replies the disciples received would not have included Elijah, Jeremiah or another prophet of the past. In Mt 24:5 Jesus said that "many would come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,'" (or, more realistically, saying "I am Jesus"). For Jesus to have discussed this with his disciples again implies that they understood what he meant, namely, that others in the future would claim to have been him in one of their past lives. It is unlikely that Jesus could have been referring to resurrection here, for then the persons claiming to be the resurrected Jesus would have to prove that they had not had a childhood, but had always been in the same adult physical form as Jesus had been after the crucifixion, with wounds and all. If instead the claimant asserted he grew up as a child, yet was Jesus, that then reverts back to the reincarnation concept. In Mt 24:27 the Second Coming would, within the reincarnation framework, simply refer to the coming of the soul of Jesus within a new body born on Earth during a future lifetime. To make his advent worthy of climactic public attention might require the participation of flights of UFOs over our skies, however. If teaching rebirth, Jesus would likely have had to refer to an inner "realm of the spirit" now and then. Such references within the source document for Matthew would also be considered heretical and require redaction, since Christianity teaches that one's mind should dwell upon an external Spirit of God, not upon an inner human spirit. What else could it have been redacted into but "kingdom of heaven" and "kingdom of God," so as to encourage believers to look outside themselves and to the church for spiritual authority? The phrase is now often taken to mean a present realm overhead, as in the parables of Mt 13. However, a fixed interpretation would cause confusion, since "kingdom of heaven" also refers to a future age to come, as in Mt 4:17.16 In instances of the latter type, the redaction could have been an addition to substitute for an admonition like: "Repent and seek truth and knowledge." One might expect that, had Jesus taught reincarnation, his teachings on it might have caught on here and there without being so totally suppressed that there is no remnant of it today from Mideast or Western sources except for the biblical passages already discussed. One possible such remnant lies in the passage from the Gospel of Thomas (Saying #3): "Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you." Alternatively, if such teachings had appeared in a source document for the Gospel of Matthew, word of it would likely have leaked out upon first receipt of the document and before it fell into the hands of the compiler of Matthew.17 Then it could have fueled the strong expansion of Gnosticism in the early 2nd century. A possible example of this could lie in the beliefs of Carpocrates, a 2nd-century Jew from Alexandria, whose family converted to a Christianity of sorts -- one which stressed the existence and preexistence of the individual soul.18 He believed that some people could remember their soul's preexisting state. Further examples may reside in some of the beliefs of the Marcionites of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, who were contesting some of the teachings of the main church. Among other things, they believed in a key point of reincarnation: that at death, the spirit of man is, at least in some circumstances, saved (or lives on), while the body perishes.19 While the Marcionites were strong followers of Paul and of their own version of the Gospel of Luke, they showed this kind of Gnostic leaning. Of course, one cannot press the Gnostic beliefs too far, since they contain such a wide variety of irrational thoughts. However, the rapid blossoming of the Gnostic movement in the 2nd century is consistent with the source document for Matthew having circulated around some at that time, before it came under the custodianship of the writer of Matthew. This 2nd-century movement in turn would have built upon the remnants of the weaker 1st-century Gnostic movement that had been prompted by Jesus' oral teachings concerning the individual human spirit. This possibility seems more likely than the assumption by Irenaeus that none of the spiritual input from Marcion (or his predecessor, Cerdo), Carpocrates and other Gnostics traces back to the Apostles or to Jesus' ministry, but rather that it all sprang forth spontaneously,20 or from earlier sources, such as Plato. The post-crucifixion appearances It is evident that if Jesus taught reincarnation and knew the truth of what he taught, resurrection could not be an explanation for his post-crucifixion appearances. Therefore, the remaining alternative, survival of the crucifixion, must be addressed, despite Christian medical opinion of the low probability for such survival.21 There is much support, both old and new, for the view that the Gospel stories concerning these post-crucifixion appearances are based upon reality, and that Jesus' form in these appearances was physical.22 Here it can only be noted that if Jesus did survive and recover relatively quickly, it would seem that he would have needed secret help while in the tomb, though not necessarily resuscitation, and that his healing powers frequently applied to others must have worked in behalf of himself, too. Of course, the many traditions that speak of Jesus, accompanied by mother Mary and Judas- Thomas, having traveled widely through Anatolia and Asia perforce support the likelihood that Jesus survived the crucifixion.23 Jesus' prophecy of rising again in three days, and his invoking of the sign of Jonah (Mt 27:63; 16:4), do not point to resurrection any more than to survival of the crucifixion. In fact, together they slightly favor the latter possibility, since Jonah stayed alive while in the belly of the "whale." Concluding thought. It might be hoped that reincarnation could somehow be incorporated into Christianity in order to reconcile faith and evidence. Indeed, Geddes MacGregor concludes that "there is nothing in biblical thought or Christian tradition that necessarily excludes all forms of reincarnationism."24 Although one may not agree with him, he states his case well, and suggests that the concept of purgatory could be revived, brightened and extended into the concept of the individual soul experiencing multiple future lives. With regard to the beliefs of many ordinary Christians, this hope might be realizable. However, for the Christian or scholar who distinguishes between reincarnation and resurrection, or the church member who faithfully follows the leadership of his priest or minister, this hope cannot be easily realized. As demonstrated here, even the interpretation of just the incarnational passages in terms of reincarnation thought, if pursued in some depth, inevitably leads to potential repercussions that extend throughout the New Testament and beyond. Further investigation of the possibility explored here will require serious examination by open-minded scholars of alternative viewpoints and arguments previously ignored or unjustly ridiculed. End Notes 1. See Mt 5:17 and 10:34, for example. 2. This reference in the text takes you to a relevant bibliography in http://www.proaxis.com/~deardorj/rebirth.htm . 3. Michael Newton, Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life between Lives, (St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 1994) 221-248. 4. Irenaeus Against Heresies, 2.33-34, in ANF 1, A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956) 409-411. 5. See previous references to Stevenson within Ref. 2 above. The phenomenon may occur more frequently than suggested here, due to the likelihood of its being greatly underreported. 6. Irving S. Cooper, Reincarnation, 7th Ed. (Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Press, 1964) 79, 86. 7. John H. Hick, Philosophy of Religion, 3rd Ed. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1983) chap. 10. 8. See Stevenson's four volumes of Cases of the Reincarnation Type within Ref. 2 above; Erlendur Haraldsson, "A psychological comparison between ordinary children and those who claim previous life memories," J. Sci. Exploration 11 (1997), 323-335. 9. J. W. Deardorff, Jesus in India (Bethesda, MD: International Scholars Publications, 1994) chap. 2. 10. Albert Nolan, Jesus Before Christianity (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1978) 13. 11. Francis W. Beare, The Gospel according to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981), 7-8. 12. Op. cit, p. 9; Michael Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974) xiii, 5-6, 13-27, 70. 13. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1979) xxiv. 14. Jn 20:19, 26. 15. Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Summit Books, 1987). 16. For discussions on the problem of "kingdom of heaven" referring to both concepts, see Marcus J. Borg, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (New York: Edwin Mellon Press, 1984) 248-263; and Richard H. Hiers, The Kingdom of God in the Synoptic Tradition, Univ. of Florida Humanities Monograph No. 33 (Gainesville, FL: Univ. of Florida Press, 1970) 20, 63. 17. Here we have in mind the Logia known to bishop Papias, which could well have been an extensive document, and not just sayings. 18. Irenaeus Against Heresies, 1.25.1-4. 19. Ibid., 1.25.2-3. 20. Ibid., 3.3-4. 21. William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, "On the physical death of Jesus," J. Amer. Med. Assoc. 255 (1986) 1455-1463. 22. Charles Guignebert, Jesus (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1935) 506; Grant R. Osborne, The Resurrection Narratives: A redactional Study (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984) 196-198. 23. See also Deardorff, Jesus in India, chap. 9. 24. Geddes MacGregor, Reincarnation in Christianity (London: Theosophical Publishing House, 1978) 173. Go Back to: Contents A Lovely Surprise... over the Visitors' Parking Place at the SSSC by P. Kalista in FIGU Special Bulletin #62 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., July, 2011) Translation by J. W. Deardorff, August 2011 As almost always, when I come to the FIGU lecture, I stayed overnight in my motor home so that I could drive back home again the next morning. After breakfast the next day and well rested, I thought to myself, since I am already at the Center, I could actually complete the required three working days as a passive FIGU member and would then have that behind me. Silvano was unfortunately not present at the moment, and so I waited for him to show up and then asked him whether I could serve my working days, even though I was not logged in. In no way did I want to upset his work plan. He met me, though, and arranged for me to fit in with other workers. I was very happy, because when you work in the center you can learn a lot and, if lucky, see something... So, after the lecture on the second evening, on April 25, 2011, at 22.34 h, as I sat in my motor home [for location of visitors' parking place, see map, No. 1] and was reading into the new Block No. 11 of the Pleiadian-Plejaren Contact Reports, I felt the need to go out briefly into the fresh air and stretch my legs, and at the same time enjoy the beautiful night sky. The stars were beautiful, only the noisy passenger aircraft with their blinking and flashing lights strongly disturbed the peace, but as soon as they came, they flew past. After I had been standing there a while I felt an urge to turn towards the west and look; I saw a slightly reddish point of light moving in my direction. The object did not look to me like any aircraft, helicopter or balloon, which I know quite well how to recognize at night. It made no noise and thereby sparked my interest to observe it. "Surely this will not be a beamship?" shot through my head, and I watched it for about 30 seconds while it passed over the Center house [see map, No. 9] -- no, rather glided over -- until its light went out with instant quickness and it suddenly disappeared. "I say, that was a surprise," I thought to myself, and somehow feeling glad and happy I stepped back into my motor home and then went to bed. The next day, when I was in the kitchen, Billy came in briefly, and I spoke to him and thanked -- whomever had flown over the previous night -- for the great sighting. He just looked at me and said: "Then write a sighting report," and moved on. On the day of my departure I was informed by a FIGU member that Billy had actually had a Contact on the night of my sighting. So, feeling satisfied, I bid goodbye and drove back home. [He lives in Germany.] Beamship Sighting No. 2 by P. Kalista in FIGU Special Bulletin #63 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., October, 2011) Translation by J. W. Deardorff, January 2012 And again an affirmation for me, that BEAM [“Billy” Eduard Albert Meier] speaks the truth. It was on June 25th 2011, when I came back to a lecture at the Semjase-Silver-Star Center, where I wanted to complete some days of my general work commitment. It was then late in the evening, on Tuesday, June 21, when I sat on a folding chair in front of my camper at the Center’s biotope park, which I usually do when the sky isn’t cloudy, looking out at the beautiful starry sky and of course hoping to see something other than just the stars and passing aircraft. It happened but nothing like I expected. I suddenly heard steps coming from the Center towards the parking area, causing me to ask myself who would be out walking at this late hour in the dark, because after all it was already 22:20 hrs. As the late night walker came nearer I realized it was Billy, so I warmly welcomed him, and he said that he was often out at night in order to stretch his legs a bit. Then, he asked whether I maybe would have seen a disoriented person, namely a deranged man passing by the parking place in a car with Dutch identification, who accused Billy of being a defrauder and debtor as well as a kidnapper of Asket. As his reason, this man claims that his father had paid Billy a great deal of money so that he would kidnap and hold captive the extraterrestrial Asket, which money Billy, together with one of his stepsons, had kept in place of his father. He, this mad man, screams out that he was married to Asket and with her had a daughter, and that he wants the large amount of money back that his father had paid for the abduction. Billy explained that this man had twice before spread around this fantastic story in Schmidrüti and angered the people, and that this was again the case also on this day until late into the night. Well, replying to Billy's question, I was for quite some time relaxing in the motor home, which has no windows that would reveal the parking lot there, so I therefore could not see who came to the parking lot and drove past. After a further brief conversation, Billy asked me if I would like to go with him to the Freihof in Schmidrüti, because he wanted to see whether the funky man was still in the parking lot there so as to expel him from the place. Of course I would like to do that, I said, and so we marched off. When we were already by the first house of Schmidrüti, I noticed a large radiant object without navigation lights flying from the west towards Schmidrüti and strongly shining. Thereupon Billy took note of it and looked at his wristwatch; it was just 22:25 hrs. Then he briefly stood in silence, concentrating. Apparently, he was listening to the object above, which shone about as brightly in the sky as the evening star Venus sometimes does. Then after a few seconds he said that the bright object was a Plejaren beamship piloted by Florena, who had communicated with him telepathically. Then he went on the road to the end of the houses, stopped, and said that a core group member, Daniel, lives there, and he would also make him aware of the object. Unfortunately no light was on in Daniel's home, and he was apparently already asleep. Then Billy and I walked about ten meters further while he had became very quiet and concentrated strongly upon the bright object, which in complete silence slowly approached, and without any noise slowly flew over Schmidrüti and away to the east. Apparently Billy tried to get further information from Florena while concentrating, but as he said, there was no reaction. So we both watched the bright shining object that somehow radiated a yellow color but was absolutely silent while continuing to travel at not too high an altitude. As it disappeared far to the east behind the tree horizon, Billy looked at his watch and noted that it was then 22:29 hrs; therefore we saw the beamship for just under four minutes. For my part I mentally sent thanks to Florena for the wonderful and, for me, delightful sighting she had offered us. When the object was gone, we walked on to the Guest House parking place, but there was no parked car to be seen; consequently the funky man probably had left Schmidrüti. So we went back the same way to my motor home, where I asked Billy whether I should accompany him back to the Center, whereupon he replied that though I was a head taller than he, that he nevertheless was big enough to be able to walk alone. This was of course not to be contested. So we said goodbye, and I returned to my camping chair with a smile, sat myself down in it and mused for some time about the weird incident that had taken place that night through a pleasing coincidence. -- Yes, something can happen at the Center when dealing with Billy's writings and books, as well as when engaging him or walking with him -- and of course much more. A Remarkable Experience Report by Kalliope Meier in Guido Moosbrugger, And yet... they fly! (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark LLC, 2001), pp. 157-159 and in Guido Moosbrugger, And still they fly! (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark LLC, 2004), pp. 131-132 On June 28, 1976, my husband, Billy, came to us in the living room and to our great surprise, requested that we (myself, Gilgamesha, Atlantis and Methusalem, Amata Stetter and Mr. H. Schutzbach) all accompany him to a place outside Hinwil because he had to go to a personal contact. Complying with the invitation, H. Schutzbach drove us in his car to the high pasture near Oberdorf Riet (Berkholz-Hinwil) to wait there for my husband to return. Billy, who had driven ahead on his moped, drove a few hundred meters further directly to the contact site where he met with Quetzal, Semjase and her sister, Pleja. While we were waiting, we sat in the shade of the only tree on the high pasture and carried on a lively conversation to while-away the time. A good half hour must have gone by when Atlantis, six years old at the time, called out to us. "Look, something is flying there!" To our great amazement, we saw a large silver-gray object rise over the Pilgerholz Woodland at a distance of about 300 meters (990 ft.). Glistening brightly in the sunlight, it rapidly gained in altitude and then took a westerly course of flight. H. Schutzbach had borrowed Billy's camera for all such eventualities, so he could take pictures if any opportunity should arise. Incidentally, he had already remarked to Billy for many months of his innermost desire to see and photograph Semjase's spacecraft for once by daylight, which is why my husband asked the beamship pilot a number of times for such an opportunity, which was then to be made possible quite unexpectedly on that day. H. Schutzbach was the one in Billy's work group who could accompany him everywhere from the very beginning, since he was the hobby photographer responsible for the entire special field of photo documentation. For this reason he inspired confidence and was permitted every now and then to go much closer to Semjase's ship than all the other group members. However, it turned out that he was unable to endure or cope with Semjase's field of radiation (without shielding). He spoke several times as feeling as though he was in paradise when within this field of radiation, and after emerging from this "paradise-like influence" his world crumbled. On that occasion, he had finally felt what true love and true peace were. Since he was unable to permanently maintain this condition, the world for him had therefore crumbled. This sensitivity prompted my husband to warn H. Schutzbach about wanting to see Semjases spacecraft by day. In view of his insistent requests, Billy repeatedly explained to him that he ought not indulge too far in his desire. Furthermore, he would "flip out" to such an extent during a day sighting that H. Schutzbach would not be in the mental condition to take even a single, good snapshot. Then, as the 7-meter (23 ft.) ship of the Pleiadians actually appeared over the Pilgerholz Woodland in broad daylight, my husband's prediction was fulfilled to a tee. H. Schutzbach ran around uncontrollably, let his photo camera drop to the ground, and did not know how he should conduct himself. As he finally calmed down, but still obviously under great strain, he tried to take a few pictures while trembling so badly that he could not hold the raised camera steady in his hands. In the meantime, the object had moved far away and when H. Schutzbach was finally able to operate the release, the ship was so far away that it could only be seen as a small point. As it later turned out, only a single picture from these blurred snapshots was halfway useful. The spectacle with the spacecraft lasted about 10 minutes. During this time we observed the silver-gray object ascend and fly off, growing ever smaller as it moved away in a southwesterly direction. All at once, the rapidly shrinking point veered to the right at tremendous speed and then shot off so quickly that it suddenly disappeared from sight. I personally was deeply impressed by this extraordinary experience. Everything within me was in turmoil. I pondered this all the way home. Even today I still think of that day with fondness. Extracts from Meier's meeting then with Quetzal, Semjase and Pleja (her sister) in a forest meadow, from Contact No. 58, Monday, 28 June 1976, 15:14 hours as presented in Wendelle Stavens, Message from the Pleiades, vol. 3 Meier... Please excuse my being late. I simply did not come away from home in time. I have sent my wife and children to the hill behind the forest, and this also needed its time. Quetzal... 1/You seem to be angry because of the retardation, but you shouldn't be. Meier... I want to be on time. Semjase... 1/This is good character for you. 2/Punctuality is of much value and evidence of response. 3/Non- punctuality evidences indifference and loss of interest [Near the end of the contact meeting, after 12 more sentences by Semjase, 5 by Quetzal and 22 by Pleja:] Meier... Semjase, is it permitted that you will perhaps give a joy to my wife, the children, Miss. Stetter and Mr. Schutzbach, and hurry over them in your ship? They are all waiting on the hill behind the forest. Semjase... 13/In the daytime such an undertaking is especially dangerous. 14/I would be seen from too far around. 15/It is a matter for Quetzal to decide in this respect. Quetzal... 6/It is likely better that Semjase remain invisible, but maybe I can do something. 7/I will survey the environment and then decide upon it. 8/It will yet be difficult to offer us visible, because many humans are going their ways in the environment. 9/Farewell now, our obligation calls us. Meier... Tchys together Short Encounter with Ptaah by "Popi" Kalliope Meier-Zafiriou in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 227-28 a liberal translation by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 It was yesterday, Billy's birthday, the 3rd of February 1979, when I, Kalliope Meier, around 14:30 hours, stepped past the kitchen while coming into our living room, because I wanted to get something that was there. The door opened and I took the first step into the room, when I stood still, startled, for at the rear living room entrance stood a large manly figure who was clad in a strange grey outfit. A kind of overalls, which at the neck displayed a large, round opening that apparently served for attachment of a helmut, which however the man did not carry. Around about his belt some strange looking things were affixed. Apparently startled to see me, the bearded man then took a step backwards and with his left hand grasped a small gadget on his belt, whereupon within a fraction of a second he simply dissolved into nothing. He simply disappeared without a trace, and, to be sure, without any sound. Still standing there shocked, wild thoughts shot through my head before it became clear to me that the man whom I had stared at for some 15 seconds could have been none other than Ptaah -- the extraterrestrial friend of Billy. In any case, Billy's description exactly fit the appearance of this man in the living room. And that it had actually been Ptaah was confirmed by Billy still on the same day, for around 14:46 hours, thus some 15 minutes after the event, Contact No. 108 started whereby, as Billy explained, Ptaah said to him that he had searched for him (Billy) in the living room and in the bedroom, where Billy, minutes before, actually had been, before Ptaah manifested. Billy, however, had then gone out the bedroom outside door in order to go to the garage and finish something. Thereupon he found out that his Contact had commenced. Two Sightings in the Summer of 1978 by Earnest Keller-Muller described by Wendelle Stevens in UFO...Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1982), pp. 158-59 Mr. Earnest Keller-Muller from the small town of Schalchen, near Wila, in the summer of 1978, had come out of his house to feed his dog when he observed four and possibly five bright luminous objects in the early evening sky to the southeast. At first there were only two or three of the objects moving in a random pattern and then one more came zig-zagging in from the left and another from the right the same way and they stopped and hovered stationary together there in the sky above. During all this time the lights would occasionally disappear and then suddenly reappear in another place. These lights were different from the silver-white stars because they were initially a yellow-orange in color and then changed through red, green, blue and orange shades. They pulsed in increasing and decreasing brightness and size, and they moved in an undulating and zig-zagging pattern, and sometimes with a jerky motion. They also stopped occasionally, and at other times simply "jumped" from one place to another. Keller- Muller went into the house for binoculars and hurried back out to watch this aerial spectacle. The newly approaching lights joined the first two and they stood still in the sky for a short time and then just disappeared by "blinking out," and were gone. The objects seen in the sky were completely silent. This man's second sighting of the strange nocturnal luminous objects took place about three weeks later, on 1 August 1978, at dusk, between 20:00 and 21:00 when Mr. Keller-Muller observed three similar lights to the east-northeast of Schalchen. [Schalchen is about 4 miles west of Hinterschmidrüti.] This time he noticed three yellow-orange luminous objects to his east. They were going through the same pulsing brightness and color changes as before, and he thought they might be the same objects. They were hovering stationary in the sky about 30 degrees above the horizon and slowly drifting north. Then he saw the two objects on the right and left flash beams of white light, like automobile headlights, at the center one and then at each other. Then the center one flashed a beam of white light to the ground and descended abruptly in a vertical motion to near the tree-top level. The point of descent was in the direction of Schmidrüti, and almost that far away. After this witness and his wife told this story to a few acquaintances, a lady who worked with his wife told her about hearing of a Herr Meier at Hinterschmidrüti who also had reportedly seen UFOs. A few days later Mr. Keller-Muller obtained the telephone number of Meier at his home and called him and told him about his own observation the night he saw the three objects and one had descended. Meier answered him by telling him briefly of his own contact with Quetzal that same evening near Schmidrüti about the same time, and invited Mr. Keller-Muller to come over and discuss their observations. When he did so, he found that others there at Schmidrüti had also observed this phenomenon. [Note: Meier's records of Contact Reports do not show any contact for 1 August, 1978 -- just Contact #112 on July 19, 1978, and #113 on Aug. 6 , 1978. However it is quite possible that a more private contact occurred on Aug. 1st whose content was not to be aired. On Contact #112 Meier had expressed to Quetzal and Semjase his determination to no longer lead the FIGU Group (with all its internal problems) and no longer be concerned with its internal affairs, thus backing out of his mission. By Contact #113, however, he changed his mind and reported his solution to the problem to his alien contactors, which they found satisfactory. Hence, there might have been an unrecorded intervening contact, on Aug. 1st, in which Quetzal persauded Meier not to give up.] An Extraordinary Surprise Liberal Translation of Write-up by Pius Keller in FIGU Special Bulletin #59 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., 2010) by J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 When I [Pius Keller] entered the kitchen of the Center on Saturday, October 30, 2010, at approximately 13:20 to work in the afternoon in the in-house print shop of FIGU, Semjase Silver Star Center, Hinterschmidrueti/ZH, I greeted Bernadette, Daniela, Freddy and Kunio who were already there. Bernadette asked where Billy was, because the correction work was to start with Ptaah at 13:30. It was not long until Billy, along with Silvano from the kitchen arrived, and greeted us. In the meantime, Claes, a passive member [of FIGU], joined us. Billy came along with Bernadette right into the living room, where their correction work could commence on time. In this control work of the Contact Reports, Ptaah maintains telepathic contact with Billy and follows along on the basis of their own records together with him, what Bernadette had received from Billy on their computer and later prepared for printing as the Contact-Report Block. Every now and then minor errors or discrepancies occur when retrieving telepathicly recalled reports, which are corrected in this way. Recently Ptaah and Billy were both working together regarding the "Talmud Jmmanuel", which has to be fundamentally revised, corrected and given numerous explanations and comments. Shortly after the two [Billy and Bernadette] disappeared into the living room, I went to the print shop, where I finished printing the special-letter pages 217-220 of the Special Reports. While the printer was running, I controlled the printed material that was ejected into the printer tray. In between ejections, I would read excerpts from each page and think over what I read. After the work in the living room was completed, the exceptional meeting having lasted only slightly more than a half hour, Billy went at 2:10 pm into his office, whose entrance is to the left of the printer door. Around 2:15 pm he expected Ptaah [to beam in, in person] for a Contact discussion and for working on the Talmud. Before Billy disappeared into his working area, he checked briefly with me about an appointment with me that we had agreed upon. At the same time, he also told me that Ptaah would be coming as planned -- thereupon I printed out more from the Special Reports of the Teachings of the Spirit. The printing-room door, which is fitted with a large, ribbed glass window, offers free view of the corridor and the entrance to Eva's and Billy's offices. Therefore, one can very well observe who enters or leaves the offices of Eva and Billy. While Contact discussions between Billy and Ptaah took place, neither Eva nor anyone else of the core group would visit Billy to speak with him. Nevertheless, around 2:20 I noticed that a woman came along to the office door and without ringing [or knocking?] disappeared into the offices. Through the glass door of the printer, I could well observe that the blue-clad woman had shoulder-length dark hair and was of slim stature, before she disappeared from my field of view. Also, the nature of her movements and her manner of entering caused me to wonder. Completely amazed that during the Contact conversation someone entered the office of Eva, which is separated only by an open entryway from Billy's office, I thought at first that it could have been Eva herself. But I immediately rejected this idea, because her conduct, movements and stature bore no resemblance to those of Eva, who also strictly observed never to disturb Billy during discussions. Because the figure and dark hair of the observed person rather showed a certain similarity with Philia Stauber, I wondered if maybe it could have been she, which however also made no sense. Therefore, I decided to ask Billy once our paths would cross after his discussions with Ptaah. Promptly he entered the printing room, right afterwards, to tell me something, and I took the opportunity to gain clarity on the female visitor. He confirmed my observations, and I learned that shortly after the beginning of the conversation between him and Ptaah, Florena [another Plejaren] came from outside [was beamed in] into the office and had sat on the sofa and read a book. Billy confirmed all my observations and told me that her blue clothes were a jumpsuit. My question, whether she had come with her own spaceship, he denied, and he told me that she had come together with Ptaah. The amazing fact that Florena had materialized within the entryway in front of Billy's office, Billy said to be the case. [Keller didn't need to mention that neither Ptaah nor Florena were observed to leave the office area.] Night Watch Liberal Translation of Write-up by P. Keller in FIGU Bulletin #50 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Dec., 2004) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 On 23-24 May, I had the first night watch. It was cold for this time of year. For this reason, the night sky was clear and dotted with stars. As usual on the night watch, they held me spellbound. Because it was quiet around the Center, nothing spoke out against the silence. Walking the guard rounds, I gave in to the fascination of the starry night sky by casting an upward glance at the heavens now and then. On my first round, I beheld just one telemeter disk, which moved in its straight course as a light traveling across the sky. Thereupon it occurred to me, that this telemeter disc didn't cross in front of any stars on its way across the star- studded night sky, or only passed very close to them. The path of the disc was star-free, interestingly. As a result I addressed Billy about my observation when I met him in the kitchen of the Center after my first round. He answered my question [a different question], whether the Plejaren still would always have the large and bright telemeter discs in operation at night, since for a long while much smaller discs were in use, with a clear "Yes." With the smaller and smallest disks, he said, the near or direct surface, etc., is monitored. Shortly after our brief conversation, I said goodbye to Billy and started on my next round. As I came to the milk house [see map, No. 14] on the divided path next to the "Russian mobile home," I looked up at the sky and suddenly observed a large traveling light, which was approaching from the southeast at not too high an altitude. Before I could think about what it -- my sighting --could probably be, the object shone brightly for a brief moment. All of a sudden it dawned on me, that it could only be a beamship, because everything pointed to that, even the complete silence of the bright flying object. After the brightening up of the previously steadily shining object, its light went out completely; consequently there was nothing more to be seen. Also, there was no sound then to be heard, though I listened for several minutes under the night sky. Amazingly, although I've already seen several such nighttime "traveling lights," I still always look up at the firmament with a sense of joy and gratitude within me. On the way to the next check box, I looked at the clock, which showed just ten minutes to one. Suddenly I felt the need to inform Billy of my observation; therefore I quickly stepped into the house and went into the room where he took his nightly ration of medications. Shortly I told him everything, whereupon he forcefully and testingly looked at me and asked whether the ship then had been far away. Naturally I explained that in my assessment its estimated height must have amounted to 5000 to 7000 meters, that the object showed no blinking lights and made no noise, but should have been audible had it been an airplane. Billy then said that they were probably on a pleasure trip, and supposed they were probably our friends from the Plejaren [Pleiades], or their allies, whom we at the Center so often see day or night. Nighttime Greeting Liberal Translation of Write-up by Pius Keller in FIGU Bulletin #46 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Feb., 2004) by J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 On 9-10 June 2003, at about 00:30, I held the first middle-of-the-night watch. The sky was partly cloudy on this mild night, but with stars showing clearly, on the whole. Thus, ideal weather to observe the majestic night sky, which as always is a profound experience for me. On this night my luck was especially favorable. Within a short time on my first round, I saw two telemeter disks, which had the apparent size of tennis balls [as observed from some unspecified distance away]. Yet it wasn't long after that, as I was passing by the shelter for the Haflinger [a rugged military-type vehicle, located just to the right of No. 11 on map], I sighted another telemeter disk which, together in parallel with a bright light in a southerly direction, I saw ascend between the trees in the night sky. At first I interpreted the bright light as being an ascending commercial aircraft, which diverted my attention from the rapidly traveling telemeter disk. But suddenly the bright light of the object that I first suspected was a plane became even stronger. So I had to revise this opinion, because the object was brighter than the brightest, most luminous star in the night sky, about as bright as the radiant evening star [Venus] is at times; and in this great and strong light there suddenly appeared still another, but smaller, steadily shining, traveling light, of about the size of the already mentioned telemeter disk. Because this object was not flashing like an earthly airplane, it was suddenly clear to me: it could only be identified as an extraterrestrial beamship. I estimated its distance to be about the same as of the already sighted telemeter disk, and its altitude about five to seven thousand meters. The large object I observed moved in a straight path across the night sky and disappeared after a short time in a cloud bank, out of which it did not reappear. Filled with an inner joy and gratitude over this nightly greeting from our extraterrestrial friends, I continued on my night-watch tour, and at the top of the upper parking lot of the Center met Billy, whose keys I quietly heard klinking at the same moment when I sighted the glowing beamship together with the telemeter disk. Billy however had not seen the described objects, because, I think, at that time he was in front of the house where the high trees and shrubs in the baumgarten (tree garden) covered up his view. Pius Keller, Switzerland Sighting Report 5-12-2001 Liberal Translation of Write-up by Pius Keller in FIGU Bulletin #35 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Sept. 2001) by J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 On Saturday night, May 12th, 2001, on the occasion of the passive FIGU General Assembly, around 21:45, they were sitting together comfortably in the parking lot next to the carriage house [see map, No. 8] in front of the main building in the Semjase Silver Star Center. Some also conversed while standing. It was a starry, mild spring evening. Coming from the upper parking lot, I ran towards the carriage house, in order to join in with the people in front of the house. At the front of the house entryway I saw Billy, Michael Uyttebroek and one or two more people, who were gazing out in a northeasterly direction at the night sky. So the thought struck me that they could be looking at a craft. I joined them, and looked in the same direction as they were. After only a few seconds, I saw a moving light the size of the twinkling stars in the sky. I watched the moving light and saw that it was not flashing. So it was not an ordinary aircraft, such as a commercial airplane or helicopter, etc. After a while, I also noticed that it didn't fly along a straight trajectory, but in a zigzag course with a slight curve, whereupon it quickly accelerated only to come almost to a standstill shortly afterwards. Suddenly it was gone. Then it was suddenly clear to me that this flying object had to be a beamship. I expressed my opinion to the small group standing by me when Billy, at almost exactly the same time, said that it was a ship. Soon we then saw a flashing airliner, which offered a good comparison. The sighting lasted about half a minute. In my estimation, the ship flew at a height of 7000 to 9000 meters. Later I asked Billy if he had noticed the time of the sighting. When he stated with certainty 21:50 hours, I was surprised, since I had apparently not realized that he had looked at his watch at the time of the sighting. Unusual Bright Lights Liberal Translation of Write-up by Pius Keller in Zeugenbuch, pp. 434-35 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., 2001) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 The nightwatch job of the FIGU grounds by the core-group membership of FIGU, although a necessary and obligatory duty, is for me always very interesting and instructive; for this service in the nighttime stillness and security is for me an outstanding balance against the hectic daily life, and a good opportunity for me to be in a concentrative and meditative demeanor. From the night of 5 July into 6 July, 2001, I had the second watch duty, which began in the early morning hours and lasted until the morning, and being the first duty it is partitioned into several rounds. After a short rest pause following the first round, I started on the second. Although during my earlier round the night sky was still overcast with broken clouds, these had dispersed in the meantime, and the stars sparkled clearly in the mild summer night. At around 3:53 I clocked in at the fifth little box, in the approach to our vegetable garden [see map, No. 4]. Therewith some random thoughts shot through my head. Still reflecting on these, I turned in order to continue on my security round. At this moment, while I looked in the direction of Schmidrüti [to the southwest], there appeared for me to view, to the left, above, two lights the size of the full moon -- silent, far off and high in the heavens, moving in a west-to-east direction. In a fraction of a second they disappeared. I was at once wide awake, amazed, and astonished as well over the unusual shining lights. For me this represented an entirely new experience, for until now I had observed at night "only" shooting stars or extraterrestrial craft at great heights. Naturally I was delighted that such an unusual sighting would be presented to me. This strengthened my belief in the existence of extraterrestrial Earth visitors in general, in particular, however, with respect to our friends from the Pleiades (or the stars of the Plejarens). Moreover, the sighting caused me to turn more intensively towards the Teachings and to seek the real truth. Extraordinary Visit at the Center or Extraordinarily "Great" Visit at the Center by Brunhilde Koye in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 297-299 translated by J. W. Deardorff, July 2011 It was not long after I came to the Center at Hinterschmidrüti when I wrote the following, in October of 1982: On 1 October, when I was closing up the trunk of my car at the community parking place at the Center [see map, No. 17'], I turned around as if under a compulsion, blinked in the warm October sun, and then looked down the slope [to the west] at the forest's edge, spellbound. Suddenly there flashed through me the memory (as I have recalled) of a scene I seem to have apparently observed from this point -- or did I see it? From this higher position (in front of the carriage house) I look [westward] down the steep grassy slope until my glance reaches the forest edge with its tall spruce trees, through whose crowns the sunlight flooded, where my gaze is transfixed on a small moving spruce tree. It moves from right to left, so from north to south -- I am surprised; searching, I see the lower portion of the moving tree -- clearly see the golden-yellow shimmering surface of the cut- off trunk of the spruce, which has no connection to a stump yet does not fall down -- I can't make out the tree's stump. Instead, I suddenly see two very large feet in sturdy shoes, then a tall, bi-laterally symmetric great being who appears in view, carrying the tree whose top extends a few meters beyond his head. "Never heard of such a thing" I think, startled for only a short moment, for things like this already are no longer extraordinary to me. So I stand still, perplexed. The large man, as such I distinctly recognize him to be, goes to the edge of the meadow's down-slope, and I hear him speaking to someone. But strain as I might, I cannot understand the words. The man gradually walks along further to the left (to the southwest), the tree in arm. My gaze alternately follows the traveling tree top and the strides of the giant man, until I discern him, large as he is, lying on his back. This giant has his arms crossed beneath his head -- apparently the man is resting and relishing the sunshine. Now I also recognize that both men are wearing the same blue-gray one-piece outfits, thus a kind of overalls. Somehow I then know that the tree-carrying man cheerfully lets the other understand that this repose should help refresh him. This picture imprints itself upon me -- I soon turn aside, shake my head as in a dream, turn around, see my car, and when I again look back at the meadow slope, only the sun's rays are to be seen, which with their glistening light illuminate the upper part of the the slope; the edge of the forest now lies in shade. In the twilight of the next day I come from the garden, walk slowly to the house, and suddenly see one of the two great, giant men leaning against the house, arms crossed, his head extending beyond the gutter of the roof. To be sure I am astounded, but the figure is already familiar to me; he gives me a friendly grin, which I even remember as a roguish smile. This is my report from 1-2 October, 1982. At first I was almost convinced I had had a sudden strong memory of a vivid dream -- but what a dream! Was it a hallucination, a vision, or a telepathically transmitted vision? At first, when I had convinced myself of these notions, I related my story to Hanni Bieri while we were both standing together behind my car, and she told me I ought to report it to Billy. Only after Billy at a later time told us of a visit by two great men named Andron and Anael, did I find the courage to tell him, between ourselves, of my "experience." Actually, I had expected that Billy would laugh at me, but instead, grinning, he told me I should write an article about it. Meanwhile many years have gone by [since writing it up for the Stimme der Wassermannzeit, No. 85, in late 1982]; if today [circa 2000] one looks straight out towards the spot, the spruce trees -- at that time, small, today quite a few meters high -- block the view and stand as a protective wall about 8 meters distant from my parking place. Occasionally I have related this sighting of 5-meter tall men to one or another FIGU Group Member -- and here now is the report of my knowledge of this extraordinary visit to the Center. . Nighttime Encounter by Brunhilde Koye in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 314-15 translated by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 It was in the year 1983 on Friday, 30 September, after I already had arrived in Hinterschmidrüti and spent the night in the trailer. [The trailer was located just to the west of the upper garage; see map, No. 11 -- the small red rectangle.] On the night of 30 Sept./1 Oct. I heard footsteps on the courtyard -- for some unknown reason I was awake. As I stepped before the trailer door and had already taken a few steps in order to see who was out strolling so late at night, I suddenly perceived a command within me ordering me to "Remain standing!", which I followed as if under duress. Yet I had already gone a few steps for sure and for this reason could look out to the east onto the road to the garage. On the road there came a white-haired and bearded tall figure. Billy was at that time still dark haired. The figure could not have been he. A strong feeling of good fortune spread over me -- I felt a warm stream, a whole special oscillation, thereby. The figure wore a white garment, and so was apparent to me in any case, and was as if encircled by light. A delightful feeling of warmth and security, of love and familiarity, filled me, and to this very day this feeling comes and streams over me whenever I recall this memory. It was many years later when I first learned that I had seen Ptaah and not Quetzal as I had at first surmised, for the latter has dark hair, which I did not yet know at the time, however. Nothing and no one can talk me out of these seconds -- or was it minutes? -- of memories of this encounter with an extraterrestrial human, so enduring and deep has this experience imprinted itself; for that I will always be thankful to Ptaah. [Note: On this occasion there was apparently an unreported contact of Billy by Ptaah occurring between official Contacts #190 and 191.] A Bright Shining Object Liberal Translation of Write-up by F. Kropf in FIGU Bulletin #37 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Nov., 2001) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 It was on Sunday, the 26 of September [correction: August] 2001, when I went with Atlant Bieri to Winterthur to bring him to the railway station because he had to return from his vacation from the military barracks at Langenthal, where he was enrolled at the Lieutenants School. Then I went back on the way home. It was already night and a few minutes after 9:30 pm, when I was driving up towards the Schmidrüti valley, that I saw a large shining object in the sky somewhere over the Schmidrüti region. It was too large for a star, but I couldn't decide what it could be. Even for a brightly shining star it shone too strongly, and so I wondered if it could perhaps be a beamship. When I then arrived at the Center parking lot around 9:40 pm, I saw Billy, who came up to me from the fountain-courtyard lamp and said that I had just missed something, because just a few minutes before he had observed a beamship of elliptical form for several minutes, which hovered high over the land west of the Center. The ship had shone very brightly with a whitish-yellow color, and had disappeared to the north just at the moment I arrived. Continuing to look whether I could still see the object, I explained to Billy that I had also seen the object on the drive home to the Valley. Then we went to the fountain-courtyard lamp [located a few meters west of the fountain (No. 17); see map], and we both searched above the dark horizon, and actually -- it took five minutes -- the bright object reappeared over the dark ridge in the north, and for about 10 minutes we observed how it remained in the same place. It was 9:58 pm when, at Billy's request, I fetched my camera with the 500 telephoto lens and a tripod, and began to photograph. Thereupon Bernadette came, and a few moments later Silvano, too, so we all further observed that the bright object, which in a few minutes slowly drew closer, was in our determination of elliptical form, though due to the great distance nothing more was well determined. Several minutes of observation went by, during which I could take various photographs. Then another object suddenly joined them to the left, before suddenly flashing aircraft appeared from the left and right, as well as from the background, whereupon the two bright objects suddenly disappeared, as if they had completely dissolved into nothing. This was at exactly 10:07 pm, consequently we saw the first object for around 30 minutes and the second for about five minutes. A Druaner Ship Liberal Translation of Write-up by Freddy Kropf in FIGU Bulletin #37 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Nov., 2001) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 In August 2001, I spent holidays together with my parents for a week. For four days we travelled in the Bernese Oberland, where we roomed in a cottage from where we could take excursions. On August 15th, we took a tour to the Niesen, a mountain in the Bernese Oberland with a height of 2362 m above sea level. As always I had my photo camera with me, equipped with a 500mm telephoto lens. Because the mountain panorama enchanted me, I took some pictures first without the telephoto lens, then with it. Specifically, I took pictures of the Mönch, Jungfrau and Breithorn, also prominent mountains in the Bernese Oberland. Somehow the Breithorn fascinated me then, I can't say why. Then something impelled me to take one more telephoto shot, during the period between 3 and 4 pm. Days later I was back in the Center and showed Billy the pictures, once I had identified two different unidentifiable objects in the sky behind the Breithorn in one of the pictures . So I asked Billy what they could be, whereupon Billy asked me to go with him to his office, where we examined the negative under an electronic enlarger apparatus. In the enlargement it was then clear that it involved a Druaner ship,†† thus, a space-capable interplanetary beamship. In a later contact of Billy with Ptaah our presumption and realization would be confirmed, because at the same time, the Druaners, or Druans, were actually over the same area, monitoring certain things. That is to say, there had been a second object present in the same image, clearly a Delta vessel, which had swerved around the other adjacent craft [the Druaner craft] in the sky, as the enlargement proved. ††The Druans "are a highly developed and extremely peaceful human race and are capable of bringing innovations to our own technology. The planet Druan..." is located in a very distant galaxy (Moosbrugger, 2004, p. 342). Surprise in the Night Liberal Translation of Write-up by Freddy Kropf in FIGU Bulletin No. 29 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Sept., 2000) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 It was in the night of 14 May 2000. I had just begun to shape the beaten bread dough for baking, when Billy, with whom I had been conversing, said that he must go now to his office because he still had some work to do. With some documents in hand, he left the kitchen towards the front door in order, he said, to cast a glance outside. He had not yet reached the front door†† when he called my name and that I should come out immediately, because a beamship was coming. If I remember correctly he cried out, "Freddy, come quickly, a ship -- Florena." With bread dough on the hands I ran out immediately, while Billy came through the front door into the open, looked up at the night sky, and immediately said, "Look, up there." And actually, as I looked up I beheld a silent flying object moving from west to east over the Center. The object was disk-shaped, looked to be 15-20 centimeters in diameter [if an object of such size were viewed from a certain distance away], shined with a glistening whitish-yellow light, and looked like Bengal Fire [a type of fireworks rocket flare]. We could only see the object for 10-15 seconds before it disappeared over the wooded eastern horizon. I was somewhat surprised how Billy, before he stepped out of the House into the open, knew that an object (beamship)was flying by, but I didn't need to wait long for an explanation. He let me know that during its travel over the house he had received a telepathic call from the beamship pilot, Florena, that just at the moment she was flying above the Center, and that he should look up, which he and I then both did. It was then just 22:32, as we determined on the basis of our wristwatches. Back in the kitchen, I formed the remaining dough into bread, after which I again came outside into the open, where Billy still remained. Perhaps I could still see Florena's ship. And indeed, there it was, a smaller and equally silent light flying from north to south, this time only slightly smaller than the first time. All of a sudden, the light blazed very dazzlingly while flying a couple kilometers further over the magnificent starry sky, sparkling brightly. Flying further to the south, it repeated the spectacle, whereupon the light just went out. Only one or two seconds later it surfaced again, and flew back now in a similar way, so now from south to north. Then suddenly I saw it no more, because due to the strain of searching the night sky for the flying object, my eyes began to burn and everything became blurry. When I opened my eyes again after a few seconds, I again saw the beamship just at the moment when it again blazed out brightly, much stronger and more extensively than the first three times. As Billy explained thereto, it involved four-fold fireworks with safety static energy burns[?], as he had often observed them in the course of his contacts. Shortly after this statement, Billy received a telepathic confirmation pertaining to this from Florena, when we were together in the kitchen. After we were there some minutes, Billy again received a telepathic call, that Florena was again flying over the Center, which is why we quickly ran again into the open at the garage parking place, in order to scan the night sky for Florena's beamship. Yet there, Billy received another telepathic call from Florena, that she must protect her ship from view, because she was flying at a rather low altitude, and because a large passenger aircraft was coming from the east at the same flight level, by which she did not want to be seen. This was at 23:10 hours. So Billy and I kept a lookout for the airplane, but couldn't see or hear one. But suddenly -- after about a minute passed -- a passenger jet ermerged over the eastern horizon of the forest at low altitude, of which not only the flashing navigation lights, but also very obviously the cabin or passenger-room lights could be seen. Shortly thereafter, the drone of the aircraft engines, their reverberation, was heard. Still to be said, Billy was informed that various people of the Plejarens would be passing over the Center area that night, so that's why Florena was carrying out check flights over the Center region. After midnight on May 15th, at 01:28 hours, a personal contact (Billy's #283) occurred with Ptaah, who was also among those who walked on the grounds of the Center. ††See map, near tip of "living room" arrowhead of No. 9. A Traveling Light in the Night Sky by Freddy Kropf in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), p. 356 translated by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 It was 1991, the middle of the month of September, in Hinterschmidrüti. I was still attending to work outside before it would become dark when I could no longer see. When the work was done, I quickly proceeded to the kitchen in order to get some coffee. After greeting those present in the kitchen with "Shalom," I went back outside in order to go back to my room. However, before I decided to go back, I raised my eyes in order to look at the star-filled sky. In that moment a traveling light in the night sky flashed, moving in a westerly direction. Somehow I was certain that it was a UFO, amd I spontaneously thought to myself, "Just do me a favor and brighten up again." Before I could even think, the ship brightened up already, so bright that it appeared to me that it was some fivefold bigger, and over me came a genuine feeling of bliss. As quickly however as the ship brightened up it faded out again and disappeared at the western horizon. Yet I long looked to the west with open mouth before I returned to my room with a continued blissful feeling. A Loud Beamship Siren by Christian Krukowski in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 173-4 a liberal translation by J. W. Deardorff, June 2011 It was in the summer of 1977 at the FIGU Center in Hinterschmidrüti. I was visiting the Semjase-Silver-Star Center together with my school friend at that time, Rüdiger Bässler -- it was July or August. Now, more than twenty years later, I had a discussion with my mother and my friend, on the one hand about the date of the experience, and on the other hand, about asking my friend if I may use his name in connection with the event, which he allowed, following which I will, in his name and mine, report the facts we experienced. Our trip from Kornwestheim (BDR) [just north of Stuttgart, Germany] was partly by railway and in part with our Mo-Peds. Having arrived at the FIGU Center in Hinterschmidrüti, we found a place where we could set up camp for a week in the vicinity of the main residence. Then on a bright midday it happened, when Rüdiger and I were lingering in the middle of the parking place, which at that time was not yet overgrown with trees as it is today. What happened came totally unexpectedly out of the bright clear sky! It was a loud, intense, piercing siren-like whistle, which rang down two or three times from the sky directly above our heads, yet from a considerable height. Astonished and shocked, we gazed up at the sky, but we were unable to see anything, neither an object nor anything else that the loud siren-like noise could have come from. I am still able to remember that I thought this unknown siren-whistle-like noise could not have originated from anything of this world, for it somehow sounded simply supernatural or extraterrestrial. The whole siren-like whistle was unearthly loud and intensive, and had an up- and down-swelling variable pitch that penetrated everything and vibrated through my body. Yet there was simply nothing to see in the cloudless blue sky, from where it all rang down. My friend and I quickly composed ourselves and searched all around, in case we could find some loudspeaker, but our search was fruitless -- since it would have to have been a loudspeaker high in the sky, for that's where the loud siren-whistle unmistakably came from. Also, our after-thoughts brought nothing, and we found that it all was extremely foreign and somehow impossible. Hence it could only be that it involved something extraterrestrial -- perhaps the noise of a space ship. Perhaps however someone wanted to play a joke on us, yet how they would have accomplished the loud noise clearly coming from the sky high above remains a mystery to us. Therefore, the only remaining logical answer is that it must actually have dealt with something that hovered high above us, was also invisible, yet was really present. So we did not yet find a solution. [To fill the reader in on something else that occurred during this experience,] the siren-like whistle had not yet died away when we saw Billy approaching from the east from a nearby forest. He entered the residence while the siren- like whistle over us gradually diminished and distanced itself towards the west. Hence we also went into the house in order to question Billy what the whole thing could be, and why he himself had not been concerned over the loud noise and in spite of it had disappeared into the house, although he could not have escaped the whole thing. From him we were then informed that he had just returned from a contact with the Pleiadians, which had taken place in the nearby forest. Then they flew away -- naturally shielded against all visibility. Nevertheless, apparently the sound- screening device must not have been turned on, following which the loud siren-whistle noise was heard, which for him (Billy) was apparently like an everyday occurrence. Hence he did not pay attention to it. For us, on the contrary, it was a very special event that I can delight in to this day. Photographed Pleiadian-Plejaren Beamship in Italy Liberal Translation of Write-up by H. G. Lanzendorfer and Billy Meier in FIGU Bulletin #17 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., July, 1998), See also Zeugenbuch (FIGU, 2001), pp. 387-88 J. W. Deardorff, May, 2011 Summary. On April 22, 1998, a FIGU Core Group member was in Luino, Italy. On this Wednesday she was with some relatives on a small vacation tour, where of course photos were taken. When it was about 16:29 hours in Luino she photographed her travel companion -- with a view over Lake Maggiore. She naturally was looking at the foreground and noticed nothing unusual. Even later, when looking through the developed photos, she saw nothing unusual at first. Then with a detailed inspection, she noticed that on the left in the image, high above the lake, there was an object that bore a tremendous resemblance to the Pleiadian/Plejaren beamships. Under the magnifying glass this is then confirmed. Photo by Core Group member at Luino, Wednesday, 22 April 1998, 16:29 hrs Puzzle solution: Since Florena, a Pleiadian-Plejaren beamship pilot, knew of this member’s vacation in the canton of Ticino in Italy, she flew there in order to make the beamship visible to her. This failed, but thoroughly, because the photographer paid insufficient attention to the sky; thus Florena simply moved her ship at the proper moment to position it in the background of a further picture taken when she was photographing her relatives and acquaintances. This declared Florena, the beamship pilot, when I asked her about the circumstances of the presence of a Pleiadian-Plejaren beamship in the mentioned photo of it. -- Billy Florena's demonstration flight over Luino, Italy A very popular argument of Billy Meier's antagonists, in order to designate the credibility of his contact with the aliens as fraud, consists of the false assertion that only Billy Meier ever got to witness the Pleiadian- Plejaren beamships, as well as the alien people of the Pleiadian-Plejaren Federation. Also, opposing and defamatory circles claim that only Billy Meier was allowed to photograph the Pleiadian-Plejaren ships -- false information upon which to build their nonsensical model and trick-photography theories. Such statements by Billy Meier's opponents in no way correspond to the truth, and clearly show that the many beamship witnesses from the ranks of FIGU have simply been swept under the rug, to say the least, by the opponents and dissidents. In the case of Billy Meier, so it seems, there are simply no other witnesses to his testimony, let alone eye-witnesses to the beamship sightings. In the style of the old and narrow-minded way of thinking: “That which cannot be, must not be.” In the book “…And Yet They Fly!” Guido Moosbrugger lists at least 19 witnesses who have been in on various demonstrations and beamship sightings, sound recordings or extraordinary events associated with Billy Meier's contacts. This number has grown some since 1991. The fact is that over the last twenty-three years since the first official contact with Semjase on 28 January 1975, Billy Meier could take over a thousand pictures of Pleiadian-Plejaren beamships. If you exempt the daylight photos of the former member Hans Schutzbach and another member of the Core Group [Edith Beldi] -- which of course being only two in number bear no comparison to the thousand by Billy, it's probably not surprising that the above-mentioned nonsense is maintained and established in the world by the baseless and superficial research of “pseudo-ufologists.” However, the fact that besides Billy there were two other cases of daytime shots of Pleiadian-Plejaren beamships, which quite clearly involve Pleiadian- Plejaren types of craft, alone proves in deed and truth that Billy could not have suspended any model UFOs. Otherwise Hans Schutzbach and Edith Beldi would also have to be blamed for fraud, conspiracy or fakery by the opposition. This in turn would testify to an indescribable amount of callousness, foolishness and blindness on the part of the obstinate critics. This actually again shows that even thousands of photos and images are not enough to convince people who don’t think using logic, reason and common sense, of the existence of extraterrestrial life. And even possible belief, if not based on one’s own thinking, forms only an accepted opinion and therefore remains worthless and without probative value. Otherwise, there is the possibility that if Billy Meier actually were a cheat or liar in things like UFOs and aliens, it would make for a very interesting fact that genuine UFO pictures were taken by the ranks of the FIGU membership. A side effect would be that again it would at least strengthen or confirm Billy's mission, namely to awaken people’s awareness of the existence of extraterrestrial life. In addition, it would be an exceptionally advantageous “accident” for him that the two genuine ships would have exactly the same form as his “false” ships. In short -- it would be a rather paradoxical situation between truth, half-truth, and fraud. But ultimately the big question, still unresolved for the pathological critics, would be: "Are they actually real -- the aliens, the Plejarens, the contacts of Billy Meier with the extraterrestrial intelligences -- or are they not?" During the time of the first contacts in the mid-1970s, voices were loud that complained about Billy being the only one allowed by the aliens at contacts and at film or photographic sessions. “Billy can say a lot; if only he would get the ships and the aliens before our eyes and cameras. Without giving outsiders the possibility of checking his claims, it makes him a sect leader,” so go the arguments of his opposition even today. This fact at the time led the Pleiadians/Plejarens to offer other members of the Group the possibility of photo shots. These, however, were only on some nighttime demonstration flights, where Guido Moosbrugger and Hans Schutzbach could take some photographs of bright lights (quite apart from the day and night sightings by Group members of Pleiadian-Plejaren ships, which observations were not recorded photographically). On June 28th, 1976, Hans Schutzbach was offered the opportunity, after Contact #59 between Billy and Semjase, to photograph her beamship and that of her sister Pleija and [the Plejaren] Quetzal, who accompanied them in the Hochacher/Pfaffenholtz/Hinwil region. During this 59th meeting Pleija, the sister of Semjase, dabbled with the problems of our “barbaric” mo-ped technology, when she allowed Billy to instruct her on his mo-ped for about 20 minutes on the road. The contact began around 16:14 hrs. Among the guests of Billy's, who were left behind at some distance from him, were "P.", his three children, Mrs. Amata Stetter and Hans Schutzbach, who, around 16:55 hrs, took photo No. 299 (of the FIGU collection and photo album) of the two ships in flight. Unfortunately, only a single, scarcely usable image resulted because, due to sheer excitement over the flying beamships, Hans Schutzbach was unable to take reasonably good pictures of them. Thus, the only opportunity of getting some daylight photos of Pleiadian-Plejaren beamships by other individuals of the Group besides Billy, was wasted -- until 22 April 1998. That is, a member of FIGU (Edith Beldi), spent her holidays in Ticino, the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, in April 1998, accompanied by some friends and relatives. A trip led her to Luino, a small market town on the Italian side of Lake Maggiore. At around 4:30 pm, with a simple camera, Edith photographed her acquaintances standing in front of a post bus on the shore of the lake, with the lake in the background and no premonition of what was hidden in the sky above them. For over an hour the Pleiadian-Plejaren contact person Florena, who knew of Edith as a FIGU member and of her holiday in the Ticino, tried to attract her attention. Unfortunately it was not managed because Edith’s attention was distracted from looking at the sky by the busy hustle and bustle of the market and by their relatives and acquaintances. Then Florena simply flew her ship into the exposure range of the camera, as Edith photographed her friends and relatives on the shore of the lake, around 4:29 pm. Although the ship is seen only as a relatively small oblong object on the left upper part of the image, it can still be identified very well in its form as a Pleiadian-Plejaren beamship. In addition, the reflection of the sun in the upper part of the ship’s hull is seen quite clearly. From the picture Billy immediately had the suspicion that the vessel could only be that of Florena, because her companions’ ships have a quite different shape. To get to the bottom of things and gain clarity, Billy had a photographer make a cropped enlargement which showed the pictured vessel even clearer. Then, Billy tried to reach Florena telepathically, which he succeeded in doing the night of 8 May. About 21:50 hrs he received a visit from Florena for a few minutes in his living room at Hinterschmidrüti, where the following conversation regarding the photograph took place: Florena... Greetings, Eduard. Yes, I was unfortunately absent, which is why you could not reach me. I understand you wanted to talk to me right away, because if I am not mistaken, you have called me because you want to ask me for the circumstances of a photograph taken by a member -- or am I wrong? Billy... No, not at all, precisely because I wanted to talk with you. The member showed me her holiday photos from Ticino and Italy. So I immediately noticed on one photo an object in the sky that looked like a Pleiadian- Plejaren beamship. Under the magnifying glass this was then confirmed. When I showed it to the member and she looked at it, she was astonished and said that she had seen nothing [in the sky] while photographing. I found that understandable, as she was naturally looking at her relatives and acquaintances during the course of photographing. When the member shot the photo, it should have been about 16:30 hrs. The location was Luino in Italy and the date the 22nd of April 1998 - a Wednesday. Florena... That is accurate. The time was however exactly 16:29 hours, when the member activated the shutter of the camera. -- Now, you have told me that she would be on vacation for a few days in the canton of Ticino, whereupon I thought I could follow her there one time and make my craft visible to her -- with Ptaah’s consent of course, of whom I asked permission because for reasons of the Directives we are usually not allowed to openly show ourselves and make our craft visible. So I spent some hours above the vacation spot trying to let her see my craft, which is why I opened a field of view for her to me, and on several occasions. Unfortunately however she was always looking somewhere else, just not in my direction and so not skyward. I didn’t want to give her any impulse [to look my way], because she then would have drawn attention to her relatives and acquaintances, who of course would have seen nothing, because I had opened the view of my aircraft only to her eyes. Had she said something about being monitored, then she would certainly have been accused of falsehood and fantasy, and perhaps even worse things. So for these reasons I gave up the idea of sending impulses to the member that would draw her attention to me. As a consequence, therefore, I tried to appear in the field of vision of the camera at an appropriate moment just as she once again exposed the film. So it happened that my flying craft was photographed by her. Billy... That’s about as we have presupposed. Many thanks for your efforts. For us it is really very good that another Group member than I is once allowed to photograph one of your beamships in broad daylight, which actually was previously reserved only for me, with one exception. -- For myself, it was certainly good that it had to involve your beamship, because you are indeed the only one flying such a device. Your co-workers use other ship models, which cannot be confused with yours. Florena... That’s right, as is also the fact that in previous years only Guido Moosbrugger as well as Hans Schutzbach were allowed to take pictures of our craft. The two could take only night shots, therefore only the bright- light phenomenon could be observed. Hans Schutzbach was in addition allowed to record Semjase’s craft and Quetzal’s on film during the day, but failed miserably, I must say, because while he saw the two craft fly away he was so excited and shaking that he got no picture, as Semjase and Quetzal reported to me. Now it remains, of course, for each individual to make what he wants out of the above mentioned facts: Whether this new and important piece of evidence can be recognized and accepted or not. Whether it perhaps even serves as a reminder at last to take the trouble to seek the basic and clarity-creating structure around the concerns relating to Billy Meier, or whether the mirror of unreasonable foolishness must continue to bear its smile. The wise decision has a name: "Impartiality, absence of pre-condemnation, evolutionary ascent, or consciousness evolution," etc. Eyewitness Account of a Sighting at Hinterschmidrüti by Hans Georg Lanzendorfer in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 323-24 translated by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 In spring of the year 1986 I bumped into FIGU in Hinterschmidrüti. UFOs as purely technical objects have not especially interested me; for a long time there I've been much more concerned with the philosophy and the statements of the possible extraterestrial beings. It was essential for me to know or learn what they had to say to Earth humans if they were to appear on Earth some day. This was also the reason for my appearance in Hinterschmidrüti. In August of 1987 -- I can no longer state the date -- I had an apparently persuasive sighting of extraterrestrial ships in Hinterschmidrüti. It was on a warm evening in August when, as so often, many people were gathered together in Hinterschmidrüti. I had parked my car at the wood-yard place, which is found on the road behind Hinterschmidrüti. Sometime around midnight I finished saying my goodbyes and prepared for the trip home to Schaffhausen [some 25 miles north of Zurich]. Therefore I left the building and started out into the darkness. It was a clear, starry night, and I walked across the courtyard in the direction of Schmidrüti. Naturally I looked closely at the sky and was on the lookout for any "traveling stars." When I had walked a little past the bend in the gravel road and just past the "charcoal kiln" [see map, No. 5], in which, earlier, wood and garden wastes were incinerated, I turned around as always to look towards the sky in the west. From afar I could discern three various colored points, which moved along leisurely at some distance from one another and were flying in my direction. At first they were still very small, then they became ever larger the closer they approached. I could then also recognize that it had to be not a single object but three separate ones, because they were moving independently of each other. Their movements were also no longer as motionless and leisurely as before. They gently swung up and down, as if they were dancing on waves. Naturally I observed their travel further, while I stood stationary. It was only a short moment until the three luminous objects were hovering directly above the main residence at Hinterschmidrüti. Yet, today I cannot say with absolute certainty at what altitude they hovered. It was nevertheless at least two hundred meters. In the darkness, more or less only the objects' lights could be seen and not their outlines. Over the main residence they had suddenly stopped their travel and oscillated on the spot gently back and forth. These pendulum movements on the spot lasted only a few minutes before they suddenly again resumed traveling, and in the blink of an eye they shot up into the sky. To be sure, this was for me a stirring moment; yet I have never troubled to find an explanation whether this involved Pleiadian/Plejaren ships or some foreign kind. An Encounter of a Special Kind Liberal Translation of Write-up by H. G. Lanzendorfer in FIGU Bulletin #32 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., May, 2001) by J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 It was in the mid-1980s of the last century that "Billy" Eduard A. Meier took the last official photo and film footage of a Plejaren beamship. Since then, there have been, among the members of FIGU, only the opportunity to have relatively "unspectacular" sightings of Plejaren ships at a great distance, much less the opportunity to photograph them. This however changed on 22 April 1998. E. [Edith Beldi], a member of FIGU, spent her holidays in the Ticino, the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, in April 1998. A trip led her to Luino, a small market town on the Italian side of Lake Maggiore. At about 16:30 hours E. photographed, from the shore of the lake, the flight-craft of the Plejaren contact person, Florena, who had deliberately flown into the exposure range of her camera. The Plejaren have decided to show themselves increasingly to the members of the Association of FIGU, and also to offer the possibility of photographing their ships. Subsequently, there were several photographs of Plejaren ships as well as exceptional experiences, by the members of the Association of FIGU. (Photos by Freddy Kropf, Silvano Lehmann and Barbara Harnisch, of the 49-member core group, as well as Philip McAiney, Canada, passive member.) Among other things, during a Contact Conversation in Billy's office, Bernadette Brand heard the voice of Ptaah; and one night several more members, who were sitting together with Billy in the kitchen, were in on Florena's [telepathic] call to Billy. Further, several times ships were sighted over the Center in Hinterschmidrüti, and in one case the footprints of Florena were found in the snow behind the house. Early Sunday morning of February 4th, 2001, I, Hans-Georg Lanzendorfer, once again had an encounter of the "special" kind. On that weekend the members of the core group 49 sat at the monthly general meeting, which usually begins on a Saturday evening and as a rule lasts until late into the night. After the meeting I went on my way home in my car. Early that morning, about 00:40 hours, I left the Semjase Silver Star Center together with the other core-group members. I drove along the Schmidrüti direction and branched off in front of the Freihof Inn on the left [see map, lower left], in order to get onto the highway towards Dussnang via Sitzberg and Schurten. Already at the Freihof Inn I realized, however, that my ten-year-old vehicle, of which I am accustomed actually to absolute reliability, simply was not performing properly. The motor stuttered and almost threatened to stall out. For this reason, I was overtaken by the two following cars carrying Wolfgang and Philia Stauber, Christian Krukowski and Karin Wallén. Only with difficulty I managed to cope with the uphill climb. Arriving on the hilltop, the vehicle still stuttered and jerked, this even though I had already traveled a considerable distance during which time the engine should have become warm enough for normal operation. In my mind I saw myself with the cell phone of the TCS (Touring Club Switzerland) calling and asking for roadside assistance -- and that in the middle of the night. Shortly after the junction towards Sädelegg-Allenwinden the road leads left towards Dussnang with a meadow on the left, and to the right past one edge of the forest. The two cars ahead of me had reduced their speed somewhat due to the bad road conditions. They had nevertheless gained a considerable distance over me and were about to make a sharp left turn. But I could see their tail lights well. It was a very dark night and the sky was cloudy. Only my low-beam headlights threw light onto the road a few meters ahead. Having arrived at the top of the rise with the edge of the forest on my right, the vehicle, still stuttering, was suddenly illuminated by a dazzlingly bright, clear, orange colored flash of light. The entire inside of the car became ablaze as though someone right next to me had triggered the flash of a camera. The light was not, however, some sort of directional spotlight in the form of a point source, such as a police "radar beam" that can be recognized as coming from some direction. To my surprise the contours of my vehicle were literally enveloped by the light, so that I could see the spray-nozzles of the wiper system, even the wiper blades, as well as the contours of the side mirrors, clearly and plainly as a bright light. For a brief moment it seemed as if the clear orange light, in the form of microscopically small lightning, danced along over the contours, curves, corners and edges of my vehicle -- as if the vehicle was under high voltage. The whole event, however, lasted only about as long as the sizzling lightning flash across the sky in a thunderstorm. The light, however, was of such a magnitude and clarity that I was blinded for a fraction of a second. Thereby the image of the illuminated car fittings and contours were branded on my retina as if I had looked into a bright lamp and immediately closed my eyes. Strangely, I immediately had the impulse in my head, that what had just happened was an encounter with a telemeter disk. The impulse was so clear and definite that I joked about it -- a mere millimeter-size, disk-device thing. That is, years earlier in the Semjase-Silver Star-Center, Eva Bieri had photographed, behind the house, some people at work. Just at the moment she pressed the button of her camera, the telemeter disk activated, accompanied by an orange flash of light. In this way, she caught a bright shining orange object on the film. In hindsight, it was explained that the telemeter disks briefly light up and emit an orange light at an activation or deactivation. Therefore, I went away now thinking that I probably just witnessed such a moment. The experience of Eva took place in the daytime. In my case, however, it was pitch-black night. So I thought that perhaps the light of the telemeter disk had been visible as a much brighter flash. Without stopping I continued the journey somewhat confused and lost in thought. Shortly before Dussnang, I was amazed that the stuttering and interruptions of the engine were long gone, and it purred along perfectly. When the members again met at the Center on a Sunday afternoon, I was naturally curious about whether the two vehicles ahead of me had been affected by any unusual phenomenon. Karin Wallén told me this, that she had observed a brief flash of light shortly after the place I've described. She was of the opinion, however, that I must have flashed her and Christian and the others with my headlights with the intention of overtaking them. This night experience left me no peace. Although I consider such a happening as exciting and interesting, I am not one to fall into a state of exhilarating euphoria. However, I didn't yet know in this impressive case, despite its clarity, whether I had simply been subject to a hallucination or other mirage, or whether some out-of-the-ordinary physical phenomenon had actually taken place. So, I told the story to Billy on Sunday afternoon. He laughed and told me that he knew this phenomenon very well from his own experience. In all probability it had involved the contact with a sight-screening shield of a large Plejaren object -- probably a manned ship or an unmanned telemeter disk. It was known to him that Florena was still in the area -- he had already received a visit the night before by Ptaah. This fact he wanted to make known, in order to bring out the details of the experienced event. Already on Sunday night, the 4th of February, it turned out that a Contact Conversation between Billy and Florena took place, and that my vehicle and I had actually been within the three-meter sight-shield of a telemeter disk. They had monitored the Semjase-Silver-Star Center, and after the meeting had followed me, for some reason not officially mentioned, while I drove away from Hinterschmidrüti. Thus the edge of the energy screen must have approached too close to my car, the consequences of which then showed up as the above described light phenomenon. In accordance with Florena's and Billy's information, the reason for my car's engine problems could have been the presence of, and the radiation from, the telemeter disk, which problems of course went away when the disk went away. Thus, in this excetional manner and to my surprise, I had the "pleasure" of an encounter of an entirely "special kind". Well, perhaps it was a nice gift to bring me a small joy -- or perhaps it simply showed once again that the Plejaren are not immune from making "little blunders." Survival of the Crucifixion: Traditions of Jesus within Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Paganism James W. Deardorff December, 1993; revised March, 1998 INTRODUCTION HIS "LOST YEARS" IN INDIA RESUSCITATION HYPOTHESES ATTEMPTED DEBUNKINGS TRADITIONS OF JESUS' TRAVELS AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION Jesus within Islam Jesus within Hinduism Jesus within Buddhism Jesus within Roman paganism SUMMARY ENDNOTES INTRODUCTION The empty tomb on Easter morning and subsequent appearances of Jesus to his disciples and to a few others have provided some novelists, or writer-scholars, with incentive to explore the possibility of his survival of the crucifixion.1 This incentive has been furthered by the lack of documented examples of resurrection other than that supposed for Jesus first by Paul and then by the early Christian church. Unknown to many, however, is that various independent scholars have also postulated that Jesus survived the crucifixion for the same reasons. Also not well known is how widespread and credible the traditions are that point to Jesus, after surviving the crucifixion, having traveled with a few others through Anatolia and thence eastward to northern India and the Kashmir region. Here these topics will be summarized and consolidated so that open-minded, questioning Christians can better explore the roots of their faith and understand how thoroughly Christian authorities over the centuries have ignored, suppressed and belittled the unthinkable evidence that could overturn their faith. RESUSCITATION HYPOTHESES Although the various Gospel accounts of Jesus' appearances to his disciples following the crucifixion contain a large number of inconsistencies and discrepancies, this is only to be expected if the Gospel writers, especially the first one, needed to edit an original account of Jesus having survived the crucifixion into an account in which he had appeared in a resurrected form. The various scholars' hypotheses will then vary due to the differing weights they may attach to the different Gospel accounts, and due to their differing religious backgrounds. The Ahmadiyyas. This non-orthodox branch of Islam was founded in the 19th century by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, Pakistan. His century-old book, available on line, provides the basics of their evidence and understanding that Jesus survived the crucifixion. By now, their followers, several hundred thousand strong, are centered in London, Berlin and Los Angeles as well as in Pakistan. M. G. Ahmad carefully researched the traditions that support Jesus' trek across Asia; this prompted him and some scholarly followers to postulate how Jesus survived the crucifixion. Briefly, they posit that Jesus lapsed into a deep swoon while on the cross, that the spear thrust missed his heart, that he received medical attention while in the tomb, and that his exit from the tomb was aided by Essenes.2 These are all plausible suppositions, except, it turns out, that Essenes were not in on it. Underlying this and other survival hypotheses to be discussed is the knowledge that death on the cross was designed to be long in coming -- up to several days, while Jesus is said to have been taken down from the cross, with legs unbroken, relatively early on the same day. Further, it is often pointed out that Josephus has written of an instance in which he recognized three Jewish prisoners who had undergone crucifixion but had not yet died. He obtained permission from Titus to take them down from their crosses and administer aid; one of them survived.3 The Ahmadiyya literature also points out that the "sign of Jonah" prophecy made by Jesus is better fulfilled if he had survived the entombment of three days and nights, since Jonah survived his experience within the interior of the "big fish." The Ahmadiyyas' supposition that Essenes were involved in Jesus' recovery stems from their assumption that the "angels in white" in Jn 20:12 or the men (or man) in white in Lk 24:4 (or Mt 28:3, Mk 16:5 or Jn 20:12) were Essenes due to the belief that Essenes wore white garments. Of course, this is not consistent with the reactions of the reported witnesses to having seen non-human entities clad in dazzlingly white apparel. Karl Bahrdt, ca. 1780. This scholar postulated, in brief, that Jesus survived a feigned death, with Luke the physician having supplied drugs to Jesus beforehand. Jesus was supposed to have been an Essene, and so also Joseph of Arimathea, who resuscitated him. On the third day, when Jesus came forth, his appearance scared the guards away and he later lived in seclusion with the Essenes.4 Here there is much to criticize -- all, in fact, but the likelihood that Joseph of Arimathea was involved in Jesus' recovery. 5 Karl Venturini, ca. 1800. Venturini proposed that Jesus had been associated with a secret society, which wished him to become a spiritual Messiah. Though they had not expected him to survive the crucifixion, one of them, dressed in white, heard some groans from inside the tomb. He frightened away the guards and retrieved Jesus, who used up his remaining energy in appearing to his disciples and afterwards retired permanently from sight. This appears even more far-fetched than Bahrdt's version. Heinrich Paulus, 1828. A more detailed version was postulated by Paulus. Preceding the earthquake of Mt 27:51, dense fumes were supposedly released that caused difficulty in breathing and made it appear that Jesus had prematurely died on the cross. Somehow Jesus survived in the tomb without any help. Similar to Venturini's hypothesis, Paulus had Jesus use up his remaining energy in the following days and then disappear into an orographic cloud at the end of his final meeting with the disciples on the mountain -- the Ascension. Again, however, there is no shortage of problems with this scenario.6 Nevertheless, the father of modern theology, F.E.D. Schleiermacher, endorsed a form of this hypothesis in the early 1830s.7 Ernest Brougham Docker, 1920. He proposed that on the cross, Jesus had lapsed into a state of catalepsy or self- hypnosis, that the spear thrust to the side may not have occurred, and that within the tomb Jesus was aided by Joseph and Nicodemus. Later, the gardener of Jn 20:15 supplied Jesus with fresh clothing.8 Docker was a district court judge as well as a student of the New Testament, and offered an interesting discussion of how the bystanders at the crucifixion may have mistakenly thought Jesus dead while Joseph discovered otherwise. This scenario seems more realistic than the preceding ones, though surely Joseph or Nicodemus could have supplied the clothing. Robert Graves & Joshua Podro, 1957. These two independent scholars pictured Jesus as having collapsed into a coma while on the cross, with the spear thrust having failed to pierce the lungs. The outflow of "blood and water" (Jn 19:34; Mt 27:49b, according to manuscripts "B" and "Aleph") indicated to them that Jesus had not died, a point also made by the Ahmadiyyas. One of the guards at the tomb is supposed to have entered in order to steal the valuable ointment smeared on the shroud in which Jesus had been wrapped; finding him alive, he informed their sergeant, who let Jesus go. That evening Jesus showed himself to the disciples, but from then on became a wanderer, living in hiding.9 I find this guard scenario much less realistic than that of secret medical attention supplied within the tomb. The Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ), 1978. This is the document discovered in 1963, translated in substantial part from Aramaic into German by 1974, and destroyed in June of that year due to its heresies for Christianity and Judaism.10 Because of its heresies, lack of extant originals, and association with a UFO contactee case, scholars cannot deal with it seriously and it remains largely unknown to them. In it, Jmmanuel (Jesus) lapses into a very deep trance, probably samadhi,11 on the cross and only Joseph of Arimathea notices he is not dead after the spear thrust. (In its verses 30:49-51, the TJ says, "It came to pass that a soldier took his lance and stabbed Jmmanuel in his loin to ensure that he was dead. Blood mixed with water flowed from the wound as is the case when a person is dead or in a half-dead state. Thus the soldier thought that Jmmanuel was dead, and he informed the others.") After enshrouding him and carrying him to his tomb, he quickly seeks out Jmmanuel's Hindu friends for help because of their skill in medicines and herbs. They utilize a second entrance to the tomb known only to Joseph so as not to arouse suspicions, especially after the guards are posted. After three days (not just two) Jmmanuel is helped out very early in the morning via the secret entrance and continues to recover rapidly. Just how he was able to recover so quickly is not explained, and one is left with the possibility that his miraculous healing powers could be applied not just to others but to a considerable extent to himself as well. During his subsequent meetings with his disciples, he warned them not to disclose his survival to others. This may well be history, not hypothesis, but for those who insist that the TJ must be a literary hoax, it is the hypothesis of an unknown hoaxer. J.D.M. Derrett, 1982. Prof. Derrett allowed that Jesus had lapsed into unconsciousness or a self-induced trance during the crucifixion, being taken for dead by bystanders and by the Roman soldier who stabbed him in the side. He chose the likelihood that his heart and lungs had not been pierced, and assumed that Jesus subsequently self-revived within the tomb. Basing other assumptions on the Gospel of Mark, he inferred that no Roman guard had been set, but rather that the young man of Mk 16:5 (and possibly of Mk 14:51) was a self-appointed guard. Some noise inside the tomb supposedly caused this guard to check inside, whence he found Jesus in poor shape but alive. Jesus is assumed to have muttered a few things to this guard to relay to the disciples, and died not long afterwards from his injuries. His disciples supposedly cremated his body because they considered him the Paschal Lamb, meant to be sacrificed.12 A half dozen objections to this hypothesis have been raised.13 B. Thiering. This scholar pictured Jesus as having been given snake poison on the cross, which rendered him unconscious. He recovered from this and was helped to escape from the tomb by friends. Ultimately he settled in Rome.14 I have been unable to see any merit in her arguments: she pictures the entire ministry of Jesus as presented in the Gospels as actually having occurred in the Dead Sea area rather than the Sea-of-Galilee area, including the fishing industry. She regards nearly everything in the Gospels as a coded version of what actually occurred, with the code to be deciphered by the "pesher" method. Her use of this method makes repeated use of the Dead Sea Scrolls in which she interprets the "Wicked Priest" as Jesus. I am disappointed to have had to dismiss her work as summarily as have the "mainstream" scholars. ATTEMPTED DEBUNKINGS The resuscitation hypotheses up until 1835 were roundly rejected by David Friedrich Strauss, and for nearly a century this put a damper on further such hypotheses. His criticism was largely in the form of ridicule over the idea of a "half-dead" being creeping out from the grave "weak and ill," yet managing to instill in his disciples "the impression that he was a Conqueror over death and the grave."15 He assumed Jesus had not received any medical attention while in the tomb. However, several of the survival hypotheses do postulate such medical assistance, and are therefore immune to Strauss's objection. Yet, his rejection is sometimes referred to by scholars even today, when necessary, as if it were germane. Strauss was the first scholar to emphasize the possibility that after the crucifixion the disciples so longed for their Lord that they invented the appearances. Thus he simply dismissed all testimony that Jesus had risen from the grave and physically appeared to his disciples by pointing out inconsistencies in the various accounts, rather than exploring reasons why such inconsistencies would be expected. A prominent medical-theological treatment of the crucifixion concluded that if Jesus did not die on the cross, he must surely have died from the spear thrust. 16 However, this conclusion was based most noticeably on pre-1980 analyses of the Shroud of Turin and the assumption that this shroud is genuine. The Ahmadiyyas have also utilized the Shroud of Turin to support their opposing conclusion, but they could point to the outflow of "blood and water" from the spear thrust as indicating that Jesus had not died, as from asphyxiation, prior to that action. Although the authors of this attempted debunking were Christians, and must have believed in the reality of Jesus' miraculous cures of lepers, the lame, blind, deaf and other afflicted, they never questioned whether his spiritual healing power might not extend to his own body. In summary, if the most logical components from the various resuscitation hypotheses are synthesized in a consistent manner, it is seen that one like the TJ's story could emerge that survives the objections of attempted debunkers. This is especially true if Jesus' healing powers could have applied also to himself. This may seem more plausible to many than that the Gospels' stories of Jesus' post-crucifixion appearances were totally made up and that resurrection is a viable concept. Hence it is reasonable to treat seriously the traditions indicating that in years following the crucifixion, Jesus and a small party traveled about Anatolia and western Asia. Some of these Jesus-in-Asia traditions to be presented have been pseudo-debunked by the Swedish scholar, Per Beskow.17 Careful inspection of one topic, however, indicates that his tactic was to ignore the most pertinent pieces of evidence, distort much of the rest, emphasize irrelevancies, attempt to discredit persons who provide first- or second-hand information, and otherwise treat the evidence piece-meal rather than cumulatively.18 Beskow dismissed the Jesus-in-Asia traditions primarily by calling them legends whose Asian sources "do not carry any weight at all."19 This appears to be a cultural put-down induced by theological commitment or fear that serious investigation of the topic would be loathsome in the eyes of Western colleagues. TRADITIONS OF JESUS' TRAVELS AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION Jesus within Islam. Certain Islamic historians felt no need to suppress these traditions, since to them Jesus was only a mortal prophet, albeit a very important one. Moreover, Islam in general doesn't even believe that Jesus underwent the crucifixion, but that someone substituted for him on the cross. The Persian historian Mir Kawand names a site close to Damascus called Maqam-Isa or Mayuam-i-isa, which means "the place where Jesus lived," according to independent scholar Holger Kersten.20 Kersten traveled through western Asia in 1973-74 visiting various libraries and researching these traditions. The Talmud of Jmmanuel confirms this by indicating that Jmmanuel (alias Jesus) went to Damascus following his final meeting with his disciples, and lived there incognito for two years.21 This included the time when Saul (Paul) had his conversion experience on the road to Damascus southwest of the city.22 Three of these historians wrote of Jesus, Mary and Thomas (Judas-Thomas, presumably) having traveled to Nisibis (Nasibain) near Edessa, now Urfa in southeast Turkey just north of Syria, where Jesus preached to the king. Mir Muhammad bin Khawand Shah Ibn-i-Muhammad, also known as Mir Khawand bin Badshah, in 1417 wrote of the journey of Jesus away from the Jerusalem area to Nisibis. In the former, Jesus and Mary first go to Syria; in the latter, they and Thomas have some confrontations with the king of Nisibis.23 Faqir Muhammad, around 1830, wrote, among other things, that on these journeys Jesus and Mary traveled on foot, and that Jesus preached to the king of Nisibis. 24 According to Holger Kersten, the story is prefixed by this king having been ill and having requested Jesus to come and cure him; Jesus sent Thomas on ahead, and Thomas cured the king by the time Jesus and the rest of his party arrived. 25 Iman Abu Jaffar Muhammad bin Jarir at-Tabri in 1880 wrote of the tradition that Jesus and party had to depart quickly from Nisibis because of hostility that had arisen against them there. 26 In some Muslim writings Jesus is referred to as Yuz Asaf. The meaning and derivation of the name is uncertain. "Yuz" is thought by some to mean either "Jesus" or "leader," and "Asaf" to refer to those he cured of leprosy. Thus one interpretation is that Yuz Asaf means "leader of those he cured of leprosy."27 An alternate interpretation will be supplied later. It is understandable that in his travels after the crucifixion Jesus would have remained incognito, especially for the first few years and in Anatolia, and when necessary have supplied a name for himself other than what he had been known by in Palestine. However, ample descriptions are supplied that leave little room to doubt that the man known as Yuz Asaf is to be identified with Jesus -- his close association with his mother Mary and with Thomas is one of these. In Iranian traditions recounted by Agha Mustafai, it is said that Yuz Asaf came there from the west and preached, causing many to believe in him.28 His teachings are said to have been similar to those of Jesus. However, if he had taught reincarnation, 29 one would not expect that his surmised teachings on that subject would have been carried along by Muslim writers any more than by Christian writers, since Islam also does not embrace the concept of reincarnation. Within northwest Afghanistan, centered in the city of Herat, an explorer of Sufism, O. M. Burke, came across a sect of some 1000 people who are devotees of Yuz Asaf, whom they also knew as Isa, son of Maryam.30 Their tradition includes Isa, the prophet from Israel, having escaped the cross, traveled to India and settled in Kashmir. He was (again) regarded as possessing the power to perform miracles. The sect's leader at that time (1976), Abba Yahiyya (Father John), could recite the names of the succession of their leaders and teachers back through nearly 60 generations to Yuz Asaf himself, when he had stopped off there along the Silk Road. Although Burke referred to this sect as Christians, since they revere Isa as the Son of God, they cannot of course be considered Christian in any orthodox sense. Within the Holy Quran there are many verses discussing Jesus, and often Mary also, but these either deal with the Nativity or his Palestinian ministry, or contain no definite geographical and temporal context. A possible exception, however, is Surah 23:50, a translation of which reads: And We made the son of Marium [Mary] and his mother a sign, and We gave them a shelter on a lofty ground having meadows and springs. Since Israel is not noted for having lofty ground with meadows and springs, this verse suggests a different location, and if shelter was needed, it indicates they were traveling. In eastern Pakistan, next to Kashmir, there is further support for these traditions. There one may find the tomb of Mary on a hilltop just outside a small town called Murree or Mari. The grave is called Mai Mari da Asthan, which means "the final resting place of Mother Mary."31 Her tomb faces east-west, as in Jewish custom, rather than north- south as in Islamic custom. Thus some evidence does exist to indicate that Mary made it at least this far in their travels and had traversed with Jesus over much beautiful high country of Afghanistan and Pakistan, in support of the Quran verse that hints at this. Farther east, in Kashmir near Srinagar, there is a monument in stone: the Throne of Solomon, bearing four inscriptions, the last two of which are most interesting though they were mutilated following the conquest of Kashmir by the Sikhs in 1819. However, they were described by the early Muslim historian of Kashmir, Mulla Nadiri, in 1413. An English translation of his Persian script is: At this time Yuz Asaf proclaimed his prophethood. Year fifty and four [in the reign of King Gopadatta]. and He is Jesus, prophet of the Children of Israel.32 The correct dating and significance of the year 54 is not clear. The year has been placed within the reign of King Gopadatta at 107 C.E. by Kersten, and at 78 C.E. by Professor Fida Hassnain, director of archives and antiquities in Kashmir.33 Some written and oral tradition assert that after death Yuz Asaf was entombed in the old section of Srinagar, in Anzimar in the Khanjar (or Khaniyar) quarter.34 Tradition has it that the tomb, about which a small building was long ago constructed, has been under constant watch by a succession of guardians ever since Yuz Asaf's supposed burial there. On the floor next to his grave it was noted by Hassnain that much candle-wax had accumulated, and upon carefully scraping it away at one corner of the tombstone, he discovered a crucifix and a rosary that had long been embedded. In addition, he found two footprints carved into the stone underneath the candle wax and mud with the marking of a crucifixion scar etched into each print.35 This is further indication that Yuz Asaf was known to have been Jesus Christ. Each year hundreds of Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists visit the tomb (known as Rozabal, or the "sacred tomb") to pay homage -- a nearly unique example of a unity within world religions. There is a report, however, that Yuz Asaf was actually buried not at the noted tomb site in Srinagar's old town, but on a hillside not far away. This comes from the UFO contactee Eduard Meier, the co-discoverer and editor of the Talmud of Jmmanuel, who in turn received the information from one of his contacting extraterrestrials. Those who have studied this document and realize its genuineness may wish to treat this report seriously. Within the ruins of the Indian city of Fatehpur Sikri, located some 15 miles west of Agra, there is an interesting inscription on a wall. It was emplaced on the portal of a mosque around 1601 by the emperor Akbar the Great, a Muslim convert of sorts, and reads, So said Jesus on whom be peace! The world is a bridge; pass over it but build no house upon it.36 The meaning seems to be to keep in mind that the permanent home of the human spirit is not of this world, but with the Universal Consciousness, or God. Since the saying is not in the Gospels, it is consistent with having been uttered by Yuz Asaf. Its spiritual nature is fully consistent with the content of the previously mentioned Talmud of Jmmanuel. Possibly, verse 42 of the Gospel of Thomas is based upon this saying, for it reads, "Become passers-by" or "Become, as you pass by." It may be speculated that one of those who accompanied Yuz Asaf alias Jesus on his travels was a disciple-writer who continued to document Jesus' experiences and ministry until his own death, after which the writings ceased or were taken over by another until Jesus' death. If so, Jesus may have made provision for someone to carry a copy of the writings back on the Silk Road to the Palestinian area soon after his death, where it eventually came into the custody of the compiler of the Gospel of Matthew.37 This then would have been the source that Bishop Papias had learned about and referred to as the Logia, and the reason for the Gospels having come into existence relatively late.38 A supportive legend behind this speculation comes from the mention by Eusebius that the well known Alexandrian, Pantaenus (late second century), reported that during his trip to India he had learned that one of the twelve apostles had earlier preached there to the Indians from a Hebraic writing identified as the Gospel of Matthew. 39 Since the Gospels as they became known by mid-2nd century had not yet been created while any apostles were still alive, this suggests that the preaching Pantaenus reported had come from a pre-Matthean source written in India -- the Logia. The early parts of these Logia would have resembled the Gospel of Matthew. 40 The first Muslim writer known to have included the tradition of Jesus having traveled to India in his youth with the tradition that he, as Yuz Asaf, had traveled in southwest Asia in the latter half of the first century, was the 10th- century historian, Shaikh Al-Said. 41 Jesus within Hinduism. The Hindu literature known as the Bhavishya Maha Purana contains some ten verses indicating that Jesus was in India/Kashmir during the reign of King Shalivahan, which has been placed within 39 to 50 C.E. The king is said to have encountered Jesus at a spot about 10 miles northeast of Srinagar where there is a sulfur spring.42 During the king's inquiries of who he was, Jesus is reported to have replied that he was Yusashaphat (interpreted as Yuz Asaf by K. N. Ahmad), and that he had become known as Isa Masih (Jesus the Messiah). K. N. Ahmad dates the writing of these verses to 115 C.E. Although details of the verses may indicate that they received later editing, their basic theme -- that Christianity's Jesus had been there in Kashmir -- persists. Much more recent is a statement by Jawarhar Nehru in a 1932 letter to his daughter, Indira, where he wrote, "All over Central Asia, in Kashmir and Ladakh and Tibet and even farther north, there is a strong belief that Jesus or Isa travelled about there. Some people believed that he visited India also."43 This testifies to the persistence of the oral tradition. Jesus within Buddhism. It has been suggested that within Mahayana Buddhism the legendary Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara developed out of Jesus having been in Tibet and India. 44 For one reason, this bodhisattva is thought to have reached his earliest known (legendary) form around the second or third century C.E.,45 which timing is appropriate for the hypothesis. For another reason, the book by Professor John Holt of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, suggests that the origins of the Avalokitesvara cult was in northwest India in the second century.46 Although Avalokitesvara is mentioned in the Buddhist writing called the Heart Sutra, that writing, according to Holt (personal communication), is a "prajnaparamita" text that probably dates to either the 1st or 2nd century CE and is therefore somewhat later than the more likely origins of Avalokitesvara. The name itself, however, may stem from "avalokana," an abstracted mythologization of the compassionate view of the world that the Buddha takes just after his enlightenment experience. For still another reason, given the impact that Jesus made in just a couple years of ministry in Palestine, due in no small measure to his ability to work miracles and prophesy, it would not be surprising that his further ministry during many post-crucifixion years of traveling outside of Palestine under different names would also have received acclaim, at least within oral tradition. The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara is a candidate for this because he became the top one or two of all the numerous bodhisattvas in importance and degree of respect and worship accorded. 47 Within Buddhist thought, the successive Dalai Lamas are believed to be reincarnations of Avalokitesvara. However, the primary reason is that he is sometimes portrayed with a small circular marking on the hand, which could represent a crucifixion scar.48 A similar marking, usually interpreted as the Buddhist wheel of life, is mentioned in a third-century writing to be imprinted upon the soles of his feet.49 The mythologization of Avalokitesvara became so extensive that he has even been considered the creator of the world.50 This is surprisingly similar to Jesus being professed as part of the Godhead who was with God the Creator from the beginning. If both creation strories are considered to be myths, however, it is not surprising that the same man could have inspired both. If Avalokitesvara should indeed be another name for Jesus, it is an example of a legend as yet known to only a few. But if it was known to be more than just a legend to some Buddhists at the time the name Avalokitesvara was bestowed, it is understandable that they would not wish to antagonize Christians by insisting Buddhism call him by the same name that Christianity uses. Kersten has advanced the idea that the name Yuz Asaf may actually have a Buddhist derivation. If Jesus had called himself a knower of truth, or others had recognized this, then in Sanskrit this phrase would be "bodhi sattva," or "budasaf" essentially, Kersten suggests.51 He pointed out that in Syrian, Arabic and Persian, "Budasaf" would read like "Judasaf" or "Yudasaf," since their letters J and B are nearly identical. The latter two words are sufficiently similar, then, that this could be the real etymology behind "Yuz Asaf." The tradition that Jesus, under whatever name, had been to the Kashmir region in years after the crucifixion is known to some of the lamas. In 1922 Swami Abhedananda, a well known monk and disciple of Sri Ramakrishna of the Barahanagar Temple, near Calcutta, learned of this from a lama at Himis monastery, Ladakh.52 Jesus within Roman paganism. It is only natural to inquire if a similar legend might not exist within Roman paganism that would point back to Jesus as having been its source. There is indeed such a legend -- the man known as Apollonius of Tyana, but he was more than a legend. He is supposed to have been born around the commencement of the Christian era and to have died in 97 C.E. His life is described within a biography written in Rome by the Greek philosopher, Philostratus, around 220 C.E.53 If the many other traditions that collectively indicate Jesus had spent years traveling after the crucifixion contain truth, it would not be surprising that he would sometimes have been confronted by a Roman official and, to be safe, would have needed to supply himself with an alias. A Greek name with pagan overtones -- Apollonius -- would of course have made it easier for him to travel within Anatolia and elsewhere within the Roman empire. In his biography Philostratus credits Apollonius with the same kinds of powers that the Gospels depict for Jesus: healing, casting out of spirits, and foreknowledge. One of his healings was particularly suggestive, where he brought a girl back to life who had recently died, very much as with the daughter of Jairus in Matthew 9:23-25. And at one point Philostratus went so far as to allude that Apollonius would actually be alive when his followers would instead think he had risen from the dead.54 The parallels between the life and character of Apollonius and those of Jesus are much too numerous to ignore This connection between Apollonius and Jesus did not go unnoticed by influential Christians. Eusebius knew of it, and denounced those who wrote favorably about this Apollonius.55 Fortunately, however, Philostratus's biography managed to survive, though an antecedent's books about Apollonius did not.56 It would seem that Philostratus had taken care to ensure in his book that any connection between Apollonius and Jesus would be indirect and not too apparent. For example, he never mentioned Apollonius as residing in, or traveling to, the land of Israel. On his journeys Apollonius is said to have been accompanied not only by his primary companion, Damis, but by "two servants he had inherited" -- one a shorthand writer and the other a secretary.57 These two could easily correspond to Jesus' disciple-writer and to his mother, respectively. Damis would then correspond to Judas-Thomas, and we may note a similarity between Thomas's Greek name "Didymus" and "Damis." On one trip Apollonius and his party travel to Babylon, where the king had fallen ill. Apollonius attends him and brings about his recovery.58 This story is somewhat reminiscent of Faqir Muhhamad's account of Thomas having cured the king of Nisibis, if allowance is made for Philostratus to have altered the geographical location. On a longer trip eastward to Taxila (in Pakistan) Apollonius and his party are said to have visited King Gundaphorus for several days.59 That visit is reminiscent of one to the same king reported in the Acts of Thomas.60 However, Philostratus found much to say about Apollonius and Damis there while in the Acts of Thomas Jesus only puts in fleeting appearances at King Gundaphorus's court, as if its writer knew that were he to write anything further it would target his Gnostic document for oblivion by defenders of Christianity. Analysts have had great difficulty with the biography of Apollonius in trying to determine which parts are historical and which are fiction. However, Apollonius himself was definitely a historical figure: (a) four books by one Moeragnes that did not survive were written about him and mentioned by Origen; (b) Apollonius is mentioned by the Greek rhetorician Lucian; and (c) the historian Cassius Dio mentions him twice in contexts of having been a real figure.61 Just how and where Apollonius of Tyana died is left vague by Philostratus. He has no known tomb or burial site, despite his historical importance, which is consistent with his name being a pseudonym and/or his burial place being outside of the Roman empire. There is an Apollonius website devoted entirely to this man and the problem he posed for early Christianity. The tradition relayed by Irenaeus. Besides the clues within the Gospels of the empty tomb and post-entombment appearances, which are consistent with Jesus later having had an extended ministry outside of Palestine, a tradition consistent with this was made known by a prominent church father. Irenaeus, who lived until about 180 C.E., and who was a staunch quasher of heresies, nevertheless attested to a tradition that elders of the church who were conversant with the disciple John in Asia had affirmed that Jesus had reached old age -- beyond 50.62 The crux of it reads as follows: On completing His thirtieth year He suffered, being in fact still a young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years, and that this extends onwards to the fortieth year, every one will admit; but from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which our Lord possessed while He still fulfilled the office of a Teacher, even as the Gospel and all the elders testify; those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord [affirming] that John conveyed to them that information. And he remained among them up to the time of Trajan. Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other apostles also, and heard the very same account as to the [validity of] the statement. "The statement" or "information" evidently is the assertion that Jesus had reached the stage of old age and was still teaching, and was no longer the young 30 he had been at the crucifixion (suffering). The clause "even as the Gospel and all the elders testify" reads like a scribal addition that attempts to explain this away in reference to Jn 8:56, which strangely implies that Jesus, during his Palestinian ministry, was nearing the age of 50. The preceding paragraph, not reproduced here, also reads like a scribal addition designed to ameliorate the impact of the above statement; it talks of Jesus, during his ministry, being of all ages, and taking on the age of each person who was listening to him. It is not known how Irenaeus assimilated this information into his belief in the resurrection. The editors of Ante- Nicene Fathers called it an "extraordinary assertion," but could only imply that Irenaeus had somehow been grossly in error. It should be clear that if the statement had merely involved the fact that Jesus had been a teacher for one, two or three years until the day he was crucified, this is not anything Irenaeus would have bothered to report, as Christians already knew that. The mention of Asia in the above report probably refers to Asia Minor, or Anatolia. SUMMARY Many of the foregoing legends and traditions may be unfamiliar to the reader because they have been systematically ignored and suppressed in the West. However, when they are viewed together as a whole, we see a very consistent picture that is trying to tell us that Christianity at a very early stage was directed onto the wrong path, first by Paul and then by the early churches which Paul so heavily influenced. The right path instead tells us much more of just how remarkable this man, known to us today as Jesus, actually was. This is not to say that some fraction of the strange tales one may read about Jesus are not fictions, but to say that a holistic perception is needed to separate probable fact from probable fiction. The practice of assuming that any tradition is false if it conflicts with one's own particular theological commitment, without having first carefully examined it with a truly open mind and in a comprehensive manner, cannot be condoned within true scholarship or true science. ENDNOTES 1. See, e.g., Hugh J. Schonfield, The Passover Plot (London: Hutchinson, 1966); Donovan Joyce, The Jesus Scroll (Melbourne, Australia: Ferret Books, 1972); and Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, Holy Blood, Holy Grail (New York: Harper and Row, 1983) 357. 2. See Khwaja Nazir Ahmad, Jesus in Heaven on Earth, (Woking, England: Woking Muslim Mission & Literary Trust, 1952) 196-199. See also several relevant articles in Truth about the Crucifixion (London: The London Mosque, 1978). 3. See, for example, David Friedrich Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, vol. 1, 2nd Ed. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1879) 410-411. 4. See William Lane Craig, The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus during the Deist Controversy (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985) 392-393. 5. James W. Deardorff, Jesus in India (Bethesda, MD, International Scholars Publications (University Press of America), 1994) 138-139. 6. Ibid.,140-141. 7. Craig, Historical Argument, 400. See also Karl Barth, The Theology of Schleiermacher, ed. D. Ritschl, transl. G. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982) 101-102. 8. E. B. Docker, If Jesus Did Not Die on the Cross: A Study of the Evidence (London: Robert Scott, 1920), 20-21, 32-33, 49. 9. R. Graves and J. Podro, Jesus in Rome (London: Cassell & Co., 1957) 12-13. Much of the book is devoted to the possibility that Jesus traveled to Rome after the crucifixion, which I find to be based on only one very shaky bit of evidence. 10. Talmud Jmmanuel, ed. Eduard A. Meier (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 1978). See also the present web site: http://www.tjresearch.info. 11. Samadhi is a trance-state of meditation whose deepest form is the same as being "out-of-body." According to Janet Lee Mitchell, Out of Body Experiences: A Handbook (New York: Ballantine Books, 1981) either exhaustion, a life-threatening situation or the purposeful intent of an experienced practitioner can induce it. In this state, no pain inflicted upon the body is felt, not even from a spear thrust, and it is not surprising that both the soldiers involved in the crucifixion and the bystanders would have mistakenly thought Jmmanuel was dead. Even one of the Gospels indicates that this sort of thing can happen (Mk 9:26): the onlookers of Jesus' healing of the paroxysmic boy thought he was dead after he had become "like a corpse," until Jesus took his hand. Samadhi is known within Hinduism and Buddhism, and Jesus would likely have learned how to access this state if the "lost years" of his youth had been spent in India. See Deardorff, Jesus in India, 101-134; and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Lost Years of Jesus (Livingston, MT: Summit University Press, 1984). The TJ briefly indicates that Jmmanuel (Jesus) had indeed been to India during his youth, had learned much from the Masters there, and had acquired Hindu friends during or after his return. 12. J.D.M. Derrett, The Anastasis: The Resurrection of Jesus as an Historical Event (Shipston-on-Stour, England: P. Drinkwater, 1982). 13. Deardorff, Jesus in India, 148. 14. Barbara Thiering, Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 116. 15. Strauss, New Life of Jesus, vol. 1, 412. 16. W. D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer, "On the physical death of Jesus," J. American Medical Assn. 255 (1986) 1455-1463. 17. Per Beskow, Strange Tales about Jesus: A survey of Unfamiliar Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985). 18. Deardorff, Jesus in India, 112-134. 19. Beskow, Strange Tales, 8. 20. Holger Kersten, Jesus Lived in India, transl. T. Woods-Czisch (Longmead, Shaftesbury, Dorset, England: Element Book, 1986) 177-178. 21. The Talmud of Jmmanuel, Eduard Meier, ed. (Mill Spring, NC: Wild Flower Press, 2001) 237. 22. This links to http://www.tjresearch.info/paulconv.htm. 23. Mir Khawand bin Badshah, Rauza-tus-Safa (The Gardens of Purity) (Bombay: reprinted in 1852) vol. 1 of 7, 132-136. See also the secondary source: K. N. Ahmad, Jesus in Heaven on Earth, 358, 404. 24. Jami-ut-Tawarikh, vol. 2 (1836) p. 81. 25. Kersten, Jesus Lived in India, 179. This story may lie at the root of the legend of the letter from Jesus to Abgarus, king of Edessa, known to Eusebius in EH 1.13. 26. Abu Jaffar Muhammad bin Jarir at-Tabri, Tafsir Ibn-i-Jarir at-Tabri (Jami al Bayan fi Tafsir-ul-Qur'an) (Cairo: Kubr-ul-Mar'a Press, 1880) vol. 3, p. 197. See also K. N. Ahmad, Jesus in Heaven on Earth, 359, 392. 27. K. N. Ahmad, Jesus in Heaven on Earth, 359-360. See also Peter James, "Did Christ die in Kashmir?" Islamic Rev. 3 (Oct./Nov., 1983) 17. 28. Agha Mustafai, Ahwali Ahalian-i-Paras (Tehran:1868) 219. See K. N. Ahmad, Jesus in Heaven on Earth, 360, 404. 29. See Deardorff, Jesus in India, 22-35. There the evidence is presented indicating that Jesus had actually taught reincarnation, not resurrection. 30. Omar Michael Burke, Among the Dervishes (London: Octagon Press, 1976), 107. 31. Kersten, Jesus Lived in India, 186. 32. Mulla Nadiri, Tarikh-i-Kashmir (1413 manuscript in possession of Ghulam Mohy-ud-Din Wanchu, Srinagar) 69. See K. N. Ahmad, Jesus in Heaven on Earth, 369-370, 400. "Children of Israel" here refers to the Bani-Israel, those numerous residents of Kashmir, northern India and Afghanistan whose characteristics and culture appear to have derived from Semitic ancestry. Several researchers conclude that they represent parts of the ten lost tribes of ancient Israel; e.g., see George Moore, The Lost Tribes (London: Longman Green, 1861). 33. Kersten, Jesus Lived in India, 200; Fida Hassnain, A Search for the Historical Jesus (Bath, England: Gateway Books, 1994) 201-203. 34. Abu Muhammad Haji Mohyud-Din, Tarikh-i-Kabir-i-Kashmir (Amritsar, India: Suraj Parkash Press, 1903) 34- 35. See also K. N. Ahmad, Jesus in Heaven on Earth, 373-374, 399. 35. Kersten, Jesus Lived in India, 208-209; Hassnain, Search for the Historical Jesus 173-181. 36. Vincent A. Smith, Akbar the Great Mogul, 1542-1605 (Delhi: S. Chand, 1966) 200. 37. This is consistent with the TJ's story, where the courier of the documents or scrolls is reported to have been one of Jesus' sons. It is also consistent with the legend that Jesus finally married an Indian or Kashmiri woman who bore him several children as mentioned by James, "Did Christ Die in Kashmir?" 17, and Hassnain, Search for the Historical Jesus, 198. 38. See Deardorff, The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins (New York: Mellen Press, 1992) 9-22. 39. Eusebius, EH 5.10.2-4. 40. The Talmud of Jmmanuel, or TJ, is evidently a candidate to have been these Logia. 41. Shaikh A-Said-us-Sadiq, Kamal-ud-Din (Iran:Syed-us-Sanad Press, 1782) 357-358. See K. N. Ahmad, Jesus in Heaven on Earth, 365-366. 42. Pandit Sutta, Bhavishya Maha Puranan, 3.3.17-31 (Bombay: Venkateshvaria Press, 1917) 282. See also Kersten, Jesus Lived in India, 195-196; and K. N. Ahmad, Jesus in Heaven on Earth, 369. 43. Jawarhar Lal Nehru, Glimpses of World History (New York: John Day Co., 1942), 84. 44. Kersten, Jesus Lived in India, 204. 45. John Blofield, Compassion Yoga (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977) 22; Sir Monier Monier-Williams, Buddhism (London: John Murray, 1890) 195-196. 46. John Clifford Holt, Buddha in the Crown (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) 53, 55. 47. Donald S. Lopez and Steven C. Rockefeller, eds., The Christ and the Bodhisattva (New York: State University of New York Press, 1987) 28-29. 48. Deardorff, Jesus in India, 260. Although modern scholars suppose that the Romans would have known to drive the crucifixion nails through the lower wrists rather than through the hands, to better support the body on the cross, we have no reason to believe that victims in that area had previously been crucified other than by having their hands and wrists (and feet) strapped rather than nailed. Hence, if using nails for the first time there, the Romans soldiers may very well have targeted Jesus' hands, not wrists, not knowing any better. In any event, the executioners were not in the business of being humane. 49. Holt, Buddha in the Crown, 35. See also Kersten, Jesus Lived in India, 204. 50. Edward J. Thomas, The History of Buddhist Thought, 2nd Ed. (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1951) 190-191. 51. Kersten, Jesus Lived in India, 203-204. 52. Abhedananda, Swami Abhedananda's Journey into Kashmir and Tibet (Calcutta: Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, 1987; also available from Vedanta Press, Hollywood, CA), 121. 53. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, G. W. Bowersock, ed., C. P. Jones, transl. (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1970). 54. Ibid., 197. In the passage in question, it appears certain to Damis, Apollonius' closest follower, that his master would soon be executed by Nero. But Apollonius instructs Damis to "'Walk by the sea where the isle of Calypso is, because I will appear before your eyes there.' 'Alive,' asked Damis, 'or how?' Apollonius laughed and said, 'To my way of thinking, alive, but to yours, risen from the dead.'" 55. Eusebius, "Against Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus," in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, the Epistles of Apollonius and the Treatise of Eusebius, F. C. Conybeare, ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1912) vol. 2, 485-605. 56. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, 13. This earlier, late 2nd-century author was Moeragnes, who had written four books about Apollonius, none of which survived. 57. Ibid., 44. 58. Ibid., 51. 59. Ibid., 57-67. 60. See Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 8, 541-542. 61. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, 10-12. 62. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book. 2, chap. 22, paragraph 5, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, 392. Go Back to: Contents Daytime Sighting of a Beamship over Sitzberg by Silvano Lehmann in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 283-4 a liberal translation by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 It was on a Spring afternoon in 1982, around 16:00 hours, when Billy, Eva and Kalliope returned to the Center from a shopping trip. I was in the house on the upper floor occupied with woodworking, when Billy called out to me. When I reached Billy, Eva and Kalliope, they were standing behind the house [see map, just north of No. 9] next to the auto and looking up at the sky in the direction of Sitzberg (north by northeast). Between some clouds in the clear blue sky one could see a beamship. Its shape and outline were clear and plainly recognizable. Kalliope ran into the house to fetch a camera, because they wanted to shoot conclusive photographs -- regarding such occurrences they already had more experience than I. The ship appeared somewhat the size of a small sphere. As Kalliope returned with the camera, the ship distanced itself into the blue sky with enormous speed because an aircraft was approaching from the west. So already the sighting was over -- without a photo, nevertheless a very impressive event. The Modified Augustinian Hypothesis (MAH) regarding Gospel origins James W. Deardorff Updated July 2007 * * * * * Introduction Arguments against the priority of Matthew by Delbert Burkett, as nullified by the MAH Arguments against the priority of Matthew by Robert H. Stein, as nullified by the MAH Arguments favoring priority of Mark over Matthew by C. M. Tuckett, as nullified by the MAH Online arguments against the priority of Matthew by Mahlon H. Smith, as nullified by the MAH The "editorial fatigue" argument against Matthean priority by Mark Goodacre, as nullified by the MAH and by counter examples Other arguments against the priority of Matthew by G. M. Styler, as nullified by the MAH Other arguments against the priority of Matthew by Bart D. Ehrman, as nullified by the MAH Arguments favoring priority of Mark over Matthew by Craig Blomberg, as nullified by the MAH Arguments favoring priority of Mark over Matthew by Scot McKnight, as nullified by the MAH Arguments favoring priority of Mark over Matthew by Donald Guthrie, as nullified by the MAH Arguments favoring priority of Mark over Matthew presented by Peter Kirby, as nullified by the MAH References * * * * * The Modified Augustinian Hypothesis (MAH) regarding Gospel Origins This is a summary of my findings on Gospel origins, as originally motivated by the Talmud of Jmmanuel document. It takes into account the external evidence and internal evidence, allowing for false representations only where the truth would have proven too embarrassing to early Christian leaders, or too unacceptable to the Gospel writers in carrying out their particular agendas. The Augustinian hypothesis, as expressed at least in part in writings by Papias, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, as well as by Augustine and later church fathers, has three primary parts: 1. Matthew was the first Gospel written, followed by Mark and then Luke; 2. it (Matthew) was first written in Hebraic form; 3. the Gospels were all written by the men whose names are attached to them. The present hypothesis is closer to the Augustinian hypothesis than to any competing hypothesis; hence I call it the modified Augustinian hypothesis. It follows the "utilization hypothesis": that each gospel was dependent upon the gospel(s) that came before. So it accepts that Luke is dependent upon Matthew as well as Mark, relying for this mostly upon the argumentation of supporters of the Farrer(1955)-Goulder(1996) theory such as Goodacre (2002), as preceded by the "no-Q" studies of Jameson (1922), Butler (1969) and others. References are listed at the end of this web page. MAH-A. Considerable validity to the patriarchal evidence. The MAH accepts the first two of the above three parts of the Augustinian tradition as historically correct, but not the third. The lack of any mention of the Gospels until several decades into the 2nd century, the definite appearance only then of quotations from the Gospel of Matthew - but unattributed quotations at first, and the numerous writings ever since that time that relate to the Gospels (by Papias, Justin Martyr, Marcion,...), all point towards the Gospels not having become known until well into the 2nd century. But it must have been embarrassing to early church leaders to have four Gospels appear on the scene, starting around 120 CE, attributed to disciples and friends of Peter and Paul (Mark and Luke, respectively) when these persons could no longer be alive. Nor could the apostles Matthew and John still have been alive and active then. Consequently, with the exception of Papias as quoted by Eusebius, we find no mention of their names in connection with the Gospels until a couple more generations had gone by, i.e., until about 172 CE by Apollinaris of Hierapolis, soon after followed by Irenaeus. By then it had become unacceptable for early Christians to believe anything other than that the Gospels had been written by their attributers. By then it could more easily be assumed that the Gospels had been written at a much earlier date. Click here for a more extensive treatment of the chronology. The MAH allows that not only does the longer version of Ignatius's epistles contain many Gospel quotations spuriously fed in later, but even the shorter version may contain a few, and similarly the writing of 1 Clement appears to contain a couple of later insertions (in 13:1b-2 and 46:8); i.e., neither the writer of 1 Clement nor Ignatius knew Matthew. Regarding Papias, if, circa 130 CE, he had written of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark as if they had actually been authored by their attributers, why would it have taken another 40 years before any other Christian writer would dare mention these gospels by name? I have not come across any NT scholars who have addressed this question. The most obvious solution, however, is that in his writings Papias had included statements to the effect that the Gospels had not been written by the names ascribed to them. For several decades subsequent writers would already have known this, and/or have believed Papias. Yet they would recognize great value in the Gospels and would wish to quote from them. So they utilized the Gospels but omitted their attributed names. However, by the time of Irenaeus, it could be assumed that the Gospels first appeared so many decades earlier that Christian dogma could be initiated that their authors had indeed been their namesakes of the first century. By this reasoning, Eusebius circa 300 CE was forced to extract sparingly and carefully from Papias’s voluminous writings, and edit them as heavily as necessary, to preserve this new piece of theological commitment. By the same reasoning, the writings of any other "whistle blowers" who mentioned the late (2nd century) date of appearance of the Gospels would not survive. Considering the first two parts of the Augustinian tradition, it would be common knowledge, after Semitic Matthew had come out, that it had been the first gospel. Those in certain house-churches in Rome would know that Mark had been written in response to Matthew, and similarly at the church where the writer of Luke was located and the church where John's writer was located. Those at other churches, too, would know the order in which the gospels had appeared, as several years probably elapsed between their successive appearances. It could not have been kept a secret that Semitic Matthew had been first, as too many persons in too many places must have known about it. Hence there is no reason that the oral tradition regarding order of appearance of the Gospels (within the 120-130 CE time frame) would be wrong or would have been invented. If anything, after the anti-gentile Semitic Matthew was superseded by its somewhat altered, Greek translation (see B. below), there might have been a temptation to invent a rumor that there never had been a Semitic Matthew that motivated the writing of the other gospels. But since no such rumor was spread, and the potential embarrassment of Semitic Matthew's primacy was admitted, the apparent truth of its priority deserves our full consideration. MAH-B. Anti-gentilism within Matthew. An important aspect of the MAH concerns the anti-gentile statements in Matthew. These occur at Matthew: 1:21, "...and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 5:47, "And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?" 6:7, "And in praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do." 6:31-32, "Therefore do not be anxious, saying 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles [ethne] seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all." 10:5, "These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, 'Go nowhere among the Gentiles [ethnon], and enter no town of the Samaritans.'" 10:18, "And you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles [ethnesin]." 15:24, "He answered, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'" 15:26, "He answered, 'It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.'" [Here, "children" is widely acknowledged to refer to Israelites and "dogs" to gentiles.] 15:31, "...and they [the throng] glorified the God of Israel. [This excludes God from the Gentiles.] 18:17, "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile [ethnikos] and a tax collector." 24:9, "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations [ethnon] for my name's sake." ["All nations" (panton ethnon) refers to all gentiles.] These indicate that gentiles were to be regarded as lowly as tax collectors or publicans were, and unfit for discipleship. This Jew-gentile enmity, while present to some degree in Old Testament times, had intensified as a result of the Maccabean revolt of the mid-2nd century B.C. (Blomberg, 1997, p. 17). In 1st century A.D., according to Goodman (1987, p. 108), this was not just a separate anti-Roman movement; "rather, anti-gentile attitudes which originated long before A.D. 6, perhaps in Maccabean time, inspired many different groups, permeating the whole Jewish population and varying only in their intensity." This mind-set could not have improved after the war of A.D. 66-70: "The capture and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by Titus in 70 CE was a catastrophe for the Judaean people, especially since it deprived them of their central cult place where they worshipped God who was considered to be in some sense present" (Esler, 2005, p. 20). And so, "Many Jews retained an instinctive reaction that all things Greek were dangerous to their ancestral religion. The temperament was reinforced by the festival of Hanukkah... In A.D. 115-117 there was a Jewish revolt in the diaspora, and another, against the Romans, in A.D. 132" (Goodman, 1987, pp. 12, 250). From Acts 10:28, penned in the early 2nd century according to the MAH, we find these words placed into the mouth of Peter: "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit any one of another nation." And in Acts 21:27-36 we find it reported that Paul had been severely beaten by Jews from Asia for admitting a gentile into the temple. The anti-gentile attitude prevailed over further centuries, as the oral tradition that led to the Babylonian Talmud of the 5th century A.D. contains anti-gentile statements such as: "For murder, whether of a Cuthean [a heathen or gentile] by a Cuthean, or of an Israelite by a Cuthean, punishment is incurred; but of a Cuthean by an Israelite, there is no death penalty" (Sanhedrin, Folio 57a). The writer of Semitic Matthew was quite evidently of Jewish background, and had probably been a Pharisee, scribe and/or rabbi before converting to the new Messianic form of Judaism (or Jewish Christianity). To find that in the early 2nd century he was one of those who held a strong anti-gentile attitude should not then be surprising. It is nearly inconceivable that several pro-gentile passages in Matthew (Mt 4:14-16, 12:17-22 and 28:18-20) could have been included in the gospel by this writer of Hebraic Matthew with its anti-gentile slurs. Although some have suggested that the last of these three reflects a more universal attitude occurring after the crucifixion (e.g., Blomberg, 1997, p. 131), this would not explain the two earlier pro-gentile passages. These three pro-gentile passages are therefore assumed by the MAH to have been inserted by someone else, probably at the time Semitic Matthew was translated into Greek. And this is assumed to have occurred only after the other Gospels came out, since none of the three passages are present in Mark, Luke or John. During translation would have been the opportune time for these and a few other additions and modifications to have been made, since Semitic Matthew would soon afterwards be phased out and superseded by the improved, Greek version of Matthew. (However, by assuming that Matthew had first been written in Greek, scholars could avoid complications involved in the extra step of Semitic Matthew being translated into Greek; they could infer that since some of Matthew's Scriptural quotations utilized wording from the Greek LXX, it must have been first written in Greek, while overlooking the obvious tendency for a translator of Hebrew/Aramaic to utilize already translated text from the LXX rather than re-translate its Hebrew equivalent into Greek.) It might be argued that the Magi in the Nativity story represent a pro-gentile element within Matthew: If its writer was so anti-gentile, why did he include the Magi who, having come from the East, would be considered gentiles? The answer can only be that the Magi episode was definitely of more value to the writer of Matthew in showing Jesus' status as the messiah than it was a detriment. Also, it enabled the writer to include the quote from Mi 5:2, that as messiah, Jesus would be "a ruler who will govern my people Israel." Further, the Magi are afterwards involved again at Mt 2:16 in that in tricking Herod by departing without returning to him, they had enraged him, thus provoking the Matthean story about Herod ordering the male children two years old and under to be slaughtered. This redaction was desired by the writer of Matthew in order to show how hated the memory of King Herod still was. Thus there are several reasons why the Magi story could plausibly have been retained, in somewhat redacted form from that of its source, by an anti-gentile writer. Also, the prophecy within the story of the healing of the centurion's servant (Mt 8:11-12) is favorable to gentiles and not to Jews. Would an anti-gentile author of Matthew retain that story from his source? The likelihood of this could depend upon what the source document had to say, and the value to the writer of Matthew of retaining it in a redacted form. Suppose the source document at that point gave a stern prophetic warning, for example admonishing Israelites to turn away from false teachings of their authorities lest that bring destruction to future generations. Its text would contrast the misled Israelites against gentiles like the centurion. The writer of Matthew could alter that into a passage wherein gentiles would be exposed to the true teachings of Jewish Christianity in contrast to Israelites who did not accept them: "...many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness...." With this interpretation, the writer was so intent upon removing any mention of false Judaistic teachings within his source, and replacing it with the heart of true Judaism, that he overlooked the favorableness toward gentiles that his editing retained. This he may not have done, however, had the centurion not shown great humility and reverence before Jesus, as had the Magi. Another seemingly pro-gentile passage is explained similarly - the parable of the wicked tenant-farmers with its culminating verse, Mt 21:43, Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it. This was another warning to the Israelites of what would happen to them if they continued to flout the true teachings. Comparison of this with Matthew's source lets us know what the true teachings were, and the great extent to which the warnings to Israelites were softened here and elsewhere in Matthew (MAH-H.). During this editing, some pro-gentile content was unavoidably retained. The parable of the sheep and the goats (Mt 25:31-46), which includes gentiles - presumably converted gentiles - among those who might receive the reward of the sheep, may appear to be a relaxation of the writer's anti-gentile attitude. So it does seem that this writer sometimes realized that if Messianic Judaism was to triumph by the time of the End Days, a goodly number of gentiles would need to be converted to it. Presumably these gentiles would be those who "will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." There thus seems to have been a strong three-way tension between the writer of Matthew's cultural dislike of gentiles, his great disappointment over most Jews - led by scribes, chief priests and Pharisees, for not having accepted Jesus as Messiah - and his desire that Jewish Christianity eventually succeed by acquiring sufficient converts, even if pagan converts. If this explanation for this writer's general attitude is not sufficiently satisfying, one may consider the words of Scot McKnight (2001, p. 95): "Any theory [referring to hypotheses on the Synoptic Problem], in fact, that explains everything easily and convincingly is overdoing it." MAH-C. Reactions to Matthew's anti-gentilism. The relevance of B. above is that the writers of Mark and Luke, along with their associates who strongly favored discipleship for gentiles, must have reacted strongly against Semitic Matthew's anti-gentile stance. With Christianity having been expanding into gentile lands for the previous half century, those engaged in spreading the good word could not have condoned the appearance of a Gospel limiting discipleship to the children of Israel, no matter how valuable other portions of Matthew were deemed to be. What could they do about it? - the most literate among them could pen their own gospels! The writers' feelings show up in their Gospels - in Mark by its omission of Matthew's anti-gentile statements, by its retaliative treatment of the Jewish disciples as being extra dumb and unsuited for discipleship relative to Matthew, and by its omission of much Judaistic material. (For Luke, see E. below.) Although it has been claimed that this negative treatment of the disciples is overstated (Blomberg, 1997, p. 132), that view only holds if Mark is considered to have preceded Matthew. With Matthean priority, Mark's negative view of the Jewish disciples and even of Jews more generally cannot be overstated, as will be seen. The writer of Mark had evidently already held an anti-Jewish attitude. Goodman (1987, p.8) notes that, "Josephus accused the governors of Judaea not simply of incompetence but also of malevolence towards the Jews... Doubtless any such antisemitism may have been simply an irrational dislike of people with idiosyncratic customs, but it may be relevant that most of the procurators were from the Italian gentry and will have known about Jews mostly from the Jewish diaspora in Rome. There a large community had been settled since at least the mid first century B.C., most of them originally brought to Rome as slaves. These freedmen and descendants of freedmen were mostly poor and were, like much of the plebs of the city of Rome, prone to violence. It would not be surprising if most of the governors thus came to Judaea with an unfavourable image of Jews." Judging from 1 Clement, probably written around A.D. 97, there was at that time internal disorder within the church of Rome (as well as in the church at Corinth) involving a jealous zeal of Christians against fellow Christians (Brown and Meier, 1983, p. 179; see also 1 Clement 7:1 and 46:5-7), and this likely included Jewish Christians pitted against gentile Christians. Outside the church, during the Jewish uprisings of 115-117 already mentioned, the Jews had committed horrible atrocities against both Greeks and Romans, according to Cassius Dio (LXXV.31), in Egypt, Cyrenaica and Cyprus; as a result, no Jews were thenceforth allowed to set foot in Cyprus. Thus strong anti-Jewish feelings persisted in Rome and other portions of its empire during early 2nd century, when the MAH sees Mark to have been written. It should not be unexpected, therefore, that the writer of Mark, if based in Rome as external and internal evidence suggests, shared in this anti-Jewish sentiment. The church in Rome, with which the writer of Mark would then have been associated, is believed to have been made up of individual house churches governed by presbyter-bishops and not by any single bishop, until around 140-150 CE; single presbyters may have supervised individual house churches, with the church of Rome being "supervised by the collective group of such house- church presbyter-bishops" (Brown & Meier, pp. 163-164,173-175). Thus there was room for diversity in attitudes within or between the various house churches regarding Jewish versus gentile views. This could encompass the anti-Jewish attitude of the writer of Mark, who may have been an anti-Jewish presbyter or deacon of a gentile-Christian house church. The anti-gentile barbs in Matthew must have contributed strongly, however, towards his motivation for writing a gospel (Mark) that would correct and replace Matthew. Brown & Meier (pp. 2-8) identified four basic groups of early Christians ranging from the most strongly Jewish Christians (Group 1, which insisted on "full observance of the Mosaic law") to the most strongly gentile Christians (Group 4, which "saw no abiding significance in Jewish cult and feasts"). The MAH finds the writer of Matthew to be identified most closely with Group 1 and the writer of Mark with Group 4 or beyond. And we find that the anti-Jewishness of Mark, assuming Matthean priority, indicates that the tension between Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians in Rome did not rapidly fade away after the time of Paul (see Rom 14-15), but persisted for many decades thereafter. It seems incredible that with respect to the Synoptic Problem, New Testament scholars have not heretofore taken note of this obvious possibility and explored the implications of an anti-Jewish Mark. It will be seen to be a key element in allowing the MAH to solve the synoptic problem more comprehensively than the two-source or two-gospel hypothesis. After the Markan-priority hypothesis gained hold, by early 20th-century, the new consensus did not have to contend with this embarrassment; they could merely say that, for whatever reason, Mark has its "unflattering warts" and the writers of Matthew and Luke corrected them. An exception is Pierson Parker (1983), who placed Matthew before Mark; he summarized, "He [the writer of Mark] evidently got caught up in the Jewish-Gentile controversy, and was a strong partisan for the Gentile side." It can only be concluded that the spectre of Mark's writer being flagrantly anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic, much more so than Marcion a few decades later, was so terribly distasteful to New Testament scholars that it was the primary, though unspoken and almost unthinkable, reason for Markan priority over Matthew to have been set in motion in the 19th century. That spectre remains no less distasteful today, what with memories of the Holocaust firmly entrenched. MAH-D. Mark's writer's anti-Semitism and distancing of his gospel from Matthew. It stands to reason that if the writer of Mark wished his gospel to be directed to gentiles and supersede Matthew, he would need to make it look as different as possible from Semitic Matthew. Yet he had to depend exclusively upon Matthew for all except what he found in a certain short Ur-Mark document (see F. below). He made use of several methods for distancing his gospel from that of Matthew: 1. Omit much from Matthew, especially Judaistic material and teachings that seemed inessential to him (in a similar vein to Marcion's anti-Judaistic treatment of Luke), or that he did not make sense of or felt his audience wouldn't, or with which he disagreed. As Ehrman (1997, p. 94) asked, would non-Jews be as interested as Jews and Jewish Christians in adhering to Jewish piety and interpretation of the Law of Moses? 2. Make changes that would directly promote gentiles or not disparage them, or promote gentile not Jewish customs, make changes that would de-emphasize Jesus' Jewish background, and make other changes that would portray the Jewish people and disciples in a bad light, thus indirectly promoting gentiles for discipleship or expressing his anti-Jewish attitude. This editorial behavior was flagrantly anti-Jewish. 3. Expand or alter that which he utilized from Matthew, through use of dualisms or pleonasms, through use of Ur-Mark (see F. below) where applicable, by adding in minor items of supposed fact, by making (or attempting to make) improvements in, and even reverential upgrades to, the Matthean story, and picturing Jesus as a more dominating authority. 4. Often state the same thing as in Matthew but in different terms; i.e., change for the sake of change. (In implementing D.1. the writer usually abbreviated in bulk, causing his gospel to be much shorter than Matthew. In implementing D.2.-4., he in most instances added to the length of the individual pericope he was editing.) 5. Write in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic. Thus his gospel would be the first one in the Greek language, understandably with rougher grammar than in Luke and in Greek Matthew, since their respective writer/translator could make use of Greek Mark and improve upon it. 6. Attribute his gospel to some person other than the disciple Matthew, of course, since that disciple's name had already been used. He would not attribute it to Peter, since many of his alterations were designed to make the Jewish disciples look unworthy. But since he had made some use of the document that John Mark had once promoted in Rome as Peter's interpreter (see F. below), he named it after Mark, a Latin name. John Mark at least knew Greek and presumably Latin also, and could be considered a more gentile Christian than Peter. MAH-E. Reaction by the writer of Luke. Regarding Luke, its writer favored inclusion of Jewish background material as well as pro-gentile material. Thus he reinstated within his own gospel much of the Matthean text omitted from Mark. Yet he could not hide his anger at the first gospel, Semitic Matthew, which said that Jesus "was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," considering that he and his associates had been working for years or decades at converting pagans to early Christianity. He would disclose his anger at Matthew's anti-gentile stance in several ways: a) favoring Mark over Matthew - following Mark's sequence and content where it deviates significantly from Matthew's sequence or content. This includes instances of omission, where Mark lacks a portion of a pericope it otherwise shares with Matthew, and so Luke also lacks the same portion. This results in many major disagreements between Luke and Matthew's text in comparison with Mark's; however, the writer of Luke could not carry this out so fastidiously as to avoid many minor agreements between Luke and Matthew against Mark, which would show up after Semitic Matthew had been translated into Greek Matthew. b) when incorporating pieces of valuable Matthean material of substantial size omitted by Mark (Q verses), placing them in different, invented contexts than in Matthew, and usually in different sequence. This would show the writer's distaste for Matthew's anti-gentile stance without reproving the writer of Mark for having omitted the verses, while also ensuring that his gospel would not resemble Matthew any more than necessary; and c) in places where Mark follows Matthew's order and content closely, showing his disrespect for Matthew more indirectly by either following neither gospel very closely (or recasting), or by following neither at all but often adding in his own special material, of which there was much. His gospel would then look quite different from Matthew, especially since it would be written in Greek not Hebrew. To the extent that the writer of Luke felt obliged to incorporate much of the Matthean material omitted in Mark, he can be considered a mediator between the Jewish Christianity reflected in Matthew and the gentile Christianity of Mark. However, the manner in which he incorporated this Matthean material, b) above, reflects an unforgiving attitude against Semitic Matthew's anti-gentile slurs and statements denying discipleship for gentiles. He may also have been more supportive of gentile than Jewish Christianity, judging from Acts 28:28, in which Paul tells the Jews, "Let it be known to you then that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen." d) Not only would his gospel look different from Matthew, however, it would look different from Mark, too, since it would be much longer then Mark and be written in better Greek, which included removal of most of Mark's pleonasms or redundancies. It may be noticed that followers of the Griesbach hypothesis (Matthew, Luke, Mark order of gospels) accept the harsher Markan portrayal of the disciples relative to Matthew. They do so, however, without mention of Mark's especially obvious anti-Jewish slant relative to Matthew; they evidently rely on a general scholastic feeling that this is too disgraceful an attitude for a Gospel writer to have held and also for a present- day scholar to reflect upon, so that their silence on this aspect would receive little if any scholarly discussion. On the other hand, by placing Mark last, they can say that the writer of Mark rarely diverged from Matthew in order and content except when he was following the order and content of Luke. In that manner they can avoid any implication that the writer of Luke was a "crank" in his editorial behavior, as has occurred during discussions of the Augustinian hypothesis, where Luke comes after the other two Gospels (Streeter, 1964, p. 94, fn.). The MAH finds he was no erratic "crank," but had all-too-human reasons for his behavior. MAH-F. Ur-Mark and its shortness. 1. With the MAH, there is an additional motivation for Mark to have been written besides correcting and over-correcting for Matthew's anti-gentile stance. According to Clement of Alexandria, when Peter and Mark were in Rome together they possessed a document that Peter neither discouraged from being read nor urged forward. With the Talmud Jmmanuel (TJ) as a guide, one may infer that this document had been an early attempt at writing down Immanuel's (Jesus') ministry as it progressed, until this Aramaic writing (call it Ur-Mark) was stolen by a young Pharisee so as to turn it over, for a price, to a chief priest seeking evidence of blasphemy. Eventually, after the crucifixion, Ur-Mark was apparently recovered by either Peter or by John Mark in Jerusalem and carried to Rome with them. The point in the TJ where this theft occurred corresponds to Matthew's 12th chapter, which happens to be the very point at which Mark's order of pericopes, from there onwards, follows Matthew's order. The writer of Mark is inferred to have known about this old document at his or another's house-church in Rome, and, when Matthew appeared on the scene, to have noticed that Ur-Mark's contents largely agreed with the contents of Mt 8-11, except for Matthean redactions. So he utilized this Ur-Mark to correct, vivify and amplify upon the corresponding Matthean pericopes, while maintaining Matthean redactions that preserved early Christian orthodoxy. We may note that according to Clement of Alexandria, the Ur-Mark document held by Peter and (John) Mark in Rome was neither urged forward by Peter nor strongly forbidden (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Bk 6, 14:6-8). This suggests it contained a few heresies relative to Paul's preaching that didn't bother Peter but which discouraged its active dissemination, allowing it to lie fallow within some house-church in Rome for many decades before the appearance of Semitic Matthew there caused Ur-Mark to come to the attention of the writer of Mark. 2. His utilization of Ur-Mark in expanding and vivifying some pericopes served to authenticate part of his gospel, and so he spread out the location of those pericopes into other sections of his gospel in order to enlarge the authenticated region. This caused the order of many of Mark's healing pericopes to differ from that of Matthew - this "improper order" was apparently commented upon by Papias. It would be consistent with this if the writer of Mark added other authenticating touches to his gospel. In particular, he could utilize occasional Aramaic words from Ur-Mark, or perhaps from suggestions by an associate well versed in Aramaic, whose meaning he would explain in his Greek text. We cannot be certain, however, that the different order in Mark of a few of the healing pericopes isn't more accurate than Matthew's order, since their order in the Ur-Mark chronicle must have been correct, while the TJ source of Matthew was written years later. 3. It may be mentioned that of the Gospel writers, only the writer of Mark had access to Ur-Mark. However, after the writer of Matthew was done utilizing the TJ in forming his gospel, the writers of Luke and John did have, apparently, some limited access to the TJ. The writer of Mark had no access to the TJ. This information comes from comparing the TJ against the Gospels. What Eusebius quotes from Papias may be relevant in support of this: "Matthew compiled the Logia in the Hebrew language, and each interpreted them as best he could." In speculation, it is possible that before Eusebius had so tersely abbreviated Papias, the original meaning had been that the writer of Matthew worked with an Aramaic document (the TJ) to produce his gospel, and other Gospel writers (writers of Luke and John) interpreted the document as best they could. This is possible because the TJ itself was much too heretical to have received any direct mention. However, dozens of other interpretations of Papias are possible and have been made in the past. In most of them, it is assumed that Papias was referring entirely to the Gospel of Matthew, and/or that the Greek word rendered "interpreted" above means "translated." MAH-G. The role of Semitic Matthew's translator. Regarding the translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek, one must allow that he would make several kinds of changes. He or his church would likely have been persuaded by the time that Mark and Luke appeared, i.e., around 130 CE, that if the Gospel of Matthew weren't made more palatable to gentiles, it would lose its dominance and influence to either Luke or Mark or both within the evangelically expanding Christianity. By this time, the writer of Semitic Matthew may well have lost his influence within the church or synagogue of Matthew's origin and have been considered too reactionary, or have passed away, leaving the way open for a modest revamping of Matthew by a translator who was not anti-gentile. (The evidence of an underlying Hebraic and/or Aramaic source to our Greek Gospels is really very extensive, as spelled out here.) Considering that the Greek grammar in Mark is acknowledged to be quite crude and awkward, the odds are good that this translator of Semitic Matthew was more skillful in literary Greek than the writer of Mark. Hence, the MAH has this plausible explanation for Matthew's better Greek, since it allows that Greek Matthew was written only after Mark and Luke were available to the translator. This translator's changes need not have been restricted to the addition of the three pro-gentile passages mentioned in MAH-B. He probably made some reverential upgrades, too. Beyond this, however, how could his translation make it known that Mark and Luke weren't so different from Greek Matthew that either of those gospels wouldn't be considered primary rather than dependent upon Matthew? Their authors had designed their gospels to be as different in appearance from Matthew as feasible. This had to be countered. The obvious way would be for him, in translating Semitic Matthew's verses to which Mark or Luke had parallels with unaltered meaning, to utilize their Greek, word for word, in those places. Then any scribe who knew both Hebrew and Greek could see that there was a strong dependence there. And since it was well known that Greek Matthew was the offspring of Semitic Matthew, and was still very similar to it in content, the dominance that had once been enjoyed by Semitic Matthew within Jewish communities would carry over to Greek Matthew, which, however, would be more acceptable to gentiles. Neither Mark nor Luke could then be considered more primary than Greek Matthew even though Greek Matthew was written afterwards. It is noted that the numbers of lengthy strings of identical consecutive Greek words in parallel verses of Luke and Matthew, and of Mark and Matthew, are very significantly greater than can be explained by normal editing. It required purposeful replication by the translator of Semitic Matthew, with manuscripts of Mark and Luke on hand, to accomplish this. On the other hand, the number of strings of identical consecutive Greek words in parallel verses of Mark and Luke are no greater than is to be expected from normal editing. See Deardorff, 1997, Sec. III. Thus, following the MAH, the translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek was the "middle term" in explaining the intense verbal agreement between parallel passages of Matthew and Luke (Q verses), and between closely paralleled portions of Matthew and Mark. MAH-H. Semitic Matthew's source. Although Semitic Matthew was the first of the Gospels, it had a definite source, the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ), which is the main subject of this web site. Hence Matthew, from the time of its Hebraic version onwards, contained much evidence of redactions that crept in when heavy editing was required in forming it out of the TJ. For the most part, however, the MAH does not rely upon the TJ other than noting that Semitic Matthew had a source different from Mark. An important exception is that from the TJ, as authenticated within this web site, we know that the writer of Luke had secondary access to it. Hence, he could ascertain which portions of Matthew were the inventions or alterations of its writer, many of which he would basically accept in preference to the TJ's heresies. It is to be noted that the Augustinian solution to the Synoptic Problem proposed by B. C. Butler (1969) bears some resemblance to the above, in that he allowed that Matthew and Mark could both have been dependent upon a Proto-Matthew. In the MAH, Semitic Matthew could be called "Proto-Matthew" if desired. However, Butler postulated that Proto-Matthew was written in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic. Therefore, Butler's solution was missing the role of Semitic Matthew's translator (G. above). Also missing, however, were the various motivations for the Gospel writers' editorial behaviors. Being an abbot, Butler was probably in no position to delve into improper or repugnant editorial behaviors exhibited by the Gospel writers. An earlier proposal by Theodor Zahn (1909) comes closer to the MAH. He proposed a Proto-Matthew written in Aramaic, which was utilized by the writers of both Matthew and Mark. Like Butler, however, his hypothesis lacked realistic motivations for the editorial behaviors of the Gospel writers. The term "modified Augustinian hypothesis" has previously been briefly applied to Butler's defense of the Augustinian hypothesis by Dungan (1999), who also inexplicably lumped the Farrer hypothesis (a Mark-Matthew-Luke order) in with it. Arguments against the priority of Matthew by Delbert Burkett, as nullified by the MAH In chapter 3 of his book, Burkett (2004) supplies reasons why canonical Matthew cannot have been the first Gospel. Most of his arguments, involving comparison of frequencies of occurrence of certain Greek words and phrases within Matthew, Mark and Luke, seem correct - with respect to canonical Matthew. However, they only apply under the condition that Matthew had been written first in Greek. Unfortunately, he did not take the Semitic Matthew tradition into serious consideration. If he had, he would be concerned with possible dependencies of the translator's Greek upon that of Mark and Luke (see MAH-G.), and not just possible dependencies of Mark and Luke's writers upon Greek Matthew. Burkett's first argument that applies independently of the language Matthew was first written in is his #11): Mark and Luke do not contain Matthew's "fulfillment quotations," which support the belief that Jesus was the messiah. If coming after Matthew, he reasoned, their writers should be expected to have included those quotations, as they did not object to the messiah concept. Although Burkett allows that an explanation might be put forth to explain this, he leaves this as a probable point against Matthean priority. With the MAH, Mark's omission of these quotations is explained by D.1, and Luke's by E.a). This is discussed in greater detail below under the critique of Stein's argumentation (his 6a, second topic). The next question that applies is Burkett's #13), concerning Matthew's five end-of-discourse phrases, such as "when Jesus finished these sayings." Mark contains none of them, while Luke contains only one. It seemed more likely than not to Burkett that if Mark followed Matthew, it would have retained these phrases; if the opposite sequence had occurred, he felt that the writer of Matthew would likely have added the phrase. That's possible, but not at all compelling due to the following reasons, which stem from MAH-D.1. Matthew's first end-of-discourse phrase, Mt 7:28, comes at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, whose entirety Mark omits except for a very few verses. So Mark can't be expected to contain any parallel there to Matthew's end-of-discourse phrase. The next occurs at Mt 11:1, which follows a discourse of some 27 verses to which Mark has only 8 scattered verses in parallel. Again, the writer of Mark would therefore not be expected to include an end-of discourse phrase after having abbreviated out so much of the discourse. The third occurs at Mt 13:53, the end of Jesus' long series of parables. Here the writer of Mark had omitted 16 verses from Matthew, and at Mk 4:33 ended the parables he had included by stating, "With many such parables he spoke the word to them." Hence no further ending would be needed there that would parallel Mt 13:53. The fourth occurs at Mt 19:1. At the corresponding point in Mark - Mk 10:1 - Mark omits 26 Matthean verses, with a verse from the Sermon on the Mount in their place. Thus at this point Mark's writer had not been following Matthew's order, and would not necessarily have felt any need to go back and pick up Matthew's end-of-discourse phrase. The fifth occurs at Mt 26:1. At the corresponding point in Mark its writer had just omitted a whole chapter and more of Matthew, going back to Mt 24:42. So once again we cannot expect him to have added a Matthean end-of-discourse phrase after having abbreviated out so much discourse. Regarding the writer of Luke, according to the MAH-E.b) he felt obligated to add back in much from Matthew that Mark omits. So he did include at Lk 7:1 one of Matthew's end-of-discourse phrases. But he also wished to support Mark over Matthew where Mark deviates from Matthew. His compromise on this favored Mark by including only one of Matthew's five end-of-discourse phrases. Burkett's final, relevant topic involved the apparent Matthean interpolations of Mt 9:13a and 12:7: "Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'" From MAH-H., one can agree that these are Matthean interpolations, but it was a different source than Mark they were added to. The writer of Mark at Mk 2:17 and 2:26, while following Matthew, could easily decide to omit the two Matthean verses, since to understand them requires knowledge of Hos 6:6 plus other Hebrew teachings - see MAH-D.1 - which gentile Christians in Rome would have no need for. In summary, Burkett's objections to Mark having made use of canonical Matthew carry no weight against the Modified Augustinian Hypothesis and its priority of Semitic Matthew. Arguments against the priority of Matthew by Robert H. Stein, as nullified by the MAH In chapter 2 of his book, Stein (1987) gives many of the usual arguments in support of Markan priority, and in particular, priority over Matthew. 1. Mark's shortness. Stein starts off by presenting the old argument that the first gospel is likely to be the shortest, with subsequent gospel writers adding to it and thereby increasing the length of their gospels. Indeed, Mark is only some 62% as long as Matthew, and 58% as long as Luke. However, this argument fails if a gospel writer has strong reason to abbreviate his primary source, which the writer of Mark had, according to MAH-D.1. Moreover, as is well known, the Markan pericopes that parallel those of Matthew tend to be longer not shorter, and this destroys Stein's "shortness" argument. Although this was discussed by Stein, he did not distinguish between the omission of large blocks of material deemed inessential or too Judaistic by a writer with an anti-Jewish viewpoint (see MAH-C.) from the expansion and redaction of individual pericopes deemed important and retained. The whole concept of Semitic Matthew having been especially anti-gentile in tone, and especially offensive to the writer of Mark in Rome, is missing from Stein's presentation, as from NT studies in general. And Stein never questioned whether or not the writer of Mark would desire his gospel to be as different as feasible from Matthew, but just assumed that if he were to abbreviate out large chunks of teachings, surely he would also abbreviate everything he wished to retain. Instead, as a bulk abbreviator, the writer of Mark nevertheless betrayed his gospel's secondary nature by expanding upon the individual accounts he retained from Matthew. Stein also repeated objections as to why the writer of Mark, if his gospel was second, would omit specific sections, such as the Nativity. Consider, however: He didn't question why Mark includes a clause about Jesus looking around with anger at the Jewish folk in the synagogue (Mk 3:5), why it includes a sentence relating that Jesus' (Jewish) friends were saying that Jesus was "beside himself" (crazy) (Mk 3:21), why it includes the sentence, "He meant to pass by them" (Mk 6:48c) as Jesus was walking on water towards the boat full of (Jewish) disciples in distress, and other anti-Jewish slurs. And so the thought didn't seem to arise that the writer omitted Matthew's nativity account so as to avoid emphasizing Jesus' Jewish step-father and Jewish genealogical line of descent, as well as avoiding unnecessary Scriptural quotations. The revised naming of one of Jesus' brothers, Joseph in Mt 13:55 to Joses in Mk 6:3 (in the nominative case), is consistent with this theme, since the son Joseph was likely named after his Jewish father, Joseph. The possibility that the writer of Mark was anti-Jewish in outlook (MAH-C.) as well as aggravated over Matthew's anti-gentile slant (MAH-B.) seems not to have been considered by Stein (and others). And why would the writer of Mark omit Matthew's Sermon on the Mount? It teaches meekness, turning the other cheek, and qualities at odds with the Markan portrayal of Jesus as one to be treated as royalty and defended militantly (e.g., in Mk 3:9 the disciples are told to get a boat ready for Jesus so that so that the crowd would not crush him, in Mk 4:38 there is the cushion Jesus is said to be asleep on, omitted is Matthew's verse saying "the Son of man has no place to lay his head," in Mk 11:2 the colt that Jesus was to ride on was one that had never been ridden, omitted is Matthew's statement not to use the sword (Mt 26:52), and at Mk 14:51 the consistent interpretation is that the disciples who fled rather than defend their Lord were like a boy who flees away naked). It teaches righteousness, particularly in the sense of upholding the laws of the Torah (Mt 5:20). Four other verses in the Sermon also mention righteousness (Mt 5:6,10; 6:1,33) and were therefore also good candidates for the writer's rejection. Mt 23:3, which urges you to practice and observe what the Pharisees tell you, is notably missing (along with most of the other Woe verses), and obedience to that would involve practicing righteousness. Consistently avoided also are the other two Matthean verses involving righteousness: Mt 3:15 and 21:32. In Matthew where Jesus preached that it's not what goes into the mouth that defiles (Mt 15:16-17), in Mark this is expanded to mean that all foods are good to eat (Mk 7:19), in violation of various laws of the Torah. Hence significant parts of the Sermon involving "righteousness" were good candidates for rejection by the writer (MAH-D.1.). And perhaps the writer of Mark would not want to be reviled and persecuted so as to be blessed (Mt 5:10). In the Sermon Jesus teaches not to be angry, but the evident fact with Semitic Matthew holding priority - that the writer of Mark seems to have been angry at Matthew's writer for denying discipleship to gentiles, all the while he was writing his gospel - could well have helped cause him to omit Mt 5:22 and its connected verses. And would the writer care for Matthew's teaching of not resisting those who are evil (Mt 5:39)? Of not making any judgments (Mt 7:1)? See under this discussion the positive regard held for mammon in Mark versus just the opposite in the Sermon on the Mount. Also, the Sermon contains three of Matthew's anti-gentile slurs (Mt 5:47, 6:7 and 6:32). It is not unreasonable, then, that the writer found so much wrong with the Sermon, and was so intent upon omitting as many large chunks from Matthew as feasible, that he omitted essentially the entire Sermon on the Mount. Mark fails to contain not only Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, but other Matthean teaching material. Stein asks if that would be consistent with Matthean priority, in that Mark contains no shortage of brief references to Jesus' teaching ministry. Several points can be made here: (a) It would be consistent for a bulk abbreviator to form summaries of longer accounts, as with Mark's 2-verse summary (Mk 1:12-13) of Matthew's 11 verses of the Temptations in the Wilderness that included Scriptural allusions. Thus the writer need not have had any aversion towards including brief summaries of Jesus' teachings from Matthew (Mt 4:23/Mk 1:39, Mt 7:29/Mk 1:22, Mt 9:35/Mk 6:6b, Mt 13:54/Mk 6:2). (b) According to MAH-D.1., teachings that seemed inessential to the writer, or that did not make sense to him, would be prime targets for omission. E.g., he could omit the parable of the eccentric employer (Mt 20:1-16) since it didn't make sense that those who worked one hour would be paid as much as those who worked all day; he could omit the parable of the two sons (Mt 21:28-32) perhaps because he didn't understand the connection between it and harlots, tax collectors and John, and so felt that his readers wouldn't understand it either. (c) The writer of Mark had access to a short document called Ur-Mark here, according to MAH-F. Being more of a chronicle than later remembrances of the ministry that produced the TJ and then Matthew, Ur-Mark could well have contained a few more healing episodes and summaries of teaching episodes than is found in Matthew. For this reason the writer of Mark may have desired to emphasize Jesus as a teacher as well as a healer. Stein includes mention of the resurrection narratives (beyond the empty tomb) as an omission in Mark difficult to understand on the basis of Matthean priority. By MAH-B., however, the only resurrection narrative at that time was Mt 28:16-17, in which the disciples both worshiped and doubted. Mt 28:18-20 were added later by the translator. Because Semitic Matthew ended on such an ambiguous note, it is understandable that the writer of Mark would have left this brief resurrection narrative alone. 2. Mark's poorer writing style. This argument is based upon the supposition that if Mark was secondary to Matthew, it was secondary to the Greek, canonical Matthew, not Semitic Matthew. Then it is assumed, rather reasonably, that the writer of Mark would not have "dumbed down" Matthew's better Greek writing style. With the MAH-A., one sees that this line of argument is specious. Indeed, on this one question the MAH agrees in a sense with Markan priority - Mark was the first Gospel written in Greek. So it is not surprising that its use of the Greek language was poorer than in the other Gospels. The fact that Mark contains more Aramaic expressions than is found in Matthew or Luke, is discussed in this section by Stein. He somehow tries to explain it as being due to the Greek-speaking audiences of Matthew and Luke having no perceived need to hear the Aramaic words. His reasoning here with respect to the MAH is quite deficient. The main audience for Semitic Matthew was the large Jewish community that had still not accepted the new messianic form of Judaism. They of course would not need any explanation for the meaning of Aramaic or Hebrew words within an Aramaic/Hebrew document. Later, after Matthew was translated into Greek, its Greek-speaking audience would need explanations for Aramaic expressions that were retained. And so the translator provided them, perhaps being prompted by such explanations in Mark. Secondly, MAH-F.2. supplies a good reason why the writer of Mark would insert some Aramaic expressions into his gospel. The ones at Mk 3:17 (Boanerges), Mk 5:41 (Talitha cumi) and Mk 7:34 (Ephphatha) are believed here to have stemmed from Ur-Mark. At Mk 15:22, "Golgatha" stemmed from Hebraic Matthew, with the parenthetical explanation added by the writer of Mark, and later added by the translator to Mt 27:33. The Aramaic "Eloi, Eloi" at Mk 15:34 (rather than the Hebrew "Eli, Eli" at Mt 27:47) could have stemmed from Semitic Matthew, since Aleph and other old manuscripts containing Matthew attest to "Eloi." Concerning the avoidance in Luke of these Aramaic expressions in Mark, the MAH cannot offer anything definite. It could be due to any of several reasons. The possibility I prefer is that Luke's writer was more sophisticated and experienced at writing than either Mark's writer or Matthew's translator, and knew that adding in parenthetical explanations would detract from, rather than add to, the perceived authenticity of his gospel. The prologues of Luke and Acts suggest that their writer was concerned at providing an appearance of authenticity for the two books, and the lack of continuation of narration in Acts about Paul, shortly before his death in Rome, suggests a concern that his writing be given an early date-many decades earlier than when he wrote it. Concerning Mark's "rather clumsy redundancy," Stein has no explanation other than treating it as more of the poor writing style of Mark's writer. He considers it to be a purely Markan stylistic feature, cleaned up by gospel writers who followed Mark. He gives reasons it could not be due to the writer of Mark having conflated Matthew and Luke, as backers of the Griesbach hypothesis have proposed. However, the solution provided by MAH-D.3. & 4. was not mentioned by Stein. The thought just never seems to arise within NT scholarship that the writer of a gospel who must depend upon a previous gospel for most all his material would want his gospel to be different in content and appearance from the gospel he copied from, while still telling the essence of the story. And indeed, after the several types of changes the writer of Mark made in this respect (MAH-D.), Mark is sufficiently different from Matthew that many scholars object to the word "copied" being used here. To recap, Stein has no satisfactory explanation for the 116 or so pleonasms (or dualisms or redundancies) in Mark's text paralleled by Matthew. 3a. Mark's harder readings: Apparent limitation of Jesus' power or influence. Stein gives two of three examples where Mark reads like "he healed many" (in Mk 1:32-34a and 3:9-10), while the parallels in Matthew and Luke refer to "healing them all." Here it is surmised that these are two instances in which the writer of Mark had utilized Ur-Mark, which had been written "on the spot," so to speak, rather than relying just on the Matthean account that had come from remembrances (in the TJ) some years after the events. See MAH-F.1. Therefore, in these two pericopes the Markan accounts are more vivid and detailed than their Matthean parallels. They are likely more accurate, therefore. The tendency in writing events from years-old memories is to generalize, as from "many" to "all"-those few who weren't healed are forgotten or ignored in comparison with the many who were healed. In his third example, Mt 13:58/Mk 6:5-6, Stein compares Matthew's "And he did not do many mighty works there" with Mark's "And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them." Here one is hard pressed to say which reading is the "harder," since the "except" clause in Mark fully compensates for the "not do many mighty works" clause of Matthew. I find it's a toss-up. It's an example of Markan "change for the sake of change," MAH-D.4.; it's not a variant related to Ur-Mark, which writing had been aborted due to theft at an earlier point corresponding to about the beginning of Matthew's chapter 12. It would have been fair if Stein had presented some examples that point to redaction in the opposite direction. For example, in Mk 2:12 we read: "And he [the paralytic] rose, and immediately took up the pallet and went out before them all; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, 'We never saw anything like this!'" The Matthean parallel (Mt 9:7-8) reads, "And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men." We see here that the writer of Mark did not wish to dilute the power and authority of Jesus by implying that men had this same authority to heal, as stated in the Matthean parallel. Matthew has the harder reading. As another example, in Mk 3:3 we read: "And he said to the man who had the withered hand, 'Come here' (or 'Rise into the midst' in the Greek)." Then followed the healing. In Matthew's parallel (Mt 12:10-11) there is no such corresponding command. It appears to be a Markan addition designed to further portray Jesus as a commanding figure with greater authority. If Mark were written first and Matthew second, one would not expect this command to be absent from Matthew. Mark has the easier reading. As a third example, in Mark's version of the feeding of the five thousand the following clause (Mk 6:41-43) occurs that's not in the Matthean parallel (not in Mt 14:19): "and he divided the two fish among them all." This appears to be a Markan improvement over Matthew as well as an insertion for the sake of change. Although in Matthew it is mentioned how the loaves were distributed by the disciples, there is no explicit mention of the distribution of the fish. The writer of Mark thus corrected this oversight in his gospel. By so doing, he heightened Jesus' powers. At the same time, he added to the reverential aspect by specifying that it was Jesus, not the disciples, who should receive full credit for the multiplication and distribution of the fish. Matthew has the harder reading. As a fourth, consider that Mk 8:34 reads, "And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, 'If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'" In contrast, the Matthean parallel (Mt 16:24) just starts out, "Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If any man would come after me...'" This then is an upgrading of Matthew by the writer of Mark, having the purpose of showing that a message of which he particularly approved had gotten across to a much larger audience (the multitude) than to just the disciples. Here in Mark, Jesus has greater influence. In the parable of the vineyard at Mk 12:9, Jesus asks the chief priests, scribes and elders in the temple what the owner of the vineyard would do about the killings by the vineyard tenants. Then he immediately answers his own question in 12:9b. However, the reason for speaking a parable is to try to get one's listeners to do the thinking and answering of questions for themselves. In the Matthean text that the writer of Mark was following here (Mt 21:40-41), the question was indeed answered by the listeners of the parable, not by Jesus. We may then infer that the Matthean form of this verse is the harder reading and the more original. The writer of Mark is seen to have been motivated to make the change primarily so that Jesus would be the sole teacher, fully in control, and would not be dependent upon the chief priests, scribes and elders to provide an answer. As a sixth example, we have the Markan story at 14:13-17 in which Jesus provides prophetic instructions to two disciples whom he sends out to prepare the Passover meal. In the Matthean version, Mt 26:18-19, Jesus displays no power of clairvoyance, but just tells the two the name of the person to go to. Thus the Matthean version is the harder reading, as the Markan version displays Jesus' powers of foreknowledge. 3b. Mark's harder readings: Negative descriptions of the disciples. Along with the scholarly consensus, Stein has no explanation for these negative descriptions. MAH-C. & D.2. were unknown or unacceptable to him. 3c. Mark's harder readings: Miscellaneous theological issues. In Mt 19:17 an unknown person "came up" to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?" The reply is, "Why do you ask me about the good? One is the good." (Here a close translation to the Greek is used.) In the Markan parallel, Mk 10:17-18, we read, "a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, 'Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' And Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.'" Stein, along with most Bible text, interprets the final response in Matthew as "One there is who is good." This then is considered an easier reading than Mark. However, as pointed out by Lamar Cope (1976), Matthew's "the good" was a rabbinic term for the Torah. Many Gospel scholars are unaware of that, and, by the MAH, the writer of Mark in Rome was most likely also unaware. Thus he attempted to improve upon the Matthean verse and remove its ambiguity. This he did by writing Jesus' response in authoritative terms. But in so doing and writing, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone," he introduced the more serious problem of Jesus not being good. Thus a failed Markan improvement is nowadays incorrectly considered to be an unexplained and harder reading. And let us notice that the Markan verses are otherwise a reverential upgrade of Matthew: Jesus is called "Good Teacher," not just "Teacher," and the man kneels before Jesus, which reverence is not in Matthew. Stein's second example in this category has already been mentioned under discussion of his "Mark's shortness" section. He can give no explanation as to why, in Mk 3:5, Jesus looks around at the persons in the synagogue with anger, and can only say it's a harder reading of Mark. With MAH-C. & D.2., it's merely one of many Markan anti-Jewish slurs in retaliation of Semitic Matthew's anti-gentile slurs. His third example occurs in Mk 2:26 where the writer adds to the Matthean parallel (at Mt 12:3-4) by saying Abiathar was high priest at the time of the incident. It is known that, instead, it was Ahimelech who was high priest then. Stein considers this a "harder reading" for Mark, which the writer of Matthew avoided, whereas by the MAH-D.3. it is no less likely that the writer of Mark was adding to Matthew to help make his gospel less identical to Matthew, but in this case made a factual mistake. That the writer of Mark was woefully ignorant of Judaism has been brought out by Pierson Parker (1983). It may also be noticed that in Mark the disciples pluck the grain as if for no good reason (Mk 2:23), whereas in Matthew they had cause: they were hungry (Mt 12:1). The omission of their hunger could well have been purposeful by the writer of Mark in order to portray the disciples in a poorer light than in Matthew (MAH-D.2.). 4. The scarcity of major Matthew-Luke agreements against Mark: The argument from agreements in verbal content and in order. Here Stein discusses the fact that in the triple tradition (where all three Synoptics contain the same material in general) the content and order of Matthew and Mark is nearly the same, and so also between Mark and Luke, but not so between Matthew and Luke. He suggests that Markan priority, with Matthew and Luke independent of each other, best explains this. Although he allows that other possibilities can explain it if Matthew and Luke are not independent, he notes that those possibilities are ruled out if "Q" exists, which he favors but the MAH rules out. However, MAH-E.a) half explains these lack of major agreements: the writer of Luke showed his strong preference for pro-gentile Mark over anti- gentile Hebraic Matthew by following Mark's content and order where Mark deviates from Matthew's order and/or content. This left a strong majority of instances with Mark and Luke in good agreement but not Luke and Matthew. The other half of the explanation, in the triple tradition, is that where Mark follows Matthew closely, the writer of Luke avoided showing any support for Matthew by not following either very closely (MAH-E.c)), thereby leaving many minor instances with Matthew and Mark in good agreement. In so doing, he was not showing his usual preference for Mark because it follows Matthew closely. It is also to be noted that those places where the writer of Mark omitted most but not all the Matthean passage, and the writer of Luke felt obligated to reinstate it using Matthew, became places displaying major agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark. They are also sometimes called Mark-Q overlaps. By Stein's reckoning, the present MAH solution would probably fall under his umbrella of "insurmountable problems" requiring the existence of "Q". That is, it is totally unacceptable (an insurmountable problem) to a majority of NT scholars that the Gospel writers would exhibit their anti-gentile or pro-gentile and anti-Jewish feelings through their editorial behavior. Concerning the strong case against "Q", the work of Michael Goulder (1989) and web site of Mark Goodacre are quite revealing. It needs mentioning that the writer of Luke could not be absolutely consistent in his anti-Matthean editorial behavior, and so minor agreements between Luke and Matthew against Mark do exist. 5. Some literary agreements explained by Markan priority? Here, if we focus upon Matthew and Mark, Stein first considers the difference between their accounts of the healing of the paralytic (Mt 9:1-2 and Mk 2:1-5). Mark has the fuller, more vivid account that portrays the resolve of the men with the paralytic to bring him in past the crowd to where Jesus can heal him. The details in this pericope are seen here to have stemmed from Ur-Mark (see MAH-F.1.), though with the declaration "your sins are forgiven" from Matthew having been included by the writer of Mark. It is entirely understandable that when Matthew's source (the TJ) was written years later than Ur-Mark, many details were omitted and/or forgotten that had been included in Ur-Mark. Hence Matthew lacks some of the detail of Ur-Mark. Stein makes mention also of the extra details in Mk 5:29-33,35-37 not in Matthew's parallel at Mt 9:18-26. Since this was an incident occurring after the Sermon on the Mount and before Matthew 12, it is also a prime candidate to have been in Ur-Mark (again, MAH-F.1.). Hence I regard portions of it that were not redacted by the writer of Mark as having priority over Matthew. Interestingly, in discussing these episodes, Stein reasons that it was typical of the writer of Matthew to abbreviate individual accounts in Mark, while expanding his gospel otherwise. With the writer of Mark, Stein did not want to allow the reverse: that he would expand upon the individual accounts he wished to retain from Matthew while abbreviating much else by simply omitting large chunks. The next example concerns the difference in wording between Matthew's "And having been baptized, Jesus immediately went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened..." (Mt 3:16, Greek transliteration), and Mark's "Jesus...was baptized...And immediately, going up out of the water, he saw the heavens being rent..." (Mk 1:9-10, Greek transliteration). Stein argues that the reversal of participle and active verb in the first part, between the two versions, somehow points to Markan priority. I presume he finds the Markan version to be more apt, perhaps due to a better placement of "immediately" in Mark, as Werner Georg Kümmel (1966) had argued years before. However, with the MAH, we see that the translation of Semitic Matthew into Greek by the writer of Mark seems to be a slightly better one than that by the translator of Semitic Matthew a decade or so later. One need not expect one translation (Matthew) to be better than another (Mark) at all points. Next, Stein revisits Mt 19:16-17b/Mk 10:17-18, which we already discussed under Stein's 3c. above, regarding "One is the good" versus "No one [is] good except one - God." (Stein seemed unaware of Lamar Cope's rabbinical solution that "the good" in Matthew referred to the Torah, which the writer of Mark also failed to realize.) However, in Matthew's version the wording involving "one" is admittedly awkward, if the meaning had been, "[Only] one [thing] is the good [--the Torah]," in response to the question of what good thing the young man must do to gain eternal life; one must infer that the one thing he must do is to obey the Torah. Stein's last example in this category involves the request of Jesus by the mother of the sons of Zebedee that they be allowed to sit at his right and left in his kingdom (Mt 20:20-23), versus in Mk 10:35-40 where the sons themselves insolently request this of Jesus. Again, being unaware of MAH-C. & D.2., or finding it unthinkable, Stein failed to realize this was one of many Markan slurs against the Jewish disciples in response to Semitic Matthew's slurs against gentiles. If this were an isolated case of such a Markan response, one could not argue on the present basis. However, I have discussed 26 of them; a similar number are discussed by Parker (1983). Although Stein argues that in Matthew Jesus' response shifts from speaking to the mother (singular) to the sons (plural), as if the writer had reverted to following the Markan text, one may notice that in the story the sons were right with the mother all along, and all Jesus had to do was turn his head in shifting the direction of his reply from the mother to the two sons. (The TJ indicates that this pericope was an invention of the writer of Semitic Matthew, who apparently had some points he wished to put across.) 6a. The argument from redaction: Matthean redactional emphases compared with Mark (and Luke). Stein's first topic here concerns the frequent use of "Son of David" in Matthew (some 11 times) versus only some four times each in Mark and Luke. In the four pericopes he discusses, he finds it more convincing that the writer of Matthew added many of these than that the writers of Mark and Luke omitted them. However, he did not know that the MAH arguments well explain them. Three of them are: Mt 12:22b-24/Mk 3:22/Lk/11:14b-15, explained by MAH-D.1. & E.a); Mt 21:12-15/Mk 11:15-17/Lk 19:45-46, also explained by MAH-D.1. & E.a); and Mt 21:9/Mk 11:9-10/Lk 19:37b-38. In this latter one, the writer of Mark is seen to have omitted "to the Son of David" after "Hosanna" in Matthew, as could be expected by MAH-D.1. However, immediately following he utilized "David" in an awkward extra verse: "Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming." This easily fits into the category of using "David" for the sake of "padding" or change for the sake of change (MAH-D.3.); most of that Markan verse (11:10a) probably qualifies as a pleonasm. In a fourth pericope, Mt 15:21-27/Mk 7:24-27, the explanation for Mark's omission of "Son of David" again is MAH-D.1. - the writer of Mark often omitted Judaic material if it was inessential, although this doesn't mean he was consistent or rigorous in so doing. The writer of Luke omitted this pericope entirely, instead of supporting Mark by including a version that would parallel Mark much more closely than Matthew. In speculating as to why, several possibilities arise. One is that he felt that the writer of Mark had too flagrantly altered Matthew in changing the Canaanite woman into a Greek Syrophoenician, so he omitted the pericope entirely rather than follow Matthew. A second is that the writer of Luke understood what "take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs" meant in Matthew, which the writer of Mark included, apparently in ignorance of its anti-gentile meaning. So Luke's writer omitted the entire pericope. A third possibility is that, since the writer of Luke had had a chance to read the TJ before writing or finishing his gospel (see MAH-F.3.), and so knew that the pericope had been invented by the writer of Matthew, he would not include it. If so, however, he was not at all consistent in this regard. I tend to favor the second possibility. Stein's second topic here involves the formula quotations "this was to fulfill...", which occur in some 11 Matthean verses. In six of these Mark and Luke contain neither a parallel to the formula quotation nor to the Matthean pericope leading up to it: Mt 1:22, 2:15, 2:17, 2:23, 4:14, and 27:9. This is exactly as per MAH-D.1. & E.a): Luke follows Mark where Mark deviates from Matthew, thus rewarding the writer of Mark for his deviance. In four other cases, there are parallel passages in Mark and Luke to the Matthean pericopes leading up to the fulfillment quotation, but again no fulfillment quotations in either. These are the Matthean passages: Mt 8:17, 12:17, 13:14 and 21:4. Again this is as per MAH- D.1. & E.a): Luke follows Mark where Mark deviates from Matthew, with Mark's deviation being not so great as to include omission of the associated pericope. Regarding Mt 8:17, the writer of Mark certainly did not wish to omit the pericope of Jesus healing the sick, which was likely present in Ur- Mark, too; so he retained it (Mk 1:32-34) while omitting the fulfillment quotation which followed. Regarding Mt 12:17, a healing pericope led up to this fulfillment quotation, which the writer of Mark could not have wished to omit (Mk 3:10). Regarding Mt 13:14, the writer of Mark understandably retained some of Matthew's preceding pericope about why Jesus spoke in parables, at the end of which he could add a verse denigrating the disciples' intelligence (Mk 4:13). Regarding the pericope immediately preceding the fulfillment quotation of Mt 21:4, this concerned Jesus' sending two disciples into Jerusalem to secure an animal for him to ride on into the city. This was an important part of the passion narrative that Mark could not have skipped over, though he could easily omit the Scriptural fulfillment quotation. In the remaining case, Mt 26:54,56, Mark contains the associated pericope and the fulfillment quotation as well (Mk 14:49). However, this concerns a general reference to letting the scriptures of the prophets be fulfilled, with no scriptural quotation. Even more important, the writer of Mark would have to include it in order that some explanation be given why Jesus allowed himself to be captured and arrested. And, no surprise to the MAH, Luke does not contain any allusion to the scriptures here. This simply follows MAH-E.1. Where Mark follows Matthew, that's where the writer of Luke felt free to deviate from both. However, Stein argued that this particular case indicates there was no Markan reluctance to include scriptural material, so that the general absence of the fulfillment quotations in Mark and Luke relative to Matthew could best be explained by Matthew having added them to Mark. The idea that all this is perfectly consistent with a plausible solution to the Synoptic Problem (the MAH) that takes into account Mark's "harder readings" and the external evidence, was apparently quite unknown to Stein (1987). My book on the subject came out only later (Deardorff, 1992). 6b. The argument from redaction: Markan stylistic features compared with Matthew. The first feature Stein considers here is Mark's excessive use of the word "immediately," (euthys or eutheõs in Greek). Whether one knows Greek or not, its excessive use there is apparent. It occurs 41 times in Mark but only 18 times in Matthew, 14 of which are in verses with Markan parallels. He reasons that if Mark followed Matthew, then Matthean material not in Mark (M and Q) should contain the word a considerable number of times, roughly in the ratio of: (a) the number of Matthean words in verses not having Markan parallels (7,392), to (b) the number of Matthean words in verses that do have Markan parallels (10,901). This ratio is 0.68. Since "immediately" occurs 17 times in (b), Stein expects it to occur some 0.68 x 17 = 12 times in (a), not just twice (in Mt 14:31 and 25:15 or 16). (He does not include Mt 14:31 as an M verse, a Matthew-only verse, though it lies within the four verses of Peter walking on the water, not in Mark. It may be that in defining parallel text, he was dealing with the text at the pericope level, while I dealt with it at the verse or half-verse level.) So he reasons that Matthew's use of the word resulted from its having been derived from Mark, with some of Mark's excessive uses omitted. It certainly does appear that the translator of Semitic Matthew was inclined to use the word only when his Aramaic text called for it (shaah), and not to use it just to denote a temporal sequence or even as a conjunction, as the writer of Mark often did. Of the 14 times that both Mark and Matthew use euthys or its alternate in parallel passages, I find that 13 make good or very good sense in terms of "immediate," with only 1 (in Mt 14:22) being unnecessary (however in some Matthean manuscripts the word is absent at 14:22). On the other hand, of the 15 times that Mark contains euthys and Matthew has a parallel passage but the word does not occur there, I find that 8 of them constitute poor or very poor usage in Mark, 6 are not needed, and 1 is not absolutely necessary. So this is quite consistent with the translator of Semitic Matthew knowing when to properly use the word and not use the word, during his translation. However, from a perspective of Matthew's translator or writer having used the word because he copied it from Mark, there are 4 instances in which Matthew uses the word but it is not in Mark (as noted by Stein), versus the 14 times Matthew uses the word and it is in a Markan parallel. I believe we should be comparing these 4 against 14, not 1 against 14. I.e., if Matthew was formed out of Mark, there are 4 instances in which its use of "immediate" did not depend upon Mark. One may nevertheless ask Stein's question, of why euthys or eutheõs does not appear considerably more than once or twice in the M & Q verses. Those verses include Matthew's genealogy, Sermon on the Mount, some parables and teachings where no sequence of actions is involved, and many isolated verses where "immediately," had it been present, could not have been divorced from its preceding verse. Hence we see that "immediately" occurs relatively more often within verses of narration than verses of discourse. If (a) and (b) above are restricted to verses of narration (distinguishing them down to the 1/2-verse level), one finds the ratio of interest to be 0.39, not 0.68. Hence a more reasonable statistical expectation would be for 6 occurrences in M & Q, not 12, compared with the 2 occurrences so far discussed. The actual subject matter of M & Q, along with what the writer of Mark chose to retain from Matthew, needs to be taken into account also. One is hard pressed to look over a list of M verses, and of Q verses, and find more than the two spots already mentioned where euthys in its sense of "immediately" would be appropriate. It might be thought appropriate for use in the pericope of the healing of the centurion's servant (at Mt 8:13b, not in Mark), but there the healing took place "in that hour" (according to the Greek text) rather than "at once." On the other hand, what the writer of Mark chose to retain from Matthew most notably included passages involving action, and Jesus' ministry with its temporal sequence of events and immediate healings. All that included many verses where use of "immediate" was appropriate, but by definition those verses cannot appear in M & Q. Therefore, the burden is upon the supporter of Markan priority to point to a significant number of M & Q verses where the proper use of euthys would have been appropriate. Stein's second subject on stylistic features concerns the circumstances under which the Greek gar (or "for," the conjunction that provides a connection to an immediately following explanatory sentence or clause) is used in Matthew versus Mark. Both use the word quite frequently. Some of these uses of gar are editorial, i.e., used in the narration - 11 of them in Matthew, of which Mark has 10 parallels, and 34 in Mark. Mark contains some 25 more usages of the editorial gar not paralleled in Matthew. If Matthew followed Mark, shouldn't one expect that Matthew would contain more than just 29% (10/34) of Mark's editorial gar's? However, Stein doesn't ask that question. Instead, he asks, why in the Matthean verses not paralleled within Mark (M & Q) does the editorial gar occur only once, while occurring 10 times in the verses paralleled by Mark? Again using the 0.68 ratio of (a) to (b), Stein expects that Matthew should contain about 7 (68% of 10) gar clauses within its M & Q verses, not just 1. Thus Stein reasons that Markan priority explains this - the writer of Matthew followed Mark and used its editorial gar's, except for the 25, which Stein apparently accepts as redactional insertions by the writer of Mark ("probably not part of the tradition that Mark used"). He does not suggest any source material to which the writer of Mark added these insertions, but with the MAH, that source was Semitic Matthew. However, there is an important question as to just what an editorial gar, or editorial comment, is, and what Stein meant by it. He referred (p. 83) to Mt 7:12 as containing one of them, which occurs within discourse of Jesus. If such discourse is allowed as being "editorial," then there are very numerous examples of the "editorial gar" in the M and Q verses, not just one. Here we must assume this was a typo; neither of us believes that Jesus wrote any of the Gospels (though an implication of the MAH-H. is that Immanuel or Jmmanuel dictated most of the TJ to his trusted writer years after his survival of the crucifixion). Another question arises from Stein's footnote 43, in which he doesn't include the gar occurring in Mt 28:2 as editorial, saying it "is part of the account itself." Yet it was an explanation by the writer of that account, which fits his definition of being editorial though it and others are not obvious parenthetical expressions. Moreover, there are several instances in the M verses where editorial gar occurs as spoken through words stemming from the writer - how the writer acquired them may be uncertain. Why shouldn't these be considered "editorial gars," especially for a hypothesis that assumes the writer or editor invented the account? Examples occur in Mt 1:20 (spoken by an angel), 2:2,5 (spoken by the Magi), 2:13,20 (spoken by an angel)? Many Markan priorists assume that these and other aspects of the Nativity account in Matthew are redactions or stem from legends (e.g., Beare, 1981), so shouldn't they consider the "explanatory gars" occurring therein to be editorial? And how about Mt 13:15, which contains a gar explanatory clause in a rendering of the LXX version of Is 6:9-10? In the LXX here gar is not present, indicating this was an editorial change wrought by the writer of (Hebraic) Matthew, later translated utilizing gar. This occurs in an M verse. If these considerations are taken into account, we find from 2 to 6 more, or up to 7 in all, uses of the gar explanatory clause that could qualify as editorial, in Matthean verses not in Mark. In addition, however, one again needs to take into account the subject matter of the M & Q verses, on the one hand, and the Markan material its writer favored retaining and omitting from Matthew, on the other, if statistically comparing word usage between the two, using an Augustinian or MAH perspective. A large fraction of Matthew missing from Mark is comprised of Jesus' discourses, which by definition contain no narration and thus no editorial gars, while what its writer most favored was Jesus' ministry in action, which involved a good deal of narration. This distinction should have been taken into account, and we should be comparing the narration verses. Of a total of about 504 verses in M & Q, only 106 involve narration. Of a total of about 535 verses in Matthew that have parallels in Mark, about 270 are narration. The ratio of narration verses in M & Q to narration verses in Matthew with parallels in Mark, is 0.39. Thus, at the most, Stein should be using a statistical percentage of 106/270 = 39%, not 68%, giving 4 expectations of editorial gars in M & Q rather than 7 expectations. And we found up to 7 depending upon how one defines "editorial" gar. In a footnote, Stein mentions that a third stylistic feature of Mark that may have bearing on the Synoptic Problem is its frequent use of the historic present ("and he comes, and says, and heals, and goes"). Mark contains it about three times more frequently than does Matthew. This has sometimes been argued to be in favor of Markan priority, but apparently without due regard for the MAH. With the MAH, one may allow that it reflects underlying Semitic usage within the sources of Mark and Matthew, which carried over into the Greek in Mark. Its less frequent usage in canonical Matthew then reflects greater concern for Greek literary correctness by the translator of Semitic Matthew than by the writer of Mark. 7a. Mark's more primitive theology. Here Stein considers the Christological title "Lord." He pointed to a dozen places in the triple tradition where Matthew uses "Lord" but the parallels of Mark instead make use of "teacher," "master," "rabbi" or no special title. By MAH-G., this strongly implicates the translator of Semitic Matthew in reverential upgrading while forming his Greek text. Such minor alterations would have been especially simple for the translator to make, as they could be implemented even without close examination of the copies of Mark and Luke he had on hand. This is not some "convenient" aspect of a hypothesis designed to explain away criticisms from competing hypotheses. It is instead an essential aspect of a hypothesis built largely upon those portions of oral tradition (the external evidence) having no logical reason for being false - Semitic Matthew was written before Mark (and translated later). 7b. Mark's more advanced theology (not mentioned by Stein). With either the Augustinian hypothesis or the MAH, one expects that indications may exist of the writer of Mark having advanced his theology over that of Semitic Matthew. If so, Mark's theology should appear, in different locations of the gospel, both more primitive and more advanced. Examples of the latter are: Mk 1:1 substitutes "son of God" for Matthew's "son of David" (Mt 1:1). Mk 1:8 has "...he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" while Mt 3:11 has it "...he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." Elimination of "and with fire" eliminates the association of Jesus with the symbol of hell. Mk 1:34b reads "and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him," which is not present in the Matthean parallel at Mt 8:16. It might be thought to be an addition inserted to bolster Jesus' image as an authority figure so deserving of respect that even possessing demons would not speak out if he ordered them not to. However, the more basic MAH explanation for the Markan emphasis upon the Messianic secret holds that such was a "secret" to be kept only from the Jews. See the discussion under Ehrman. Mk 3:29; here Mark omits "And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven," which is present in Matthew's parallel at Mt 12:32. It should be self-explanatory why the writer of Mark omitted it: Disrespect towards Jesus should be discouraged, not tolerated. Mk 5:6; here the Gerasene demoniac sees Jesus from afar, and then runs and worships him. In the Matthean story (Mt 8:28b) the two demoniacs simply come out of the tombs and meet Jesus - no worshiping. Thus this is a Markan editorial touch of added reverence towards Jesus. However, the MAH allows that Mark's one demoniac may be more correct than Matthew's two, as the Markan account may have made use of Ur-Mark, while the Matthean account came from an older memory. Mk 5:19 reads "Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." The verse has no parallel within Matthew although it has the same pericope about the Gerasene demoniac (Mt 8:28-34). The verse and its following one were probably added for the purpose of having the good word be spread in a gentile land, because the healed man is said to have then gone home to the Decapolis. Mk 7:25; this verse occurs in the pericope of the Syrophoenician (a Greek, i.e. gentile) woman whose daughter was possessed. In the parallel Matthean verse (Mt 15:22), where she is a Canaanite (non-gentile), she comes forth to Jesus and makes her plea. But in this Markan verse she first prostrates herself at his feet. The gentile supplicant thus showed proper respect for Jesus. Mk 8:35; here the writer of Mark showed his interest that the gospel - a tangible written account of how to be a Christian - be shown the same respect and priority as the name of Jesus itself. Thus he added "and [for] the gospel's [sake]" to the Matthean parallel he was following at that point (Mt 16:25). If Matthew had followed after Mark, its writer would have had no reason whatsoever to remove this phrase about the gospel. Mk 9:47; Mark reads: "..it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell." The Matthean parallel (Mt 18:9) reads: "...it is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire." Mark's "kingdom of God" is a reverential upgrading of Matthew's "life." Mk 10:17 portrays a man running up to Jesus, kneeling before him and addressing him as "Good Teacher." In the Matthean parallel (Mt 19:16) the person simply comes up to Jesus and addresses him as "Teacher," without any kneeling or prostrating of himself. The Markan version is a significant upgrading in reverence, being twofold in character. Mk 10:50 states that the blind man who was about to have his sight restored threw off his outer garment, leaped up and came to Jesus. This was amongst a crowd along the road from Jericho. In the Matthean verses being followed at this point (Mt 20:32-34 along the road from Jericho) Jesus asks the blind men what they want, and then he touches their eyes to restore their sight. Presumably Jesus walked up to them to do this, as nothing to the contrary is mentioned. Thus the writer of Mark has made Jesus into a more respected figure here by having the blind man rush to Jesus without any implication that Jesus came to him. See Deardorff (1992) for explanation of Mark's blind man here being two blind men in Matthew. Mk 10:52; at the end of this same pericope, the writer of Mark similarly enhances the image of Jesus as a commanding figure by having him tell the man with the restored sight to go (depart), which command was not in the parallel Matthean source. (Then the writer of Mark went back to following Mt 20:34c by having the man follow Jesus, forgetting that his added sentence had just ordered the man to "Go.") Mk 12:6; in the Markan form of the parable of the wicked tenants, the owner of the vineyard finally sends his "beloved son" to collect some of the fruit. In Matthew (21:37) it is just "the son" who is sent in this third attempt by the owner. The Markan version is a substantial upgrading of Matthew, and makes the point clearer that this son represents Jesus in the parable, since "my beloved son" is what he was called in Mk 1:11 & 9:7. The writer of Luke (20:13), as customary with him, tended to follow Mark's alterations from Matthew; in particular, he retained the "beloved" son, as would be expected. Mk 12:27b; at the end of the short discourse to the Sadducees on resurrection, one finds the following statement coming from the lips of Jesus: "You are quite wrong." This sentence does not occur in Matthew's parallel (Mt 22:23-32), and therefore stands out as a Markan addition to Matthew because it makes Jesus more of an authority figure. It is less plausible that the writer of Matthew, had he been following Mark, would have removed this statement indicating that Jesus was an absolute authority who could rightfully judge and pronounce others incorrect. Mk 12:36, within the "Son of David" pericope, reads, "David himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit, declared, 'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand...'". This is a close parallel to Mt 22:43-44, except that in Matthew it is just "Spirit," not the more Christological "Holy Spirit." Thus this represents a reverential improvement by the writer of Mark. If viewed the other way around, the writer of Matthew would not likely have downgraded Mark's Holy Spirit to Spirit, had he been copying from Mark. He had nothing against the phrase, as he used "Holy Spirit" five times in his gospel. Mk 15:32 reads, "Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Its parallel, Mt 27:42b, on the other hand reads: "He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him." We see that in Mark, "the Christ" occurs in place of Matthew's "him." This is a reverential upgrading, pure and simple. Mk 15:44-45; at this point, when Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and requested Jesus' body, Pilate wondered if he were already dead, summoned a centurion to ask him, and learned that he had been declared dead. There is no equivalent to this in Matthew (Mt 27:58-59). It appears to be a Christological upgrade to confirm, more convincingly than is presented in Matthew, that the man had really died on the cross, a belief that is demanded of fundamentalist Christians (1 Cor 15:3-4). These examples by no means exhaust the indications of Markan dependence upon Matthew. More Markan improvements upon Matthew can be found here, and other indications of Markan awareness of the Gospel of Matthew here. In this web page we have concentrated on how the MAH explains the priority of Matthew over Mark. We have not delved much into the evidence indicating Luke's dependence upon both Matthew and Mark. The presently most accepted hypothesis (two-source hypothesis) assumes that Luke and Matthew were written independently of each other. One of its strongest drawbacks are the minor agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark (e.g., see the web site of S. Carlson). The MAH supports the scholarship that indicates these minor agreements are of critical importance in showing that the writer of Luke made use of Matthew as well as Mark. Arguments supposedly favoring priority of Mark over Matthew by C. M. Tuckett, as nullified by the MAH Tuckett is well known for his in-depth analyses of the Gospels. Here we examine how well the MAH fares in answering his criticisms of Matthean priority over Mark (Tuckett, 1992), while taking account of factors he ignores: the strength of the oral tradition of a Semitic Matthew having come first, that gospel's anti-gentile tone, a plausible reason for Mark's "harder readings," a plausible reason for Mark's redundancies, Mark's pericopes of greater length being indicative of redaction, a source being needed for Mark if that source isn't Matthew, and a plausible reason needed why there is no trace or mention of "Q" (or of a non-heretical document utilized by the writers of Matthew and Luke that would have no reason to be kept secret). Mark's redundancies. Tuckett starts off by reviewing and augmenting Streeter's arguments, questioning why, if the writer of Mark followed Matthew, he added a lot of redundancies - see MAH-D.3. Further on, he similarly asks, "Why too did he expand much of the material he did retain with such inconsequential details so that the same story is often twice as long in Mark as in Matthew?" See MAH-D.3.&4. Why is Mark so much shorter than Matthew? Then there is the usual question of why the writer of Mark would have omitted so much good material from Matthew - see MAH-D.1. and the discussion of particulars under Stein's Sec. 1 above. One particular question not covered there is why the writer of Mark, even if he felt like omitting the entire Sermon on the Mount, did not go back and extract the Lord's Prayer from it and utilize it somewhere in his text. Surely he would want that, so the argument goes. However, in its introduction (Mt 6:7-8a), one reads, "And in praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them..." Those are words guaranteed to rankle a gentile writing a gospel for gentiles. However, the writer of Mark did apparently have second thoughts later and picked out one piece from the Lord's Prayer, in writing, "And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses" (Mk 11:25). It seems as if the writer favored praying standing up, and therefore did not care for the inference of Mt 6:5 that only hypocrites pray standing up. The possibility may further be suggested that the writer did not endorse the Father's name being hallowed, as he once referred to him as "Abba" or "Papa" (Mk 14:36). Hence there are plausible reasons why the writer of Mark may have wished to mostly avoid use of the Lord's Prayer as written in Matthew. Tuckett also asks why Mark, if it is secondary to Matthew, omits the teaching of John the Baptist. This teaching involves Abraham (Mt 3:7- 10), so if the writer wished to most strongly focus his abbreviations on Judaistic material (MAH-D.1), this was a prime chunk to omit. From Mark's omissions Tuckett finds "some force" in their support of the hypothesis of Markan priority. However, this implicit feeling comes from viewing the writer of Mark as a respectable Christian by modern standards, which view in turn comes from presuming Matthew came only after Mark. Instead, when considering the view of Matthean priority, we must view the writer of Mark by the profile his gospel provides of him under the proviso that his gospel actually came after (Hebraic) Matthew, upon which he was dependent. Neither way of viewing it represents an argument of circularity, but rather of consistency. Order of pericopes. Next, Tuckett finds some merit in Streeter's argument that "the deviations in order between Matthew and Mark, and between Luke and Mark, are relatively small in number and can quite easily be explained as due to the redactional activity of [the writers of] Matthew and Luke respectively the Augustinian hypothesis cannot really explain why [the writer of] Mark should have changed the Matthean order in the way he must have done." However, this is easily explained by MAH-F.2. Editorial behavior of Luke's writer. Tuckett also finds the editorial behavior of the writer of Luke very difficult to explain with an Augustinian type hypothesis, in the writer's typical preservation of Mark's order of pericopes while substantially changing the order of Matthean material. However, this difficulty stems from Tuckett (along with almost all other NT scholars) having ignored the anti-gentile tone of Semitic Matthew, and having ignored how seriously an important but anti-gentile first gospel would be treated by pro-gentile evangelists, decades after early Christianity had been expanding into gentile lands. This editorial behavior is explained in MAH-E.a) & b). Comparison of parallel texts. Next, Tuckett looks at the "not many miracles" versus "no miracles except" comparison. Matthew 13:58 Mark 6:5-6 And he did not do many miracles And he could not do any miracles there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them and he marveled because of their unbelief because of their unbelief As discussed above under Stein 3a), neither writer can be shown here to have portrayed Jesus as more powerless than the other. In Mark he healed a few persons, thereby performing a few miracles; in Matthew he did not do many miracles, which is the same as having done a few miracles. Thus, in both accounts he performed a few miracles. The Markan account shows the expansion characteristic of a redactor, especially one who purposely feeds in redundancies and restates his source to ensure that his gospel will look different from that source (MAH-D.4). Tuckett does bring forth an additional argument, however: in Mark it is not stated that Jesus performed only a few miracles because of the people's unbelief, as is stated in Matthew. Instead, Mark's use of "unbelief" leaves Matthew's reason as implicit while expressing the thought that the Jewish people's unbelief was appalling. So Tuckett concludes that Mark's is the harder reading and thus more original. However, this conclusion totally ignores MAH-D.2., which, along with Mark's verbose rewording, easily explains the Markan text. Tuckett then chooses some examples from the triple tradition, first from Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi. Matthew 16:16 Mark 8:30 Luke 9:20 You are the Christ, the You are the Christ You are the Christ of God Son of the living God Here it seemed fairly evident to Tuckett that the writers of Matthew and Luke expanded upon the short Markan sentence to honor Jesus with a more divine title. However, he failed to discuss the fact that the Matthean title is "Son of the living God." The "living God" expression is Judaistic, being found in Deuteronomy, 1 Samuel, 2 Kings, Psalm 42, Daniel and Hosea. From MAH-D.1., we thus find it more likely than not that the writer of Mark would have omitted "son of the living God" from Matthew, or at least "living"; he chose to do the former. Consistent with this is that in Mk 14:61 he did not copy Matthew's "living God" from Mt 26:63. To this we may add that the writer of Mark, in Rome, would know that various Roman emperors had claimed to be God or god, and their sons might be called sons of the living god; he wouldn't wish Jesus to be placed in that category. The writer of Luke here would likely have noticed that the Markan text follows the first half of the Matthean text perfectly while omitting the last half. From the latter, his inclination would be, according to MAH-E.a), to follow this first half closely, while from the former his inclination would be to deviate from both texts (MAH-E.a)). So he added "of God" rather than "Son of the living God;" in his gospel he also avoids any use of the term "living God." Next, an example of pure Markan redundancy: Matthew 8:16 Mark 1:32 Luke 4:40 When evening was come When evening was come and the sun was setting When the sun was setting Tuckett notes that although the above and similar examples have been used to argue in favor of Markan priority, such arguments are probably indecisive. Here, these parallels are shown in that they typify the editorial behaviors of the writers of Mark and Luke as set out by the MAH. The writer of Mark added a redundancy to Matthew for the reason expressed by MAH-D.3. The writer of Luke favored Mark over Matthew by following Mark's addition (MAH-E.a)) and omitting the Matthean portion, also so as to remove a Markan redundancy (MAH-E.d)). The minor agreements. This topic is then discussed by Tuckett, as the minor agreements between Luke and Matthew against Mark are difficult to explain on the assumption of Markan priority, even with the assumption of the Two-Source Theory (2ST) that Luke was written independently of Matthew, with both making use of "Q". As stated elsewhere by Tuckett (1996), "The fact that the Minor Agreements are so minor makes it very hard to believe that [the writer of] Luke has been both influenced positively by Matthew's text in such (substantively) trivial ways, but also totally uninfluenced by any of Matthew's substantive additions to Mark. Undoubtedly the Minor Agreements constitute a problem for the 2ST, but precisely their minor nature constitutes a problem for Goulder's theory [Mark-Matthew-Luke order] as well." However, with the MAH none of this causes any problem. We see that where the writer of Luke was "totally uninfluenced by any of Matthew's substantive additions to Mark" represents all the places where Luke's writer noticed that Mark deviates strongly from Matthew, and so he followed Mark rather than Matthew (MAH-E.a)), to show his preference for pro-gentile Mark over anti-gentile Hebraic Matthew. Where the writer of Luke was "influenced positively by Matthew's text in such (substantively) trivial ways" represents the places where the Markan deviations from Matthew were too minor for him to have taken the above action. In those places, the later translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek could utilize Greek wording that was closer to Luke's than Mark's whenever he chose, which would lead to minor agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark. Tuckett then examines the most famous of all the minor agreements, involving "Who hit you" or its absence: Matthew 26:67-68 Mark 14:65 Luke 22:64 Then they spat in his face Then some began to spit at him; they blindfolded him, They blindfolded him and struck him with their fists, struck him with their fists, and said, "Prophesy to us, Christ! and said, "Prophesy!" and demanded, "Prophesy! Who hit you?" Who hit you?" The 2ST does not simply assume that the writers of Matthew and Luke added to Mark in order to provide a reason for the "prophesy" command, for that would imply that one was aware of the other's text. That theory's preferred solution is that some scribe, when transcribing an early copy of Matthew, saw the "Who hit you?" in Luke and added it in to Matthew. Tuckett acknowledges the obvious weakness of this hypothesis - there is no manuscript evidence for any texts of Matthew that were unaffected by such a scribal error. By the MAH, some time, perhaps up to ten years, elapsed before the Gospel of Luke appeared following Matthew. In that time, surely many copies of Semitic Matthew had been transcribed, so that the 2ST solution does seem very shaky. Although it might be postulated by the MAH that the question was an addition fed into Matthew by its translator, this does not seem likely or necessary. Instead, the present MAH postulates that the writer of Mark attempted an improvement of Matthew by providing a reason for the "Prophesy!" command, but then overlooked the copying of "Who hit you?" An accidental error of this sort seems somewhat more probable than the scribal intent of assimilating text from a different gospel. The writer of Luke is then seen as following Mark in correcting the oversight in Matthew of having omitted the blindfold, while correcting the oversight in Mark of not asking for something to be prophesied. The hypothetical "Q" source. Tuckett reviews some arguments pro and con on the reality of Q. Regarding order of pericopes, the writer of Luke, by the MAH, made very few changes to the Markan order but thoroughly changed the Matthean order. So Tuckett asks the common question, "Why has [the writer of] Luke behaved so conservatively with the order of one of his sources (Mark), and with such freedom in relation to the order of his other alleged source (Matthew)?" As noted before, the MAH well explains this in MAH-E.a) & b) as editorial behavior that should not seem surprising in view of the provocative anti-gentile content of Matthew. However, Tuckett notes that close inspection of the order of Lukan pericopes within the five main blocks of Matthean teachings does disclose striking agreement in order with their Matthean parallels. This is also consistent with the MAH: the writer of Luke, in showing his distaste for the anti-gentile Hebraic Matthew by thoroughly "disrupting Matthew's clear and concise arrangement of the teaching material," did so on the gross scale without bothering to do this in minutia. Tuckett's finding has caused supporters of the Q hypothesis to assume that the writer of Luke followed the order of pericopes in Q much more closely than did the writer of Matthew, who supposedly rearranged them. Tuckett feels that the Q hypothesis is strengthened by "the fact that [the writer of] Luke never seems to be aware of Matthew's modifications to Mark in Markan material. Examples cited are Mt 12:5-7 and 16:16-19; the writer of Luke "never betrays any knowledge of these Matthean additions." By the MAH, however, these are not Matthean additions but pieces of Matthew that the writer of Mark did not see fit to reproduce (MAH-D.1.); the writer of Luke showed his preference for Mark over Matthew by following Mark's omissions (MAH-E.a)). Of course, that writer had to exercise his judgment on which omissions of Mark were important enough for him to reinstate in his gospel (much later to be known as Q), and which weren't. Relevant to his discussion on reasons why he thinks the writer of Luke did not make use of Matthew, Tuckett mentions a few beatitudes that he believes are expressed more primitively in Luke than in Matthew, such as Mt 5:3/Lk 6:20b. However, this has been capably nullified by Goodacre (2002). In the same vein, he points to Luke's shorter version of the Lord's Prayer than Matthew as being indicative of Luke being more primitive than Matthew. Tuckett did not use this reasoning when discussing Mark's pericopes generally being of greater length than their Matthean parallels. However, length is no guide to priority in every case, and it could well be that the writer of Luke was adhering even here to his feelings of preferring Mark over Matthew: since Mark omits the Lord's Prayer almost entirely, he would compromise by shaving off portions of Matthew's prayer while incorporating most of it because of its importance within his Christian community. Tuckett mentions the Sign of Jonah verses in Lk 11:30 seeming to be more primitive than Matthew's (Mt 12:40; not in Mark). However, it seems easier to argue for the reverse case. In the Matthean pericope, the Sign of Jonah is explained as an omen of Jesus' coming entombment for three days and nights. In Luke, an entirely different explanation is given. It could well be that Luke's writer did not want any inference to be drawn that, because Jonah survived his three-day experience within the great fish, Jesus may have survived his crucifixion and entombment, thus explaining the post-crucifixion appearances. An argument involving doublets that is said to favor Q is also utilized: There are a few (perhaps only two?) doublets shared between Matthew and Luke in which one of the verses is shared by Mark also. So it is assumed that the latter set of doublets arises from dependence of Matthew and Luke upon Mark, and the other arises from Q. The example Tuckett gives is the doublet of Mt 16:24/Mk 8:34/Lk 9:23 along with Mt 10:38/Lk 14:27. It involves the saying of denying oneself, taking up the cross and following Jesus. The latter half of the doublet occurs in a Matthean context of setting a man against his father, not being worthy of Jesus if you love your son or daughter more than him, and of losing your life if you find your life. It's not surprising that a bulk abbreviator with an agenda that includes MAH-D.1. would find cause here to omit the entire pericope of Mt 10:34-40a (which contains the four statements of Micah 7:6), thus causing Mark not to share in the doublet. The other instance I know of lies adjacent to the above one, except in Luke: Mt 16:25/Mk 8:35/Lk 9:24 along with Mt 10:39/Lk 17:33. Hence it is not present in Mark for the very same reason. Again, the web site of Goodacre is recommended for some sound arguments against the existence of Q. Online arguments against the priority of Matthew by Mahlon H. Smith, as nullified by the MAH In a comprehensive and excellently constructed website, Mahlon Smith treated 11 pericopes in Matthew and Mark and/or Luke, presenting his reasons why Matthean priority does not seem to explain the similarities and differences between the gospels. The discussion below relates primarily to Smith's website as of 2005. 1. Jesus' kin. This is the first pericope he treated, found in Mt 12:46-50, Mk 3:31-35 and Lk 8:19-21. If Matthew came first, Smith asked: (a) Why did the writers of Mark and Luke alter Matthew's literate Greek style? This is explained by MAH-G. Semitic Matthew was translated into Greek Matthew only after Mark and Luke were written. Matthew's translator was free to use his own Greek style, or improve upon that in Mark and/or Luke if he wished, or even replicate parts of their Greek text. It was during translation that substantial alterations and additions could most freely be made. The new text in Greek could be promulgated while the previous Hebraic text could be phased out. While the two texts coexisted, few persons were capable of comparing both texts for the purpose of sorting out changes, assuming they could even acquire both texts. And as we know from comparison of the surviving Gospels, non-heretical changes made by anonymous editors to the texts of others could be tolerated. Bishop Papias was probably one who could read and write Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and he noted that events in Mark were not in correct order; this must have been with respect to a preceding writing, namely Semitic Matthew. (b) Why did the writer of Mark "add a redundant verse (Mark 3:32) in which a 'crowd' simply relays to Jesus the information the narrator gave in the previous verse"? This is well explained by MAH-D.3. The writer of Mark added it as change for the sake of change, which he may also have believed was a minor improvement over Matthew, to better explain why Jesus' kin could not fit in the house. The writer of Luke retained the "crowd" in Mark for the reasons expressed in MAH-E.a) (he tended to follow Mark where Mark deviates from Matthew). (c) Why did the writers of Mark and Luke both change Jesus' pronouncement on who his mother, brother and sisters were? Actually, Mark has it nearly the same as in Matthew, except for "God" instead of "Father in heaven." Luke has rather different wording. Matthew's "Father in heaven" is just "God" in Mark, and from the greater prevalence of "God" than "Father" in Mark, one presumes that its writer preferred to use "God," probably because "Father" is an old Testament term for God used in Isaiah and Jeremiah (MAH-D.1). His alteration here, according to the MAH, could also have been due to his desire for "change for the sake of change" (MAH-D.4.). We might infer that the writer of Luke noticed Mark's use of "God" here instead of "Father," and so followed Mark for the usual reason (MAH-E.a)), by using "God." However, the Markan pronouncement is so similar to the Matthean one, otherwise, that Luke's rather different wording from both Mark and Matthew fits the other typical editorial behavior of Luke's writer (MAH-E.c)) 2. Parable of the Sower. In this pericope (Mt 13:1-9/Mk 4:1-9/Lk 8:4-8) Smith noted that all hypotheses need to account for: (a) The fact that Luke deviates from the details of setting & parable that are in Matthew & Mark, where both are virtually identical. This is fully explained by MAH-E.c). Where Mark and Matthew agree in meaning, the writer of Luke was free to insert his own additions. If he were to literally follow Mark at those points, he would be following Matthew too, and that would not express his approval of Mark and dissatisfaction with Matthew. There are exceptions to this behavior, of course, which account for some of the minor agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark. (b) The fact that Mk 4:9 contains "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," Luke has it the same as Mark, while Mt 4:9 has the simpler "He who has ears, let him hear." So Smith noted that Luke's aphorism about "hearing" echoes the unnecessary infinitive in Mark (to hear) that is not in the oldest mss. of Matthew. But this is well explained by MAH-D.3. & E.a). The writer of Mark added a bit of superfluous material (the extra "to hear," for the reasons mentioned); the writer of Luke, having noticed this addition, then expressed his preference for Mark over Matthew by following Mark's deviation from Matthew. The later translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek faithfully translated its text here without copying Mark or Luke. (c-e) Why the writers of Mark and Luke regularly changed Matthew's plural forms to singular, added superfluous verbs [in the triple tradition] about growth & yield, and inserted an unnecessary break ("and he said," in Mark; somewhat more in Luke) between parable & aphorism. These are also explained by MAH-D.3.&4., and by MAH-E.a). The writer of Mark made changes for the reasons stated - these changes could be noticed by the writer of Luke even though the Matthean text was written in Hebrew or Aramaic. So the latter writer could show his preference for Mark there by following it rather than Matthew. (f) Why, if Mark's text (in Greek) is longer than Matthew's, that could be consistent with the writer of Mark being an abbreviator. MAH-D.4. explains this. The tendency is for the redactor to add to the length of passages he goes over in detail, which is what the writer of Mark did. Other passages that he omits entirely causes his gospel to be shorter overall. (g) Smith also noted five ways in which, if Mark came after Matthew, the writer of Mark "butchered" the Matthean passage. All five of these are well explained by MAH-D.3. - he didn't butcher any of Greek Matthew's text because Hebraic Matthew, upon which he was dependent, had not yet been translated into Greek. Something Smith did not comment upon is that Mark's "and brought forth grain and yielded thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold" (Mk 4:8) appears to be a dramatic improvement over Matthew's "and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty" (Mt 13:8). 3. Why speak in parables. This pericope occurs at Mt 13:10-17/Mk 4:10-12/Lk 8:9-10. Matthew 13:10-17 Mark 4:10-12 Luke 8:9-10 10Then 10And when he was alone, 9And when those who were about him the disciples came with the twelve his disciples and said to him, asked him asked him "Why do you speak to them in parables?" concerning the parables. what this parable meant, 11And he answered them, 11And he said to them, 10he said, "To you it has been given "To you has been given "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom the secret of the kingdom to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, of God, of God; but to them but for those outside, but for others it has not been given. 12For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. everything is they are 13This is why I speak to them in parables; in parables, in parables, 12so that they may indeed so that seeing they may because seeing they do see but not perceive, not see, not see, and may indeed hear and hearing they and hearing they do not hear, may not understand." nor do they understand. but not understand; 14With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says: 'You shall indeed hear but never understand, and you shall indeed see, but never perceive. 15For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should perceive lest they should with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn for me to heal them.' turn again, and be forgiven." 16But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. 17Truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it." Needing explanation, Smith found, are: (a) Why Mark and Luke both "have a problematic purpose clause rather than Matthew's pedagogically accurate causal clause to explain Jesus' use of parables." This refers to Mt 13:13 in its use of "because" versus the use of "so that" in the parallels of Mark and Luke in the above table. This is explained by MAH-C. By making this small alteration, the writer of Mark could imply that the disciples were not supposed to perceive or understand - being Jews they weren't supposed to be worthy of it. In Matthew, one notices that the purpose of the parables was to help the unseeing disciples see. The writer of Luke followed Mark here, because it deviated somewhat from Matthew (MAH-E.a)), yet its derogatory tone towards the disciples was evidently too subtle to gain his attention or require his modification. (b) Why Mark and Luke both "omit most of the rest of Matthew's version of Jesus' reply, including a biblical quotation that clarifies Jesus' perplexing words." This refers to the absence from Mark and Luke of the content of Mt 13:14-15 and most of 13:16-17. Again this is explained by the attitude of the writer of Mark (MAH-D.1. & 2.), followed by that of the writer of Luke (MAH-E.a)). Mark's writer didn't want the disciples to be honored by being the fulfillment of a prophecy, and even went out of his way to alter the introduction to the parable so that Jesus' listeners would not be just the disciples but also others who were about him along with the disciples. He also did not mind omitting Mt 13:14-15 due to it being Judaistic scriptural material. The writer of Luke could have decided either way - to show his preference for Mark by following its text with its omission of these two Matthean verses, or to reincorporate them in his gospel in another context. He chose the former, quite likely because it would be difficult to invent a different yet relevant context to include them in. The other two Matthean verses, 13:16-17, were probably omitted, with exception of a couple of clauses, by the writer of Mark because they blessed and praised the disciples - see MAH-C. and MAH-D.2. We see, however, that he went out of his way to infer, by his retained out-of-context clauses, that the disciples and other Jews were not worthy of receiving forgiveness after repenting. The writer of Luke went along with Mark's general omission here in showing preference for Mark, although again by the MAH he could have retained them from Matthew if he had thought they were sufficiently important, in which case they would have become "Q" verses. He did not retain Mark's out-of-context clauses apparently because they are too blatantly anti- Jewish. (c) Why Mark and Luke would both omit "a saying that in Matthew promises a bonus to Jesus' disciples [Mt 13:12], into a more ambiguous context a few lines later [at Mk 4:25/Lk 8:18]." This saying is, "For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance, but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away." Different interpretations can be given to it. It may have been omitted at this point by the writer of Mark because, in its Matthean context, it did not make sense to him (MAH-D.1.). I.e., how did that saying explain why Jesus spoke in parables? In its later Markan context the saying can take on a more material meaning, concerning those who have riches being in a position to gain still more. Again the writer of Luke followed Mark rather than Matthew, in showing his displeasure with the gospel that would deny discipleship to gentiles and favoritism toward the gospel that promoted gentile discipleship. He also utilized the saying in a context that parallels that in Mark (and used it once more as a doublet at Lk 19:26 in parallel with but different context to Matthew's doublet at Mt 25:29). 4. Explanation of the Parable of the Sower. This explanation occurs at Mt 13:18-23/Mk 4:13-20 /Lk 8:11-15. Regarding the writers of Mark and Luke, Smith asked: (a) Why did they both regularly change Matthew's singular forms to plural? The answer is the same as in Smith's 2.(c-e) shortly above. (b) Why did they omit Matthew's reference to "the kingdom"? Regarding Mark, a plausible though speculative explanation is that its writer did not know for sure what Matthew's "word of the Kingdom" referred to. The phrase isn't mentioned earlier in the parable of the sower. He may have thought it referred to Judaistic teachings rather than to the word of Jesus, and so omitted it (MAH-D.1.). Regarding Luke, its writer once again favored Mark over Matthew where Mark made a noticeable deviation from Matthew. (c) Why did they alter the "syntax & wording of Matthew's well-constructed opening sentence [Matt 13:19]"? At this point (Mk 4:13) the writer of Mark inserted a remark from Jesus that would denigrate the disciples' intelligence and point to their unworthiness to be disciples (MAH-D.2.). It would not have followed sensibly if the writer had then quoted Matthew's "Hear then the parable of the sower," immediately after implying they wouldn't be able to understand any parables. The writer of Luke could discern that Mark went much too far in its derogation of the disciples here, and so did not copy Mark's alteration. But not to precisely follow Matthew either, he made his own brief introductory sentence to the parable's explanation. Again Mark's version of the pericope is longer than Matthew's, which Smith implied should not favor Matthean priority over Mark. However, by the MAH, this editorial behavior is just what is to be expected of a bulk abbreviator who wishes to make alterations in the passages he chooses to retain from his source, especially if the alterations serve the purpose of making his writing be different from his source (MAH-D.4.). Such alterations tend to lengthen a pericope. In some of his discussions of source theories, Smith remarked that "a hypothesis that presupposes that Luke used Matthew as a secondary source ...must also explain why Luke deviates from wording where the texts of Matthew & Mark are virtually identical." This applies to the Augustinian hypothesis among others. So it is noted that the present hypothesis fully explains this as part of a consistent editorial behavior by the writer of Luke (see MAH-E.c)). 5. The Lamp. The next pericope, of The Lamp, Smith expressed as being located within Mk 4:21-25/Luke 8:16-18; Mt 5:15/Lk 11:33; and Mt 10:26-27/Lk 12:2-3. However, with an Augustinian approach, it is expressed as: Mt 5:15/Mk 4:21/Lk 11:33, with the parallels Mt 10:26/Mk 4:22/Lk 8:17 & 12:2 (Nothing is hid that won't be revealed...) stemming from a different saying involving not being afraid of those who malign you. Lk 12:2 is a doublet of Lk 8:17. Additionally, Mk 4:25/Lk 8:18 are not a part of The Lamp aphorism, but are parallels to Mt 13:12, already discussed under 3.(c) above. Mk 4:24 has the parallel of Mt 7:2b, a different aphorism yet. (a) If the Augustinian approach is to be viable, Smith noted, it must explain why, in Mark and Luke, aphorisms are linked that Matthew presents in separate contexts. First, one notices that the writer of Mark extracted several verses that he liked from the Sermon on the Mount, which he otherwise abbreviated out in bulk. One of these was Mt 5:15, another Mt 7:2b. So these perforce had to be placed in different contexts than Matthew's. He also made use of Mt 10:26, which would also need a new context since he had omitted its three preceding verses. These three extracted verses he placed in the order of 5:15, 10:26 and 7:2b (Mk 4:21,22 and 24), where they abruptly change the subject on which Jesus had just been speaking (the explanation of the parable of the sower). The writer of Luke had been following Mark in this region where its order deviated strongly from Matthew's order, and so continued to show his favoring of Mark over Matthew by including and paralleling Mark's linkage of the three aphorisms in Lk 8:16-18. More on this aspect is discussed under (c) below. (b) Another explanation requested by Smith is why the parallel content of Mark and Luke "agree with each other" in their alteration of Matthew's rhetoric. It can be seen that the text of Lk 8:16-17 agrees rather closely with that of Mk 4:21-22,24, which differs more significantly from its Matthean parallels. But this editorial behavior on the part of the writer of Luke (MAH-E.a)) we have already noticed repeatedly and explained: where Mark deviates significantly from Matthew, the writer of Luke sided with Mark. (c) A third explanation needed is why this paralleled set of aphorisms in Mark and Luke appear at the same point in their narrative that differs from the setting of either saying in Matthew. From Mk 1:39 through Mk 6:13 Mark deviates strongly in order, and considerably in content, from Matthew. (This was prompted by his use of Ur-Mark, MAH-F.). Within this region, then, with one large exception the writer of Luke followed Mark's order and content, MAH-E.a). The exception is where the writer of Luke inserted a large number of (Q) verses from Matthew that had been omitted from Mark, mainly from the Sermon on the Mount. He completed this insertion at Lk 8:4, from which point through Lk 9:17 he continued following Mark closely. The three aphorisms in question lie within this latter region, and therefore contain the same setting in Mark and Luke that differs from the Matthean settings from which the writer of Mark had extracted them. It's all very straightforward. In discussing the treatment of the Sermon on the Mount by the writer of Mark, Smith said, "...if Mark got this material from Matthew, he is better described as totally dismantling that text rather than epitomizing it. Moreover, in the process of reassembling the few fragments he saw fit to salvage, Mark would have deliberately complicated & obscured sayings that were simple & clear in his supposed source....Why he would have done this is unclear." However, under the above discussion of Stein's book (in his section 1.), reasons are presented why the attitude of the writer of Mark suggests he would chuck the Sermon on the Mount; however, there were some six verses within it he appreciated and could extract for use within his own gospel. In Mk 4:21 there is an interesting use of the definite article in, "Is the lamp brought in to be put under a bushel...?" (this wording is what the favored Greek text gives; in the RSV translation this was rendered "a lamp"). Now, this is the first time any lamp is mentioned in Mark. By writing "the lamp," the writer was inadvertently, it seems, revealing that he already knew about this lamp. From where else would he have known about it, and its aphorism, but from (Hebraic) Matthew? Elsewhere in his gospel he amply demonstrates that he well understands when the definite article or the indefinite (anarthrous) is to be used. This giveaway clue of Mark being secondary is not mentioned in Smith's analysis. 6. The measure you give or gain. This pericope involves Mt 13:12/Mk 4:25/Lk 8:18; Mt 7:2/Lk 6:38b; and Mt 25:29/Lk 19:26, as Smith presented it. The problem he saw here, for an Augustinian type solution to the Synoptic Problem, is: "A hypothesis that presupposes that Matthew is the primary source of this pericope... must be able to explain why both of the other synoptics would transpose the aphorism in Matt 13:12 from Matthew's context [in Jesus' explanation of why he speaks in parables] preceding the interpretation of the parable of the sower to a point following that pericope." The first part of this question was asked by Smith previously, and answered. See under "Why speak in parables" in section 3. (c) above. As to why the writer of Mark, upon utilizing this aphorism out of context, would place it where he did, can probably never be known. However, after first omitting it and then deciding to utilize it elsewhere, it seems more likely that he would place it at a later spot within his gospel rather than at an earlier spot. Regarding the behavior of the writer of Luke in following Mark rather than Matthew at this point, this has already been repeatedly explained. 7. Parable of the weeds or harvest. Mark's parable of the harvest (Mk 4:26-29) in its beginning and end bears considerable resemblance to Matthew's parable of the weeds (Mt 13:24-30), in that seeds are sown and a harvest is later reaped. Moreover, it closely follows Matthew's order of parables, coming after the explanation of the parable of the sower and just before the parable of the mustard seed. Hence, from an Augustinian viewpoint, it is natural to explore the likelihood that the writer of Mark based his parable upon Matthew's but strongly altered Matthew's parable into one that would make more sense to him - one that did not involve an enemy, the weeds he planted, and their gathering for burning before harvest. Smith acknowledged that the similarity between the two parables "suggests some genetic relationship between the two." However, he found it unacceptably enigmatic as to why, if the writer of Mark edited Matthew, he would have deliberately: (a) "dropped the initial dichotomy between both good seed & weeds & the farmer & his enemy," (b) "changed the characterization of the farmer from alert & knowledgeable to inactive & ignorant," (c) "eliminated the figures of the servants," and (d) "altered the conclusion in which some are saved & the rest destroyed." It is easy to imagine, however, that the writer of Mark did not see any important point to this parable in Matthew, though he liked the thought of reaping a harvest. Why introduce weeds into the parable, if they do no good but will just need to be gathered separately and burned? If the kingdom of God has anything to do with pulling out weeds just before harvest, why not pull them out immediately before they interfere with the crop? And why not seek out the evil person who planted the weed seeds? So he omitted the weeds and the enemy who planted them (MAH-D.1.), in converting it into a story with a theme he understood and appreciated: collecting a bounty (the harvest). Thus (a) and (d) are answered. Having eliminated any mention of the weeds, he had no need either to refer to servants who would ask the householder why weeds appeared within the crop, thus answering (c). As to (b) above, it is probably not correct to call the householder or farmer ignorant if he doesn't know what makes seeds sprout and grow all by themselves. The answer lies even beyond modern plant sciences. As to the farmer being inactive in comparison with Matthew's householder, this is a necessary consequence of Mark's farmer not needing to take action to handle a weed problem, and therefore having nothing to do in his story after scattering the seeds. The writer of Mark's attempt at improving Matthew's parable was a dud, in likening the kingdom of God to a man who scattered seed, let it sprout and grow, and then harvested the crop. There is no meat to this story, so that it is no wonder that the writer of Luke decided to avoid it altogether rather than to follow Mark on it as per usual where Mark deviates strongly from Matthew. However, in Matthew's parable a worthwhile teaching can be discerned, if we assume that the householder later uses the cut weeds as fuel or their ashes as fertilizer. With this interpretation, the kingdom of heaven allows existence of evil as well as good, and one should turn the evil to good use where feasible. The MAH assumes that this interpretation did not occur to the writer of Mark, or would not have been acceptable if it had. Smith spent 67 lines trying to explain why the writer of Mark should not have wanted to avoid the "weeds & evil" aspect of Matthew's parable. But none touched upon the likelihood that the writer simply did not view the parable as having any understandable or worthwhile point, but that with his alteration it might be turned into a worthwhile parable. With the point of Mark's parable being, with the MAH, that God should provide a reward in this life for the deserving, some space is devoted below to that theme: Upon revisiting Mk 4:24, we notice "...the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given to you." The emphasized clause is not in the Matthean parallel, Mt 7:2b. From an Augustinian viewpoint, this indicates an emphasis upon receiving and maintaining material bounty in one's present life. Along with this may be mentioned Mark's omission of "Give to him who begs from you," "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth," and "You cannot serve God and mammon" in the Sermon on the Mount - another reason for that writer having omitted the whole Sermon except for a few verses. In the list of commandments of Mk 10:19, which parallels Mt 19:18, Mark includes "Do not defraud," i.e., do not unrighteously deprive of a right, or of money, or of property. It is not in Matthew. This also suggests a Markan emphasis upon material goods. And Mark's omission of Matthew's parable of the eclectic employer is consistent with a concern that the amount of money a worker is paid be appropriate for the amount of his labor. One may notice that Mt 19:29 reads: "And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life." whereas the parallel in Mark (10:29-30) reads: "...there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers...and in the age to come eternal life." The italicized phrase is not in Matthew. The interest by the writer of Mark in gaining material wealth in the present life, relative to the writer of Matthew, is unmistakable. Altering Matthew's unclear parable into a vacuous one with a punch line of receiving the harvest well fits the profile of the writer of Mark. 8. Parables of the mustard seed and leaven. Matthew and Luke share both parables, Mark only that of the mustard seed, in Mt 13:31-35/Mk 4:30-34/Lk 13:18-19 as seen below. Matthew 13:31-33 Mark 4:30-32 Luke 13:18-19 30And he said, 18He said therefore "With what can we compare What is the kingdom of God?, the kingdom of God like? And to what 31Another parable or what parable shall I compare it? he put before them, saying, shall we use for it? A→ "The kingdom of heaven is like 31It is like 19It is like a grain of mustard seed a grain of mustard seed, a grain of mustard seed B→ which a man took which, which a man took and sowed when sown and sowed in his field; C→ upon the ground, in his garden; 32it is the smallest is the smallest of all seeds, of all the seeds on earth; but when it is grown 32yet when it is sown D→ it is and it grew it grows up and becomes the greatest of shrubs the greatest of all shrubs, and becomes a tree, and became a tree, and puts forth large branches, so that so that and the birds of the air the birds of the air the birds of the air come and make nests can make nests made nests in its branches." in its branches." in its shade." First, with respect to the parable of the mustard seed, Smith asked why the writer of Luke decided to introduce it into a narrative context that differs from that provided by both Matthew & Mark. The writer of Mark closely followed the narrative order and general content of Matthew's series of parables (except for his omissions), and this is one of them he retained. Here the writer of Luke exhibited his typical editorial behavior as stated in MAH-E.c), by placing his parallel to this parable (along with that of the leaven) in quite a different context - between Jesus' healing of an ailing woman and his continued journeying and teaching. Regarding the parable of the leaven, since Mark omits it but we may notice that the writer of Luke apparently deemed it an important parable to include, the latter followed the editorial behavior stated in MAH-E.b). Thus it would become a "Q" verse, also in a different context than Matthew's. Next, Smith asked for explanations of why both "Mark & Luke omit different details of this segment stressed by Matthew [parable of the mustard seed] & yet introduce the parable of the mustard with rhetorical questions not used by Matthew." Regarding the latter, Mark introduces the parable in a different manner than does Matthew (see the above synopsis), so the writer of Luke showed his favoritism of Mark over Matthew there by following Mark's introduction more closely than Matthew's (MAH-E.a)). The writer of Mark continued to make minor changes in Matthew's content until following Matthew's "is the smallest of all seeds" very closely (between arrows C and D in the synopsis). That may be why the writer of Luke chose that region to alter (MAH-E.c)) into just "and it grew." Mark does contain "and puts forth large branches" not in Matthew, which the writer of Luke omitted perhaps because he would mention its branches at the end rather than replicate "shade" in Mark. This left Mark's clause "and puts forth large branches" to later become considered part of "Q" or a minor agreement in omission between Luke and Matthew against Mark. Mark's "shade" in place of Matthew's "branches" was presumably a change for the sake of change (MAH-D.4). Possibly the writer of Luke chose "branches" over "shade" because having birds nest in a tree's shade, as in Mark, was less applicable than nesting in its branches, as in Matthew, since a tree's shade is usually thought of as a place on the ground to rest out of the hot sun. As a note of interest, there is a mustard tree, also called the toothbrush tree - salvadora persica, which grows in Israel and the Mideast but apparently not in Italy where the gentile writer of Mark is believed to have been situated. Its trunk can grow up to a foot in diameter, though its seeds may not be exceptionally small. Between arrows A and B we do not see the typical editorial behavior of the writer of Luke. This is probably because no other text there, significantly different from what's in both Matthew and Mark, could have properly described the start of the parable. Hence we see that the general Lukan editorial behavior has many exceptions, especially on minor points, which have led to the minor agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark. Smith did acknowledge that "casual comparison of this section of the synoptic gospels seems to favor a source theory that presupposes the priority of Matthew." Then he intended to counteract this statement with mention that in Mark both the parable of the mustard seed and its summary take up more Greek words than in Matthew. However, this is again consistent with the writer of Mark having been an abbreviator of Matthew in the bulk but disclosing the usual tendency of a redactor when dealing with retained material - tending to expand upon it. Regarding Greek grammar here, Smith again believed that the following questions implicate priority of Mark over Matthew: Why would the writer of Mark replace "Matthew's grammatically correct Greek (two complete well-formed sentences) with a very clumsy construction (an incomplete sentence -- with no explicit subject or main verb -- beginning with a free-floating prepositional phrase ['As a grain of mustard'] followed by a hodge-podge of relative & independent clauses);" and introduce "redundant wording that was not derived from the text of Matthew?" At the risk of too much repetition here, it is because the writer of Mark was working from Hebraic Matthew, not the later Greek text of Matthew; the later translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek was the more skilled in Greek; and the redundancy in Mark is explained in MAH-D.3. The parable of the leaven (Mt 13:33) seems not to have entered into Smith's discussions of Markan versus Matthean priority. This parable was probably omitted by the writer of Mark because he didn't make good sense of it - i.e., why should the kingdom of heaven be hidden? (MAH-D.1.). We need to bear in mind that when Mark was written, Semitic Matthew had been available for only a very few years and only to selected persons; there hadn't yet been decades and centuries of debate and discussion by theologians over meanings of the parables. 9. Explaining the parable of the weeds (or harvest). This explanatory pericope (Mt 13:36-43) is not found in Mark or Luke. Smith questioned why not, and gives his reasons why the writer of Mark would most definitely have included it if he had been dependent upon Matthew as a source. In response, Matthew's pericope is an explanation of the parable of the weeds, not of Mark's parable of the harvest! In Mark's grossly altered rendition of it (the parable of the harvest), there were no weeds to be explained, there was no "good" seed that needed explanation, there was no enemy to explain as being Satan, there were no reapers to be explained as angels (only the farmer himself, who had scattered the seed, was the reaper). It would be a very simple decision, therefore, for a bulk abbreviator to omit Matthew's explanatory pericope altogether. It did not explain Mark's parable of the harvest, which didn't need any allegorical interpretations. The writer of Luke did not include the explanatory parable, of course, because he had omitted Matthew's parable of the weeds and Mark's parable of the harvest. 10. Parables of the treasure, the pearl and the net. These occur in Mt 13:44-50 and nowhere else. One may again ask, if Matthew came first, why weren't these parables utilized by the writers of Mark and/or Luke? The parable of the hidden treasure (Mt 13:44) still remains enigmatic to many scholars. Why would the man who found the treasure in the field immediately hide it again, yet at great personal expense purchase the field? The writer of Mark was likely perplexed, and so did not copy it from Matthew (MAH-D.1.). So also the writer of Luke, who we imagine was happy to follow Mark's lead on this. The parable of the pearl (Mt 13:45-46) is less enigmatic, but just what does it mean to find the kingdom of heaven - is it to learn how to achieve the rewards of heaven after death? We have noticed that the writer of Mark was at least as interested in achieving rewards in the present life (see Section 7. above) as in a future life. Such unanswered questions may well have induced the writer of Mark to omit this parable, and the writer of Luke likewise as in the parable of the hidden treasure above. Why the writer of Mark did not retain the parable of the fish net (Mt 13:47-50) seems more conjectural. He may have thought the analogy was poor: Why should a present kingdom of heaven be likened to an event that will occur only in the End Days? And perhaps the fact the parable was immersed within a large block of other pericopes he didn't care to retain (Mt 13:35-52) contributed to his omission of this parable. Again the writer of Luke preferred to follow Mark over Matthew. 11. The trained scribe. This is in Mt 13:51-52, and not in the other Gospels. (Mt 13:53 is paralleled by Mk 6:1a.) Once again, the question was asked, why didn't the other two synoptists include it? For the writer of Mark, the answer may lie, at least partially, from 13:51, which indicates that the disciples had understood the parables. This was not the picture of the disciples that the writer of Mark had been conveying. He had been picturing them as obtuse and dull-witted relative to Matthew's portrayal. Yet, 13:52 is constructed as if it flows as a consequence from 13:51, implying that Mt 13:52 would not have been spoken had the disciples said they did not understand the parables. Hence for this reason he may also have omitted 13:51-52. An additional possibility involves the saying of 13:52 itself: "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old." Modern analysts, including Smith, interpret this to mean that a scribe may write about new teachings but should retain the old ones as well. This interpretation, when extended to the writer of Mark, implies that he was free to add his own material to what he found in his source (Matthew), but he should not omit any of Matthew's material; and this in turn could mean that the writer omitted the passage so as to justify his own omissions from Matthew. Smith found this reasoning to be circular, though perhaps "self-consistent" would be a more apt description. However, when Mark was written, Matthew was quite new. The writer of Mark is more likely to have considered Matthew's gospel as "the new" and the Scriptures, which he wished to minimize (MAH-D.1.), as "the old." Hence he may have avoided 13:52 also for that reason. Again the writer of Luke showed his preference for Mark over Matthew by following Mark here and omitting the passage. The "editorial fatigue" argument against Matthean priority by Mark Goodacre, as nullified by the MAH and by counter examples As stated by Goodacre (1998), "Editorial fatigue is a phenomenon that will inevitably occur when a writer is heavily dependent on another's work. In telling the same story as his predecessor, a writer makes changes in the early stages which he is unable to sustain throughout. Like continuity errors in film and television, examples of fatigue will be unconscious mistakes, small errors of detail which naturally arise in the course of constructing a narrative." In our case, the writer of Mark made several types of changes as per MAH D.1.-4.: he characteristically omitted substantial chunks from his source (Matthew), added to the verses and pericopes that he retained, and made small alterations. Any of these steps could, through insufficient attention to detail, lead to logical difficulties further along in his text. By Goodacre's viewpoint, it was the writer of Matthew who added to, or altered, Mark, causing difficulties at times. In practice, an "early stage" mistake can be located almost anywhere within the text, with the ensuing difficulty occurring afterwards, but not necessarily immediately afterwards. Supposed examples of Matthean fatigue. King Herod? First, the well known problem is raised that in Matthew the tetrarch Herod is once called "the king" (Mt 14:10), while in Mark (Mk 6:14-29) he is called "king" several times and never tetrarch. By the reckoning of Markan priorists, in Mark he was incorrectly called "king", while the writer of Matthew corrected this at first (Mt 14:1), but after calling him "he" four times and "Herod" three times, he called him "king" once. In so doing, he is accused of having made a correction to Mark (from "king" to "tetrarch") but having a relapse in calling him "king" once. However, this possibility needs to be weighed against the plausibility that the writer of Matthew, or of Matthew's source, introduced Herod by his proper title, then after mentioning him some seven times as "he" or "Herod," called him loosely once by the title of "king." This is literally quite permissible for a writer to do in order to provide some variety in name or title, and because both a king and a tetrarch are, after all, rulers over a land. The writer of Mark, in following Matthew, decided to use the "king" title throughout (four or five times), probably because he felt his audience need not bother with the distinction between tetrarch and king (MAH-D.1), and perhaps also because he wished to add the phrase "even half my kingdom" (Mk 6:23) to Herod's vow of a gift to the daughter (MAH-D.3.). Hence, this example of Goodacre's proves to involve highly reversible argumentation. Moreover, an aspect of Mk 6:14 pointing to Matthean priority was apparently overlooked by Goodacre: Its introductory sentence presumes that the reader knows what's in the mind of the writer; it is just: "King Herod heard" or "King Herod heard of it." Now just what did Herod hear? The statement follows immediately after a verse telling of the healings performed by the disciples, not by Jesus, and seven more verses before that having nothing to do with Jesus' marvelous powers. Thus it was the healings done by the disciples that one would infer Herod heard about. But from the rest of the sentence it is clear that it must have been the great works wrought by Jesus that is referred to. If one assumes Markan priority, one then assumes that this is an example of extra clumsy writing in Mark, an error he committed "for whatever reason." However, assuming Matthean priority one sees the likelihood that the writer of Mark, with Matthew in front of him where its translation at this point read, "Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus..." (Mt 14:1), overlooked the fact that he hadn't written the same into his gospel. The editorial rework by the writer of Mark then is what brought about this problem. This has more explanatory power than the scenario that assumes Markan priority, and is thus to be preferred. Was Herod sorry? In the Matthean account of the beheading-of-John episode (Mt 14:3-12), both Herod and his wife, Herodias, wished to have John the Baptist done away with. After she had prompted her daughter to ask Herod for John's head at the banquet, Herod was sorry but went ahead and ordered the execution. From the MAH viewpoint, the writer of Mark did notice this serious discrepancy in Matthew's story, and so, after having read it over, made some improvements of his own that would attempt to make "sorry" be appropriate. Namely, he placed full blame on Herodias (Mk 6:17,19), and wrote that Herod considered John to be "a righteous and holy man" whom he gladly heard speak though his talk perplexed him (Mk 6:20). So he retained Matthew's statement that Herod was sorry to have to order John executed. However, these alterations have the appearance of a hasty editing job in Mark, since a person does not, realistically speaking, go and listen to a man talk if he fears him and if his preaching is perplexing, and do it gladly. And it is totally illogical that Herod would have John beheaded, vow or no vow, if he himself believed the man to be righteous and holy, was keeping him safe from execution, and gladly heard him speak (Mk 6:20). Thus, the writer of Mark, after having made some changes that speak favorably of Herod, continued on with Matthew's story and had Herod illogically command that John be beheaded. Thus this qualifies as editorial fatigue on the part of the writer of Mark! However, these considerations are ignored by Markan priorists, who, with Goodacre, argue that it was editorial fatigue on the part of the writer of Matthew because in both Matthew and Mark Herod was sorry to have to order the deed done. Admittedly this is a very serious discrepancy in Matthew, but might be dismissed by scholastically saying "for whatever reason" Matthew has it wrong, and the writer of Mark tried to justify Herod's purported sorrow in Matthew. This is an example of reversible editorial fatigue that tends to cancel out the veracity of both stories. The reader who wishes to know more about what Matthew's source, according to the MAH, had to say on this may click here. The cleansing of the leper - a secret in the presence of crowds? In this pericope (Mt 8:1-4, Mk 1:40-45), a leper from among a crowd, in Matthew, gains Jesus' attention and asks to be healed. He heals him and tells him not to tell anyone about it but rather to show himself to the priest. Goodacre apparently assumed that if there had been a crowd, the healing would have been evident to many of the people, so why try to keep it secret? However, we should ask some questions. Would not the leper have been wearing clothes that pretty well hid his leprosy? Would not only a tiny fraction of the crowd, if that, be able to see that he was healed? Would not Jesus' admonition serve to keep word of the healing from spreading as fast and as far as if the man had actively spread the word? And would not this allow Jesus to continue his healings and teachings longer than otherwise before chief priests & Pharisees became too upset? I find the answer to these questions to be "Yes," with the crowd or crowds having been nearby in Matthew because of having followed Jesus down from the hill where he had given his long Sermon. Goodacre evidently implicitly assumes the answers to be "No," and does not discuss that in Mark there is no mention of how many persons may have been around Jesus at the time. In Mark it doesn't say that the leper met with Jesus privately, as Goodacre infers. Thus Goodacre's labeling of this event as representing editorial fatigue on the part of the writer of Matthew rests upon unjustified assumptions. Where is the house in which Jesus had been teaching? In Mt 12:46 while Jesus is still speaking, his mother and brothers are said to be standing outside. But there is no mention that he had entered into or been inside a house at that time. For the Markan parallel (Mk 3:31), however, one finds, 11 verses earlier, that he had been speaking in a house - a house that finds no parallel within Matthew. Thus from the standpoint of Markan priority, an omission by the writer of Matthew followed by subsequent copying from Mark produced this error, or case of editorial fatigue, in Matthew. From the standpoint of Matthean priority, however, one finds that the verse in Mark containing the house in question was part of an insertion (Mk 3:19b-21) invented for the purpose of derogating Jesus' Jewish friends as being unsuited for discipleship (see MAH-D.2. and Mk 3:19-21). It seems more likely an accident that this insertion involved a house that would solve the problem, further into the text, of where Jesus was teaching when his mother and brothers came, than that it was a purposeful improvement by the writer of Mark of a Matthean error. Either way, however, it would not be a sign of editorial fatigue on the part of the writer of Matthew. The reader may click here to learn that, by the MAH, Matthew's source indicates that Mt 12:46-50 was an insertion that was not thoroughly thought out. Goodacre continues on with cases of fatigue in Luke, relative to Mark. These seem to be much more convincing, and non-reversible, than the supposed cases of fatigue in Matthew relative to Mark discussed above. Counter examples: Fatigue in Mark relative to Matthew 1. The disciples go away by themselves to a lonely place, but Jesus ends up with them. Mk 6:31-34 reads: 31And he said to them [to the apostles], "Come [or Go?] away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while. For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32And they went away in the boat to a lonely place by themselves. 33Now many saw them going, and knew them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns, and got there ahead of them. 34As he landed he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them... In contrast, the Matthean parallel, Mt 14:13-14, is: 13Now when Jesus heard this [the story of John's beheading], he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick. From Mk 6:32, the third-person plural, "they," grammatically refers back to the disciples, who were told to go to a lonely place by themselves, if the variant from Codex D ("Go" or "Depart") is considered the original. It is the "harder" reading than "Come." It must have seemed as inexplicable or unacceptable to some early transcriber(s) as it does to today's Bible editors that Jesus would have ordered his disciples to go away by themselves. The way out was simply to substitute "Come away" for "Go away." However, "Go away" is consistent with the rest of 6:31-32, since "by yourselves" means just that, and not "with me." This editorial behavior is easily seen to be but a part of the Markan additions that denigrate the Jewish disciples, as in Mk 6:48c, when after walking on water out to the vicinity of the disciples' floundering boat, he meant to pass them by. In those two instances, the denigrating touch of the writer of Mark took the form of Jesus wishing to avoid the disciples. Moreover, from the viewpoint of Matthean priority we see that the writer of Mark made it be the disciples, not Jesus, who withdrew to a lonely place. Thus, there is no hint left in the Markan account that Jesus withdrew due to fear and grief over his friend John's beheading, as there is in the Matthean account. However, this alteration produced some illogic. The writer of Mark then, at Mk 6:34, resumed his close following of Matthew, at Mt 14:14, with the throng following the boat by running along the shore. Obviously, in Mark, along with the disciples Jesus was in the boat, too, otherwise no throng of people would have been running along shore just to greet the disciples. Yet, Mk 6:32 clearly states, if Codex D is correct, that the disciples were by themselves in the boat. It is evidently illogical that the disciples could have been by themselves and with Jesus at the same time. 2. Sailing to Bethsaida or to Gennesaret? Just before the walking-on-water incident, both Matthew and Mark indicate that Jesus instructed his disciples to go in their boat to the other side of Lake Galilee. However, Mk 6:45 adds that they were to go to Bethsaida, while Matthew fails to specify any particular destination. Just after this incident, when they had crossed over, both Matthew (Mt 14:34) and Mark (6:53) mention that they reached land at Gennesaret, not Bethsaida! (Bethsaida is on the northeast corner of the lake, while Gennesaret is on the northwest side, seven miles distant.) Thus it appears that the writer of Mark made a typical addition ("to Bethsaida") to the text he was copying from Matthew in order that his gospel would seem more original due to possessing increased detail (MAH-D.3.), while omitting Peter's walking- on-water attempt. But then when he resumed following Matthew, he copied/translated Mt 14:34 and its Gennesaret destination without alteration into the first part of Mk 6:53, apparently forgetting that this would conflict with his Bethsaida insertion. A preoccupation with adding his next insertion ("and moored to the shore"), to the last part of Mk 6:53, may have contributed to his editorial fatigue here. It may be noted that later, at Mk 8:22, Bethsaida is mentioned again. This is at the start of a healing pericope not present in Matthew. It cannot be known if the writer's mention of Bethsaida at this point was prompted by his mention of it at Mk 6:45, or vice versa. However, there is no other connection between the two pericopes, with eight other pericopes and much traveling by Jesus intervening. The pericope of Mk 6:45-53 by itself well satisfies the criteria for being an instance of (Markan) editorial "fatigue." 3. What does "the parable" refer to? At Mk 7:17 Jesus' disciples ask him about "the parable." However, the previous saying in Mark: "the things which come out of a man are what defile him" is no parable. It is plain talk, as it refers to things coming out of a man, such as evil words, evil thoughts and evil actions. So why did the writer of Mark improperly call it a parable? Because that word was used in the Matthean parallel he was following at this point (Mt 15:15). In Matthew it properly refers back to the parable of the uprooted plants of Mt 15:13, which indeed is a parable, but was a parable omitted by the writer of Mark (MAH-D.1.). This editorial fatigue of the omission type then produced the mistake. (One of Goodacre's above examples of supposed editorial fatigue in Matthew is of the omission type, as are several of his examples for Luke. In the omission type, the initial alteration is an omission rather than an insert and/or substitution.) It may be noted that in Mt 15:15-17, after Peter asked to have the parable (of the uprooted plants) explained, Jesus instead speaks about the defilement saying. This is a problem within Matthew that need not be blamed on Mark, as the defilement saying in Matthew is not a parable any more than it is in Mark. Rather, from the TJ one may notice that the defilement saying was a Matthean insertion relative to the TJ text. Hence, this example may not become clear without study of the TJ. 4. Did the disciples remember to bring along a loaf of bread? In Mk 8:14a Mark continues to parallel Matthew rather closely, in saying the disciples had forgotten to bring bread (loaves) along (Mt 16:5). However, in 14b an exception is mentioned: they did bring one loaf; no such statement is in Matthew. But Mk 8:15-17 again parallels Matthew very closely (Mt 16:6-8), in repeating twice more that the disciples had no bread (no loaves). Thus the practice or habit of the writer of Mark of inserting a minor detail into the text of Matthew he had been following (MAH-D.3.), initiated the problem. His continued following of the Matthean text subsequently, and failure to adjust his subsequent text to conform to the added detail, generated the Markan fatigue. To refute this, it needs to be argued that one loaf is the same as no loaf at all for feeding twelve men. However, in view of Jesus' capability of multiplying a small amount of bread into a vast amount, that argument cannot stand. 5. What is this about a reward that might be lost? At Mk 9:41 we read: "For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose his reward." This can be recognized as a parallel to Matthew's "And whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward" (Mt 10:42). In the Markan verse, one wonders what reward is being referred to that might be lost, as there is no mention of any reward in any of its previous verses. The verse is incoherent, as only in the following chapter of Mark is there mention of heavenly rewards. In the paralleled Matthean verse, however, different kinds of rewards are discussed in its previous two verses. The omission of these verses by the writer of Mark (MAH-D.1.), followed by his resumption of Matthean text that mentioned "lose his reward," produced this instance of editorial fatigue. 6. Did Bartimaeus depart as ordered or follow Jesus? At Mk 10:52, at the end of this blind-man healing pericope, the writer of Mark enhanced the image of Jesus as a commanding figure by having him tell the man with the restored sight to go, which command was not in his Matthean source. Then the writer of Mark went back to following Mt 20:34c by having the man follow Jesus, apparently forgetting that his addition had just ordered the man to "Go." 7. Why didn't they send the colt back to its owner? At Mk 11:3 the two disciples tell the caretakers of the colt that Jesus needs it and "will send it back here immediately." This extra clause is not in the Matthean parallel (Mt 21:2-3). It appears as a Markan improvement to Matthew so that Jesus could not be construed as stealing the property of others. However, nowhere later in Mark are the disciples mentioned as having returned the colt. In resuming his following of Matthew, the writer of Mark apparently forgot to follow through on his insertion. His emphasis, relative to Matthew, that Jesus not be accused of defrauding the colt's owner or caretaker is consistent with his inclusion of "Do not defraud" in his list of commandments at Mk 10:19 relative to its absence in Matthew's parallel at Mt 19:18; both lists contain "Do not steal." 8. Losing track of the people in Jesus' two visits into Jerusalem (Mk 11:8-17). This is Mark's version of Jesus coming to the temple and "cleansing" it. It occurs in two parts, apparently so as to allow ample time for the miracle of the drying up of the fig tree to occur over a full one-day period. It is seen to be an alteration of the Matthean version because the writer of Mark, in making the alteration, lost track of the people involved. In the Matthean version, some at least of the people who followed Jesus into Jerusalem are implied to have been present to witness the cleansing of the temple, since at the end of that event the blind and lame among them were healed. In Mark, these followers are not heard from again on the day of his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when Jesus goes into the temple, looks around, and goes back out again without doing or saying anything. Those who had been following Jesus into Jerusalem seem to have vanished by the time he reached the temple. Only on the following day, after Jesus' second entrance into the temple when the cleansing occurs according to Mark, is there suddenly a multitude of people present at the temple to hear him teach (Mk 11:18); where they came from is not mentioned. There had been no announcement that Jesus would appear in the temple on the very next day. At this point, then, one sees that the writer of Mark had resumed following Matthew's outline, at Mt 21:14, of a single temple event. Thus the writer of Mark again suffered from editorial fatigue, making an alteration that added a first entrance into the temple without any mention of the many people who had been following Jesus there, and then resuming his following of the text of Matthew, though with further alterations, by having a multitude be present on the next day for Jesus' cleansing of the temple and teaching. 9. Was it the season for figs or not? Concerning the fig tree that Jesus is said to have cursed (Mk 11:13), the writer of Mark attempted to explain why, in following the Matthean parallel of Mt 21:19, the fig tree had held no fruit. It was because "it was not the season for figs" (Mk 11:13b)(MAH-D.3.), an explanation not in Matthew. Then the writer of Mark continues to follow Matthew and has Jesus curse the tree anyway for not having any figs. This was a gross error on his part, in the category of editorial fatigue. 10. Did Jesus answer him or them? In Mk 11:21-22 Peter exclaimed about the withered fig tree to Jesus, who then answers them, as if he were replying to a remark not from Peter, but from some or all of the disciples. In the Matthean parallel (Mt 21:20-21), it is indeed the disciples who ask Jesus how the fig tree could have quickly withered. Hence this bit of incoherency, or editorial fatigue, was caused by the writer of Mark having redacted Matthew to make the remark come from Peter rather than from the disciples (MAH-D.4.), but then following Matthew too closely so that the reply was to "them" instead of to "him." 11. Scribes are to be condemned for wearing robes? In Mk 12:38-40 we read, "And in his teaching he said, 'Beware of the scribes, who like to go about in long robes..., who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.'" This appears to be a giant abbreviation, or small summary, of Matthew's chapter on "Woes to the scribes and Pharisees." The latter portion above, by the MAH, came from copying Mt 23:14, which, though present only as a footnote in some Bibles, is attested to by a good many manuscripts. The phrase "long robes" in the RSV translation should actually read just "robes" according to the Greek upon which it is based. So why should wearing robes be a contributory reason for receiving condemnation? To go about dressed in a robe was simply normal behavior. We see that the writer of Mark, within his large abbreviation, sub-abbreviated the invective of Mt 23:5 against the scribes and Pharisees, so as to eliminate mention of the phylacteries and fringes on the robes - items that would not be understandable or relevant for gentiles (MAH-D.1.). Hence the robes were left dangling by themselves. Thereby the writer produced this piece of editorial fatigue, since in following more of Matthew after having made his sub-abbreviation, some incoherency resulted. 12. The apocalyptic prophecies are spoken to only four disciples? In Mk 13:3 Jesus speaks only (privately) to Peter, James, John and Andrew, whereas in Matthew it was to "the disciples," which implies to all the disciples (Mt 24:3-4). However, in both gospels the content of this prophecy was directed to all the disciples: e.g., they are to take heed not to be led astray, not be alarmed by rumors of war, not be anxious what to say before governors and kings. In following Matthew closely after this alteration, the writer of Mark forgot to allow the other eight disciples to listen in, too. 13. Who will see the Son of man coming in great power? Mk 13:26 reads, "And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory." There is no clue who "they" stands for. It appears within a fresh pericope that had started out with "But in those days." However, in the parallel of Mt 24:30 that the writer of Mark appears to have been following, and continues to follow, we see that it refers back to "all the tribes," a phrase the writer of Mark omitted probably because it implied a reference to the twelve tribes of Israel and thus shunned the gentiles (MAH-D.2.). His omission of "all the tribes," or failure to substitute sensibly for it, caused the problem. I regard this as falling under the definition of editorial fatigue because the rest of the verse in which Mark follows Matthew lacks much of its meaning if one doesn't know who it is that will see the Son of man coming. 14. Did he wear two sets of clothes? At Mk 15:20 we read, "And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, and put his own clothes on him." This is very close to its Matthean parallel (Mt 27:31): "And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe, and put his own clothes on him, and led him away ..." But in writing Mk 15:17 while following Mt 27:28, the writer of Mark had omitted its clause "and they stripped him," which preceded placing the scarlet robe upon Jesus. The problem that this omission causes is that the soldiers could not have put Jesus' own clothes back upon him if they had not previously taken them off. Quite likely, the redactor omitted the clause in order to avoid some measure of indignity for Jesus. 15. Was Joseph a good Jew? Shortly after the crucifixion, on the day before the sabbath (Day of Preparation), when Joseph of Arimathea appeared on the scene, it is stated in Mk 15:42 that evening was coming. Whether or not evening had already arrived in Mk 15:42, it would have taken a considerable amount of time for Joseph to go to Pilate, and for Pilate to send out a centurion to check on Jesus' death and report back. Before then, the sabbath would have arrived, on which Jews were forbidden to conduct business or travel. However, in Mk 15:43 Joseph is portrayed as "a respected member of the council," thus one who must have followed the Jewish law. Hence he would not, or should not, have gone to Pilate at that time to conduct his business. Thus, the upgrading of Joseph's societal status by the writer of Mark, relative to Matthew, followed by his resumption of Matthew's story, produced this particular bit of Markan editorial fatigue. In Matthew it is not a problem, because Joseph is not identified as being Jewish, but only as being rich (Mt 27:57). 16. Was Joseph of Arimathea a council member who sought testimony against Jesus? As noted above, in Mk 15:43a Joseph is described as being a respected member of the council, a phrase not in Matthew's parallel at Mt 27:57. And in Mk 14:55 it is stated that the whole council sought testimony against Jesus, to put him to death, just as in Mt 26:59. However, it is inconceivable that Joseph would have asked for Jesus' body, bought a linen shroud, wrapped Jesus in it and laid him in a tomb if the previous night he had been one of those who had condemned Jesus to death (Mk 14:64). Yet in following Mt 27:58-60, this is just what the writer of Mark has Joseph do in Mk 15:43b-46. This is a serious instance of editorial fatigue. Although Goodacre (1998) was unable to find any instances of Markan fatigue relative to Matthew, the above examples indicate that a more diligent search was needed. "The Evangelists’ Use of the Old Testament and the Synoptic Problem" This is an interesting paper by Goodacre, which he presented at the Oxford Synoptic Problem Conference, 7-10 April 2008. In it a problem for the predominant synoptic hypotheses may be addressed here, as it is not addressed elsewhere in this web page. The passage in question is: Matthew 21:13 Mark 11:17 Luke 19:46 He said to them, And he taught and said to them, saying to them, "It is written, 'My house "Is it not written, 'My house "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer'; shall be called a house of prayer shall be a house of prayer'; for all the nations? but you make it But you have made it but you have made it a den of robbers." a den of robbers." a den of robbers." The phrase "for all the nations" in Mark stands out as being unparalleled in Matthew and Luke. Goodacre shows this to be a problem for both the Farrer theory and the two-source theory. Why isn't the phrase present in Luke, since it should be congenial to that writer? With the modified Augustinian hypothesis, it is acceptable to postulate that even though the writer of Luke realized that much from Matthew, omitted in Mark, needed to be reinstated for historical completeness, he nevertheless took a dim view of the hope that the Jews would embrace Christianity. This view is brought out in Acts 28:25-29, where it is stressed that the salvation of God has been sent to the gentiles, who will listen, as opposed to the Jews whose ears were "too heavy" to hear with. The future of the Christian movement was thus felt to lie in the gentiles, who, by the time of the writing of Luke in the 120s, worshipped more in their own house-churches than in synagogues, and certainly not in the Temple. In the passage, "house of prayer" is seen to refer to the Temple, not to synagogues in general. Hence the writer of Luke decided to follow Matthew here, rather than Mark, and not say that the Temple was "for all the nations (gentiles)." The writer of Mark, on the other hand, reasoned more simply in being eager to insert or retain all phrases favorable to gentiles. Other arguments against the priority of Matthew by G. M. Styler, as nullified by the MAH The arguments below supposedly favoring the priority of Mark over Matthew come from Styler (1982). The first two of these, contained in his Example A, have been nullified in dealing with Goodacre's arguments above under the headings of King Herod? and Was Herod Sorry? The next, also within his Example A, involves the "flashback" in which the story of John the Baptist's beheading is embedded (Mt 14:1-12/Mk 6:14-29). Matthew 14:1-3,11-13 Mark 6:14-17,29-31 1At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus; 14King Herod heard of it; for Jesus' fame had become known. 2and he said to his servants, "This is John the Baptist, he had been Some said, "John the Baptist has been raised from the dead; raised from the dead; that is why these powers are at work in him." that is why these powers are at work in him." ... 16But when Herod heard of it he said, "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised." 3For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison 17For Herod had sent and seized John, and bound him in prison 11and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, 28and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl; and she brought it to her mother. and the girl gave it to her mother. 12And his disciples came and took the body and buried it, 29When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb. and they went 30The apostles returned to Jesus, and told Jesus. and told him all that they had done and taught. 13Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat 31And he said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place apart to a lonely place..." Styler states that "Mark correctly resumes his main narrative with a jump, but Matthew builds a smooth transition In doing so, Matthew has made another blunder." From the above verse comparison, we see that the flashbacks begin at Mt 14:3 and Mk 6:17, respectively, though the writer of Matthew left it unclear that it was a flashback, due to the ambiguity of "At that time." Matthew's ends at Mt 14:12b,13 and Mark's at Mk 14:30. Styler fails to comment on the fact that in Matthew, there is no line about the apostles returning to Jesus (Mk 6:30); instead the disciples of John some time afterwards went to Jesus and told him what had happened. From an Augustinian viewpoint we see that the writer of Mark inserted a return of the apostles here because he had placed the second calling of the disciples, in which they were instructed on what they were to do, just before the beheading episode - their initial calling had been at Mk 3:13-19. The much altered sequence of events in Mark before it follows Matthew more faithfully from Matthew 12 on is explained in MAH-F.2. By the MAH, Matthew's exit from the flashback occurs during the time involved in John's disciples burying John's body, then their hunting up Jesus' location and traveling there. Matthew's story is the more realistic of the two and thus closer to the original, in that Jesus is told what happened, which he is not in Mark. Mark's failure to do this was likely motivated by its writer's desire that Jesus not be seen to have departed in fear and grief, which is the inference one may draw from Matthew's account. This deduction is bolstered by Mark's further alteration in having only the apostles go away to a lonely place (Mk 5:31), which however is soon contradicted by Jesus being located in a boat with his disciples as Mark resumes following Matthew into the Feeding of the Five Thousand. So we may see that Mark's jump out of the flashback was too abrupt due to editorial action on the part of its writer. Styler further comments that at the beginning of the flashback Mark's account is the more logical in that its "whom I beheaded" provides a more proper introduction to the flashback. We can agree on this, but by MAH-D.3., it is not at all unexpected that the writer of Mark would add a bit of redundancy that, in this instance, constituted an improvement. Overall, the points supposedly favoring Markan priority do not outweigh those favoring Matthean priority. His Example B, pertaining to the rich man and Jesus, we have already covered under Stein 3c., "Mark's harder readings." Styler's Example C concerns the question about David's son (Mt 22:41-45, Mk 12: 35-37a). Matthew 22:41-42 Mark 12:35 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, And as Jesus taught in the temple, Jesus asked them a question, saying, he said, "What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?" "How can the scribes say that the Christ is They said to him, "The son of David." the son of David?" Styler believes that Matthew's formulation of the question is an editorial change designed to draw out the answer: "son of God." However, by MAH-D.2., and Mark's omission of the Nativity and alteration of "the carpenter's son" in Mt 13:55/Mk 6:3, we see that its writer wished to mention Jesus' Jewish background involving his father (or step-father) as little as possible. So he reworded the question of "Whose son is he?" in Matthew so as to eliminate it. This solution will, of course, be lost upon those who do not realize how serious and upsetting the appearance of an anti-gentile first gospel must have been to pro-gentile evangelists, and how it could exacerbate any pre-existing anti-Jewish feelings (MAH-B.). Styler's Example D concerns the mention, in both Matthew and Mark, that at the beginning of the apocalyptic discourse Jesus is questioned privately. In Mark the questions come privately from Peter, James, John and Andrew (Mk 13:3-5), while in Matthew they come privately from the disciples (Mt 24:3-4). Matthew 24:1-3 Mark 13:1-4a 1Jesus left the temple and was going away, 1And as he came out of the temple, when his disciples came to point out to him one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones, the buildings of the temple. and what wonderful buildings!" 2But he answered them, "You see all these, do you not? 2And Jesus said to him, "Do you see these great buildings? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another, There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down." that will not be thrown down." 3As he sat on the Mount of Olives, 3And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, "Tell us, when will this be, and...?" 4"Tell us, when will this be, and...?" Styler feels that the word "privately" has "more force" in Mark than it does in Matthew, because in Mark previously, at the temple, only one disciple had asked a question, while in Matthew the question had come then from the disciples again. How does this difference tell us anything about the direction of redaction? In either gospel, since Jesus was talking to disciples and not to a crowd, the use of the qualifier "in private" seems equally appropriate or inappropriate. One might even argue that "privately" has less force in Mark than in Matthew, because in Mark where only one had asked a question at the temple, four did so on the Mount of Olives - going from one to four decreased the degree of privacy. More importantly, it is more realistic that Jesus' lengthy discourse would have been delivered to all his disciples, than to just his first four. In the prophecy's 33 verses in Mark (Mk 13:5-37), nowhere is there any indication that the other eight disciples started to listen in. Yet much of its early content was apropos to all the disciples, not just four of them, such as: "Take heed to yourselves; for they will deliver you up to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues...". Therefore, this appears to be a redaction by the writer of Mark of the type "change for the sake of change" (MAH-D.4.), inasmuch as many of his other changes have come under this category. It could even come under the classification of editorial fatigue also, in that the writer of Mark made a distinct change in Matthew's text, as he frequently did, but in continuing to follow Matthew's text forgot to make a follow-up change that would have allowed the other eight disciples to tune in on the discourse. This calls for Matthean priority over Mark. Styler's Example E deals with the relative logic in Matthew versus Mark of Pilate's offer to release either Barabbas or Jesus (Mt 27:15-18/Mk 15:6-10). Styler states that Matthew's account is not as logical because, after Pilate's offer to release either Barabbas or Jesus, Matthew reads, "for he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him [Jesus] up." In Mark's account, this same clause occurs after Pilate's offer to release just Jesus (not Jesus or Barabbas). If Pilate expected the release of Jesus to please the crowd, why then in Matthew would he not first just ask if they wished him to release Jesus, as in Mark, rather than present them with a choice? On this basis, apparently, Styler believed Matthew is indicated to have come after Mark. However, Styler seems to have missed the point that because Barabbas was a notorious criminal, by presenting the crowd with the choice of releasing either him or Jesus, Pilate was maximizing the odds they would choose Jesus for release, in whom he found no evil. If he had instead offered a choice between releasing Jesus and one of the reported thieves who were also crucified, for example, the proper choice might not have been so obvious. Upon recognizing this consideration, it appears that Matthew may be the more logical of the two accounts. Styler's Example F concerns the question about fasting. Matthew 9:14 Mark 2:18 Then the disciples of John came to him Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; saying, and they (RSV: people) came and said to him, "Why do we and the Pharisee fast, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? but your disciples do not fast? By Styler's reasoning, the writer of Matthew misinterpreted Mark's "they" (third-person plural verb ending) to refer to what it should literally: John's disciples and the Pharisees. And he also compacted and tidied up Mark. This reasoning has prompted scholarly Bible translators to alter "they" to "people" in order to improve the verse grammatically, since in Mark "they" sometimes does have to vaguely mean "the people." But shouldn't we look into the reverse reasoning? The writer of Mark acted in his usual style, when not abbreviating in bulk - padding Matthew's text, adding redundancy and making small alterations that usually don't change the substance (MAH-D.3.&4.). In so doing, he awkwardly replaced Matthew's "we" with "John's disciples," while this time having utilized "they" correctly. After these examples, Styler summarizes B. C. Butler's four chief reasons why Q, as defined by the two-document hypothesis, never existed. He does not contest the first three of these, only the fourth, which he reports as being Matthew's parallels to Mark often having "a greater polish, in wording and structure." He notes that this can instead work in favor of Markan priority, since why should the writer of Mark have altered smooth wording of Matthew into rough wording? Here, of course, the MAH readily explains this as due to Mark's Greek wording having come before Matthew's gospel in Greek. Butler did not allow that Semitic Matthew was translated into Greek after Mark (and Luke) were written. Styler goes on to state points for and against Q, the former of which we have dealt with in the summary of the MAH above, and in the above critiques of Stein, Tuckett and Smith. He then pays special attention to the Beelzebub pericope, finding it to be the most cogent example that supports the Q hypothesis. He states, "If Luke came last, knowing both Mark and Matthew, his procedure here must have been quite extraordinary; he must have carefully subtracted from Matthew almost all that was common to Matthew and Mark and retained verbatim much of what was left... Such a procedure would not be difficult to carry out. But to produce a plausible explanation for doing anything so apparently crazy is very difficult indeed." Matthew 12:25-32 Mark 3:23-30 Luke 11:17-23 25Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, 23And he called them to him, 17But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, and said to them in parables, "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand; and house falls upon house. 26and if Satan casts out Satan, "How can Satan cast out Satan? 18And if Satan also he is divided against himself; is divided against himself, A24If a kingdom is divided against itself, how then will his kingdom stand? that kingdom cannot stand. how will his kingdom stand? 25And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul, 27And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, 19And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. Therefore they shall be your judges. 28But if it is by the spirit of God 20But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29Or how can one enter a strong man's house 27But no one can enter a strong man's house 21When a strong man, fully armed, and plunder his goods, and plunder his goods, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace; unless he first binds the strong man? unless he first binds the strong man; 22but when one stronger than he assails him Then indeed he may plunder his house. then indeed he may plunder his house. and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoil. 30He who is not with me is against me, 23He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. and he who does not gather with me scatters." 31Therefore I tell you, 28Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven. 29but whoever blasphemies against 12:10bbut he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. 32And whoever says a word 12:10aAnd every one who speaks a word against against the Son of man will be forgiven; the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, but is guilty of an eternal sin" - either in this age or in the age to come. 30for they had said, "He has an unclean spirit." The strong tendency can be seen for the writer of Luke to have picked up pieces of Matthew that Mark omitted, which is what Styler describes, but often to have altered them noticeably. A similar tendency is seen, when Mark follows Matthew closely, as in Mt 12:29 and Mk 3:27, for the writer of Luke to alter the story rather strongly (Lk 11:21-22), by recasting it. Well, the writer of Luke wasn't crazy, only terribly angry, apparently, at the writer of Matthew for having denied discipleship to gentiles in his gospel. He took out his continuing anger here in a manner that is quite understandable (MAH-E.c)), but too unacceptable for most New Testament scholars to deal with. There is no need whatsoever to hypothesize that the writer of Matthew was conflating Mark and Luke in the above passage (Styler, p.312). Styler's reference to a "verbatim" part in this example pertains mainly to Mt 12:26b-28,30 and Lk 11:19-20, where there is a string of 37 Matthean words (in Greek) that match those in Luke except for only 3 words. This, and many other similar examples of long strings of identical Greek words in parallel passages of Matthew and Luke can only have been due to the purposeful action of the translator of Semitic Matthew. Upon noticing that the writers of Luke and Mark made many alterations to Semitic Matthew, the translator apparently wanted it to be known that those two gospels had derived from Matthew and were not separate creations independent of Matthew (MAH-G.). So he replicated many strings of Greek text in Luke and Mark whose meanings paralleled those within Semitic Matthew. Next, Styler treats some of the strong indications of Lukan dependence upon Mark, of which the MAH agrees and few Synoptists would disagree. Following this, he spends four pages on the Griesbach hypothesis, first stating its apparent virtues and then giving reasons to reject them. I have scarcely dealt with the Griesbach hypothesis in this web page, having concentrated on showing reasons favoring priority of Semitic Matthew and irrelevancy of almost all arguments favoring Markan priority. The strong indications of Lukan dependence upon Mark alone rule out the Griesbach hypothesis. However, Styler's generalization stating the main argument in favor of the Griesbach hypothesis is: Where Matthew and Luke give events in the same sequence, the writer of Mark did not disturb this sequence; where their sequence diverges, the writer of Mark would "follow the order of sometimes one, sometimes the other." The MAH shows this to be a consequence of Luke following Mark where its sequence deviates from Matthew, and often not following Mark where its sequence and text closely follow Matthew (MAH-E.a) & c)). At still other times, the writer of Luke of necessity followed the same order as in Mark and Matthew (e.g., triple tradition from Lk 21:19 through 24:9). Besides having serious failings, the Griesbach hypothesis is simply not necessary. Styler devoted space to discussing a common Hebrew source for the Synoptics, by referring to work done by J. C. O'Neill (1974-75). In comparing the strong verbal agreement often encountered in the double tradition, or "Q" verses, with the lesser verbal agreement in the triple tradition, O'Neill had argued for independent translations from a Hebrew source to explain the latter. Here we have explained these latter by the writer of Luke having sometimes acted in the manner of MAH-E.c) & d). The former are instances in which the translator of Semitic Matthew wanted it known that even though the writer of Luke had placed the Matthean verses he had reincorporated ("Q") out of context, as if to hide their source, these were still to be credited to Matthew (MAH-G.). He could achieve this by causing his Greek translation to agree word for word with Luke, in parallel verses with nearly identical content. In short, with the MAH the translations of Semitic Matthew done by the writers of Mark and of Luke in forming their gospels, and by the translator of Semitic Matthew in forming Greek Matthew, were not at all independent; we may agree with Styler on the lack of independence. Styler offered no explanation for the distinct difference in verbal agreement between the two above cases, but went on to discuss the differences in order of pericopes between Matthew and Mark, up to Mk 6:1 or Mt 12:1. These involve mostly healing pericopes. Instead of the assumption that the writer of Matthew felt like placing many of Mark's miracles into one section (into Mt 8-11), with the MAH we find the result as due more plausibly to the behavior of the writer of Mark (MAH-F.2.). Styler finishes by giving examples of strong verbal agreement between parallel passages of the Synoptic Gospels, taken two at a time. An example between Luke and Mark is "I know you who you are" in transliterated form (Mk 1:24b, Lk 4:34). He notes that, "The construction is idiomatic Greek, whereas a direct Hebrew equivalent looks artificial." Not mentioned was the likelihood that this was an invented sentence or passage by the writer of Mark, since it has no Matthean parallel. Subsequently, the writer of Luke retained it since it deviates strongly from Matthew. However, Styler did not examine the distributions of the lengths of strings of identical Greek words to be able to distinguish between cases where the dependence is due to ordinary editing, versus cases where an editor or translator purposely copied lengthy strings of text for the sake of replicating them exactly without any touches of editing. When this is done, we find that the dependence of Luke upon Mark involved ordinary editing. But we find an excess of verbal agreement between Matthew and Luke, and between Matthew and Mark, that must have been introduced during the translation of Semitic Matthew into Greek, and introduced purposely (MAH-G.). The distinction between the different frequency distributions involved was of course unknown to Styler. Other arguments against the priority of Matthew by Bart Ehrman, as nullified by the MAH The book by Ehrman (2004) is designed as a primer for students at around a college freshman level. And though he gives reasons for his stated conclusions, these reasons are selectively based upon the Four-Source hypothesis, which he accepts from the start (pp. 64-65), primary sources then being Mark, "Q", Matthew's "special source" M and Luke's special source L. Hence the student, unless unusually independent- minded, will have no inkling of the anti-gentile and anti-Jewish "tensions" that lay at the heart of the origins of the Gospels and which turn this "most popular" of solutions of the Synoptic Problem upside down. The limited scope of this book allows Ehrman's students no clues that would point to any of the internal evidence disclosing Mark's numerous dependencies upon Matthew. And the external evidence indicating that a Hebraic Matthew came first is avoided altogether. In his chapter 6 on Matthew, Ehrman states that the title, "The Gospel according to Matthew," was added long after the document's original composition" (p. 81). Unstated, however, is that this rests upon the speculation that it was written around A.D. 80 rather than several decades later. Various passages within Matthew that show the earmarks of being redactions are assumed to be edited versions of Mark rather than allowing that they could just as well be edited versions of a primary source for Matthew other than Mark. Other passages that also show signs of redaction, e.g., Mt 5:17, Ehrman accepts as genuine. An example of easily reversible arguments is Ehrman's mention in the apocalyptic discourse where Matthew (24:20) reads, "Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath," while Mark (13:18) does not contain "or on a sabbath." Ehrman interprets the phrase as a Matthean addition, while by MAH-D.1., the writer of Mark omitted the phrase as being quite inessential. His readers would not need to know (and did he himself know?) that any extensive travel on the sabbath was forbidden by Jewish law. Ehrman tells his students they can see for themselves that "Matthew has taken over [stories] from Mark," for example by comparing Matthew 12 with Mk 2:1 - 3:6 (p. 93). Below, however, is discussion of some Markan verses in this region that show just the opposite. In the story of the healing of the paralytic, at Mk 2:7, the scribes ask, "Why does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" However, in the Matthean parallel (Mt 9:3) the scribes only say, "This man is blaspheming." Thus, Matthew supplies no explanation why this was blasphemy, and so the writer of Mark corrected this omission, which allowed him to add some non-Matthean substance to his text (MAH-D.3.). If Matthew had been dependent upon Mark, would Matthew's writer have omitted Mark's explanation? In the same pericope, in Mk 2:10, the writer of Mark, upon making use of Mt 9:6, places the "Son of man" expression in the mouth of Jesus. This openly revealed Jesus' messianic status to the people gathered around, since "Son of man" most easily refers to the messianic figure by that title in Daniel. However, this was supposed to be kept a secret in Mark (the messianic secret), except from the disciples, until Jesus was raised from the dead (see Mk 9:9-10). Yet the messianic secret is seen to have been otherwise in place following Mk 1:24, where the demon, in speaking to Jesus, calls him the "Holy One of God." This has no Matthean parallel. Although the same problem does occur in Matthew, it is more severe in Mark due to the latter's greater emphasis upon the messianic secret. This suggests that the writer of Mark used Matthew, because if it were the other way around and the writer of Matthew had noticed this problem in Mark, he would logically have eliminated the problem, not merely have reduced it by making fewer references to the secrecy theme. Thus, the writer of Mark failed to realize, here and elsewhere, the contradiction his usage of Matthew's "Son of man" expressions would bring about with his messianic-secret theme. Although it might be thought that Jesus' messianic status was revealed early on, at the baptism, this is often denied on the assumption that only Jesus saw the Spirit descending like a dove and heard the voice from heaven saying, "Thou art my beloved Son." Towards the end of the same pericope we find this, at Mk 2:12: And he [the paralytic] rose, and immediately took up the pallet and went out before them all; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We never saw anything like this!" This may be compared with the Matthean parallel (Mt 9:7-8), which reads, And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men. It seems here that the writer of Mark did not wish to dilute the power and authority of Jesus by implying that men in general had this same authority to heal, as stated in the Matthean parallel. In fact, he was reluctant to even grant such authority to Jesus' disciples (e.g., see Mk 6:7 and Mt 10:8, where authority in Mark is given for the disciples only to cast out demons; or see Mk 6:47-51 and Mt 14:23-32, where the walking-on-water episode in Mark is restricted to Jesus only). Hence he made a significant reverential improvement by omitting the Matthean clause that gave such authority to men. Examination of Mk 2:15 (and its parallel at Mt 9:10) discloses the following: And as he sat at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were sitting with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many who followed him. The Matthean parallel lacks the final clause "for there were many who followed him." This clause is likely a bit of Markan apologia for the purpose of explaining why Jesus would be eating with such unsavory table companions -- among many people it was more likely that there would be many tax collectors and sinners. Hence this is an upgrading of Matthew, albeit not a logical one, since it does not follow logically that out of all those who were following him there, those at the table would be predominantly tax collectors and sinners. At Mk 2:27 the verse begins with "And he said to them..." However, prior to this point Jesus was already speaking to the Pharisees, and he continues to do so in the remainder of this verse and in the next. So why did the writer of Mark break Jesus' response to the Pharisees right in the middle with an interruptive clause? Upon comparison with the parallel in Matthew, one finds that at this very point Mark omits Mt 12:5-7 and has an extra sentence (at Mk 2:27b) just after resuming with "And he said to them..." This interruptive clause then has the appearance of being an editorial addition suggested to the writer/editor because he himself had to pause for a while to decide how much to omit and how much, if any, to add, before resuming his close following of Matthew's text, which does not have any such needless interruption in its direct speech. At the same time, the addition of the interruptive clause would serve to remind the reader that Jesus was still speaking (quotation marks and other punctuation were not yet invented at this time), and would serve to make the text of Mark be different than that of Matthew (change for the sake of change: MAH-D.4.). Obviously, it would not suffice to have his gospel be too similar to that of Matthew and yet imply that it stemmed from an independent source -- the man (John) Mark. At Mk 3:1-6 Jesus enters the synagogue (in an episode apparently not related to his previous discussion with Pharisees in the grain fields), and heals the man with the withered hand. A nebulous "they" watch this event and hear Jesus speak to them angrily. This "they" then turn into Pharisees who go out and hold counsel against him. Here the writer of Mark had apparently become a little careless in not noticing that the Matthean text he was following and translating (Mt 12:9f) had referred to their synagogue, which linked the story with the preceding one involving Pharisees who had evidently followed Jesus into their synagogue. The "they" in Mk 3:2,4 can hardly refer to "the people," as a nebulous "they" usually does, since Jesus would not have had cause to speak to all the people in the synagogue angrily. However Mk 3:2 forces the reader to assume that all those in the synagogue were aiming to accuse Jesus. In Matthew it is clearer that "they" refer to the Pharisees who must have followed Jesus into their synagogue. Thus the error made here by the writer of Mark was to alter Matthew's "their synagogue" into "the synagogue," or into "a synagogue" according to two valued Greek manuscripts. Either way, the failure of Mark's text to utilize "their synagogue" causes the problem; if "a synagogue" be interpreted as "he went to synagogue," instead of "to a synagogue," the same argument prevails. The reverse interpretation -- that the writer of Matthew purposely eliminated Mark's problem -- is much less credible. He would have had to perceive that he could alter Mark's "a synagogue" into "their synagogue," and thereby imply that it was the synagogue that the Pharisees attended who had queried Jesus in the grain field. If he had simply been intent to improve upon Mark, however, he would much more likely have replaced Mark's first nebulous "they" (in Mk 3:2) with "the Pharisees inside" or some such expression. In the same pericope at Mk 3:3 we read, "And he said to the man who had the withered hand, 'Come here.'" Then followed the healing. Actually, the command in Greek is better translated "Rise into the midst." In Matthew (Mt 12:10-11) there is no such corresponding command. It appears to be a Markan addition designed to further portray Jesus as a commanding figure; if Mark were written first and Matthew second one would not expect it to be absent from Matthew. Ehrman's students are given no hints that the appearance of Markan dependence upon Matthew is so prevalent and strong. In discussing Jesus' Passion (p. 93), Ehrman again states, unjustifiably, that many of Matthew's stories were taken over from Mark. He implies that Pilate's offer to release just Jesus, in Mark, rather than offering a choice between Jesus and Barabbas as in Matthew (Mk 15:8, Mt 27:17), and Mark's lack of mention of Pilate learning of his wife's dream of a righteous Jesus, somehow suggest Markan priority over Matthew. However, it more strongly suggests that the writer of Mark, based in Rome, was quite willing to go along with Matthew's image of Pilate being a relatively good Roman governor, which image he would enhance: he would not have Pilate offer a notorious criminal for release - a good governor wouldn't subject the people to that - and he wouldn't have Pilate be swayed by advice from a woman's dream. The former is discussed further under Styler's Example D above. Ehrman also discusses Matthew's infamous cry, "His blood be on us and on our children" (Mt 27:25). Since it is found only in Matthew, he seems to imply that it is a Matthean addition to Mark, so he does not mention that it could just as well be a Matthean addition to a source document other than Mark, if his insistence upon the four-source hypothesis were relaxed. In hypotheses favoring Markan priority, there is often little concern about Mark's source. However, with the MAH (MAH-H.), the source of Semitic Matthew is known and has been vouched for by its co-discoverer, who is still alive. Why, though, would the anti-gentile writer of Matthew add such an anti-Semitic statement to his gospel? I deem the most probable answer to lie in his great disappointment that relatively few Jews had been converted to his messianic form of Judaism in the 7 to 8 decades since the crucifixion, compared with gentile conversions and the rapid spread of early Christianity into gentile lands. B. J. Hubbard's (1981) answer as to why is that "converts are sometimes capable of virulent attacks on their former coreligionists." Since the verse was not carried into Mark (or Luke), however, we must allow the alternative possibility that the translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek added this notorious verse in order to shift some of the blame for the crucifixion away from the Romans and gentiles. Other verses in Mark in the Passion narrative indicative of Mark's dependency upon Matthew are discussed starting here and here. Although Ehrman's students are subject to totally biased reasoning concerning gospel priorities, in Ehrman (2004) they otherwise receive much valuable and well written information. * * * In Ehrman (1997), from which his above book was largely extracted, more space could be devoted to the Synoptic Problem (pp. 72-78). Arguments here for Markan priority already treated above in critiquing his 2004 book are mostly omitted below. Starting with patterns of agreement, Ehrman wrote, "The fact that they [Matthew and Luke] rarely do differ from Mark while agreeing with one another indicates that Mark must have been their source" (p. 74). As with the other references critiqued above, however, this only means that the great importance of anti-Matthean feelings on the part of the writer of Luke, as well as Mark, due to the anti-gentile stance of Semitic Matthew (MAH-B and MAH-E.a)) was entirely overlooked. However, Ehrman's wording of this editorial behavior fails to consider all the major agreements between Matthew and Luke in the (Q) verses not found in Mark (MAH-E.b)); in those verses Matthew and Luke are verbally agreeing with each other but not with Mark! Concerning the sequence of narratives, "even though Matthew and Luke do not often agree together against Mark in the wording of stories that all three of them share, they do extensively agree in the wording of stories that are not found in Mark." These latter stories "are in virtually every instance located in different places in their narratives." As with others before him, Ehrman could imagine no reason why the writer of Luke, with (Hebraic) Matthew in front of him, would rearrange the Matthean stories that Mark omits. With MAH-E.b), the reason is clear indeed. Upon placing these Matthean stories for this reason in totally different contexts, he didn't need to alter their contents, too. The translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek would see to it that the Greek wording was as similar as possible, for his own reason (MAH-G). The big problem here for the Mark-Q priorists, however, is why, if the writers of Luke and Matthew independently extracted the foregoing stories from Q, they would differ in their context in 57 of the 63 instances involved. This seems to defy the odds, but does not receive critical discussion apparently because the alternative (the "improper" editorial behavior of the writer of Luke) is theologically or ethically repugnant. As Ehrman states it, "It is almost impossible to think that [the writer of] Luke worked this way" - impossible only if the most important aspects of the respective milieus of the writers of Matthew and Mark are ignored, along with the external evidence and much internal evidence. Concerning grammar, Ehrman mentions the familiar fact that Mark's style of writing is often awkward, with this deficiency not being found in Luke or Matthew. This is taken to mean that Mark came first, without regard for external evidence indicating that Hebraic Matthew had come first. Thus with Mark having been written before Matthew was translated into Greek, and with Luke coming after Mark, Mark was indeed the first Greek Gospel but was nevertheless dependent upon (Hebraic) Matthew. This should not be difficult to understand, along with the many indications that Hebrew and/or Aramaic underlie these texts; see MAH-G. Concerning Mark's relative shortness, Ehrman raises the usual arguments we have already amply nullified (see the critiques of other authors above, and MAH-D.1.). Concerning apparent Matthean consolidation: Most of Matthew's healing stories being located in Mt 8-11, Ehrman assumes, as have many others, that its writer "often gathered together in one place stories scattered throughout his Markan source (p. 76). Neglected is the likelihood that the writer of Mark had a reason for scattering the healing stories (MAH-F.2.). In discussing Q in chapter 6 Ehrman does discuss some specific passages. He uses the story of the rich young man who wanted to know what to do to achieve eternal life (p.76), to conclude it shows Markan priority on the basis of Mark's dialogue making more sense than Matthew's (Mk 10:17-18, Mt 19:16-17). But if one gospel writer has improved upon another's text, is not he, the improver, often considered for that reason to be the redactor? And Ehrman did not mention the solution we discussed under Stein 3c above, that for those steeped in matters of the Jewish Scriptures, "the Good" referred to the Torah (in the Greek, the Matthean verse refers to "the good"). He uses his assumed solution as a reason for believing that the writer of Matthew altered the sequence of Q stories when forming his gospel but the writer of Luke preserved their sequence. However, Ehrman did not have space, evidently, to discuss strong opposing arguments, such as those of Butler (1951, pp. 23-36) that demolish this assumed solution as well as demolishing "Q" itself. Ehrman (1997, pp. 76-77) assumes similarly in regards to Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, which is scattered into a dozen different places within Luke: that the writer of Matthew extracted them from Q and gathered them all together into one rather smoothly flowing sermon. No mention is made of the much greater difficulty in doing this than of the redactor scattering sections of a compact sermon in Matthew widely throughout his own gospel for his own reason (MAH-E.b)). The dependence of Luke upon Matthew, in the Sermon, was well confirmed by Butler (1951, pp. 37-48). In discussing the Messianic secret on pp. 85-86 Ehrman makes a sharp distinction between Mark's keeping of the secret and Matthew's more open or early revelation of Jesus as the Christ. He suggests that the writer of Matthew altered Mark in this respect so as to make the Jewish leaders who rejected Jesus all the more guilty. "If Jesus' identity is public knowledge [as in Matthew] then those who above all others should be in the know, the Jewish authorities, are all the more culpable for rejecting, and even persecuting, him." This is not particularly convincing. There are three instances in which the writer of Matthew, if following Mark, could have omitted Mark's "Don't tell" admonition but didn't. Other instances he might have altered into admonitions of "Go out and spread the word;" however none of that is realized. So let us look now at these and related Messianic-secret verses with a fresh viewpoint: Mark Admonition Event Matthew Admonition 1:34 Don't tell (Jews) Cast out demons 8:16 No admonition 1:43 Don't tell (Jews) Healed a leper 8:4 Don't tell (Jews) 3:12 Don't tell (mainly Jews) Healed many possessed 12:16 Don't tell (presumably Jews) 5:19-20 Yes, do tell (gentiles of Decapolis) Healed 2 demoniacs + pig episode 8:33-34 No admonition 5:43 Don't tell (Jews) Raised a girl from the dead 9:23-25 No admonition (to Jews) 7:36 Don't tell = Do tell Healed deaf man -- -- (gentiles of Decapolis) 8:30 Don't tell (Jews or) anyone Warned Peter 16:20 Don't tell (Jews or) anyone In the above table, in Matthew there are four instances in which Jesus issued no admonition; in two of their parallels in Mark the "don't tell" admonition was given, and in settings where Jews would be the main recipients (Mk 1:34 & 5:43). In the third (Mk 5:19-20), the healed man surprisingly received the admonition of "Do tell" the wonders to his friends. They turn out to be residents of Decapolis, who can only be understood to have been gentiles. In the fourth (Mk 7:36), there is no parallel Matthean pericope at all. What does this suggest in terms of the MAH and in particular, MAH-D.2.? It is that the writer of Mark found Matthew's "Messianic secret" to fit in with his agenda of offering discipleship to gentiles - and restricting it from Jews, in stark contrast to Semitic Matthew's opposite tilt (Mt 15:24). So he made extended use of the Messianic secret. This solution to Mark's heavy emphasis on the "Messianic secret" seems unknown and/or suppressed within NT literature. However, it is known to some within a wider acedemic community according to Prof. Gregory Elder of the Humanities Department of Riverside Community College, Moreno Valley Campus, CA. Mk 7:36 states that the more the cured people were told to keep the fact of their cures secret, the more zealously they proclaimed it. Hence this "Don't tell" admonition is tantamount to "Do tell." However, it should be evident that the writer did not really believe that saying "Don't" would produce a stronger opposite reaction, because in Mk 5:19-20 he had Jesus urge the cured person to proclaim it to his friends, who were gentiles, not inferring that this would produce greater secrecy. Evidently the pericope containing Mk 7:36, being absent from Matthew, stemmed from Ur-Mark. I suspect that the writer of Mark chose to utilize it with his own minor though awkward addition: "through the region of the Decapolis," because the inhabitants had proclaimed the message so zealously that it was as if they had been told "Do tell!" The other three "Don't tell" admonitions in Matthew were retained by the writer of Mark, as they were delivered in settings of Jewish residents. By the MAH, Jesus issued these warnings for the purpose of slowing down, to some extent, the spread of his fame. This would give him more time to preach and teach before his coming arrest at the instigation of Pharisees and chief priests, which he could foretell. His warnings had only a secondary purpose of keeping his identity unknown as the messiah prophesied in the unfalsified writings of Isaiah, in that any such claim would further upset Pharisees and chief priests. The fact of his healing miracles alone was enough to make them fear his powers and feel endangered. The demonic revelation of Mk 3:12 that Jesus was "the Son of God" was a Markan addition that fits into the category of a reverential upgrade of Matthew (MAH-D.3.). We have previously detailed why the writer of Mark omitted Matthew's Nativity section (see under Stein, above: "Mark's shortness"). It was not to hide the Messianic secret known to Joseph & Mary and the Magi. Ehrman picks up on the difference between the voice from on high at the baptism saying in Matthew (3:17), "This is my beloved Son..." versus the parallel in Mark (1:11), "Thou [you] art my beloved son." This he gives as further evidence that in Matthew there was hardly any Messianic secret as compared with Mark, since the Matthean statement indicates that other people were around that heard the voice, while the Markan statement can imply that only Jesus heard the voice. By the MAH, the difference may have been purposeful on the part of the writer of Mark so as not to portray the Jewish people as being worthy of receiving this information (MAH-D.2.), or it may have been change for the sake of change (MAH-D.4.). No mention is made of Markan discrepancies nearby that may point to Matthean priority: (a) Presumably there were other persons around at the time that John baptized Jesus, just as at Mk 1:5. If the voice had said, "You are my Son...," would the people know who it was referring to? It might have been referring to John or anyone else present, since "You" refers to the hearer. With Matthew's "This is my Son..." it is more apparent that a particular person of interest was being referred to. (b) Just two verses later, at Mk 1:13, we read, "and the angels ministered to him" after his stint in the wilderness. This is the first we hear of any angels having been around at that time. Hence they should have been referred to simply as "angels," as in the parallel Matthean verse (Mt 4:11). Thus the writer of Mark betrayed that he had the angels of Matthew in mind here, and so called them "the angels." Ehrman's other example of Matthean knowledge of who Jesus was that's not present in Mark, concerns, the "Son of God" revelation in Mt 14:33: "And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God," which follows the walking-on-water episode and sudden cessation of the wind. At Mark's parallel (Mk 6:51b-52) we read: "And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened." Although the Matthean verse may not be free of redaction, the attitude of the writer of Mark shows through all too clearly. This was a Markan redaction designed to eliminate appropriate behavior on the part of the Jewish disciples and replace it with a reaction that displays their lack of understanding and unworthiness to be disciples (MAH-D.2). The imprint of the redaction is readily apparent in that the disciples would not have been thinking about the feeding of the five thousand or of the four thousand at that time (the loaves), but rather marveling at what Jesus had just done in walking on the wavy water. In all, the MAH is fully consistent in showing that the so-called Messianic secret does not point toward Markan priority over Matthew. Ehrman (p. 90) presumes that in the cleanliness controversy with the Pharisees over washing one's hands before meals (Mt 15:1-20/Mk 7:1- 23), the writer of Matthew omitted Mark's sentence: "(Thus he declared all foods clean)" (Mk 7:19b, which is the preferred parenthetical interpretation of the Greek clause, supposedly spoken by Jesus: "cleansing all foods"). The reverse interpretation comes just as easily: the writer of Mark, in Rome, didn't want his readers to think they were bound by Jewish laws they wouldn't like, and so added the clause to the Matthean text he was following (MAH-D.2.). A verse in this pericope that implicates the writer of Mark as the redactor is Mk 7:17, as already discussed here. Regarding "I desire mercy and not sacrifice": On p. 91 Ehrman (1997) assumes that in the story of the calling of the disciple Matthew the tax collector (Mt 9:9-13/Mk 2:13-17), a Matthean sentence absent in Mark indicates that the writer of Matthew added it rather than the writer of Mark omitting it. But with the MAH, Ehrman's presumption is easily reversible, as already noted in the above critique of Burkett. On p. 93 Ehrman discusses the parable of the vineyard tenants, asserting without support that "it is from Mark." His reason has to do with Mt 21:43, "Therefore I tell you [chief priests et al.], the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it," which verse is absent from the Markan parallel. The verse is unfavorable toward Jews for having rejected Jesus as the cornerstone. Thus it is seemingly as likely that the writer of Matthew would not have inserted the verse, if following Mark, than that the writer of Mark would have omitted it if following Matthew. With the MAH solution, however, a verse very much like it was in Matthew's source (MAH-H.), which its writer retained because of his great disappointment that by the early 2nd century Christianity had spread very little among Jews - some sort of punishment was due them for this refusal of the kingdom (added more dramatically at Mt 27:25). So why, then, did the writer of Mark not include the verse when copying from Matthew? By MAH-D.1., we surmise that the writer of Mark didn't make sense out of why, in Matthew's preceding verse that he retained (Mt 21:42), that if Jesus' becoming the cornerstone was a marvelous thing, any action had to be taken as a consequence. Yet Mt 21:43 starts out with "therefore," as if it follows upon the marvel of the cornerstone. So, he omitted the verse along with the following one, which he also could not make sense of in Matthew's context: "And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but when it falls on any one, it will crush him" (Mt 21:44). Is Jesus, the cornerstone, to be avoided altogether then? We notice that the writer of Luke was able to make some sense out of the latter (Lk 20:18), and so included it while following Mark in omitting Mt 21:43. With the MAH, we do not blame scribal assimilation for the occurrence of Mt 21:44, which is a verse well attested in Matthean uncials, though usually omitted except in Bible footnotes. The most telling aspect of the vineyard parable that points towards the writer of Mark having redacted Matthew is as follows. In Mk 12:6, the owner of the vineyard finally sends his "beloved son" to collect some of the fruit. In Matthew (21:37) it is just "the son" who is sent in this third attempt by the owner. The Markan version is a substantial reverential upgrading of Matthew, as it makes the point clearer that this son represents Jesus in the parable, since "my beloved son" is what he was called in Mt 4:17 & 17:5, and Mk 1:11 & 9:7. It is thus very improbable that Matthew is dependent upon Mark here, but rather the other way around. If following Mark, Matthew's writer would scarcely have wished to omit Mark's "beloved." The writer of Luke (20:13), as customary with him, tended to favor Mark's alterations from Matthew (MAH-E.a)); in particular, he retained Mark's "beloved" son, as would be expected. Arguments favoring priority of Mark over Matthew by Craig Blomberg, as nullified by the MAH The following arguments come from the short survey article by Blomberg (2001). His first nine arguments favoring Markan priority over Matthean were simply brief mentions to indicate which of the classical reasonings are the most persuasive for him. We shall go over them only briefly here, usually just linking to points already covered above: (1) "Mark frequently contains vivid touches...that Matthew or Luke omit." See MAH-F.1. The ones that parallel material in Mt 8-11 come from Ur-Mark, the others were invented by the writer of Mark (MAH-D.3.). (2) "Matthew and Luke often seem to smooth out Mark's rougher grammar." See MAH-D.5. (3) "Matthew and Luke often omit potentially misleading details in Mark." This apparently refers to some instances in which, by an Augustinian hypothesis, the writer of Mark made small additions to, or attempted improvements of, Matthew that resulted in inaccuracy or ambiguity. An example would be Mark's additive mention of Abiathar as high priest in the Stein critique above. As Blomberg noted, however, Peter Head (1997), though a supporter of Markan priority, does not support the generality of Blomberg's opinion. The arguments involved are quite reversible. (4) "Mark is the shortest of the Synoptics, yet within individual pericopae he is consistently longer than Matthew or Luke, an unlikely result of later abbreviation." See MAH-D.4. and under Stein 1. (5) "Less than 10 percent of Mark is nonparalleled; why would Mark have written at all" if a longer, fuller treatment was "already available to him, and he had so little new to say?" The MAH gives strong motivation for Mark to have been written (MAH-C.). The fact that its writer had very little new to add was reason why he had to take pains to try to make it read differently from Matthew (MAH-D.1., 3.-6.). The writer of Luke naturally wished his gospel to look different from both Matthew and Mark, so he added much text not in Mark or Matthew, as well as placing what he reincorporated from Matthew that was not in Mark into different contexts (MAH-E.b)). (6) "[a] Comparatively, Matthew and Luke rarely differ from Mark in the same way at the same time, [b] whereas Mark and Matthew much more frequently agree with each other against Luke, [c] as do Luke and Mark against Matthew." Taking these in inverse order, [c] comes about through the writer of Luke showing his preference for pro-gentile Mark over anti-gentile Matthew by following Mark where it deviates from Matthew in order or text (MAH-E.a)). Clause [b] comes about through the writer of Luke having purposely made changes when Mark agrees closely with Matthew, so as not to show direct support for Matthew (MAH-E.c)). With [a], where Matthew and Luke differ from Mark in the same way at the same time, they agree with each other against Mark - thus constituting one of the "minor agreements against Mark"; these, however, can be viewed as being not particularly rare (see MAH-E.a) and the discussion under Tuckett). (7) "Mark contains the highest incidence of Aramaisms among the Synoptics." Its writer happened to be less polished in the use of Greek than were the writer of Luke and the translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek. Hence the underlying Aramaic of Semitic Matthew (and of Ur- Mark) shows through a bit more in Mark. Also, its writer's direct use of pieces of Aramaic in several places served the purposes of MAH-D.3. & 4. (8) "There seems to be no reason for Mark's omission of so much of Matthew and Luke that contains many of Jesus' most precious teachings, if Mark knew of them from a source." See MAH-D.1. and under Stein. (9) "When one assumes Markan priority, coherent patterns of redactional emphases emerge in ways that are not true on alternative models." I believe the redactional emphasis with the MAH is even stronger and more coherent than with the Two-Source Hypothesis. See MAH-B G. These nine arguments occur also in Blomberg (1997). Therein, however, at least one other inference of Markan priority is made, not discussed in the above critiques. At Mt 4:17 and 16:21 the identical "formula" is used: "From that time on Jesus began to..." The first of these is not present in Mark, while the latter occurs in a differently worded form, in Mk 8:31. Blomberg (1997, p. 128) assumes that the writer of Matthew probably inserted this phrase in order to separate his narrative into thirds. However, by the MAH he may well have simply retained them from his source (MAH-H.), since at some point Jesus' preaching and teaching did commence, and at some later point he did start to warn his disciples of the ordeal ahead. The omission of the first of these, at Mk 1:14, by the writer of Mark is not surprising, in that up through this region of his text he had been abbreviating Matthew very heavily. In Blomberg (2001), he continues with a discussion of six instances of more recent work that may seem to point to Markan priority over Matthew. His first concerns the apparent Aramaic sources of Mark. We have already discussed these under (7) above, where the Ur-Mark source available to the writer of Mark, while relatively brief, was in Aramaic and his Hebraic-Matthew source was probably Hebraic in its narratives and Aramaic in its discourses. His second consists of the relative degree of Christology within Matthew and Mark. Here, he was unaware that with the MAH, the translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek is seen to have played an important role: see MAH-G., and also under Stein 7a. His third concerns a fairly recent study (New, 1997), involving the Old Testament quotations in Matthew, which are plentiful. New found that of the Matthean OT quotations that have parallels in Mark, the ones that have a text form closest to those in the Septuagint (i.e., the LXX, written in Greek) tended to be the ones selected for inclusion within Mark. Thinking of no reason why the writer of Mark would do this, New believed this suggested Markan priority. However, upon allowing, as with the MAH, that the writer of Mark was translating from a Semitic Matthew, it is easily understood that it would lead to easier translation into Greek if the Matthean sentence or quotation could be identified as a verse or passage from the LXX. The writer of Mark would then be more inclined to utilize it. Possibly, he may have used some discrimination in avoiding OT passages from Matthew that did not fairly represent the LXX. Blomberg concludes, "Matthew, on the other hand, might be expected to go his own way in rendering Old Testament passages when he was not relying on Mark." Such a statement holds also, however, for the case when the writer of Matthew was not relying upon Mark, as with the MAH. In utilizing his non-Markan source, the writer of Semitic Matthew sometimes stuck fairly close to the Scriptural version when borrowing a verse or passage from it, and at other times not very close at all; the later translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek could then, in the former instances, use the LXX version as an aid in translating. Blomberg's fourth area of study where progress was thought to have been made concerns the minor agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark in relation to the Q hypothesis. But any progress in that area has already been rendered fruitless by MAH-E.a), and as also indicated in discussions above and in Butler (1951, 1969), Goulder (1989) and Goodacre (2002). A special point that Blomberg makes, stemming from Stein (1992), is that just because the Gospel of John sometimes agrees with two Gospels against a third does not mean that John preceded them; similarly, the minor agreements between Matthew & Luke against Mark need not mean that a "Q" had to precede them. The MAH, incidentally, agrees with Blomberg that John came after the Synoptic Gospels. It finds, consistent with a paper by Goodacre, that the Gospel of Thomas came after all four Gospels, though it contains some pre-Gospel sayings. A fifth area of special study concerns the possible overlaps between Mark and Q, which has likewise been rendered moot by the MAH. Blomberg's sixth area involves the supposed superiority of Markan priority in demonstrating a "consistent and significant pattern of redaction -both stylistic and theological." The greater superiority of the MAH on this was already mentioned under (9) above. The all-important Matthean anti-gentile slant, which mainly prompted the writing of Mark, can largely explain the consequent strong anti-Jewish slant of the latter writer's editorial behavior. Preference for Mark over the anti-gentile Semitic Matthew also explains much of the editorial behavior of the writer of Luke. These behaviors are not as well explained by the Two-Source Theory, as indicated by the strength of the objections to Q and lack of explanation for "Mark's harder readings." The tendency to upgrade the theology, by the writers of Mark and Luke, and by the translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek, came naturally. In addition, the Two-Source Theory has to dismiss totally the external evidence for the priority of Semitic Matthew, and must ignore much internal evidence favoring Matthean priority over Mark. Arguments favoring priority of Mark over Matthew by Scot McKnight, as nullified by the MAH The foremost point of McKnight (2001) in favor of Markan priority comes under the heading of linguistics: conclusions drawn from comparison of the Greek texts of Mark versus Matthew (and Luke) in terms of unusual Greek words in Mark, its incomplete sentences, omission of conjunctions and such, which point to Markan priority. Missing from McKnight's presentation, as from others, is any awareness that Mark could be (is) the first gospel in Greek but was preceded by Matthew in Hebrew or Hebrew & Aramaic (MAH-A and MAH-G.). Not surprisingly, the translator of Semitic Matthew usually desired to make use of better Greek than was in Mark. Hence Matthew retains overall priority over Mark. McKnight delves more specifically into the linguistic side of his view of Markan priority through use of three examples. Matthew 15:29 Mark 7:31 And departing from there [the region of Tyre and Sidon], And again, Jesus left the regions of Tyre Jesus came to the Sea of Galilee and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee through the middle of the regions of the Decapolis. Here McKnight notes that the route in Mark would be a strange one, geographically speaking, in the way it is phrased in the Greek. However, the writer of Mark is noted for being especially ignorant of Palestinian geography. By McKnight's reasoning, the writer of Matthew corrected Mark's improbable route by omitting the excursion through Decapolis in his gospel. With Matthean priority, however, and the MAH, the reverse argument seems stronger. The writer of Mark added the Decapolis phrasing because it was known to be primarily a gentile land, and he was making whatever alterations he could to Matthew that would promote evangelism to gentiles (MAH-D.2.). McKnight's second example compares an unusual Greek construction in Mk 14:3 with the better Greek of its parallel in Mt 26:6. We do not know, of course, if the translator of Semitic Matthew was improving upon Mark at that point or was simply translating into better Greek without recourse to Mark. Either way, the MAH finds that Greek Mark, though coming before Greek Matthew, was based entirely upon Hebraic Matthew in this region of the text. McKnight's third example involves these verses: Matthew 13:2 Mark 4:1 and the whole crowd stood on the beach. and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. He believes the writer of Matthew removed Mark's redundancy (beside the sea, on the land). But this reasoning totally ignores the strong reverse argument that the writer of Mark, while following Matthew, added redundancies throughout his text for the reason stated in MAH- D.3. Next, McKnight moves on to what he calls theological phenomena, involving examination of theological and reverential upgrading of text. He starts with Mt 13:58/Mk 6:5-6, which we found in discussion under Stein involves a small Markan "change for the sake of change" (MAH-D.4.), which shouldn't be confused with theological upgrading. As with other synoptists, it apparently never occurred to McKnight that the writer of Mark, in writing a gospel for gentiles that would correct and counteract the Hebraic Gospel of Matthew, and in wanting his gospel to be different from Matthew, would go to some effort to render his gospel different in appearance from Matthew through a difference in its wording. This motivational aspect of the "theological phenomena" appears to be too theologically upsetting for New Testament scholars to take under consideration. Is the possibility of "change for the sake of change" too simple and obvious, or does it simply never arise if the likelihood and ramifications of Matthean priority are not confronted head on? Some 39 other passages of Mark that the writer of Matthew is supposed to have upgraded theologically are then referred to. An example of these is: Matthew 27:57-58 Mark 15:43-45 57...there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, 43Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who also was a disciple of Jesus. who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, 58He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. took courage and went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus. 44And Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. 45And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. he granted the body to Joseph. We see that, with Matthean priority and the MAH, the writer of Mark, being a gentile in Rome, portrayed the Roman governor as being competent and thorough. At the same time, his having made more certain that Jesus had actually died - a theological necessity - comprises a theological upgrade to Matthew. This was a relatively safe little addition for the writer of Mark to have made, which, along with its built-in redundancy, would help his gospel differ from Matthew (MAH-D.3.). For some reason McKnight regards this comparison as supportive of Markan priority. The evidence for Matthean priority here is supported by a comparison of Mt 27:57 with Mk 15:43. In the latter verse, the courageous Joseph is rewarded by the writer of Mark by being made into a more important person - a councilor - who would then have been among those present at Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin. But the council's whole membership had sought testimony against Jesus to put him to death (Mk 14:55). A councilor would not then request Jesus' body and personally tend to it being placed in a nice tomb, thereby risking certain ridicule from fellow councilors. This was a careless alteration by the writer of Mark. Many of the other 38 instances McKnight listed are likewise reversible, or explainable by the MAH, and/or have already been covered in the critiques above. Still others would need to be discussed by McKnight before I could comment. McKnight then gives redactional phenomena as another category in which to search for indicators of gospel priority, though I would consider this to be a more general category that encompasses his other two. As a specific example within this category, he mentions the seven instances in which the word "righteousness" appears in Matthew without any parallel use in Mark. But we have discussed this under Stein above. The writer of Mark's reason for avoiding the word and connected verses (MAH-D.1.) is just as compelling as the writer of Matthew's motivation for having added them to the content of his source (MAH-H.). McKnight continues with a discussion of three of the major problems he sees with the hypothesis of Mark-Q priority: (1) insufficient attention paid to the patristic evidence (of Semitic Matthew coming first); (2) the minor agreements of Luke and Matthew against Mark; and (3) difficulties encountered in Q studies. The MAH does not suffer from any of these. Arguments favoring priority of Mark over Matthew by Donald Guthrie, as nullified by the MAH This refers to the work of Guthrie (1965, chapter on the Synoptic Problem). Although it preceded the texts critiqued above, its salient points will be briefly presented in spite of the repetition. He starts out with summaries of five main arguments why the priority of Matthew was replaced by Mark starting in early 19th century. (i) The great amount of Matthean material that is contained within Markan parallels apparently caused Guthrie to approve of the assumption that the writer of Matthew must have added to Mark. In his summary he gave no reason why the reverse could not also be likely: that the writer of Mark was a bulk abbreviator (MAH-D.1.). (ii) Regarding order: where the synoptic gospels diverge in detail "it is more rare for Matthew and Luke to agree against Mark, than for Mark to be in the majority." This can be restated, however, by there having been a strong preference for the writer of Luke to follow Mark where Mark deviates from Matthew (MAH-E.a)). To this, Guthrie added the thought that transpositions in order between Matthew and Mark can generally be satisfactorily accounted for by "the editor's desire to group his material into series." Unstated was that if the writer of Mark was a bulk abbreviator of Matthew, little would be left of Matthew's series by the time their remnants were incorporated into Mark. And, of course, Guthrie would not have known about MAH-F.2. (iii) Regarding Markan literary characteristics that may give the appearance of primitiveness, Guthrie mentioned "Mark's amplifications of details." Apparently, he did not consider that many of these could have been the amplifications of details the writer of Mark encountered in Matthew (MAH-D.3.). Secondly, he pointed to the better style of Greek Matthew and Luke than of Mark as if it were a point in favor of Markan priority. But missing as usual was any thought that if Semitic Matthew had been first, as attested by the early church fathers, the writer of Mark could have been the first to translate its parallel passages that he utilized into Greek; he would not be "dumbing down" a Greek Matthew (MAH-D.5.). Also, the writer of Luke and the translator of Semitic Matthew could easily have been more polished and proficient in Greek, as it's unlikely that all three would be of equal proficiency. Third, Guthrie noted that Mark's use of eight Aramaic words versus only one in Matthew could point to Markan priority. Again, there was no consideration of MAH-D.5., since Semitic Matthew's discourses were likely in Aramaic, and the writer of Mark could utilize a bit of that. Also, with the Aramaic Ur-Mark being available to the writer of Mark (MAH-F.1.), this would likely have emphasized to him the virtue of adding Aramaic words in order to authenticate his gospel (MAH-F.2.). (iv) Here Guthrie spoke of Mark's "greater historical candor" (otherwise known as "Mark's harder readings") as indicative of its primitiveness. This lies at the root of the MAH solution to the Synoptic Problem, since it well explains these "harder readings" (MAH-D.2.) as being secondary to Semitic Matthew. (v) As the fifth item, Guthrie spoke of Mark as being "the least explicit account." This would seem to contradict his point (iii) of Mark's "amplification of details." However, as examples of what he meant he mentions Mark's use of "king" in the beheading-of-John episode versus Matthew's use once of "tetrarch," which is resolved above under Goodacre. And he mentions Mark's use of "kill" in Mk 10:34 in place of Matthew's "crucify" in Mt 20:19; this easily comes under the heading of a Markan "change for the sake of change" (MAH-D.4.), which was then followed by the writer of Luke (MAH-E.a)). In addition, Guthrie mentions the greater vividness of Mark as favoring its priority over Matthew (and Luke). Part of this vividness was genuine (MAH-F.1.), and part fictional (MAH-D.3.). Following this, Guthrie discusses problems with the Two-Source hypothesis, the hypothetical Q, the supposed Matthean "M" source, and possible sources for Luke besides Q. In his chapter on Mark, Guthrie discusses the two traditions involving (John) Mark in Rome, that Mark was written: (a) after Peter died (but presumably not too many years afterwards, referring to Irenaeus), or (b) before Peter died, according to Clement of Alexandria (Guthrie, 1965, p. 72). With the MAH, such a scenario had become the understanding during the era of Irenaeus, when perhaps a half century had elapsed since the Gospels had been written. This was sufficient time that the writer of Mark, circa A.D. 122, could be identified with John Mark who was in Rome with Peter circa A.D. 60, and Mark could be identified as "Peter's reminiscences." This chronological misrepresentation is consistent with MAH-A., in which the writers of Matthew, Luke and John, circa A.D. 120-130, were considered by the time of Irenaeus to be the apostles Matthew and John, and Luke the physician, who had lived contemporaneously with Jesus. It can be seen how theological commitment would lead to this misrepresentation, but that the other portions of the external evidence concerning Matthew need not also have been misrepresented (i.e., that Semitic Matthew had come before Mark). Hence, this MAH does not find that the above external evidence regarding Mark is at all helpful in determining when that gospel was written. Regarding Gospel priorities, a piece of evidence from what Papias had to say about Mark is, however, quite helpful. In forming his gospel, the writer of Mark wrote "not, indeed, in order, of the things said or done by the Lord" (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History Bk. 3, 39:15). If one accepts that Luke came after Mark, then the writing to which this lack of order corresponds must have been Matthew. Since this "lack of order" must have been an embarrassment, this bit of information needs to be taken seriously. Arguments favoring priority of Mark over Matthew presented by Peter Kirby, as nullified by the MAH In his website, Kirby starts by presenting the eight key arguments extracted from Carl S. Patton (1915) that give his reasons for supporting Markan priority over Matthew and Luke. Although the argumentation was intended as a refutation of the Two-Gospel hypothesis (Griesbach hypothesis), as we shall see it does no more than refute Lukan priority over Mark. We take these eight points in order, while focusing upon argumentation that questions Matthean priority over Mark. And we ask the reader's forbearance of repetitions of explanations already made above. 1. [a] It is impossible, upon this [Griesbach] theory, to account for the omission by Mark of so much of the material that stood before him in Matthew and Luke. He has omitted most of the parables and sayings. He has added no narrative. [b] He has therefore made an abstract in which much is omitted, nothing is added, and no improvement is introduced. [c] No reason can be assigned for the making of such a Gospel by abstracting from the fuller and better Gospels of Matthew and Luke. [d] The abstract not only adds nothing of its own, but fails to preserve the distinctive character of either of its exemplars. It can be seen that Patton's 1.[a] above, relative to Matthew-Mark, is well explained by MAH-D.1., as expanded upon under Stein. Thus it is by no means impossible to understand Mark's omissions from Matthew. Instead, it has apparently been impossible for many NT scholars to face up to the evidence indicating that the writer of Mark had an anti-Jewish attitude. In [b], rather than saying "nothing is added," one should say, "very little of substance was added." Recall all the added dualisms or redundancies (MAH-D.3.). And some improvements were made: see again under Stein. Regarding 1.[c], there can be no reason for this Markan editorial behavior more valid than the great distaste that gentile evangelizers must have held for Matthew's slant that discipleship was only for the Jews: MAH-B. and MAH-C. Regarding 1.[d] - the failure of Mark to preserve the distinctive character of Matthew - see MAH-D. 2. If Mark had wished to make such an abstract, it is impossible to explain why in practically every instance he follows, as between Matthew and Luke, the longer narrative, while his own narrative is longer than either of those he copied. In the story of the healing of the leper, for example, Matthew (viii, 1-4) has 62 words, Luke (v, 12-16, without his introduction) has 87, and Mark (i, 40-45) has 97. In the healing of the paralytic (Mk ii, 1-12; Mt ix, 1-8; Lk v, 17-26) Matthew has 125 words, Luke 93, and Mark 110 (Mk ii, 13-17; Mt ix, 9-13; Lk v, 27-32). In the parable of the Sower (Mk iv, 1-9; Mt xiii, 1-9; Lk viii, 4-8) Matthew has 134 words, Luke 90, and Mark 151. In the interpretation of that parable (Mk iv, 13-20; Mt xiii, 18-23; Lk viii, 11- 15) Matthew has 128 words, Luke 109, and Mark 147. Many more such instances might be given. In every case the additional words of Mark contain no substantial addition to the narrative. They are mere redundancies, which Matthew and Luke, each in his own way, have eliminated. Although the first sentence either contains some missing or extra words, the subsequent ones make the point clear. It was not understandable to Patton or Kirby that the writer of Mark could be a bulk abbreviator of Matthew (MAH-D.1., and at the same time make changes to the portions of Matthew he wished to retain - changes that would usually add to their length (MAH-D.2.,3.,4.). It's called "heavy editing." 3. Mark contains a large number of otherwise unknown or unliterary words and phrases. For example, [in Greek:] scizomenous, i, 10; en pneumati akaqartw, i, 23; krabattoV, ii, 4, and in five other places; epiraptei, ii, 21; qugatrion, v, 23; vii, 25; escatwV ecei, v, 23; spekougatwr, vi, 27; sumposia sumposia, vi, 39; eisin tineV wde twn esthkotwn, ix, 1; eis kata eis, xiv, 19; ekperisswV, xiv, 31. Such expressions might easily have been replaced by Matthew and Luke with the better expressions which they use instead of these; they could hardly have been substituted by Mark for those better expressions. Here, Patton, Kirby and others did not allow that, within the Augustinian and MAH frameworks, Mark was formed out of Semitic Matthew, and Greek Matthew was then only formed later, apparently after both Mark and Luke had come out. Although this is entirely consistent with what the early church fathers stated, it did not conform with the newer view that assumed Mark had come first (so that the problems of MAH- B., MAH-C, MAH-D, and MAH-G. need not be faced up to). The writer of Mark was evidently not skillful in his use of Greek. The writer of Luke and translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek were more skillful. Thus Mark was indeed the first gospel written in Greek, but Semitic Matthew held priority over it. The writer of Mark did not purposely "dumb down" Matthew. 4. Mark contains many broken or incomplete constructions; as in iii, 16+; iv, 31+; v, 23; vi, 8+; xi, 32; xii, 38-40; xiii, 11, 14, 16, 19; xiv, 49. Such constructions would be easily corrected by Matthew and Luke; they would not easily be inserted into the narratives of Matthew and Luke by Mark. The response here is the same as in the preceding. The writer of Mark was not skillful in the use of Greek. With his gospel being the first one written in Greek, it is no wonder that neither the writer of Luke, nor the translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek, utilized Mark's verses of broken construction. 5. Mark has many double or redundant expressions, of which Matthew has taken a part, Luke sometimes the same part, sometimes another. Such instances may be found in Mark's Gospel at ii, 20, 25; iv, 39; xi, 2; xii, 14; the corresponding passages in Matthew and Luke will show their treatment of these redundancies. See MAH-D.3. Then the writer of Luke, when utilizing both Mark and Semitic Matthew, had to choose which of the redundant expressions to utilize, when avoiding a repetition of Mark's redundancy. Sometimes he chose the part added by the writer of Mark, sometimes the part in Semitic Matthew. 6. Mark uses uniformly kai [for "and"], where Matthew and Luke have sometimes kai and sometimes de. Mark's use shows him to be nearer the Hebrew or Aramaic. No explanation can be given for his substitution of this monotonous conjunction in the place of the two conjunctions used by Matthew and Luke. The variation in Matthew and Luke of Mark's one conjunction is entirely natural. Since the writer of Mark was utilizing both the Hebraic form of Matthew and the Aramaic document mentioned in MAH-F., Patton's remark here merely reflects this, along with the writer of Mark having been the least sophisticated writer of Greek. There was not yet a Greek version of Matthew in existence from which the writer of Mark might decide which Greek words he would prefer to use most. 7. Mark has many Aramaic words, which he translates into the Greek; see especially iii, 17; v, 41; vii, 11; vii, 34. It would be easy for these to be dropped out by writers making use of Mark's material for Hellenistic readers; but very unnatural for Mark to have inserted these Aramaic words into the Greek texts of Matthew and Luke. On the contrary, the writer of Mark naturally retained these Aramaic words from the two texts he utilized as evidence of originality of his gospel (MAH-D.3. and MAH-F.2.). He would naturally wish to explain their meanings to the gentile audience his gospel was addressing. With both Luke and Greek Matthew coming out after Mark was written, the writer of Mark was not inserting anything into Greek Matthew and Luke. 8. Mark's narrative throughout is more spirited and vivid than either Matthew's or Luke's. It would be much easier for these graphic touches to be omitted for various reasons by Matthew and Luke, even though they found these before them in the Gospel of Mark, than for Mark to have added these touches in copying the narratives of Matthew and Luke. One may mention especially the details about the appearance and dress of the Baptist (Mk i, 6); the four men carrying the litter (ii, 3); the statement, "He looked around upon them with wrath, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts" (Mk iii, 5); the names of persons, and their relatives, unknown to the other evangelists, the description of the Gadarene demoniac, the additional details of the conversation between Jesus and the parents of the epileptic boy (ix, 20-24), and many similar items. This is well explained by MAH-D.3. and MAH-F.1. A noteworthy one of these is the name "Jairus" supplied in Mk 5:22 to the Matthean parallel of Mt 9:18. * * * * * In another web page, Kirby brings forth additional argumentation from other earlier NT scholars that at first glance might seem to support Markan priority over Matthew. Under the topic "The Argument from Sequence of Incidents," Kirby presents the following from Kümmel (1966): [(a)] In connection with the first great discourse of Jesus (Mt. 5-7), there follows a string of ten miracle stories by way of illustrating 4:23; thus Matthew brings together in chs. 8 and 9 miracles that are scattered throughout the first half of Mark (1:29ff.; 4:35ff.; 5:21ff.). (b) Matthew attaches to these miracle chapters a mission address (10:5ff.), as an introduction to which he has moved forward the call of the twelve (Mk. 3:13ff.). [(c)] Here also can be observed in detail Matthew's alteration of Mark's sequence; the two controversy sayings in Mt. 9:9-17 are out of place in a cycle of miracles and can be accounted for only on the ground that this is where they occur in Mark. [(d)] Very significant likewise is the comparison of the parable chapter, Mk. 4:1-34, with Mt. 13:1-52: because Mt. 13:36-52 has been added even though the Markan sequence has been maintained, the explanation of the parable of the weeds has been separated from the parable itself by the parables of Mt. 13:31-33 and by a concluding statement in Mt. 13:34-35; further, a second concluding statement follows in Mt. 13:51. In (a), Kümmel's assumption that the ten miracle stories in Matthew chronologically occurring after the Sermon on the Mount were fed in there to illustrate a verse (Mt 4:23) mentioning that Jesus healed diseases before the Sermon doesn't make much sense. It does makes sense that Jesus gained considerable fame from his healing miracles preceding the Sermon, thus explaining the crowds that developed during the Sermon. Unjustified is Kümmel's assumption that the writer of Matthew brought together in chapters 8 & 9 the miracle stories scattered within a wider range of Mark. A plausible reason for the reverse to have occurred was not seriously considered by Kümmel: namely, that which is explained in MAH-F.2. Apparently, Kümmel's only "justification" for his assumptions was the unawareness that a good solution (the MAH) does exist. To ignore the present, obvious, solution he would have had to argue that the writer of Mark, who must have been engaged in the evangelization of gentiles in Rome, would not be greatly disturbed by Matthew's stance that gentiles were unworthy of discipleship. Further, Kümmel would have had to assume that, despite Mark's anti-Jewish text relative to Matthew, its writer was not part of an anti-Jewish Christian community in Rome (MAH-B.). Regarding (b), the reverse seems more plausible. It is only realistic that Jesus would instruct his disciples as to their mission soon after he had appointed all twelve (Mt 10:1). In Mark, they are appointed and named at Mk 3:13-19 but not issued their instructions until Mk 6:7. A reason why the writer of Mark delayed giving the disciples their mission instructions and sending them out could be so that his inserted verse concerning the return of the disciples (Mk 6:30, not in Matthew) would have a close connection to their having been sent out. Regarding (c), Kümmel seems to be saying that in Mt 8-9 the two controversy stories don't belong there because this section of Matthew should contain only miracles. But this makes no sense given that (Hebraic) Matthew could indeed have preceded Mark, and that, all along, Jesus was teaching as well as healing. Four other non-healing and non-miracle events occur in Mt 8-9 as well as the two controversy stories. In (d), Kümmel's complaint is that Matthew's explanation of the parable of the weeds did not come immediately after his telling of the parable. However, the purpose of speaking in parables is to make one's listeners think, so it's understandable if Jesus usually did not explain a parable after speaking it, even to his disciples. Kümmel implies that he should always have explained them. The explanation of the parable of the weeds indeed stands out as a Matthean redaction (e.g., see Beare, 1981, pp. 311-313). However, within the Augustinian or MAH framework, the writer of Matthew had a source other than Mark. His insertion of an explanation for this parable is taken to be one of many redactions made upon his source (MAH-H.). In the above, Kümmel is seen to have had nothing at all of substance to suggest that Markan priority should be preferred over Matthean. A comparison of the order of all Markan verses placed alongside the full sequence of their Matthean parallels discloses less irregularity in order than if Matthean verses are ordered against the full sequence of their Markan parallels. These two comparisons are shown here. This is another indication of Matthean priority that falls under the heading "sequence of incidents." Kirby then presents argumentation that apparently comes from a reprint of H. G. Wood (1953-54). His first quote from Wood (p. 18), whose article is a rebuttal to Butler (1951), is: Unfortunately, Dom Butler does not examine the question of order in detail. If he had done so, he would almost certainly have been forced to recognize that again and again Mark's order is original and Matthew's secondary and derivative. Indeed, one clear instance would suffice. In Mk. I, the call of the first four disciples is followed by the entry of Jesus into Capernaum. The scene in the synagogue on the Sabbath is linked with the healings at sunset. Because it was Sabbath, the people waited till the Sabbath was over before bringing their sick to be healed. The series of events reads like Simon's recollection of his first Sabbath with the Master. Of this interconnected series, Matthew has only the call of the four disciples and the healing of Simon's mother-in-law, followed by healings at sunset. The call of the four disciples is related in ch. 4, and the other two incidents are related in ch. 8 after the healing of the centurion's servant. By linking the healing of Simon's mother-in-law with the healing of the centurion's servant Matthew gets the place right. He brings Jesus in to Capernaum and so into the house of Peter, but he misses the note of time. He does not hint that these two cures took place on the Sabbath, as he has omitted the scene in the synagogue. Consequently, there is no point in his saying that the cures on a large scale took place 'at even.' Only if the healing in Simon's house took place on the Sabbath would the people have waited till sunset before bringing their sick to be healed. Mark doesn't include the healing of the centurion's servant of Mt 8:5-13, so one does not know if it had occurred on a Sabbath or not. It is perfectly permissible that the day of the week when Jesus entered Capernaum was not recalled or indicated by the writer or dictator of Matthew's source, and hence is not mentioned in Matthew. However, it may well have been so indicated in Mark's limited source, Ur-Mark (MAH-F.2.). Recall there that the events generally found in Mt 8-11 are the ones deduced to have been chronicled in Ur-Mark, but may or may not have been placed within the proper temporal framework when utilized by the writer of Mark. On the other hand, as recalled years later when Matthew's source was written, the events may not all have been remembered and included there in proper order at that later time. Thus, Mark may or may not hold priority here over Hebraic Matthew. Kirby then brings forth another point from Wood: Wood provides another example in which Markan priority is demonstrated in the arrangement of material. In Mk 2:1-3:6, there are "a series of incidents, not necessarily connected in time or place, but linked together by the theme of the growth of Pharisaic opposition" (op. cit., p. 81 [p. 18 in Wood, 1953]). Wood finds it difficult to believe that Mark drew his material from Matthew because Matthew places the first three incidents in chapter 9 and the other two in chapter 12 (op. cit., p. 82): "Again, the probable conclusion is that the order is original in Mark and that Matthew took it over from Mark but failed to perceive the connexion between the first three and the last two incidents." However, it is at least as possible that the order in Matthew is essentially correct, and that the writer of Mark greatly altered the order of Matthean pericopes occurring up to Mt 12, from which point onwards he maintained Matthew's order except for inserting some isolated verses occurring earlier in Matthew. As is set forth in MAH-F.2., he had reason to do so in that in Rome he had use of Ur-Mark, whose text though it did not extend beyond that of Mt 12 gave him impetus to make most of his rearrangements in this portion of the text. And Mark's writer had the additional reason given by the MAH of desiring his gospel to differ from Matthew in all ways possible (MAH-D). It stands to reason that a pro-gentile anti-Jewish evangelist dedicated towards writing a gospel acceptable to gentiles that could replace his anti-gentile Matthean source, upon which he was forced to depend for nearly all his material, would ensure that his gospel would look different from Matthew. The following is also taken from Wood (1953, p. 19), concerning Mark's use of an "a b b a" arrangement of material, or chiasmus, in two incidents, and Matthew's spoiling of it. We have: For though Matthew's narrative is affected by the marshaling of events in this order these two blocks as arranged in Mark are not to be found in Matthew. In the first instance, Matthew's narrative has b b a. He appends the repudiation of his relatives by Jesus to the criticism of the Pharisees, and Jesus' answer to them. But the first part of Mark's a b b a is missing [from Matthew]. In consequence, the reason for Jesus' refusal to speak to His relatives is left unexplained, and His apparent discourtesy becomes unintelligible. Nor is there any ground in Matthew for associating this incident with what immediately proceeds. The connexion of the intervention of the relatives with the verdict of the scribes, which is patent in Mark, is lost in Matthew. The conclusion seems inevitable. The order is original in Mark; it is secondary and derivative in Matthew. This first incident is in Mk 3:19b-30, with a-b-b-a as described by Wood: a - Jesus went home, where friends wished to arrest him for being crazy, and scribes said he was possessed by Beelzebul; b - Jesus responds with his Satan parable; b - He continues responding regarding the forgiveness or not of sins and blasphemies; a - His relatives arrive and Jesus explains who his true relatives are. It may be argued that in the first "a" his relatives weren't among those who wished to arrest him, so the last "a" doesn't pertain to the people in the first "a," or else, if his relatives were present for the first "a", why were they not still present for the second "a" but instead had to arrive for it? I believe the more striking chiasmus relates Mk 3:21 ("He is beside himself") and Mk 3:30 ("for they had said 'He has an unclean spirit'"). Hence it is not clear that this example of Wood's is at all a good one. However, his point is that Matthew (Mt 12:23-24) lacks any parallel to the first "a". But considering the imperfection of Wood's "a-b-b-a" here, and the plausibility of the MAH that the writer of Mark inserted a strongly anti-Jewish episode here (by those who said "He is beside himself") (MAH-D.2.), Wood's above argument is not at all convincing. A more typical argument of reversibility would contend that the writer of Mark noticed that Matthew, at Mt 12:46, was missing the mention of a house earlier, and so he supplied it (or a home), along with friends and presumed relatives, at Mk 3:19b-21. The MAH prefers the former explanation. Concerning Mark's story on the mission of the Twelve, Kirby extracts this from Wood (1953, p. 19): Matthew records the mission of the Twelve in ch. 10. He nowhere troubles to mention their return. Much later in ch. 14 he records the judgment of Herod that Jesus is John the Baptist risen from the dead, and relates the story of the death of John the Baptist. He follows this with the withdrawal of Jesus to the desert and the feeding of the multitude. Here, again, Matthew seems to have had Mark's pattern a1, b, b, a2, before him, but having separated a1 from the rest of the block, he has no real grounds for following b b by a2, and he proceeds to make a quite impossible connection between b and a2. Misunderstanding his source and the situation, he assumes that the death of John the Baptist took place just before the feeding of the multitude and is the occasion for the withdrawal of Jesus to the wilderness. He tells us that the disciples of John buried John's body and went and told Jesus who, on hearing this, withdrew to a desert place apart. But manifestly the death of John the Baptist had taken place some time before the Twelve set out on their mission and before Herod could say of Jesus, this is John the Baptist risen from the dead. The juxtaposition of the story of the death of John the Baptist with the story of the feeding of the multitude is original in Mark. Mark is not correcting a blunder in his source, presumed to be Matthew. Matthew is misunderstanding a succession of incidents which he found in his source, which appears to be Mark. Some of this has already been discussed under Styler. Let us extend the Table utilized there: Matthew 10:1-5, 14:1-3,11-13,15-21 Mark 6:7,14-17,29-31,35-44 10:1-5And he called to him his twelve disciples... a1 7And he called to him the twelve These twelve Jesus sent out and began to send them out... 14:1At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus; b(1) 14King Herod heard of it; for Jesus' fame had become known. 2and he said to his servants, "This is John the Baptist, he had been Some said, "John the Baptist has been raised from the dead; raised from the dead; that is why these powers are at work in him." that is why these powers are at work in him." ... 16But when Herod heard of it he said, "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised." 3For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison b(2) 17For Herod had sent and seized John, and bound him in prison 11and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, 28and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl; and she brought it to her mother. and the girl gave it to her mother. 12And his disciples came and took the body and buried it, 29When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb. and they went 30The apostles returned to Jesus, a2 and told Jesus. and told him all that they had done and taught. 13Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat 31And he said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place apart to a lonely place..." 15-21[Feeding of the Five Thousand] 35-44[Feeding of the Five Thousand] The above shows the manner in which Wood seems to have designated his a-b-b-a here. This MAH concedes that the failure of Matthew to mention the return of the Twelve may have been an oversight of Matthew's source. However, if the disciples had gone their various ways between Mt 11:1 and 12:1, they could not have been called back at any one time, as if they all had cell phones. Whether they had gone out singly or in twos, they must have returned at different times after feeling they could do little in comparison with their Lord, and after inquiring around concerning Jesus' latest known location or returning to Capernaum and waiting for him to show up there. The MAH view is that the writer of Mark did notice that Matthew fails to mention when or how the disciples returned to Jesus. This would not have been overly perceptive of him, since Matthew mentions John's disciples at that point, which could prompt Mark's writer to wonder what happened to Jesus' disciples. He then did correct this Matthean "blunder" in Mk 6:30, where it is notable that no particular accomplishments of the apostles were mentioned. He added to his editing here by shifting the "going away alone" from Jesus to the disciples, so that it would not be inferred that Jesus had gone off in grief or fear over John's beheading, as can be inferred from Matthew. Whether Jesus went away with or without his disciples is unclear in Mark, however, since it is said there that the disciples went away alone, yet soon thereafter they seem to have returned to shore in the same boat with Jesus - the same boat that the crowd had been following from shore knowing that Jesus was aboard. Such incongruity appears to have been the result of careless editing by the writer of Mark. Kirby also presents material from Styler that has already been addressed above. Then under the topic, "The Argument from Grammar and Aramaisms," he presents this argument from Streeter (1964): [(a)] Matthew and Luke regularly emend awkward or ungrammatical sentences; sometimes they substitute the usual Greek word for a Latinism; and there are two cases where they give the literary equivalent of Greek words, which Phrynichus the grammarian expressly tells us belonged to vulgar speech. [(b)] Lastly, there are eight instances in which Mark preserves the original Aramaic words used by our Lord. Of these Luke has none, while Matthew retains only one, the name Golgotha (27:33); though he substitutes for the Markan wording of the cry from the cross, "Eloi, Eloi..." the Hebrew equivalent "Eli, Eli..." as it reads in the Psalm (Mk. 15:34 = Mt. 27:46 = Ps. 22:1). Regarding (a), an argument also made by Kümmel, we have several times already mentioned that since Mark followed Semitic Matthew, Mark indeed was the first gospel written in Greek, thereby allowing the likelihood that its Greek was the least refined (MAH-D.5.). Regarding (b), see under Blomberg, or under MAH-F.2. Under the topic, "The Argument from [Mark's] Harder Readings," we have repeatedly shown how this supports Matthean priority over Mark (MAH-C. and MAH-D.2.). Under the topic, "The Argument from Redaction," Kirby presents some interpretations from Stein (1987) within the website of Daniel Wallace that have not been discussed in preceding analyses in this web page. In Mt 24:14, there is the unparalleled statement, "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come." This is to be seen as a piece of Matthean redaction, fitting with the theme of spreading the gospel to all nations (cf. Mt 28:19). But this sentence finds no parallel in either Mark or Luke. Actually, one does find a Markan parallel (Mk 14:10), within its "Little Apocalypse": "And the gospel must first be preached to all nations." The thought omitted from Matthew is, "and then the end will come." Perhaps the writer of Mark did not wish the end to come immediately after his gospel was preached to all? In Mk 13:18, we find the statement, "Pray that it may not happen in winter." In Mt 24:20, we find, "Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath." The Matthean version is a relatively awkward construction, as one might expect the writer to choose one or the other: either winter or the sabbath. The addition also fits Matthew's redactional aims, and thus it is more plausible to see the Markan version as primary. This has already been shown not to be any indicator of priority - see under Ehrman. Elsewhere, the argument is made that the more awkward construction is the earlier one! The complete MAH does indicate, however, that Mt 24:20 is a Matthean insertion relative to its non-Markan source (MAH-H.). Twice in Matthew we find the laconic phrase "You have said so" on the lips of Jesus, in response to Judas in Mt 26:25 and in response to the high priest in Mt 26:24. These are in passages that are otherwise almost identical between Matthew and Mark. It is easier to understand them as Matthean additions to the Markan account than to think that the author of Mark would have noticed and excised the Matthean phrase in both cases. This argument is quite reversible, as it is just as easy to understand them as omissions in Mark so as to portray Jesus as the dominating authority (MAH-D.3.). "You have said so" instead shifts the attention to the other person. Certain Markan additions indicate this theological slant, such as Mk 11:16 - "and he would not allow any one to carry anything through the temple." Under the topic, "The Argument from Theology," Kirby presents arguments from one of the books of J. A. Fitzmyer, as follows: What sort of early theologian does Mark turn out to be if his account is based on Matthew and Luke? Having behind him the certainly more developed Christologies and ecclesiologies of Matthew and Luke, what would be his purpose in constructing such a composition? There is an unmistakable Markan theology, with which one has to cope, as is now evident from the study of the Redaktiongeschichte of the second Gospel. But that this was produced by an abbreviation of Matthean and/or Lukan theologies is incomprehensible to most students of the Synoptics. The students Fitzmyer had in mind did not attempt to confront the theology and attitude of the writer of Mark that becomes obvious when Mark is allowed to depend upon (Hebraic) Matthew (MAH-C. and MAH-D.1.-2.). Though this attitude is deplorable, it is in no way incomprehensible. Kirby then makes use of Streeter (1964): Streeter suggests one way in which the more primitive theology of Mark is suggested: This confirms the conclusion, to which the facts mentioned already point, that the Markan form is the more primitive. Of these small alterations many have a reverential motive. Thus in Mark, Jesus is only once addressed as "Lord" kurie, and that by one not a Jew (the Syrophoenician). He is regularly saluted as Rabbi, or by its Greek equivalent didaskale (Teacher). In Matthew kurie occurs 19 times; in Luke kurie occurs 16, epistata 6 times. This has been well answered primarily by the role played by the translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek (MAH-G.); see also under Stein and the 16 following counter-examples there of Mark's upgrading of Matthean theology. Both Matthew and Luke show clear concern for the ongoing role of the church. By contrast, as Norman Perrin argues, the Gospel of Mark shows no concern for a period of time between the resurrection and the parousia. It is difficult to understand how Matthew could have written the "Little Apocalypse" yet also be concerned for the authority of Peter and the mission to all the nations. It is even more difficult to understand why Mark, presumably the later evangelist, would evince no such ecclesiastic concerns. The evidence is best explained on the hypothesis that Mark was the first of the synoptics and was written shortly after the First Jewish Revolt when expectations of the imminent parousia were very strong. Matthew and Luke were written when the ongoing role of the church had become more important because the expectations of the parousia had been pushed forward. Here Kirby needed to have written more so as to make this understandable. Mark's "Little Apocalypse" (Mk 13, arguably an abbreviation of Mt 24) does show much concern, in at least 24 verses, for the future of the disciples (after the resurrection), and for others. And this includes Mark's parallel to Mt 24:14 (Mk 13:10) that states: "and the gospel must first be preached to all nations," which constitutes quite an ecclesiastical concern. One of the reasons for understanding that Mark depends upon Matthew here concerns the parenthetical insert in Mk 13:14 - But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. This parenthetical insert occurs in the Matthean parallel also (Mt 24:15), where it includes the clauses: "...sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place." It then provides enough information for the reader to understand, if he is familiar, or becomes familiar, with Daniel (Dn 9:27, 11:31 and 12:11). Hence Matthew's parenthetical insert makes sense. However, the Markan verse omits these clauses, apparently in keeping with its writer's desire to minimize dependence upon the Jewish scriptures (MAH-D.1.). In so doing, the parenthetical insert that is retained in Mark does not let the reader understand anything. And its wording "where it ought not to be" appears very much as his replacement for Matthew's "holy place" in order to cover up Markan ignorance or uncertainty of what this holy place was. (It was the great altar of the temple in Jerusalem upon which Antiochus IV Epiphanes built an altar to Zeus, according to Beare (1981, p. 468).) Kirby's presentation then ends with "The Argument from Content," whose points have been discussed previously in the above critiques and found to be wanting when compared against the MAH. References Beare, Francis W. (1981), The Gospel according to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper & Row). Blomberg, Craig L. (1997), Jesus and the Gospels (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman). Blomberg, Craig L. (2001), "The Synoptic Problem: Where we stand at the start of a new century," in Rethinking the Synoptic Problem, D. A. Black and D. R. Beck, eds. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic), pp. 17-40. Brown, Raymond E., and John P. Meier (1983), Antioch & Rome (New York: Paulist Press). Burkett, Delbert (2004), Rethinking the Gospel Sources (London: T & T Clark International). Butler, B. C. (1951), The Originality of St Matthew (Cambridge, UK: The University Press). Butler, B. C. (1969), "The Synoptic Problem," in A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, R. C. Fuller et al., eds. (Nashville, TN: Nelson), pp. 815-821. Cope, Lamar (1976), Matthew: A Scribe Trained for the Kingdom of Heaven, Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America), pp. 111-114. Deardorff, James W. (1992), The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins (New York: Mellen Research University Press). Dungan, David Laird (1999), A History of the Synoptic Problem (New York: Doubleday), pp. 369, 384-385. Ehrman, Bart D. (1997), The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (New York: Oxford University Press). Ehrman, Bart D. (2004), A Brief Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press). Esler, Philip F. (2005), "Rome in Apocalyptic and Rabbinic Literature," in The Gospel of Matthew in its Roman Imperial Context, J. Riches and D. C. Sim, eds. (New York: T & T Clark). Farrer, Austin (1955), "On Dispensing With Q," in Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of R. H. Lightfoot, D. E. Nineham (ed.), (Oxford, UK: Blackwell ), pp. 55-88. Goodacre, Mark (1998), "Fatigue in the Synoptics," New Testament Studies 44, pp. 45-58. Goodacre, Mark (2002), The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and Synoptic Problem (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press Int.), chap. 7. Also, see his "Ten Reasons to Question Q" and "Fallacies at the Heart of Q". Goodman, Martin (1987), The Ruling Class of Judaea (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press). Goulder, Michael D. (1989), Luke: A New Paradigm, vols. 1 & 2 (Sheffield, UK: JSOT Press). Goulder, Michael (1996), "Is Q a Juggernaut?", Journal of Biblical Literature 115, pp. 667-681. Guthrie, Donald (1965), New Testament Introduction (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press). Head, Peter (1997), Christology and the Synoptic Problem: An Argument for Markan Priority (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press). Hubbard, Benjamin J. (1981), in review of The Vision of Matthew by John P. Meier, JBL 100, pp. 121-122. Jameson, H. G. (1922), The Origin of the Synoptic Gospels (Oxford: Blackwell). Kümmel, Werner Georg (1966), Introduction to the New Testament, 14th ed., (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press). Mann, C. S. (1986), in The Anchor Bible: Mark, vol. 27 (New York: Doubleday & Co.), p. 220. McKnight, Scot (2001), "A generation who knew not Streeter," in Rethinking the Synoptic Problem, D. A. Black and D. R. Beck, eds. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic), pp. 65-95. New, David S. (1997), Old Testament Quotations in the Synoptic Gospels and the Two-Document Hypothesis (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press). O'Neill, J. C. (1974-75), "The Synoptic Problem," NTS 21, p. 273f. Parker, Pierson, (1983), "The Posteriority of Mark," in New Synoptic Studies, W. R. Farmer, ed., (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press), pp. 67-142. Patton, Carl S. (1915), Sources of the Synoptic Gospels (London: The Macmillan Company), pp. 13-16. Stein, Robert H. (1987), The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House). Stein, Robert H. (1992), "The Matthew-Luke Agreements against Mark: Insight from John," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 54, pp. 482-502. Streeter, Burnett Hillman (1964), The Four Gospels (London: Macmillan Co, first published in 1924). Styler, G. M. (1982), "The Priority of Mark" in The Birth of the New Testament, Excursis IV by C.F.D. Moule, 3rd ed (San Francisco: Harper and Row), pp. 285-316. Tuckett, C. M. (1992), "The Synoptic Problem," in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 6, D. N. Freedman, ed (New York: Doubleday), pp. 263-270. Tuckett, Christopher M. (1996), Q and the History of Early Christianity (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson), p. 28. Wood, H. G. (1953-54), "The priority of Mark," Expository Times 65, pp. 17-19. Zahn, Theodor (1909), Introduction to the New Testament, v. 2 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1909), pp. 570-612. Go Back to: Introductory Section Website Contents Major Biblical problems and questions the TJ allows us to solve It is handy to have a list of the major Biblical problems for which the TJ allows us to deduce true solutions. Although the Mt-TJ verse comparisons include some of these, they mainly present the minor discrepancies and problems within the Gospel of Matthew with which scholars are primarily concerned. The major questions are what most concern the non-scholar or layperson. Their answers are found within this website. Is Genesis 6:1-2 more than just a metaphor: When men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose. Were the gospels written by the men whose names are attached to them? Who wrote the source for the first Gospel? Why weren't the Gospels referred to by name prior to about mid-2nd century? What gave rise to the tradition that the Gospel of Mark is connected to the disciple Peter? Was there something to the "immaculate conception?" Was the angel Gabriel, who figures prominently in Luke 1:26-38, involved with it? Why does Luke imply that the year of birth of Jesus/Jmmanuel was in A.D. 6 while Matthew implies it was a year or two before 4 B.C.? Which gospel is correct? Why was his name said to be Jesus if the Isaiah prophecy was for a messiah with the name Immanuel? Why do so many biblical events seem like they involve UFOs and ETs? This includes the star of Bethlehem, the angels, whether seen in dreams or real life, the voice coming down from the heavens during the baptism at the river Jordan, and the Ascension. Why do the Old Testament and Matthew portray God as a male being, who can wrestle with Jacob or sit on his throne, while in the Gospel of John (4:24) "he" is spirit? Is God a physical, humanoid male or a spiritual consciousness? Were all or most of those miraculous healings by Jesus/Jmmanuel actually real? How could he do it? Why does Matthew's version of the healings usually read like a remembered version of events, with some details forgotten, in comparison with Mark's version? Why do some Gospel verses indicate that the "kingdom of God/heaven" is a present place in the sky, while others indicate it is a future realm to be? Why are there some verses in Matthew that imply Jesus/Jmmanuel was speaking about reincarnation? And why are there other verses that sound like admonitions based upon karma? Why do some Gospel verses say that Jesus/Jmmanuel would come again soon, or the End Days would be soon, while others indicate that the end would not come until much later? Why does the Holy Communion sacrament of bread and wine (body and blood) so strongly resemble the ancient ritual stemming from Mithraism? What was the true significance of the sign of Jonah (Jonah in the "whale")? How were the detailed words of Jesus/Jmmanuel within the Gospels known in those circumstances when no witnesses were around to hear them? How can we explain the betrayal of Jesus/Jmmanuel by Judas Iscariot for a mere 30 pieces of silver when, as treasurer of the Twelve, he would frequently have collected much more than that? How does one account for the appearances of Jesus/Jmmanuel to his disciples after his entombment, with a body having crucifixion wounds partially healed, and with an appetite for eating fish? Why did Saul/Paul, before his conversion, pursue and persecute the disciples if he had never met Jesus/Jmmanuel or heard him teach? How did Saul know, during his conversion event, that it was really Jesus/Jmmanuel who was speaking to him, if he had never heard his voice before, and was blinded by the light? How come the men with Saul also heard the voice, on the Road to Damascus? Why are there so many traditions indicating that Jesus/Jmmanuel, along with mother Mary and Judas- Thomas, traveled through Anatolia and eastward to India and Kashmir, in years following the crucifixion? Return to: Contents GOSPEL CLUES OF MARY'S VANISHING FROM THE SCENE IN PALESTINE One cannot expect that the Gospels would in any outward way confirm that within a couple of years after the crucifixion mother Mary had departed with Jesus and two others on journeys that would eventually lead them to northern India and the Kashmir region! However, one can examine the clues of how Mary is treated within the Gospels, following the crucifixion, to ascertain if their treatment is consistent with her having partaken in these travels and having therefore been fully aware that her son had not died on the cross or been resurrected. Within the Gospel of Matthew. Within Mt 28:1 one finds the peculiarity that at the tomb on the first day of the week (Easter Sunday), the two people there, besides the Roman guards, are listed as Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary." This "other" Mary is not identified explicitly as Jesus' mother other than being Mary the mother of James and Joseph mentioned 11 verses earlier. Presumably, then, she is the mother of Jesus, since in Mt 13:55 James and Joseph, in that order, are listed as being Jesus' brothers. Although there were two others named James who were disciples, and one of their mothers could conceivably have been the Mary in question, neither of those two disciples is mentioned in conjunction with a Joseph. So why did the writer of Matthew decide to leave the identity of Jesus' mother Mary somewhat ambiguous at this point in his gospel? Why would he spell out Mary Magdalene's name but refer secondarily to the "virgin" mother of Jesus merely as "the other Mary"? These two Mary's are the ones whom the "angel" instructs to relay the good news to the disciples. In another spot within the Gospel of Matthew there is a rather peculiar omission that is rather similar -- at Mt 13:54, where the name "Nazareth" is omitted and the more ambiguous phrase "his own country" appears. In my unpublished paper on Nazareth, I explore the very strong possibility that the writer omitted "Nazareth" here as his punishment for that town having taken offense in Jesus and rejecting him. This possibility was bolstered by the likelihood that 5 verses later the name "Nazareth" was again omitted, for the same reason, and this omission caused a certain "flashback" problem connected with the story of Herod and John the Baptist that various scholars have been concerned with. Thus there is precedence within Matthew for that writer having omitted a name when that name involved a topic that was disgraceful, and when otherwise the name should have been treated with respect or even reverence. We must keep in mind that from the present viewpoint this writer had the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) in front of him while composing Matthew (this appears to be the document that Bishop Papias later referred to as the Logia). He could therefore read on to see that Jmmanuel survived the crucifixion, a while later traveled on to live incognito in Damascus for a couple years, and then sent for his mother Mary, his brother Thomas (Judas Thomas) and a disciple, when he was ready to depart the area for good. Evidently Jmmanuel felt that his mother would wish this, as arduous as the journeys would be, the implication being that (step-) father Joseph was either deceased or no longer around; or else he felt the responsibility of the oldest son for taking care of his mother. The TJ itself is completely consistent with this solution to the problem within Matthew, since comparison of the TJ with the Gospel of Matthew tells us all we need to know about that writer's editorial behavior. (For this and other reasons, in this present write-up you will see that the Gospels are discussed within what is known as the "Augustinian" framework -- of their order of appearance having been Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.) In the TJ, the Mary at the tomb is simply identified as the "mother of Jmmanuel," and as would be natural, is mentioned first with Mary Magdalene being mentioned second. And the TJ does make explicit mention of Nazareth in its text that Mt 13:54 and 14:1 parallel. It is easy to understand the dilemma the writer of Matthew was faced with, in trying to incorporate everything he could from the TJ, or the Logia, into his gospel, while weeding out everything unacceptable or heretical. In so doing, his own feelings could not help but enter in here and there. He evidently understood the reality of what he read on the scrolls in front of him, but knew that much of it was simply unthinkable for other Christians as well as for himself. Thus he appears to have felt that mother Mary's awareness of her son having survived the crucifixion, the worst possible Christian heresy, had disgraced her and required, at the least, that her role in the empty tomb story be minimalized. Thus he avoided mentioning her explicitly by name there. Within the Gospel of Mark. The TJ allows us to realize that the Gospel of Mark is an abbreviation of Matthew, just as the tradition stemming from the early church fathers maintains (with a certain exception discussed in my unpublished paper on Gospel priorities (see Sec. IV, Ref. No. 52). This writer, being located in Rome, had had no access to the TJ or Logia, and from the first few chapters of his gospel on needed to rely almost completely upon the Gospel of Matthew for his information. Yet in wishing his gospel not to look like any mere copy of Matthew, despite the fact that he wrote it in Greek while Matthew (at that time) was written only in Hebrew or Aramaic, he made numerous little alterations to what he extracted from Matthew, and added redundant phrases. In his crucifixion story (Mk 15:40) it was "Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome" who, along with Mary Magdalene, was looking upon the cross from afar, rather than "Mary the mother of James and Joseph." In his rendition of the empty tomb story (Mk 16:1), he continues to use these names, in identifying Mary, though omitting Joses. Evidently the writer of Mark contrived the name of the additional woman, Salome, here, and used the slightly different name Joses for Joseph. By such alterations as well as his many abbreviations, he caused his gospel to look somewhat different from Matthew. However, he would not have known about Mary's dishonor, and his alterations from Matthew's text seem not to have anything to do with it. Within the Gospel of Luke. From the TJ one may deduce that the writer of Luke, along with the writer of John, had had some access to the TJ. Those two appear to have been whom Papias referred to in saying that "each interpreted them [the Logia] as best he could," while it was the writer of Matthew who was the document's custodian. The writer of Luke apparently felt that Mary's disgrace should be implemented further by scarcely alluding to her identity at all. At the crucifixion one can only infer that she may have been one of the women who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee (Lk 23:49). On Easter morning one again can only infer that she had been among those who supposedly took spices to the tomb (Lk 24:1). Although it is mentioned in Luke that the women who reported the empty tomb to the disciples were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, this latter woman is now very ambiguous, since James is a common name and two disciples were named James. Thus the writer of Luke seems to have done the same thing that the writer of Matthew did, while more conclusively omitting mother Mary's identity from the women at the tomb. Is there precedence within Luke/Acts for its writer to have avoided a topic that holds disgraceful connotations for the church? I believe there is. For example, his story of Nazareth's rejection of Jesus (Lk 4:24-29) is totally different from that in Matthew and Mark; his story is not connected with the embarrassment of Jesus' failure or inability to have performed important miracles there. As another example, in Acts its writer loses track of Peter's whereabouts or actions about half way through (Acts 15:12), and thereafter concentrates on Paul. This is despite, or perhaps because of, the external evidence saying that Peter and (John) Mark had traveled to Rome where they possessed some written document that Peter did not urge forward. Thus Peter, with the aid of this document and Mark's linguistic abilities, was likely preaching a somewhat different gospel than did Paul, as is noted in Gal 1:6 and 2:14. So the likelihood exists that this disgraced Peter in the eyes of the writer of Luke/Acts, and caused him to omit all mention of Peter from a certain point onward. If this other gospel possessed by Peter in Rome is what may be inferred from the TJ, it would have contained parallels, in more vivid form, to the non-edited portions of Mt 8-11. It would have referred to Jmmanuel, not Jesus, and would not have treated him as a Son of God or forgiver of sins. This indeed would have opposed Paul's gospel. It could be that the writer of Luke inserted the following verses (Lk 11:27-28) for the same reason: As he said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!" But he said, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!" If Mary's role within the Gospels had not been so minimalized, it is very likely that the veneration of her, or Mariology, would have commenced sooner than in the 4th or 5th century. Within the Gospel of John. In this writer's story of the entombment, there is only one Mary present at the tomb, namely Mary Magdalene. Mother Mary is not mentioned there at all. So this also accords with the likelihood of Mary having incurred disfavor with those who had had the opportunity to read through the TJ scrolls. However, that writer went a step further and planted a story that would account for Mary's whereabouts within the Palestinian area thereafter, at Jn 19:26-27. There, he has mother Mary, along with two other Mary's, standing besides the cross along with the soldiers (which is most improbable), so as to receive the instruction that the disciple John would be like a son who would from then on take care of her in his own home. In that manner, rumors of Jmmanuel or Jesus having survived the crucifixion and traveled afar with mother Mary and others could be scotched. Other evidence. The many legends that report on Jesus, under different aliases, having traveled with mother Mary and a couple others through Anatolia and east to northern India and the Kashmir area are summarized in my unpublished paper on these traditions. Most of the traditions involving mother Mary were uncovered and brought forth by Muslim historians. Go Back to: Contents A Surprise Liberal Translation of Write-up by Philip McAiney in FIGU Bulletin #23 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., July 1999) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 On Saturday, the 9th of May, 1998 (during the lunch break of the Passive members of the General Assembly), Rita Keoughan and I were up around 1 pm on the upper part of the road at the Semjase Silver Star Center, 8495 Schmidrüti, and were having a cheerful time together. We both are Passive members of Canada, and traveled specially to the Passive Group annual general meeting the day before. While we talked, I said to Rita that I would like to have a photo of this place with both of us in it, and so I kept looking for someone who could take the desired picture. At this moment I saw Klaus Wenz, a German Passive member, on the street walking in the direction of Hamberg-Sitzberg. At our call Klaus joined us and was happy to take a picture of Rita and me. Rita gave Klaus her camera and with this he took the desired picture, whereupon I also gave Klaus my own camera, with which he again took a picture, so that Rita and I each had our own photo. When we were occupied with the photographing, we saw Bernhard Kellner, another German Passive member, walking along the same road where Klaus had just been walking. Rita immediately called to Bernhard and so he joined us and at our request took another picture with our cameras, in which now Klaus, Rita and I were to be seen. For fun, I said to Rita, "All we need now is a ship in the background," and they all laughed at my joke. After about a month Rita excitedly called me, back in Canada, and told me that her pictures had been developed and enlarged, and that she believed, in the picture that Bernhard took, a ship appears in the background. Quickly I looked at my photos of the same scene, but nothing, however, could be seen. Rita said that she would send me the image via email. Two minutes later I had the email with Rita's image and saw a small disk-shaped "cloud" in it. On my image it was not to be found, however, only on Rita's picture. I thought it impossible that a cloud could appear and disappear within only thirty seconds. At first I was delighted over the image, but I was uncertain, because I know that many people imagine they see UFOs, even when none exist. Rita explained to me that one of her friends could analyze this picture. Two weeks later Rita sent me an email with the image analysis. This showed that the supposed "cloud" might not be such because its center was very obviously metallic. Again I was delighted, but before I accepted what the analysis showed me, I wanted Billy to see the image, so that he could confirm for us that we had actually photographed a ship. I was much surprised that the one picture showed no "cloud," while on the next image taken only seconds later, it was yet so clearly and distinctly to be seen. Rita sent Klaus a copy of the photo, because he was also pictured in it and she wanted to bring him a piece of joy. He brought with him this photo on Saturday, the 8th of May, 1999, on the occasion of the Passive Group annual general meeting and showed it in the evening to Billy, who, on the basis of the enlargement, immediately confirmed to him that the alleged "cloud" was obviously a Pleiadian/Plejaren beamship. When Billy told me this the next day, I jumped up excitedly with joy on how my secret wish, which I had so spontaneously dressed in a joke, had been fulfilled so unexpectedly that I myself now, I felt, was the confirmation, which for me was as if the heavens had opened and our alien friends had given me a personal gift. The 9 May 1998 photographed object indeed involves - like further inquiry by the Pleiadians/Plejaren showed -- a beamship which belonged to the Pleiadian-Plejaren Federation and was in use by Ptaah and Florena. Regarding this, Florena stated the following, after she had examined the film negative in accordance with its possible interpretations and after two hours of work: Florena... The negative is not very good in terms of the object over the tree, but I was able with our devices to sharpen everything, so that the aircraft was clearly recognizable. It is undoubtedly our aircraft with which Ptaah and I were in your area on May 9th, 1998, at 13:00. We did not then use the aircraft that I usually use, but one well suited for our duties but not our associated techniques; it therefore exhibits some exterior differences. Above paragraph from Contact #272, 16 May 1999 Billy LIGHT YEARS: The Controversy over the Eduard "Billy" Meier Case by Jason Scott (~1987) In response to an ad in the January 23 issue of Publishers Weekly announcing the forthcoming publication of LIGHT YEARS, by Gary Kinder, both Kinder and his publisher received a flurry of letters and phone calls from UFO investigators across the country. The emotions registered in these calls and letters ranged from surprise to anger to indignation, but all those who wrote or called shared one trait: each was convinced that the Eduard Meier case was a hoax. One UFO group described LIGHT YEARS in a press release as "a glorification of patently phony UFO photographs." A representative of another UFO group wrote that if Kinder's publisher proceeded with the publication of LIGHT YEARS, they would be "guilty of perpetuating one of the greatest hoaxes in ufology." Yet another wrote that he hoped the publisher "will elect to include a disclaimer of some type, if not make an outright statement that this is fiction, not non-fiction." It is important to note that none of these correspondents had read a single word of LIGHT YEARS. Why do emotions run so high in the ufo community over the Meier case? What could compel these people to condemn a book they'd never read? A word of explanation is necessary. In 1979, the investigators on the Eduard Meier case -- Lee and Brit Elders, Tom Welch, and Wendelle Stevens -- published a photo journal titled UFO...Contact from the Pleiades. The book claimed that photographs, sound recordings, and metal samples offered by Meier as evidence of his experiences had baffled scientists. But it mentioned no names and quoted no reports. The book also maintained that many people in Switzerland had witnessed strange lights in the sky when Meier claimed to have a contact. But the investigators provided no names of witnesses, the UFO groups (who vie for such evidence) protested: The case was a hoax, they claimed, and the investigators had perpetrated a fraud. The groups published scathing articles about Meier in their monthly newsletters. But the evidence did exist, and it was analyzed by scientists, engineers, and a special effects expert, all with impeccable credentials. This is the part of the story the UFO community knows nothing about. Gary Kinder researched the Meier case for two years, beginning in the fall of 1983. Kinder conducted over 120 interviews, spending thirteen weeks in Switzerland to visit the alleged contact sights, speak with Meier and his family, track down witnesses, and talk to neighbors and town administrators. He also interviewed witnesses in Munich and London. In the States, he traveled several times to Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, San Jose, Washington, DC, and the Los Angeles area to speak with the people who investigated the case, the ufologists who called it a hoax, and the scientists who analyzed the evidence. Well into his research, Kinder realized that the Meier case had drawn such hostility from the UFO community for two reasons: First was Meier's sometimes preposterous claims, and the general reluctance of ufologists to believe any claim of contact, especially repeated contact; second was the investigators' refusal to release the evidence. (In 1979 and 1980, some of the articles on the Meier case suggested that evidence may indeed exist, but until the investigators produced some of that evidence, they deserved to be castigated by the UFO community. The Elders then offered to make material available for analysis, as long as it did not leave their possession. No one accepted their offer.) In the beginning, Kinder, too, doubted Meier's story for the typical reason: It couldn't be true. His editor gave him the option to quit the project at any time should he discover that Meier was a fraud; but Kinder found the story to be the most fascinating he had ever encountered. If the poor, one-armed farmer had faked the hundreds of clear, color, daylight photographs, the 8mm films, the sound recordings, the landing tracks, and the metal samples, no one knew how he did it; nor did anyone have an idea who could have been an accomplice. Many of the witnesses that Kinder interviewed in Switzerland described seeing things happen to Meier that no one could explain. Louise Zinsstag, cousin of famed Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and the most prominent of UFO researchers in Europe, visited Meier on several occasions and wrote of her experiences in a series of letters between June 1976 and October 1977. In one letter she called Meier "the most intriguing man I have ever met." In another letter she wrote, "If Meier turns out to be a fake, I shall take my whole collection of photographs to the ferry boat and drown it in the old man river of Basle." In the States, Kinder interviewed four scientists, two sound engineers, an astronautical engineer, a special effects expert, and the head of the photo lab at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, all of whom (unbeknownst to those in the UFO community) had analyzed or otherwise studied the Meier evidence. (A sampling of what they had to say is enclosed.) After submitting portions of the LIGHT YEARS manuscript to these scientists for their comments and suggestions for changes, Kinder received not only approval from each of them, but two of the scientists -- Dr. Michael Malin and Eric Eliason -- wrote that they were impressed with Kinder's objectivity in presenting the case. "Thanks for letting me see what you've written," said Malin. "It's a credit to your writing that I cannot tell whether you are a supporter or a detractor of Dilettoso, and of the claims of the people who supplied the UFO images." Eliason wrote, "Thank you for the accurate representation of my views on the Meier UFO photographs. If your LIGHT YEARS publication remains as objective as the pages you provided, I will look forward to reading what you have to say." In February of this year, Kinder sent an 8-page outline of his research into the Meier case to one of the UFO investigators who had contacted him in response to the Publishers Weekly ad. In early March he sent a slightly expanded version of this outline as an open letter to the UFO community (a copy is enclosed). So far the response has been encouraging. Jerome Clark, editor of the International UFO Reporter, wrote to Kinder saying, in part: "I can hardly wait to read your book I also look forward, by the way, to the reception your book gets from the ufological community. I think -- I know -- my colleagues are going to be astounded and confused. It really has been an article of faith among us (me included) that this whole business was just an exercise in heavy- handed fraud. But apparently you have shown it is rather more interesting than that. It's ironic. Ufologists forever complain that scientists and debunkers won't take an objective look at the UFO evidence. You have demonstrated, I think, that in this case the ufologists acted just like the people they criticize!" Mr. Clark then sent a letter to one of the UFO community's more vocal critics of the Meier case, in which he wrote: "After correspondence with Gary Kinder. . . and a follow-up phone conversation, I have concluded that our initial response -- i.e., anger and resentment -- to the announcement of his forthcoming book was unwarranted. There seems no doubt that Kinder has conducted by far the most through probe into this peculiar episode." As for Kinder himself, he remains fascinated but uncertain about the truth behind the Meier sightings. "I would not call him a prophet, though he may be," Kinder writes in LIGHT YEARS. "I would not rule out imposter, though I have no proof. I know that if you boiled the story in a kettle you would find a hard residue composed of two things: One would be Meier's ravings about time travel, space travel, philosophy, and religion; the other would be the comments by the scientists and engineers impressed with the evidence he has produced. I can't believe the former, nor can I dismiss the latter..." "Meier may simply be one of the finest illusionists the world has ever known, possessing not the power but the skill to persuade others to see things that did not happen and do not exist. Or, perhaps he has no such ability; perhaps beings on a much higher plane have selected him and used him for reasons far beyond our comprehension. I do know this: Trying to make sense of it all has been the most difficult thing I will ever do. Finally I realized, as the Elders had years before, that the truth of the Meier contacts will never be known." * * * * Now on to the substance of LIGHT YEARS. Many of the witnesses I interviewed in Switzerland, none of whom had ever been contacted by anyone in ufology, had seen things happen to Meier that no one could explain: Standing next to another man, he once disappeared instantly from the roof of a barn twelve feet off the ground; in a separate incident he suddenly reappeared, warm and dry, in a group of men standing in a dark and secluded forest in a freezing rainstorm. These scenes, associated with alleged contact experiences, appear in much greater detail in the book. They may be tricks, but if so they were performed by a master illusionist. When Meier claimed to have had a contact, sets of three six-foot diameter circles would appear in a meadow surrounded by thick woods. I did not see these myself, but I talked to several people who had seen them and who had photographed them while still fresh. Swirled counter-clockwise and perfectly delineated in tall grass, one set remained for nine weeks, until a farmer came and mowed the grass. Here is the mystery of the landing tracks: Grass that is green rises even after being mashed down; grass that dies turns brown and lies flat. This grass remained green but never rose; it continued to grow in a flat circle. The landing tracks puzzled everyone I spoke to who had viewed them, including Meier's most ardent detractor, Hans Schutzbach. Schutzbach told me that other people had tried to duplicate the landing tracks, but that their efforts were "a bad copy." Meier's were "perfect." I listened to dozens of such stories, so many I could not include all of them in the book, including nighttime sightings of strange lights reported by a variety of people, many of whom witnessed the same incidents and corroborated each other's accounts. One nighttime photograph, taken by a school principal from Austria during an alleged contact, will appear in the book. On the other side, I know that Meier's photos of the alleged future destruction of San Francisco, for instance, came right out of the September, 1977, issue of GEO Magazine. After one of the witnesses reported this to me, I found the magazine myself and compared the photographs. They were identical. All of this is in the book - the crazy claims, the apparent lies, the unexplained disappearances, the mysterious landing tracks, all weaved into the narrative. In London, Timothy Good provided me with many lengthy letters from Lou Zinsstag (who often had been pointed out by the ufologists in the States as one who thought that Meier was a fraud and "crazy"). Zinsstag had written the letters between June, 1976, and October, 1977, as she investigated Meier and reported back to Good. In one letter she calls Meier "the most intriguing man I ever met." She goes into great detail in her observations, including a description of "this feeling of discomfort" she experiences in Meier's presence. In another letter she writes, "If Meier turns out to be a fake, I shall take my whole collection of photographs to the ferry boat and drown it in the old man river of Basle." Back in the States I interviewed nine scientists, engineers, and special effects experts who had analyzed or otherwise studied the Meier evidence. (One, Bob Post, is none of the three, but heads the photo lab at JPL.) Following is a sampling of what they had to say. Realize that where the photos are concerned an original transparency was never available for analysis, so none of the work done on those was definitive (Spaulding himself told me he had no idea the generation of the photographs he analyzed); however, knowing this limitation, the scientists who did agree to examine them told me they would have been able to detect all but a very sophisticated hoax. Dr. Michael Malin is an associate professor of planetary sciences at Arizona State University; he wrote his doctoral thesis on the computer analysis of spacecraft images beamed back from Mars. He was at JPL for four years and he's worked with the special effects people at LucusFilm. He works under various government grants at ASU, and a recent experiment he devised has just been accepted for a future Shuttle launch. A friend of mine who is the science editor at National Geographic and who has researched and written many cover stories on the Universe, the Space Shuttle, etc., had spoken to Malin before and once told me, "If Malin says it, you can believe it." Here is one thing Malin said concerning the Meier photographs which he analyzed in 1981: "I find the photographs themselves credible, they're good photographs. They appear to represent a real phenomenon. The story that some farmer in Switzerland is on a first name basis with dozens of aliens who come and visit him...I find that incredible. But I find the photographs more credible. They're reasonable evidence of something. What that something is I don't know." Malin also told me, "If the photographs are hoaxes then I am intrigued by the quality of the hoax. How did he do it? I'm always interested in seeing a master at work." These quotes, and all of the rest of the quotes I attribute to the scientists here, appear verbatim in the book. Steve Ambrose, sound engineer for Stevie Wonder and inventor of the Micro Monitor, a radio set complete with speaker that fits inside Wonder's ear, analyzed the Meier sound recordings. "The sound recording's got some surprising things in it," he told me. "How would you duplicate it? I'm not just talking about how to duplicate it audio-wise, but how do you show those various things on a spectrum analyzer and on the 'scope that it was doing? It's one thing to make something that sounds like it, it's another thing to make something that sounds like it and has those consistent and random oscillations in it. The sound of the spacecraft," he added, "was a single sound source recording that had an amazing frequency response. If it is a hoax I'd like to meet the guy that did it, because he could probably make a lot of money in special effects." His findings were corroborated by another sound engineer names Nils Rognerus. In 1979 Dr. Robert Nathan at JPL was sufficiently impressed with the Meier photographs to have copies made of Meier transparencies at the JPL photo lab. After the transfer he refused to analyze the photographs, however, because his developer discovered they were several generations away from the originals. Nathan felt that the transparencies were so far away in generation from the photographs he had seen that Wendelle Stevens had attempted to trick him. Later, I showed the Meier films to Nathan, and he laughed at some of them, but he couldn't figure out how Meier flew the ship into a scene and had it come to a sudden halt; or how it could hover motionless while a pine branch in the lower right hand corner blows in a stiff wind. Nathan said, "He would have to be awfully clever, because that's a very steady holding. It would have to be very, very good tethering." Then he said, "Apparently he's a sharp guy, very clever. So he should be given some points for effort." Nathan concluded about the films, "If this is a hoax, and it looks like it is to me but I have no proof, this is very carefully done. Tremendous amount of effort. An awful lot of work for one guy." From all of the scientists, these were the most negative comments I received. With Nathan saying in theory the films could be hoaxed, I was curious about the logistics involved. Then I discovered that a special effects expert, Wally Gentleman, who for ten years had served as Director of Special Effects on the Canadian Film Board and who, for a year and a half, was director of special photographic effects for Stanley Kubrick's film 2001, had viewed these same films. This is what he told me: "To produce the films, Meier really had to have a fleet of clever assistants, at least 15 people. And the equipment would be totally out of (Meier's) means. If somebody wanted me to cheat one of the films, $30,000 would probably do it, but this is in a studio where the equipment exists. The equipment would cost another $50,000." That's for each of the seven Meier films. Gentleman also had examined the photographs. "My greatest problem is that for anybody faking this," (he pointed to one of the photographs), "the shadow that is thrown onto that tree is correct. Therefore, if somebody is faking it they have an expert there. And being an expert myself, I know that that expert knowledge is very hard to come by. So I say, 'Well, is that expert knowledge there or isn't it there?' Because if the expert knowledge isn't there, this has got to be real." Then there is Robert Post, who had been at the JPL photo laboratory for 22 years and was the head of that lab in 1979, when Nathan brought the Meier photos to him to have copies made. Post oversees the developing and printing of every photograph that comes out of JPL. Though he analyzed nothing, his eye for spotting fabrications far surpasses a lay person's. Post told me: "From a photography standpoint, you couldn't see anything that was fake about the Meier photo's. That's what struck me. They looked like legitimate photographs. I thought, 'God, if this is real, this is going to be really something.'" Besides working in the highly classified field of military defense, David Froning, an astronautical engineer with McDonnell Douglas for 25 years, has done exploratory research to develop ideas and technology for advanced spacecraft design. As a longtime member if the British Interplanetary Society and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, he has presented many papers on interstellar flight at technical conferences in Europe and the United States. In October, 1985, he addressed the XXXVI International Astronautical Congress in Stockholm. Froning's wife discovered at a friend's house the photo journal published by the Elders in fall, 1979, and took it home to her husband because of one word in the text - tachyon. In Meier's notes from 1975, he spoke of the tachyon propulsion system utilized by the Pleiadians. For over a year Froning had been spending most of his spare time working to design just such a theoretical system. When he read more of Meier's notes on faster-than-light travel (he had contacted the Elders and Stevens for more information), he found that Meier's figures for the time required to achieve the speed of light (at which point, according to Meier, the tachyon system would kick in to make the hyper leap), and the distance a ship would have traveled at that point, were within 20 percent of his own calculations determined through the use of complex acceleration formulas. Froning told me, "If what this Meier is saying is just a hoax, he's being cued by some very knowledgeable scientists. I've only discussed this Meier case with scientists who are fairly open-minded about interstellar flight, but I'll tell you, the majority of them think it's credible and agree with at least part, or sometimes all, of the things talked about by the Pleiadians." During my research I read an article from a British publication called The Unexplained, in which the author, referring to the alleged Meier metal analysis by Marcel Vogal at IBM, wrote, "Jim Dilettoso characteristically failed to further the cause by claiming that (the Elders) hold a 10-hour videotape of 'the entire lab proceedings' (which Dr. Vogal denies having made). 'And,' Delettoso incautiously persisted, 'we have about an hour of him discussing why the metal samples are not possible in earth technology, going into intrinsic detail of why it is not done anywhere on earth.'" The author, of course, is poking fun at such a claim. I have seen that video. I have also seen another video in which Vogel states, "I cannot explain the metal sample. By any known combination of materials I could not put it together myself, as a scientist. With any technology that I know of, we could not achieve this on this planet." I've interviewed Vogel twice and he insists that the metal sample he spent so much time analyzing is unique. I spoke with him again three weeks ago and to this day he remains fascinated with the specimen. He said that if the metal sample had not disappeared while in his possession, he would now be continuing research on it with a number of other scientists from IBM and Ames Research. A reporter from the Washington Post also called Vogel two days ago and Vogel again verified the above quote. With the exception of Vogel, and possibly Nathan, though he doesn't remember, none of these men had ever been interviewed by anyone in the UFO community. And Vogel even said to me on tape regarding one of the ufologists who did interview him about Meier: "Treat him with caution. He'll ramble on and he'll quote you out of context. So watch it." He also told me this same person "has taken my statements completely out of context and published them. This case has been badly mangled." In the book, I go into much greater detail with each of the scientists and engineers. I mention each by his real name (as I do everyone else in the story) and I include his place of employment. After completing the final draft of the manuscript I mailed to each of the scientists a packet which included everything in the manuscript pertaining to him. I asked that each make any corrections, technical or otherwise, he cared to make. I have heard back now from all of them either by mail or by phone during the past six weeks. Some had nothing to change, others made minor changes. Everything concerning their analysis of the evidence will appear in the book exactly as they have authorized it to appear. (Two weeks before sending his letter to my publisher attempting to persuade him not to publish LIGHT YEARS, Walt Andrus called me and we talked for forty-five minutes. During that conversation, I told Andrus of the comments made by the scientists. I gave him their names, I spelled the names for him, I gave him their places of employment, and I encouraged him to contact them for verification of their statements, three of which appeared in an ad for the book in "Publishers Weekly." Apparently, he never did so.) In this letter to me Michael Malin opened with this: "Thanks for letting me see what you have written. It's a credit to your writing that I cannot tell whether you are a supporter or a detractor of Dilettoso, and of the claims of the people who supplied the UFO images." Eric Eliason of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, is the ninth of the experts I spoke with. After receiving his packet, he wrote to me, "Thank you for the accurate representation of my views of the Meier UFO photographs. If your LIGHT YEARS publication remains as objective as the pages you provided, I will look forward to reading what you have to say." Eliason creates image processing software so astrogeologists can analyze photographs of the planets beamed back from space. He spent two years producing the intricate radar map of cloud covered Venus acquired by Pioneer 10, and his software has been applied in processing space photography beamed back by both Viking and Voyager. He was sent to France and to China as a representative of the U.S. Space Program and an expert in image processing. He had analyzed the Meier photos on his equipment in 1981. He told me in an interview in August, 1984: "In the photographs there were no sharp breaks where you could see it had been somehow artificially dubbed. And if that dubbing was registered in the film, the computer would have seen it. We didn't see anything." What would you do with evidence like this? Would you disagree it because Meier makes outlandish claims? Or because a ufologist reports that a colleague in Germany has a friend who saw ropes and pulleys hanging in Meier's barn? Or because Wendelle Stevens is a believer anyhow? Or because Wendelle Stevens is now in prison? Or because Meier has an 18-inch model of one of the Pleiadian beamships sitting in his office? Or because a group of believers has formed around the man? And if you had a choice between the analysis performed by Bill Spaulding at Ground Saucer Watch, on which would you stake your reputation? After all the bad- mouthing given the Meier case, I was surprised to learn that ufologists like Walt Andrus had never heard of Malin, or Eliason, or Gentleman, or Froning, or Ambrose, or even the alleged detractors in Switzerland Hans Schutzbach and Martin Sorge. Schutzbach was Meier's right-hand man for two years, with him night and day, driving him to contacts, organizing and cataloguing all of the photographs, measuring and photographing the landing tracks. Then they had a falling out, and Schutzbach left. He hates Meier and is certain Meier is a fraud; if anyone would know Meier's "technique" and be ready to divulge it, Schutzbach would be the man, yet to this day he has no clue how Meier could have made the tracks, or the photos, or the sound recordings, or the films. Nor does he have even one suggestion for an accomplice. Sorge, a cultured man with a university degree in chemistry and author of two books, had been mentioned frequently by ufologists as the one who discovered charred photographs and thereby exposed Meier as a fraud. He told me in the summer of 1985 that he is "certain" the contacts took place, though in a different fashion than Meier describes. He also told me the real story of how he obtained the burned slides. That, too, is much different than the version I got from ufologists here in the States. Again, all of this is in the book. One of the more interesting ironies in the current uprising of the UFO community against the publication of LIGHT YEARS is that every time someone slams the book (before it has been read) he points to Bill Spaulding and Kal Korff as the two authorities in whose skills the community places great faith. After all of the negative comments I have heard about Bill Spaulding's work from various members of the UFO community, why would anyone rely on his analysis of anything? Bill Moore, who is not known for his kind of feelings toward the Meier case or the people who investigated it, had this to say about Spaulding in an interview on March 25, 1985: "He's generally regarded by anybody in the field as somebody to ignore. It's all puffery. He wrote a paper on the analysis of photographs, and I have a critique of that paper by a scientist who knows what he's talking about, and he just rips it to shreds. It sounds good unless you know what the system is and then you realize that the guy's a phony." While Korff was young and inexperienced, these factors do not necessarily discredit his work. But I am certain that few ufologists have heard him say what he told me in an interview on April 13, 1985: "I'm even open to the possibility that Meier had some genuine experience somewhere in there," he said, "but there's so much noise around his signal that I don't even know how to sift it. I've always maintained that, yeah, maybe there's something to it. Most of the people who have read my work say, 'Ah, the Meier case is totally a hoax, there's nothing to it.' I say, 'The claims (Stevens and the Elders) have made don't hold up; but it's possible the guy may have something somewhere.'" After three years of researching and thinking about this story it finally came clear to me that two things kept the UFO community from taking a far more serious look at the Meier case: One, of course, is Meier's preposterous claims, and (in an ongoing effort to insulate itself from the fringe) the general reluctance of the community to accept any claim of contact, especially repeated contact; the other is that Lee Elders grabbed all of the evidence and sat on it. George Early, after reviewing the Elder's UFO...Contact from the Pleiadies, wrote in Saucer Smear that until the Intercep group produced some of the evidence they claimed to have, they deserved to be castigated by the UFO community. And Earley was right. So was Korff. The claims by themselves don't hold up. But the evidence in fact existed; I've talked to the people who examined it. None of the foregoing is offered as proof that Meier sat in a Swiss meadow and conversed with Pleiadians, but only to demonstrate that people intrigued by the Meier case, who see a fascinating story in the man, are not simplistic in their thinking. No one, including Stevens and the Elders, has ever claimed he possesses irrefutable evidence of the Meier contacts, and I do not make that claim now. No one in ufology can make that statement about any case. After I sent a letter similar to this one to Jerry Clark, he responded that while he continued to have serious reservations about Meier's claims to meet with extraterrestrials, he, too, found the Meier story "fascinating." "My colleagues are going to be astounded and confused," he wrote. "It really has been an article of faith among us (me included) that this whole business was just an exercise in heavy-handed fraud. But apparently you have shown it is rather more interesting than that. It's ironic. Ufologists forever complain that scientists and debunkers won't take an objective look at the UFO evidence. You have demonstrated, I think, that in this case the ufologists acted just like the people they criticize." You will find the book a balanced report that holds many surprises for you and other ufologists, and in no way degrades the stature of the UFO community or impedes its progress. Due to cooperation from many of you, the historical sections in LIGHT YEARS will provide readers with a true appreciation of the UFO phenomenon and those who study it. Like Jerry Clark, I myself remain fascinated with Meier, but uncertain about the truth behind the actual contacts. I end LIGHT YEARS with this: "I would not call him a prophet, though he may be. I would not rule out imposter, though I have no proof. I know that if you boiled the story in a kettle you would find hard residue composed of two things: One would be Meier's ravings about time travel, space travel, philosophy, and religion; the other would be the comments by the scientists and engineers impressed with the evidence he has produced. I can't believe the former, nor can I dismiss the latter. He may simply be one of the finest illusionists the world has ever known, possessing not the power but the skill to persuade others to see things that did not happen and do not exist. Perhaps he has no such ability; perhaps beings on a much higher plane have selected him and controlled him and used him for reasons far beyond our comprehension. I do know this: Trying to make sense of it all has been the most difficult thing I will ever to. Finally I realized, as the Elders had years before, that the truth of the Meier contacts will never be known." ** END ** The Meier case today The situation today (2011) is virtually unchanged from 10 or 15 years ago, except that the teachings Meier has received have been accumulating into an ever greater bibliography. And increasing numbers of his prophecies and predictions, many stemming from his Plejaren contactors, have come true. Because many ufologists have mistakenly assumed the UFO aspects of Eduard Meier's experiences to be a hoax, the case remains unsettled within the ufological community, which generally ignores him. Six hours of presentations by Meier-case investigators at the 8th Annual International UFO Congress in Laughlin, Nevada, in 1999, did remind listeners that the eyewitness testimony in support of the reality of his UFO experiences, dating back to 1963, is exceedingly strong, and many of his 35mm photos and 8mm movie films show features that defy hoaxing. Yet most leading ufologists cannot accept this, and continue their efforts to debunk the case whenever they perceive the necessity to do so. This "necessity" arises largely from the belief that ETs can not or should not be able to perform actions we cannot understand, and/or should not be intelligent enough to have a rational strategy of dealing with humankind that includes covertness in their interactions with selected individuals plus use of their highly advanced technology. Fear of ridicule from colleagues also contributes to their avoidance of the "Meier case." Hence the continuing controversial status of the case deters the news media from reporting on it and prevents it from becoming at all well known to the public at large. Similarly, the Talmud of Jmmanuel remains taboo for bible scholars to investigate and report seriously on, and this, combined with its heresies for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, deters the news media from bringing it to public attention. "Billy" Eduard A. Meier, 1995 Meier himself has long since ceased responding personally to the large numbers of visitors who seek him out each year to ask him questions, as years ago he has set in writing the answers to many questions, plus supplying voluminous details of his experiences with the ETs who told him they were from the Pleiades. He has made these writings, his beamship photographs and the Talmud of Jmmanuel available to interested persons. This is carried out primarily by his support group at Schmidrüti, Switzerland, known as FIGU, with some assistance from abroad. FIGU stands for "Freie Interressengemeinschaft für Grenz- und Geisteswissenschaften und Ufologiestudien," which in turn can be translated as "Free Community of Interests in Fringe and Spiritual Sciences and Ufological Studies." Some of FIGU's members also help protect his photographic evidence from the hands of those who would like to eliminate it. However, the possibility still exists for the sincere visitor to meet with Meier, especially if he wishes to further Meier's residence and explore, and help disseminate, the truth of Meier's experiences, findings and FIGU headquarters, 1988 teachings. FIGU members annually meet together at Meier's residence in May, when they may gain the opportunity to meet Meier or talk with him. One such visitor in April of 2004 was Matt Hurley, who was able to meet Meier and report back on how shipshape the residence is. As of 2007, Hurley is a civil servant in the government's Statistics Office in South Wales, UK, and author of The Alien Chronicles, which presents many of the paintings and art of the medieval and classical periods that quite clearly show saucer-shaped craft in the background. Meier continues to have contacts, both physical and telepathic, with different ETs from the region of the Pleiades, though not as frequently as in 1975-77. For example, on July 6, 2000, Silvano Lehmann, a FIGU member who resides and works at the Center at Hinterschmidrüti, and whom I met there in 1985, reported that he was just going outside when Billy Meier, in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee, suddenly yelled out to him that Billy with Matt in April 2004 Enjana (a Pleiadian/Plejaren) was just then passing over the FIGU Center. Meier had received this information telepathically. They both rushed outside and saw the beamship. It was 2:55pm on a nearly cloudless day. Meier rushed back in to get his camera, and Silvano took it and used its 200mm zoom lens in taking two or three pictures of it. One of these is shown here on the left. It was a distant object, and lacks the foreground and background scenery of Meier's 1975-76 photos. However, the facts that there was a witness besides Meier, and that the craft was distinctly saucer-shaped, are notable. Lehmann has documented this experience in German, and here is an English translation. Meier and his supporters have kept track of his main contacts, telepathic and otherwise, with different ETs over the years and carefully documented them. A handy tabulation of them, with references supplied, is reported here. To keep up on these and other subjects of most interest to Meier, his associated FIGU group and friends worldwide, periodic visits to his website are also recommended. One may do this also through the Michael Horn website of Michael Horn, who since about 2000 has been Meier's authorized media representative for the U.S. Return to: Contents Meier in September of 2008 Wednesday, July 13, 1977, 9:16 pm written by Billy Meier (in 3rd-person form) in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 170-71 a liberal translation by J. W. Deardorff, June 2011 Herbert, Mitcho, Jacobus, Hans and Billy were out preparing concrete on a clear, starry night, when suddenly, directly over Hinterschmidrüti, out of nowhere a strongly radiating, round light appeared at a very low height and slowly moved to the east. It was so nearby that one could almost grab it, so it seemed, and it moved very leisurely as if time were of no importance. The very brightly radiating object, of about football size [if it had been witnessed very close by], pulsed in a moderately slow-motion rhythm, only to suddenly flare up very glaringly. After about 30 seconds, as it was disappearing behind the fir trees on the range of hills to the east, Kalliope and Amata, with Atlantis calling out from behind, came running out of the house and were also able to still see the phenomenon. Concerning the anticipated question from Herbert to Billy, whether he knew what the ship or "thing" that flew by had involved, and whether he had perhaps picked up a telepathic call, he answered that this had not been the case. Though to be expected as a rule, it nevertheless didn't mean much because often it happens that Menara, Semjase and Quetzal or another of the Pleiadians or their friends fly by without informing him, yet minutes later transmit a dear greeting to Billy in telepathic form. So it was on this evening. After the flyby of the object, which had moved past at only a few hundred meters height, we all went back to work, for we very much wanted the concrete to be ready. But that lasted only six or seven minutes when Billy cried out to all and pointed to the sky where a telemeter disk was flying high above, which was followed at short intervals and from different directions by three more craft, including a turbojet, which flew by to the west at about 4000 meters height. Then it was quiet again, but for only a few minutes, for soon Billy came and explained to us that he should deliver us a very dear greeting from Semjase. Then, naturally, the questions flew, for we all knew that Semjase had been away for around four months, and this must be her first time back. So, naturally, the first question was whether the object flying by had been Semjase's ship, etc., which Billy confirmed with a grin. The girl [Semjase], so he explained, had sent him only a short greeting, and explained that it was just a quick flyby to greet us and inform us that now, after a long absence, she was again back. In addition, she would call Billy to a Contact in the coming days. Thus Semjase is again back, and we all are naturally extremely anxious to learn everything that she has to say and explain to us in the next and further Contacts. [Note: This account was first published in Stimme der Wassermannzeit. No. 18, (Aug.-Oct. 1977). Next, another report on the same event.] A Display, Who Flies There? written by Bernadette Brand in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 171-72 a liberal translation by J. W. Deardorff, June 2011 I had spent the whole day of July 13, 1977, at the Center in Hinterschmidrüti. That was the norm at that time, because I did not assume my new position in Bern until August 2nd. The day had been arduous, and I finished shortly before 21:00 hours to drive home. Then I still lived in my parents' house in Schottikon, a part of Räterschen, somewhat more than 20 kilometers distant from the Center. In around 20 minutes I could be at the house, and I looked forward to bed. The night was warm and the stars were out, when I drove into Waltenstein and up the hill by the old schoolhouse in order to get some gas at the level stretch of the hill. Scarcely was I past the schoolhouse when I had the strong feeling that I must stop. So strong was the impression that I stepped on the brake and pulled to the side of the road. Somehow I had the distinct impression that I was going to see something right away, and so it then was. Suddenly my seeking eyes fastened upon a bright, radiant light, about as bright as Venus, which moved in a southeasterly direction across the sky. A warm, trusting feeling flowed through me, and I was certain that some one of Billy's contact persons was sending me a greeting. For quite a while I could keep the object in sight over the unforested stretch of the hill, before it became ever smaller in the distance and disappeared into the darkness of the night sky. Pleased, I drove the final kilometer home. The next day I was not surprised to learn that it was Semjase's ship I had seen shortly after 21:00 hours. Instead, I was very glad that Semjase had noticed me on my homeward trip, and had sent me a thought impulse to make me happy. Dependence of Mark upon Matthew (Continued) 2. Mark's Order Relative to Matthew's If Mark's sequence of verses is ordered against Matthew's, using Matthew as the standard, we find a result like that shown below,[1] where dashes indicate Markan omissions, and where pericope divisions have often been ignored: A. MARK ORDERED AGAINST MATTHEW MATTHEW MARK | MATTHEW MARK | 1: 1 1:1 |10: 1 6:7 ** 2-25 -- | 2-4 3:16-19 ** 2: 1-23 -- | 5-8 -- 3: 1-6 1:2-6 | 9-12 6:8-10 ** 7-10 -- | 13 -- 11 1:7-8 | 14 6:11 ** 12 -- | 15-16 -- 13 1:9 | 17-22 13:9,11-13 ** 14-15 -- | 23-25 -- 16-17 1:10-11 | 26 4:22 4: 1-2 1:12-13a | 27-32 -- 3-10 -- | 33 8:38(?) 11-12 1:13b-14a | 34-40a -- 13-16 -- | 40b 9:37b ** 17-22 1:14b-20 | 41 -- 23 1:39 **| 42 9:41 ** 24 -- |11: 1-14 -- | 10b 1:2b ** 25 3:7b **| 15 4:23 ** 5: 1-12 -- |__ 16-30 __ --____________ 13 9:50 **|12: 1-4 2:23-26 14 -- | 5-7 -- 15 4:21 **| 8 2:28 16-48 -- | 9-16 3:1-8,10,12 6: 1-4 -- | 17-23 -- 5a 11:25a **| 24-26 3:22-26 6-13 -- | 27-28 -- 14-15 11:25b-(26) **| 29 3:27 16-34 -- | 30 9:40 ** 7: 1 -- | 31-32 3:28-29 2 4:24 **| 33-45 -- 3-21 -- | 46-50 3:31-35 22 9:38-39 **|13: 1-11 4:1-11 23-27 -- | 12 4:25 ** 28-29 1:22 | 13 4:12 8: 1 -- | 14-17 -- 2-4 1:40-44 **| 18-24 4:15-20,26 5-13 -- | 25-30 -- 14-16 1:29-34 | 31-32 4:30-32 17 -- | 18 4:35 **| 33 -- 19-22 -- | 34 4:33-34 23-27 4:36-41 **| 35-52 -- 28-34 5:1-2,7,11-15a,17 **| 53-58 6:1-6a |14:1-27 6:14-29,31-34a, 9: 1 -- | 35-50 2-17 2:3,5-12,14-22 | 28-31 -- 18-25 5:22-24a,25,27-28,**| 32 6:51 30,34a,29,38-42 **| 33 -- 26-34 -- | 34-36 6:53-56 35a 6:6b **|15: 1-11 7:1-2,5-15 35b -- | 36a -- | 36b 6:34b **| 37-38 -- | 12-14 -- MATTHEW MARK | MATTHEW MARK | 15:15-22 7:17-24a,25a |22:34-39 12:28-31 23-24 -- | 40 -- 25-31 7:25b-32,37 | 41-45 12:35-37a 32-39 8:1-10 | 46 12:34b * 16: 1-2a 8:11-12a |23: 1-5 -- 2b-3 -- | 6-7 12:39,38c * 4-16 8:12b-21,27-29 | 8-13 -- 17-19 -- | (14) 12:40 20-28 8:30-9:1 | 15-39 -- 17: 1-5 9:2-5,7 |24: 1-8 13:1-8 6-7 -- | 9-13 -- 8-12 9:8-9,11-12a, | 14-25 13:10,14-23 13,12b *| 26-28 -- 13 -- | 29-36 13:24-32 14-20 9:14,17-19,25-29a | 37-41 -- (21) -- | 42 13:33 22-23 9:30-31 | 43-51 -- 24-27 -- |25: 1-46 -- 18: 1-2 9:34c,36 |26: 1 -- 3 10:15 **| 2 14:1a 4-6 9:35b,37a,42 *| 3-4 14:1b-2 7 -- | 5-24 14:2-14,16-21 8-9 9:43-47 | 25 -- 10-35 -- | 26-43 14:22-40a 19: 1-9 10:1-9,11-12 | 44 -- 10-12 -- | 45-51 14:41-47 13-28a 10:13-14,16-29a | 52-54 -- 28b -- | 55-75 14:48-50,53-58, 29-30 10:29b-31 | 60-72 |27: 1-2 15:1 20: 1-16 -- | 3-10 -- 17-34 10:33-52 | 11-18 15:2-10 21: 1-3 11:1-3 | 19 -- 4-5 -- | 20-23 15:11-14 6-10 11:4,7-11a | 24-25 -- 11 -- | 26-42 15:15-32a 12-13 11:15-17 | 43 -- 14-17 -- | 44-49 15:32b-36 18-19 11:12-14 *| 20 -- | 50-51 15:37-38 21-27 11:22-24,27-33 | 52-53 -- 28-32 -- | 54-61 15:39-43,46-47 33-42 12:1-11 | 62-66 -- 43-44 -- |28: 1-3 16:1-5 45-46 12:12 | 4 -- 22: 1-14 -- | 5-8 16:6-8 15-32 12:13-27 | 9-end -- 33 -- | The double asterisks indicate Markan verses that are seriously out of order relative to the majority of other verses; the single asterisks indicate verses that are only slightly out of order. The horizontal line in the vicinity of Mt 12:1 indicates the approximate point beyond which the order of Markan verses follows Matthew's sequential order quite well. Before that point, the lack of agreement in order is very prevalent, after Mt 4. This very much supports what is deduced from the TJ, as it indicates that the writer of Mark had no independent textual source to follow but Matthew itself after this point. Before this point, though after the Sermon on the Mount, he could utilize the document Peter and (John) Mark brought to Rome. In so doing, it appears that he felt free to place this document's verses wherever he chose relative to the parallel verses he found within Mt 8-11. He probably did this to show that here he was in no way following Matthew but had his own source, which he must have trusted more than Matthew because where the two documents overlapped he could tell that the writer of Matthew had made editorial alterations. By scattering some of these verses into a larger section of his gospel, he was moreover tending to validate a larger section of his gospel. In addition, this document handed down from Peter and (John) Mark had a few pericopes that the writer of Matthew had apparently forgotten when he wrote it all down a few years later, and possessed richer detail in its pericopes for the same reason. It is of interest to examine the agreement of order when Matthew is instead compared against Mark, using Mark as the standard. This is the usual way scholars list it: B. MATTHEW ORDERED AGAINST MARK MARK MATTHEW | MARK MATTHEW | 1: 1 1:1 | 5:16 -- 2-11 3:1-6,11,13,16-17 | 17 8:34b ** 12-20 4:1-2,11-12,17-22 | 18-21 -- 21 -- | 22-24a 9:18-19 ** 22 7:29 | 24b -- 23-28 -- | 25 9:20 ** 29-34 8:14-17 | 26 -- 35-38 -- | 27-30 9:20b-21,22c,22a ** 39 4:23 ** | 31-33 -- 40-44 8:2-4 ** | 34 9:22b ** 45 -- | 35-37 -- 2: 1-2 -- | 38-42 9:23-25 ** 3 9:2a | 43 -- 4 -- | 6: 1-6a 13:53-58 5-12 9:2b-8 | 6b 9:35a ** 13 -- |___ 7-11 __10:1,9-12,14 ________** 14-22 9:9-17 | 12-13 -- 23-26 12:1-5 | 14-29 14:1-12 27 -- | 30 -- 28 12:8 | 31-33 14:13-14 3: 1-8 12:9-15a | 34a 9:36b ** | 34b -- | 34c -- 9 -- | 35-51 14:15-27,32 10 12:15b | 52 -- 11 -- | 53-56 14:34-36 12 12:16 | 7: 1-2 15:1-2 13-15 -- | 3-4 -- 16-19 10:2-4 ** | 5-15 15:3-11 20-21 -- | (16) -- 22-29 12:24-26,29,31-32 | 17-32a 15:15-22,25-30a 30 -- | 32b-36 -- 31-35 12:46-50 | 37 15:31 4: 1-12 13:1-11,13 | 8: 1-10 15:32-39 13-14 -- | 11-21 16:1-2a,4-12 15-20 13:18-23 | 22-26 -- 21 5:15 ** | 27-38 16:13-16,20-27 22 10:26 ** | 9: 1 16:28 23 11:15 ** | 2-6 17:1-4 24 7:2 ** | 7-9 17:5,8-9 25 13:12 ** | 10 -- 26 13:24 | 11-14 17:10-11,12b,12a,14 * 27-29 -- | 15-16 -- 30-34 13:31-32,34 | 17-19 17:15-17 35-41 8:18,23-27 ** | 20-24 -- 5: 1-2 8:28 ** | 25-31 17:18-20a,22-23a 3-6 -- | 32-33 -- 7 8:29 ** | 34-37a 18:1,4,2,5 * 8-10 -- | 37b 10:40b ** 11-15 8:30-34a ** | 9:38-39 7:22 ** MARK MATTHEW 9:40 12:30 ** 41 10:42 ** 42-47 18:6,8-9 48-49 -- 50 5:13 ** 10: 1-9 19:1-8 10 -- 11-14 19:9,13-14 15 18:3 ** 16-31 19:15-28a,29-30 32 -- 33-52 20:17-34 11: 1-4 21:1-3,6 5-6 -- 7-11 21:7-10 12-14 21:18-19 * 15 21:12 16 -- 17 21:13 18-21 -- 22-24 21:21-22 25-(26) 6:5a(?),14-15 ** 27-33 21:23-27 12: 1-12 21:33-42,45-46 13-31 22:15-32,34-39 32-34a -- 34b 22:46b * 35-37 22:41-45 38a -- 38b-39 23:7,6 * 40 (23:14) 41-44 -- 13: 1-8 24:1-8 9 10:17-18 ** 10 24:14 11-13 10:19-22 ** 14-33 24:15-25,29-36,42 34-37 -- 14: 1-14 26:2-18 15 -- 16-50 26:19-24,26-51,55-56 51-52 -- 53-72 26:57-75 15: 1-43 27:1-2,11-18,20-23, 26-42,44-48 50-51,54-58 44-45 -- 46-47 27:59-61 16: 1-2 28:1 3 -- 4-end 28:2b-3,5-8 Here we see in listing B that the extended region of relatively good agreement of order commences around Mk 6:12 and Mt 14:1, two chapters later in Matthew than we noted from listing A. This demarcation using Mark as the standard is known to scholars, but they have no reason for it other than that perhaps the writer of Matthew suddenly became tired of rearranging Markan material at this point![2] However, the stolen-writing hypothesis, based upon the TJ, provides a rational solution to this problem, and provides the incentive to notice that the transition from disorder to agreement of sequential order actually commences near Mt 12, not Mt 14. Scholars in general are not aware of this point, as they are used to ordering Matthew against Mark rather than vice versa. It is also seen that by using Matthew as the standard of comparison (list A), more is explainable as directly copied material; i.e., from Mt 12-on rather than just from Mt 14-on. Moreover, this listing (A) discloses only 3 verses in serious violation of sequential order past this point, whereas the listing based upon Mark as standard shows 13 verses in serious violation. This strongly indicates that if one writer copied from the other's work from a certain point onwards, the listing using Matthew as standard (A) better explains the copying. This in turn suggests that the writer of Mark was the copyist (and abbreviator). REFERENCES 1. Taken from Deardorff, J. W., The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992), pp. 203-206. A few corrections have been made in lists 2.A and B as presented here. 2. Goulder, Michael, Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974), p. 35. Go to: Next Section (Sec. 3) Return to: Contents Beginning of this topic Dependence of Mark upon Matthew (Continued) 3. Markan Awareness of Matthew There are some 75 instances of this presented here, wherein the Markan awareness of Matthew is of the type that gives itself away through one or more redactions, whether minor or gross, whether through additions or omissions, and whether of a textual or logical nature. All the other Markan alterations to Matthean textual content are also seen to involve Markan knowledge of Matthew, of course, but they more aptly fall under the continuations of Sections 4- 7. In the following analysis, Luke is considered to be dependent upon Mark (and Matthew), as indicated by the external evidence (tradition), rather than Mark being dependent upon Luke; for reasonable evidence to support this has been given by supporters of the two-document hypothesis or two-source hypothesis (Mark-Matthew-Luke) as well as by supporters of the Augustinian hypothesis (Matthew-Mark-Luke). Hence there will be little discussion of Luke here. Again, Gospel verses quoted in English stem from the RSV Bible (1952). Mk 1:2 "As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, 'Behold, I send my messenger before thy face...'" This is the well known error on the part of the writer of Mark wherein he attributed this first part of his scriptural citation to Isaiah although it derives from Malachi; only the latter portion derives from Isaiah though it appears to have been copied from Mt 3:3. This error is plausibly attributed to his having used the citation from Mt 11:10, which however doesn't mention who the prophet was, thereby leading to the erroneous assumption by the writer of Mark that it was Isaiah. Since he didn't utilize this section of Matthew, which extolled John the Baptist, he was free to borrow the verse from it to use in his own early discussion of John. If, on the other hand, Mark were considered primary, one would need to assume that not only did the writer of Matthew notice this error in Mark, he decided to repair Mark's error by not using the Malachi verse within Mt 3:3 but instead within a section of his text (Mt 11:2-15) which fortuitously needed this quotation to complete the pericope's major theme. In addition, if he had been correcting Mark in that manner, he would likely have mentioned the name of the prophet involved (Malachi) in support of his alteration of Mark. This he does not do. Thus the odds strongly favor Mark's dependence upon Matthew here. Mk 1:6 "Now John was clothed with camel's hair..." Although this verse closely parallels Mt 3:4, in location it comes after the verse (Mk 1:5) stating about all the people that went out to hear John. In this location, Mk 1:6 gives undue emphasis to his clothing and diet, since it appears sandwiched between the two more important items of Mk 1:5 and of the following verse that tells something of what he spoke.[1] Moreover, Mark's repetition of John's name here, just two verses after it was previously introduced and without any other name intervening that could cause confusion, further suggests that this and other Markan verses were taken out of order relative to Matthew. For Matthew's parallel had started out the same way, with John's name mentioned, because in its account the pronoun "he" was already utilized in the previous verse to refer to the prophet Isaiah. Thus, Mark's especially awkward syntax here is explained by his abbreviations and reordering of the Matthean text. The relative order of parallel verses here is: Mt 3: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7-10 11a 11b 11c 12 Mk 1: 4a 4b 2a,3 6 5a 5b -- 8a 7 8b -- By placing Mk 1:6 where it is, the writer of Mark caused these discrepancies, which are then a result of hasty editing. Motivation for the alterations in order and abbreviation was, primarily, so that the Gospel of Mark would be as different in appearance as possible from the Gospel of Matthew, which was Mark's source. Although it could be argued that the writer of Matthew utilized Mark and improved upon it and expanded it, this fails to explain why Mark's wording was so inept in the first place. With Matthew being the source for Mark here, and being closer to its own source and therefore better constructed logically, the discrepancies in Mark are explained without introducing unexplained problems in Matthew. Mk 1:13 "and the angels ministered." This is the first we hear of any angels having been around at that time. Hence they should have been referred to simply as "angels," as in the parallel Matthean verse (Mt 4:11). Thus the writer of Mark betrays that he had the angels of Matthew in mind here, and so called them "the angels." Also, from Matthew it is apparent that Jesus needed their ministrations due to having fasted 40 days, while no reason is given in Mark. One must assume that they were administering food to him. This oversight easily stems from the writer having abbreviated Matthew too heavily. Although it might be suggested that he had had access to "Q" and abbreviated it, there is no necessity for postulating any such unattested document when Matthew suffices so well as his source. Further indication that this was a hasty extraction from another's account, namely Matthew's, is that the angels are not mentioned to have arrived after Satan left. It rather reads as if the angels and Satan had been together there at the same time. One then needs Matthew to make some sort of sense of this inept editorial summary by the writer of Mark. It may be argued that Matthew's account cannot be realistic or historical either, and so what was its source? This is discussed under Mt 3:16f in the Mt-TJ section of this website. Another indication that Mark is secondary here is that its 2-verse presentation of Jesus' supposed wilderness experience has no point to it. This is consistent with it being an all too brief summary of Matthew's temptation story. Mark's clause, "and he was with the wild beasts," appears to be an addition made partly for the sake of change (see Section 7) and partly to portray Jesus' bravery and authority (e.g., as in his authority over demons, and as in Mk 11:16, where Jesus does not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple). The reason for the writer of Mark to have abbreviated Matthew's temptation story so heavily is here thought to be the story's lavish use of quotations and allusions from the Hebrew scriptures with which he was either unacquainted or which he felt were irrelevant for his gentile audience. Mk 1:14 "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came..." Again the account of Mark is so abbreviated that it presumes the reader already knows, from some other writing, that by this time John had indeed been arrested. Knowledge of this then came from Matthew, since Luke has no parallel to it, and in Matthew mention of John's arrest is more than an afterthought. Actually, the Greek text of Mark is even more obscure, reading "the to-be- delivered John." The writer of Mark had strong motivation for abbreviating Matthew and not faithfully following its text here: In Matthew (Mt 4:12) the reason Jesus left wherever he had been and withdrew to Galilee was due to his having heard of John's arrest. This was a sign of weakness and fear that the writer of Mark apparently did not wish to attribute to Jesus. If one attempts to turn this argument around, it is practically inconceivable that the writer of Matthew, upon reading Mark's account, would have amplified it for the purpose of implying that Jesus was fearful. Mk 1:16 "he saw Simon and Andrew." This is too abruptly specific, as Jesus didn't yet even know their names. However, they were already known to the writer of Mark and to any other readers of Matthew from the gospel parallel of Mt 4:18, where the brothers were introduced in a natural manner. Obviously the writer of Mark knew how to write it properly if he had been more careful, as when he introduced Jairus in Mk 5:22 as "one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name." (By the time the TJ was written, its writer had apparently forgotten Jairus's name. Hence it does not appear within the TJ or within Matthew. But the writer of Mark knew of it from its mention in the document Peter and (John) Mark brought with them to Rome, which languished there until finally used by the writer of Mark.) Mk 1:19 "he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother." This discloses the same problem as above, with Mt 4:21 now providing the foreknowledge. Mk 1:22,27 22And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. The parallel verses of Mt 7:28b-29 at the end of the Sermon on the Mount are practically identical, so that it is clear that either Mark depends on Matthew here or vice versa. In Matthew the reasons for stating Jesus taught with authority are clear: that Sermon is very authoritative, especially with its verses like "You have heard that it was said... but I say to you." Mark, on the other hand, does not here give even a sample of what Jesus' teaching was that astonished his listeners. This state of affairs could easily have come about through the writer of Mark abbreviating out most all of Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, which he did not care to include, but then retaining this final verse from it because it exalts Jesus. It is less likely to have come about through the writer of Matthew having composed the Sermon on the Mount, then deciding to borrow Mk 1:22 as a fitting close to the sermon but opting not to include Mark's healing miracle which follows immediately after this verse. This deduction is supported by the reference back to this verse of Mk 1:27, following Mark's healing miracle. The verse reads, 27And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, "What is this? A new teaching! With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." Again, what this new teaching was is not mentioned, but if the writer of Mark had not omitted it (Matthew's Sermon) from his gospel, there would have been cause for astonishment at a new teaching. As it stands in Mark, the onlookers in the synagogue who watched the healing miracle would have been astonished at the miracle rather than at teachings unworthy of mention.[3] Mk 1:44 "....and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them." (Although the RSV Bible replaced "them" with "people," except in a footnote, its RSV's Greek source uses "to them.") Here one must refer back to a previous pericope to find some people for "them" to stand for. Hence it appears the writer of Mark was following Matthew and copying its "them" from Mt 8:4, which (with a lesser stretch) refers back to the crowds of people at the beginning of the leper-healing pericope. Also, Mark's additional "for your cleansing" has the appearance of a clarification to Mt 8:4.[4] Mk 2:10 Here, in the story of the healing of the paralytic, the writer of Mark, upon making use of Mt 9:6, uses the "Son of man" expression. This openly revealed Jesus' messianic status, since "Son of man" most easily refers to the messianic figure by that title in Daniel. However, this was supposed to be kept a secret in Mark (the messianic secret), except from the disciples, until Jesus was raised from the dead (Mk 9:9-10). Yet the messianic secret is seen to have been otherwise in place following Mk 1:24, where the demon, in speaking to Jesus, calls him the "Holy One of God." This has no Matthean parallel. Although the same problem does occur in Matthew, it is more severe in Mark due to the latter's greater emphasis upon the messianic secret. This suggests that the writer of Mark used Matthew, because if it were the other way around and the writer of Matthew had noticed this problem in Mark, he would logically have eliminated the problem, not merely have reduced it by making fewer references to the secrecy theme. Thus, the writer of Mark failed to realize, here and elsewhere, the contradiction his usage of Matthew's "Son of man" expressions would bring about with his messianic-secret theme. Although it might be thought that Jesus' messianic status was revealed early on, at the baptism, this is often denied on the assumption that only Jesus saw the Spirit descending like a dove and heard the voice from heaven saying, "Thou art my beloved Son." Mk 2:14 "he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting..." Again, Jesus would not yet have known his name. Here, however, the writer of Mark is likely letting his audience know he is aware that Matthew the disciple did not write the gospel that was labeled "according to Matthew." What better way than not even have the disciple's name be Matthew at this point? But how would he know this? He would know it because he had on hand the document Peter and Mark had brought to Rome decades earlier, which contained the same episode, and its author was not listed as Matthew. Mk 2:27 This verse begins with "And he said to them..." However, prior to this point Jesus was already speaking to the Pharisees, and he continues to do so in the remainder of this verse and in the next. So why did the writer of Mark break Jesus' response to the Pharisees right in the middle with an interruptive clause? Upon comparison with the parallel in Matthew, one finds that at this very point Mark omits Mt 12:5-7 and has an extra sentence (at Mk 2:27b) just after resuming with "And he said to them..." This interruptive clause then has the appearance of being an editorial addition suggested to the writer/editor because he himself had to pause for a while to decide how much to omit and how much, if any, to add, before resuming his close following of Matthew's text, which does not have any such needless interruption in its direct speech. At the same time, the addition of the interruptive clause would serve to remind the reader that Jesus was still speaking (quotation marks and other punctuation were not yet invented at this time), and would serve to make the text of Mark be different than that of Matthew (change for the sake of change). Obviously, it would not suffice to have his gospel be too similar to that of Matthew and yet claim that it stemmed from an independent source -- the man (John) Mark. This argument derives from that of H. G. Jameson.[5] It carries added weight if Mark is found to exhibit the same feature -- a needless interruptive clause -- at other places. This it does also at Mk 4:9,13,21,24; 6:10, 7:9,20; and 9:1, while not occurring in the Matthean parallels to these points. The interruptive clause is either the same as "And he said to them..." or similar, and it occurs where the writer of Mark has apparently made an omission, an addition, and/or some other alteration to Matthew. The probability is exceedingly slim that an original writer with access to Jesus' words would for no good literary reason repeatedly insert an interruptive clause like this into his writing. But the reasons have been set forth above why a second gospel writer, who is making use of the text of the gospel that came before his but who does not wish to acknowledge that source, would have adopted this editorial oddity at some of the points where he has made alterations, especially if it contributed to one of his goals, namely "change for the sake of change." Now it might be argued that Mark is primary to Matthew, whose writer noticed all these interruptive clauses in Mark and edited them out. This not only would be improbable, but would fail to take account of the improbability that if Mark were a primary gospel, it would exhibit these needless interruptive clauses. On the other hand, the absence of this peculiarity within Matthew is consistent with it being a gospel closer to the source than is Mark. The writer of Matthew was not under any requirement to make his gospel be different in content and appearance than his source, since his source would never be transcribed and never circulated except to one or two other persons; it could be destroyed within a few years or decades after completion of the Gospel of Matthew. Mk 3:1-6 Here Jesus enters the synagogue (in an episode apparently not related to his previous discussion with Pharisees in the grain fields), and heals the man with the withered hand. A nebulous "they" watch this event and hear Jesus speak to them angrily. This "they" then turn into Pharisees who go out and hold counsel against him. Here the writer of Mark had apparently become a little careless in not noticing that the Matthean text he was following and translating (Mt 12:9f) had referred to their synagogue, which linked the story with the preceding one involving Pharisees who had evidently followed Jesus into their synagogue. The "they" in Mk 3:2,4 can hardly refer to "the people," as a nebulous "they" usually does, since Jesus would not have had cause to speak to all the people in the synagogue angrily. However Mk 3:2 forces the reader to assume that all those in the synagogue were aiming to accuse Jesus. In Matthew it is clearer that "they" refer to the Pharisees who must have followed Jesus into their synagogue. Thus the error made here by the writer of Mark was to alter Matthew's "their synagogue" into "the synagogue," or into "a synagogue" according to two valued Greek manuscripts. Either way, the failure of Mark's text to utilize "their synagogue" causes the problem; if "a synagogue" be interpreted as "he went to synagogue," instead of "to a synagogue," the same argument prevails. The reverse interpretation -- that the writer of Matthew purposely eliminated Mark's problem -- is much less credible. He would have had to perceive that he could alter Mark's "a synagogue" into "their synagogue," and thereby imply that it was the synagogue that the Pharisees attended who had queried Jesus in the grain field. If he had simply been intent to improve upon Mark, however, he would much more likely have replaced Mark's first nebulous "they" (in Mk 3:2) with "the Pharisees inside" or some such expression. Mk 3:13 "And he went up into the hills, and called to him those whom he desired; and they came to him." This verse is a rather close, but isolated, parallel to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:1), which begins, "Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him..." So is it more probable that the writer of Mark borrowed it from Matthew, or vice versa? The former makes sense, in that Mark's subsequent six verses, also taken from Matthew, were then his substitution for Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, most of which the writer of Mark did not wish to include, for reasons discussed elsewhere in this analysis. His substitution is awkward in several respects, including the fact that within it the disciples, though called once in Mk 3:13, are appointed a second time in Mk 3:16 (upon following the Greek text), even though in Mk 6:7 they will be called again and given a more detailed mission. Thus, it appears to be a clumsily crafted substitution based upon either Mt 10:1-4 and/or upon the recovered document that Peter and (John) Mark left behind in Rome (see Section 1). At the same time, Mk 3:13 can be considered an attempted improvement to Matthew. Matthew leaves it uncertain where and when the additional seven disciples were appointed. This was a sufficiently salient point that even the writer of Mark may have noticed it and decided to correct it, by writing Mk 3:13b. If argued the other way around, it would be supposed that the writer of Matthew noticed that Mark had called the disciples twice. And so he consolidated Mark's two calls into one. But instead of simply relocating Mark's first call with its names of disciples into the position of the second call, the writer of Matthew decided to invent a 108-verse Sermon to take its place. This seems to be the less probable solution by far. Also, if the writer of Matthew had utilized Mark, he could scarcely have helped but notice that in Mark all twelve disciples are called into duty, and he would have had no reason to omit such a fact. Mk 3:15 Here Jesus gives the disciples authority to cast out demons but no more authority than that. In the Matthean parallel (Mt 10:1) he gives them authority also to heal diseases and infirmities. One sees here, and in the light of Section 6, that this easily fits into that section's category of the writer of Mark not desiring to portray the disciples at all favorably. If the writer of Matthew had built his gospel around Mark's, however, he is very unlikely to have taken it upon himself to invent this important, additional authority for the disciples because it detracts from the divinity of Jesus if others could do the wondrous deeds that he could do. Hence the granting of this authority must have been present within his source document -- the TJ discussed earlier, where it is indeed present. From certain portions of the TJ we know that the writer of Luke had had access to it, apparently only after the writer of Matthew was finished with it, but that the writer of Mark, being in Rome, had not. Thus the writer of Luke did realize that the granting of this authority within Matthew had represented fact, and so he included it within his gospel (Lk 9:1-2). (However, nowhere in the synoptic gospels or the TJ do the disciples perform any healings.) The desire not to allow Jesus' divine stature be eroded may then have been additional reason why the writer of Mark omitted this authority for the disciples. Mark's omission of Peter's walking on water, present in Matthew, can be explained in the same manner. On the other hand, it may be noted that at Mk 6:13 the disciples are said to have healed many that were sick, a verse not associated with parallel Matthean material at Mt 10:14. It is likely that this verse was extracted from the special material available to the writer of Mark (the recovered stolen writing), as this material is thought to have included material within Mt 8-11. The inconsistency between not having granted the disciples power to heal and the healings in verse Mk 6:13 was then overlooked by the writer of Mark. Mk 4:2,33 2And he taught them many things in parables... 33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them... These two verses occur at the beginning and end, respectively, of the parable section in Mark, and indicate that its writer knew that what he presented were only selections from all the parables that Jesus had taught. But how would he know that unless the parables he didn't present were in his source? Since the several parables he omitted are in Matthew, while the parables he did include of the sower and of the mustard seed indicate a very close dependence between Matthew and Mark, by far the most obvious conclusion is that the writer of Mark abstracted from Matthew. Mk 4:10-34 Here Jesus starts explaining the parable of the sower to his disciples and to a certain number of others from the crowd. He keeps speaking to "them" in Mk 4:13,21,24,33. However by the time one reaches Mk 4:34 it is clear that "them" has shifted from referring to just the twelve disciples and a few others to the whole crowd. This error is mainly a consequence of the writer's insertion of Mk 4:21-25 -- verses found in the Sermon on the Mount -- into the parable section, as it's not clear if they are spoken to the crowds or just to the disciples and a few others. Specifically, at Mt 13:24, which begins, "Another parable he put before them," it should be clear that "them" refers back to the crowds, since it was only during the explanation of the parable of the sower that Jesus spoke privately to his disciples. This is confirmed by Mt 13:34, "All this Jesus said to the crowds in parables..." Since Mk 4:26 starts out paralleling Mt 13:24, that is the place, therefore, where one can infer, with the help of Matthew, that Jesus was again speaking to the crowds. However, this inference is uncertain because of the inserts of Mk 4:21-25. With the Gospel of Matthew on hand to follow, the writer of Mark had again grown careless (or fatigued) and failed to redefine Jesus' listeners, or clarify who they were, at or following his insertions. Mk 4:12 Jesus was telling the people gathered about him that those outside the kingdom of God hear everything just in parables, "so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest they should turn again, and be forgiven." The Matthean parallel to this occurs at Mt 13:13-15, where its Isaian source is mentioned and a rendering of two verses (Is 6:9-10) is given. Now, if Mark is dependent upon Matthew here, we see that it is an abbreviation of Matthew's account, omitting any mention that it involved a quotation from Isaiah. This of course would be fully consistent with the editorial behavior of the writer of Mark all along. But we see that it fails to give any answer to the original query addressed to Jesus concerning the parables. It fails to give any reason why the people should not be allowed "to turn again and be forgiven," and thus no reason why they should not be allowed to hear and understand. To comprehend why, one must read the subsequent three verses of the Isaian passage. Hence the Markan passage does not fit in with any real life situation involving a wisdom teacher speaking coherently, which is a strong indication of its secondary nature. Any passage that is sensible initially turns into illogic or nonsense if abbreviated too far. However, whether or not Matthew depends upon Mark, we see that Matthew at least provides an answer of some sort -- its passage involves a quotation from scripture, and for its writer that was answer enough. Now, if Matthew did depend upon Mark here, and its writer had noticed that Mark contains a couple of unattributed lines from Isaiah that he could fill in, this would nevertheless not explain the meaninglessness of the Markan account in the first place. As Butler discussed, it cannot be at all likely that Jesus intended to reveal the meaning of the parables to his disciples "but deliberately to cloak it from the crowds, in order that they may see and yet not see, hear and yet not hear, for fear lest they should be converted and forgiven!"[6] Lamar Cope gives a somewhat different set of reasons why Mark is dependent upon Matthew here.[7] One of his points is that in Mk 4:10 (..."To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God") "secret" is singular while in Matthew and Luke the plural is used. Thus, if the writer of Luke utilized Matthew here as much or more than Mark, he betrayed it by using the plural. My own speculation is that the writer of Mark altered "secrets" to the singular so that it would fit his intepretation of the big "secret" that Jesus was God's Messiah, in keeping with his emphasis of the "Messianic secret." The writer of Luke could see that Mark's use of the singular "secret" was less satisfactory than Matthew's plural. The position here, then, is that the Matthean account came first, and the quotation from Isaiah was supplied by its writer as an explanation to the query of why Jesus spoke to the people in parables. Considering that the writer of Matthew had his own source other than Mark, it may be of interest as to what this source actually had to say in answer to the original query. The writer of Mark chose to retain a summary of Matthew's Isaiah quote, without attribution, since it indicated that those Jesus was preaching to at that time (Jews) would not understand the secret, and would therefore not make suitable disciples; by implication, gentiles would, however. This is consistent with Mark's anti-Jewish remarks in Section 6. Mk 4:13 "...all the parables." At this point Jesus had only preached the one parable, so that "all" does not belong. And "the" also does not belong, since it implies that "the parables" were already a known aspect of Jesus' teaching and that there were several or many of them, which then came from foreknowledge of Mt 13. Hence what "all the parables" actually means here is "all the other parables Jesus was about to teach that are present within Matthew but omitted from Mark." In addition, this verse contains the needless interruptive clause discussed in this section under Mk 2:27, which further indicates its secondary character relative to Matthew. Mk 4:21-22 -- the sayings on allowing one's lamp to shine forth and exposing all secrets. These sayings would not have been expressed by Jesus at this point following seven verses of his explanation of the parable of the sower. His listeners would still be thinking about the explanation and would not be able to comprehend a sudden reversion back nine verses to where he had been speaking of the secret of the kingdom (Mk 4:11), although a reader is better able to do this. Thus by being far out of context the sayings betray the fact that the writer of Mark borrowed them from elsewhere in Matthew (from the Sermon on the Mount) and failed to insert them at an appropriate spot. In addition, Mk 4:21 reads: "Is the lamp brought in to be put under the bushel...?" What lamp did the writer have in mind? -- why the lamp already made known from Mt 5:15, where it is, as should be expected, a lamp. (The RSV Bible's translation of Mark's Greek substitutes "a lamp" for the Greek "the lamp.") Further, this verse contains the needless interruptive clause discussed in this section under Mk 2:27, also suggesting its secondary character relative to Matthew. Mk 4:24 The saying about "the measure you give will be the measure you get" is here prefixed by the editorial interruption "And he said to them" that we have already discussed under Mk 2:27. As noted by Mann,[8] this suggests that this verse had not originally been attached to the previous ones, 4:21-22, as does the fact that the subject matter of the two sets of sayings shows no connection between them. In that case, these verses were not spoken consecutively by Jesus after all, and thus are not in their original contexts, indicating that the writer of Mark borrowed them from somewhere. The simplest solution, then, is that he borrowed them from Matthew, as indicated partially above, with 4:24b having stemmed from Mt 7:2. As mentioned by Butler, it "is obvious" that this saying belongs with the first half of Mt 7:2.[9] If argued the other way around, the writer of Matthew would have had to notice that Mk 4:21 could be given a proper context if placed in a lengthy Sermon (at Mt 5:15), Mk 4:22 could be given a fitting context if placed at Mt 10:26, and Mk 4:24 could be given a fitting context if placed at Mt 7:2. This would be a less plausible hypothesis, since it is the Markan text that exhibits the greater indications of editing here. Mk 4:26-29 This parable of the seed appears as but a pale echo of the preceding parable of the sower -- the kingdom of God is likened to the scattering of seeds that somehow sprout and grow so that when the grain is ripe it may be harvested. It thus lacks sensible motivation for its existence unless the writer of Mark had been following along Matthew's parables, in which case he had come to Matthew's parable of the weeds (Mt 13:24-30) and was giving his own, revised version of it here. Either or both of two reasons for this immediately comes to mind. Matthew's parable may not have been understandable to him and thus not have been anything he would wish to justify to a gentile audience. Or quite likely he did not appreciate that the weeds, representing evil or evil persons, were allowed to grow along with the grain, since he had apparently disliked Matthew's Sermon exhortation of not resisting evil and had thus omitted it. So he could easily strip Matthew's parable of its undesired and non-understood features, though that left it as a vacuous parable. In this parable there was little reason for the writer of Mark to have written that the man who sowed the seed slept and rose, night and day, to represent the passage of time while the seed germinated, except for his having been prompted by the word "sleep" in the Matthean parable. The parable's main thought, of the man not knowing how the seeds grew, might have been prompted by the writer not knowing how to sensibly interpret the Matthean parable. If viewed the other way around, the writer of Matthew would need to be credited with having recognized these various deficiencies in Mark's parable and with having a totally different theme (weeds and the enemy) ready in his mind to substitute for it. (For the reason Matthew's parable is incomplete and thus difficult to understand, see the relevant verses discussed in Mt 13. It is less probable that the writer of Matthew, if that gospel had come after Mark, would have constructed his parable of the weeds around Mark's parable of the seed, as this would require excessive creativity. The presence of the weeds in Matthew's parable and the problem of how to get rid of them are all-important extraneous features not in Mark's parable. Mk 4:34 "he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything." By this point one sees that Mark omits any explanation to its parable of the seed (Mk 4:26-29), which, as noted above, appears to be a highly abbreviated version of Matthew's parable of the weeds (or parable of the wheat and tares, Mt 13:24-30). The writer of Mark could not very well produce an explanation for his parable of the seed if he had hastily produced it himself through the editorial process of abbreviating Matthew. Thus he did not explain it. But since the writer of Matthew did provide an explanation for the parable of the weeds, it is understandable that the writer of Mark felt he should cover for his lack of an explanation here by noting that "to his own disciples he [Jesus] explained everything" (see Chapman [10]). Mk 5:30-32 30And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him, immediately turned about in the crowd, and said, "Who touched my garments?" 31And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing all around you, and yet you say, 'Who touched me?'" 32And he looked around... The parallel Matthean verse of Mt 9:22 does not contain any such insulting question by the disciples. (Although the "yet" within the Markan question is not present in the Greek, the verse still represents great insolence.) The implication here is that the Jewish disciples were so dumb and insolent as to expect that Jesus should have seen who within the crowd all about him had touched the hem of his garment before he had even turned around. The question is so unrealistic, plus coming from the mouths of all the disciples at once, as to enable the discerning reader to notice that it was the hostile invention of the writer of Mark, and not any piece of a historical narrative that the writer of Matthew later omitted out of reverence. Section 6 presents a substantial number of the other Markan slurs directed against the disciples. Mk 6:3 "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary...?" If Jesus had learned carpentry at some earlier time, perhaps in his youth, he nevertheless by this time would have been absent from the trade for many months at least, and would not likely still be known as a carpenter. In fact, the probability seems vanishingly small that he could swiftly have switched from being a carpenter before being baptized to a worker of miraculous healings and deeds afterwards without having gone through some sort of lengthy training period -- probably of many years duration -- which would have divorced him from any trade as a carpenter. Hence the odds greatly favor Jesus' stepfather, Joseph, as having been the carpenter, as stated in the parallel passage of Mt 13:55. Thus the writer of Mark in all probability stole the carpenter theme from Matthew and altered it. A probable reason for his alteration is so that he would not need to mention Jesus' stepfather, Joseph; consequently he attached the carpenter label to Jesus instead. He had already decided to omit Matthew's genealogy, and may have felt obliged to say something about Joseph's ancestry were he not to avoid mentioning him altogether. Of course, it is quite possible that he did not even believe that Joseph wasn't the biological father, and so this course of action would spare him from having to say anything about the immaculate conception. His phrase, "the son of Mary," also indicates he wished to avoid mentioning Joseph. Mark was favored over Matthew by the writer of Luke, and yet even he did not pick up on Mark's carpenter label as attached to Jesus. This is despite the fact that the writer of Luke presented some aspects of Jesus' childhood which many analysts find follow too closely the wording of 1 Samuel (e.g., 1 Sm 2:21,26).[11] He could easily have inserted something about Jesus' supposed young adulthood as a carpenter there if he had felt that tradition justified it. Instead, he avoided the carpenter issue and referred to Joseph by name (Lk 4:22). Mk 6:7-11a These instructions to the disciples, which have parallels within Mt 10:8-14, start out by being narrated by the writer of Mark. Then, half way through, he switches over to direct speech by Jesus. In Matthew, on the other hand, it is all written in direct speech. It is plausible that the writer of Mark found it cumbersome to continue paraphrasing the direct speech in Matthew, and so at Mk 6:10a switched over to the use of direct speech in following Matthew. It is less plausible that the writer of Matthew, if following Mark, had noticed this particular awkwardness in Mark and so fixed it up. If the latter had occurred, however, the especially clumsy construction within Mark would remain unexplained. Mk 6:11b "And if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them." The italicized phrase does not occur in the Matthean parallel (Mt 10:14). It can be seen to be out of context in Mark upon reading the Greek words, which actually translate to "for a testimony to them." It would be no testimony to them if they didn't receive the disciples in the first place and so didn't even watch them leave. And usually "for a testimony to them" refers in the Gospels to some favorable Christian testimony. This error in Mark can be seen to have occurred because its writer had glanced ahead four verses in Matthew and noticed its "for a testimony to them" in a different context but decided to use it here in his own inapt context.[12] Mk 6:14 "a) King Herod." The writer of Mark read ahead to Matthew's use of "king" at Mt 14:9 and preferred it over "tetrarch" for use throughout. This is the criticism one sees most often in reversed form. However, it fits perfectly well into the present pattern of Markan foreknowledge. It is quite plausible that the writer of Mark did not think that readers/listeners of his gospel would know what a tetrarch was, or be concerned over the difference between a tetrarch and a king. b) "King Herod heard of it." Just what did Herod hear? The statement follows immediately after a verse telling of the healings performed by the disciples, not by Jesus. Thus that is what, in normal writing, one would infer Herod heard about. But from the rest of the sentence it is clear that Herod must have been referring to the powers wrought by Jesus. If one assumes Markan priority, one then assumes that this is an example of extra clumsy writing in Mark, without any explanation on hand of what may have caused it. However, assuming Matthean priority one sees that the writer of Mark, with Matthew in front of him where its translation read, "Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus...," (Mt 14:1), already had Jesus' ability to work miracles in mind when writing "it." The writer's editorial rework then is what was awkward, not an original writing of his. This has more explanatory power than the scenario that assumes Markan priority, and is thus to be preferred. Mk 6:14-16 14King Herod heard of it; for Jesus' name had become known. Some said, "John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; that is why these powers are at work in him." 15But others said, "It is Elijah." And others said, "It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old." 16But when Herod heard of it, he said... This is seen to contain one of Mark's many pleonasms, since the "Herod heard of it" clause is repeated. But what has been filled in here, following the first member of this pleonasm, can be seen to have been extracted from Mt 16:14, since there John the Baptist, Elijah and one of the prophets appears in the same order. The fact that "Some" (or "They") and "others" are used in the Markan verse is strong indication that the writer of Mark extracted it from Matthew, looking ahead in Matthew at this point, rather than vice versa. In the Matthean context, "some" and "others" are appropriate, but in the Markan context they are not, because there is no clue as to whom they refer to. In Mark this forms a doublet with Mk 8:28, whereas Matthew has no parallel to Mk 6:14-15 so that its verse (Mt 16:14) is not part of a doublet. Mark's doublet here is an actual doublet and not just some favorite expression repeated on the lips of Jesus, nor a pleonasm either. So which is more plausible: (a) that Mark's account, which could well have been formed from Mt 14:1-2 and received heavy editing in forming the doublet that appears to have used Mt 16:14, is nonetheless the original Gospel account, with Matthew's account being a (secondary) improvement of it? Or (b) that Matthew's account, which does not show signs of having received significant editing, was the original account, with Mark's being secondary? It should be clear that we must opt for (b), since the account receiving the most editing must ordinarily be considered the most secondary or most dependent. Mk 6:30-35 Were the apostles with Jesus or not? Mk 6:30-31 has the apostles returning to Jesus and then going away by themselves, apparently, in a boat to a place to rest, at Jesus' suggestion. ("He said to them, 'Come away by yourselves,'" not "by ourselves.") And Mk 6:32 seems to confirm this interpretation by saying "they went away... by themselves [or privately]," with "they" still referring to the disciples. Yet Jesus seems to have been with them, because he afterwards goes forth, from the boat apparently, to join the crowd that had congregated ashore ahead of them. However, at this point (Mk 6:34), only Jesus is referred to as landing or going forth; the disciples are lost track of until later, in Mk 6:35, they come to Jesus, which suggests they perhaps hadn't been together with him in the boat after all. Yet, to make overall sense, one must assume he had been with them all along, at least until disembarking. It wouldn't make any sense to suppose that Jesus had stayed ashore where he was as the disciples departed in the boat, while the crowd ran along the shore to follow the course of the disciples in the boat, leaving Jesus behind. To understand what actually happened, one must read Matthew's account, which is what we then must infer that the writer of Mark did. This confusion within the story more strongly implicates the writer of Mark of having edited the Matthean text than the writer of Matthew of having improved upon Mark. This is because incoherence or inconsistency in a story, especially to this great a degree, is the hallmark of fabrication, relative to the consistency of a more original story. The writer of Mark is seen as having altered the Matthean parallel at Mt 14:12-13 so as to cause Jesus' disciples to return to him immediately following the beheading-of-John episode; in that manner he improved upon Matthew by avoiding its well known flashback problem. But in following Matthew's general content otherwise, in which Jesus went away by himself in a boat, then landed and joined the crowd to heal their sick (Mt 14:13-14), this series of errors or ambiguities crept into his text. At Mt 14:14 Jesus goes ashore alone, the disciples not having been with him, thus explaining the ambiguity in Mk 6:34 where only Jesus is mentioned, as if the disciples in Mark were not present to go ashore with him. If they had been present with him at this point in the original story, they surely would have gone ashore with him, if only to tie up the boat or ensure that the crowds would not crush him -- a danger the writer of Mark could have mentioned, as he did in Mk 3:9b. But here he seems not to have thought of that because he had resumed following Matthew's story in which the disciples were still absent. Only at Mt 14:15 do Jesus' disciples rejoin him, thus explaining why the disciples show up in Mark (Mk 6:35) at the corresponding point as in Matthew. Mk 6:32 "the boat." There has been no mention of a boat earlier, in the previous 52 verses, but here "the boat" suddenly appears, coming from the parallel of Mt 14:13 (which has the anarthrous form: "a boat"). The writer of Mark certainly knew how to use the anarthrous form, since there are numerous examples of his having used it properly. But having this boat already known to him from the text of Matthew at hand, he thought of it as "the boat." Mk 6:54-55 54And when they got out of the boat, immediately the people recognized him, 55and ran about the whole neighborhood and began to bring sick people on their pallets to any place where they heard he was. Instead of the italicized words, however, the actual Greek text just says "they." The editors of the RSV Bible replaced this "they" with "the people" in order that it make some sense. It should be noted that this "they," since it occurs only a few words after a "they" that had referred to Jesus and the disciples, would normally again refer to Jesus and the disciples and would not be an "indefinite they." Now, in the Matthean text that the writer of Mark was following at this point (Mt 14:35), the phrase in question reads "the men of that place," which does faithfully render its Greek. So it very much appears that the writer of Mark knew in advance, from the Matthean verse, just who these persons were and through carelessness referred to them prematurely as "they." Mk 7:17 Here Jesus' disciples ask him about "the parable." However, the previous saying: "the things which come out of a man are what defile him" is no parable. It is plain talk, as it referred to things coming out of a man, such as evil words, evil thoughts and evil actions. It is no more a parable than is "the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath." So why did the writer of Mark call it a parable? Because that word was used in the Matthean parallel he was following at this point (Mt 15:15). However in Matthew it refers back to the parable of the uprooted plants of Mt 15:13, which indeed is a parable, but was a parable omitted by the writer of Mark. Mk 7:32 In this cure of a deaf man, "they" bring him to Jesus. The persons whom this "they" refers to is unknown and not stated. It might have been the disciples, since they had presumably been traveling along with Jesus through the region of Decapolis. Or it might have been people of the region. However, from the parallel Matthean text (Mt 15:29-30a), which follows along in the same order as the preceding parallel passages, we see it was the latter, as it is mentioned there that great crowds came to Jesus, bringing those who ailed. Once again the writer of Mark is seen to have had Matthew so much in mind that it did not seem necessary to use anything other than the indefinite pronoun to refer to the people who came to Jesus. (However, at this point the writer of Mark inserted a different pericope from the one in Matthew, though returning to Matthew at the pericope's end.) Mk 8:10 "the boat." Once again, in its context it should have been "a boat," since 15 verses had elapsed since Jesus had even been to the Sea of Galilee, with an "in those days" moreover intervening. The writer of Mark copied "the boat" from the Matthean parallel at that point, Mt 15:39, without giving sufficient thought to whether it should instead be "a boat." In Matthew's case, it had been only 9 verses back (still quite a stretch) but with no intervening "in those days" since Jesus had been to the Sea of Galilee, so "the boat" might be considered appropriate there. Thus either way, whether he copied Matthew's dubious usage without thinking or simply used "the boat" because its mention in Matthew had particularized it in his mind, the writer of Mark appears to betray his dependence upon Matthew. Mk 8:14-17 Here in Mk 8:14a Mark continues to parallel Matthew rather closely, in saying the disciples had forgotten to bring bread (loaves) along. However, in 14b an exception is mentioned: they did bring one loaf; no such statement is in Matthew. But Mk 8:15-17 again parallels Matthew very closely (Mt 16:6-8), in repeating twice more that they had no bread (no loaves). This creates a problem because they still affirm that the disciples had not brought bread (loaves) along, after saying they had brought one loaf. Thus the practice or habit of the writer of Mark of inserting a minor detail into what the Matthean text he had been following said, initiated the problem. His continued following of the Matthean text subsequently, and failure to adjust his subsequent text to conform to the added detail, which could be called Markan "fatigue,"[13] constitutes the problem itself. It might be argued that there is no discrepancy here; they had brought one loaf along but had not brought "loaves" along. However, in actual speech, which this was, such nitpicking doesn't occur, unless the conversation is one of insincere banter, which this wasn't. Further, if the same argument were to be made with respect to Mt 22:24 -- arguing that for a person "not to have children" only means "not to have more than one child" -- it would be roundly rejected by all as being very special pleading. Furthermore, in the case of "no loaves," one loaf would have been very significant and nothing Jesus would have ignored, for if with five loaves he could feed five thousand, surely with one loaf he could feed his twelve disciples. Again from the point of view of Markan priority, ignoring the above, it might be claimed that the writer of Matthew was merely removing a Markan discrepancy. However, this writer, if following Mark, would have been more likely to have removed Mark's discrepancy by stating consistently, in Mt 16:5-8, that they had brought only one loaf, thereby preserving a historical detail, rather than by stating consistently that they had no loaves. Mk 8:27-29 This is Mark's episode of Peter's confession of the Messiah. In it the Matthean statements of Peter being blessed and being the one upon whom Jesus would build his church do not appear (Mt 16:17-19). Otherwise the dependence of the one gospel upon the other is unmistakable. Those supporting Markan priority assume that Mt 16:17-19 were verses inserted by the writer of Matthew into the Markan account, since the writer of Matthew was pro-Peter in outlook, relative to Mark, and since "church" or "ecclesia" indicates a later redaction. And those supporting the priority of Matthew can point out that Mark was anti-Peter in outlook,[14] and so plausibly omitted those verses when copying from Matthew (and translating from Matthew). However, other considerations point to the priority of Matthew here. If the writer of Matthew was following Mark and invented the three verses giving Peter a privileged place, he would have been writing in Greek, as many modern scholars assume. Yet the three verses have a very Semitic flavor to them, as pointed out by Wilcox and others.[15] This would mean they had first been written in Aramaic and later translated into Greek, where their Semitic character shows through. It is less plausible that a Semitic flavor was imparted to it by the writer of Matthew if writing in Greek, unless he had these verses already available to him, written in Aramaic, in which case he would likely have had many other verses available too -- i.e., a source document written in Aramaic. And Butler has noticed how audacious it would have been of the writer of Matthew if he had inserted these three verses favoring Peter as his own invention, considering that just a few verses later he allows Peter to be chastised by Jesus saying, "Get behind me, Satan!"[16] But if the writer of Matthew had altered his source here, would its Semitic flavor still have shown through? The answer is "Yes," because he himself was writing in a Semitic tongue, and because his alterations in wording from that of his source were minimal, yet sufficient to completely alter the meaning. How this was accomplished in this instance can be seen within the Mt-TJ verse-comparison section by entering here. Mk 8:32 In the first half of the verse Mark has the addition: "And he said this plainly," referring to the Son of man having just told the disciples about his coming ordeal. This is followed in the second half by Peter rebuking Jesus, or starting to rebuke him. This latter half makes no sense without knowledge of Matthew, for why would a disciple rebuke his lord for informing him of what he foresaw? In the Matthean parallel (Mt 16:22), however, the rebuke is seen to be scarcely that but an understandable wish that Jesus be spared the prophesied ordeal. But why then was the seemingly irrelevant first half of the verse added by the writer of Mark? As can be seen after reading Section 6, the omission by the writer of Mark of the Matthean text of what Peter said in his objection served the purpose of making Peter look especially deserving of a counter rebuke by Jesus. The irrelevant first half of the verse was then a clumsy attempt to support this impression, by indicating that Jesus had spoken clearly so that no rebuke by Peter had been called for. Furthermore, "And he said this plainly" or "openly" is not the case, because in the preceding verse of Mark the substitution "Son of man" was made for the "Jesus" in the parallel Matthean verse of Mt 16:21. This altered Matthew's plain talk into a veiled talk which the disciples, if as obtuse as is portrayed generally in Mark, would not have understood. This incoherence of the Markan account, resulting from an apparent editorial alteration, also betrays its secondary status relative to Matthew. Mk 9:13 "But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him." Here the writer of Mark was following along at Mt 17:12-13, but he omitted Mt 17:13, which states that the disciples then understood that Jesus was talking to them about John the Baptist. He omitted it probably because he did not make any sense out of Elijah "coming again," or because he did not wish to give credit to the disciples' ability to comprehend. In so doing, he added the clause "as it was written of him," as a nebulous substitute for what he had omitted. But in so doing, he introduced a fiction, if the Elijah who came was John, for John had been beheaded only a relatively short time earlier; hence there had been insufficient time for anyone to have written this about him since then, and to have emplaced it within a sacred writing. And there is no prophecy within the Scriptures that said John the Baptist or Elijah either one would be jailed and then beheaded. Quite possibly, the writer of Mark slipped up here by having Matthew in mind -- all about John's beheading was written there - and Matthew had come out a few years earlier and was receiving a wide circulation. From the viewpoint of Markan priority, it might be argued that Mark refers here to the Elijah of the past, not the Elijah who was to come. And that may have been his intention, since Mark contains no parallel to the statement "he [John] is Elijah who is to come" of Mt 11:14. If so, however, the writer of Mark again suffered from editor's "fatigue" in that he utilized Matthew's expression "Elijah has ... come" of Mt 17:12. Mk 9:30-31 In 9:30b we find the line with no Matthean parallel that follows the common Markan "messianic secret" theme: "And he would not have any one know it." In this case its insertion seems strained, for they were merely passing through Galilee at the time, and this they should try to keep secret? But in order to reconnect the train of thought following this insertion to what was in Matthew's parallel (Mt 17:22), the writer of Mark then wrote "for [Greek "gar"] he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, 'The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men....'" This "for" is also forced in here,[17] since whatever Jesus privately taught his disciples would not be cause for not letting anyone know they were passing through Galilee. Hence the "gar" suggests editorial action on the part of the writer of Mark while following Matthew. Mk 9:33 Here Mark, though it omits Matthew's story of the shekel from the fish's mouth, contains two elements from it. These are: "And they came to Capernaum," and "coming to [or being in] the house." These might be considered coincidental were it not that they are quite specific, and that Mark's textual content before and after this point follows along Matthew's. It is more feasible that the writer of Mark, in omitting Matthew's silly shekel-tax story as a whole, did borrow these pieces from it, than that the writer of Matthew decided at this point to insert a separate story of his own right inside of Mark's story.[18], [19] Mk 9:33-35 Here is where Jesus asks the disciples what they were discussing en route to Capernaum and they keep silent instead of replying. Only the narrator tells us they had been discussing who was the greatest, presumably which one of them was the greatest. But then in Mk 9:35 Jesus abruptly tells them that to be first (greatest) you must be last. How did he know what they had been discussing? Here is an instance, then, where Jesus might have read their minds and have known their discussion topic by that means. However, since Jesus had had to ask them in the first place, we surmise that he had not read their minds nor overheard their discussion; but if perchance he had nevertheless read their minds, the writer of Mark would in all probability have brought this out in order to demonstrate more of Jesus' occult powers, as he had, for example, in Mk 2:8. The remaining possibility is that the writer of Mark was aware from Matthew (Mt 18:1) that Jesus had known what the disciples had been discussing, because there he had been directly asked. But why then, after Jesus called the twelve to him, did he start lecturing on "the first must be last," which was not in his Matthean parallel (Mt 18:3-4), and which he would repeat as a doublet in Mk 10:43b,44? Butler astutely proposed the following answer. Since Mark omits Matthew's immediately preceding Temple-tax incident, there must have been a reason why he did not care for it. It tended to place Peter in an exalted position, above the other disciples and almost on a par with Jesus himself, in that the shekel tax payment was to be from Jesus and Peter. And so not only did the writer of Mark omit this incident for that reason, but he gave Peter a lesson in humility by having Jesus then lecture on how he who would be first must instead be last.[20] Within the alterations of this Markan pericope its writer again leaves behind his calling card -- an example of his editorial ineptitude -- by saying Jesus "called the twelve" (in Mk 9:35) although all the disciples were still in the same house with him, and did not need to be "called." The Matthean verse he was following at this point (Mt 18:2) starts out, "And calling to him a child...", and this could have prompted him to think of "call" at this point and apply it to the disciples. (However, the same Greek word for "called" would not necessarily be used in Mark here as in Matthew since the Gospel of Matthew available to the writer of Mark was written in the Hebrew language.) Mk 9:36-37 Further indication of Markan foreknowledge of Matthew occurs in the same pericope. After telling the disciples that any person who wished to be first must be last and be servile, Jesus places a child in front of them. But instead of continuing with the theme of servility or humility he switches to the theme of Mt 18:5-6a (receiving a child in Jesus' name). The writer's omission of Matthew's intervening topic of humility was responsible for this unrealistic change in subject.[21] At the same time, this omission may represent an attempted Markan improvement over Matthew, since children are not known for being humble, but rather for being without pretense. This omission is furthermore consistent with Mark's omission of other Matthean verses (in the Sermon on the Mount) that urge humility. Mk 9:38-39 38John said to him, "Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us." 39But Jesus said, "Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me." This passage is too close to Mt 7:22-23 not to be a parallel of it: Mt 7:22-23 22"...many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not... cast out demons in your name, and do mighty works in your name?' 23And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers." With Mark being dependent upon Matthew, we see that Mark's author did not approve of this Matthean verse, for what was Christianity all about if not doing mighty works in the name of Jesus? So Mark altered it into a verse that favored doing mighty works in the name of Christ. At the same time, he managed to portray the disciples in a bad light by having Jesus contradict them. This passage gives another indication of why the writer of Mark did not include Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, but instead selected only a few scattered verses from it for use in different contexts. Mk 9:41 41For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose his reward. This was supposedly spoken by Jesus himself. However, the title "Christos" was not any known title for Jesus until after Paul made it so. Hence this part, at least, of the verse is obviously non-genuine. In the Matthean parallel, Mt 10:42, "in the name of a disciple" is the phrase (in the Greek) that the writer of Mark altered to "the name of Christ." This is a reverential upgrading of Matthew. It is also very consistent with the editorial behavior of this writer that he would not have wished the name of a Jewish disciple, which Matthew's verse can imply, to be granted such religious power. Additionally, the listener would not know what reward is being spoken of. The previous verse gives the adage "he that is not against us is for us," and the one previous to that had dealt with not being able to speak evil against Jesus after having done a mighty work in his name. Neither these or earlier verses deal with rewards. The reward for following Jesus is not discussed in Mark until its next chapter. Yet this verse in question is such a close parallel to Mt 10:42 that a dependence between the two is unmistakable. It is seen as having been taken from the Matthean verse because its previous verse did deal with rewards. The writer of Mark thus had Matthew's context in mind for the reward here, but his omission of the previous Matthean verse caused the above problem. The introduction to this pericope (Mk 9:38-39b) moreover indicates further editorial ineptitude by the writer of Mark: in 9:38 John (presumably the disciple) tells Jesus that they (the disciples) had forbid a man to cast out demons. This had occurred some time in the past. Yet in 9:39a Jesus responds as if the man was still there to be told it was OK after all. In addition, the previous two verses of Mark also stem from scattered pieces of Matthew (Mt 7:22 and 12:30). The fact that Mk 9:38-41 does not have any coherent theme indicates the difficulty for a Gospel writer of trying to piece together extracts from another's Gospel to form a sensible pericope of his own. Hence, for example, the hypothesis that the writer of Matthew constructed the Sermon on the Mount out of Mk 9:50, 4:21, 11:25-26, 4:24, 9:38-39 and 1:22 is untenable. Mk 9:49-50 49For everyone will be salted with fire. 50Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltness, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another. The first half of verse 50 is a parallel to Mt 5:13b. The only connection to preceding Markan verses -- a very flimsy connection -- is the theme of the fire of hell. It may have brought the subject of fire to the writer's mind, which in turn brought "salting with fire" to mind as a clause indicating purging of sins. The topic of salt in turn may have reminded the writer of Mt 5:13, which he then plagiarized here. At this point the writer of Mark, had he continued to follow Matthew, would have written of the little ones (children) again and their angels in heaven. But this, being a strange, unheard of concept (children having angels), he therefore omitted, we surmise, along with the rest of Mt 18:10-14. Instead, he tried to continue with his theme of salt ("Have salt in yourselves"). He went on to omit the content of Mt 18:15-22 involving disputes and agreements between two persons, in all probability because it contained Judaistic advice regarding how to resolve disputes, and most importantly, because it contained a blatant slur against gentiles (Mt 18:17b). In its place, he substituted the clause "be at peace with one another," which simply does not connect up with "have salt in yourselves," whatever the latter's interpretation may be. But the "peace" clause does serve to summarize the 8 omitted verses of Mt 18:15-22. This is the key factor here that suggests the writer of Mark had been following along Matthew's text.[22] Mk 10:23-26 23And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!" 24And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of 26 a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." And they were exceedingly astonished... The first statement attributed to Jesus here would not have occasioned amazement on the part of the disciples. They had previously been told that when they themselves go out, administering, they should not take any money with them (Mk 6:8), and this did not cause any reported amazement. Instead, all indications are that the writer of Mark here was thinking a verse or two ahead to Mt 19:24-25, which Mk 10:24b-25 parallels, and inserted 10:24a, along with a repeat of 10:23, into the Matthean passage he was following, where astonishment is expressed at the saying of the camel and the eye of a needle. This was apparent to Harold Riley, for example.[23] The motivation for this Markan addition seems twofold: change for the sake of change, and causing the disciples to appear dumb. The latter is brought about by their amazement over what should not have been surprising, by Jesus having to repeat to them, and by his calling them "children." Mk 10:31 31But many that are first will be last, and the last first. This is practically identical to the parallel of Mt 19:30 and, as in Matthew, follows immediately after Jesus' reply concerning what those who have forsaken everything to follow him will receive as a reward. In neither gospel is it a particularly appropriate saying for that context. Butler found that "the obvious explanation is that St Mark is copying Matthew, leaves out the parable [of the laborers in the vineyard] (as he leaves out such large quantities of discourse), but retains the opening words."[24] He also noted, however, that Markan priorists would say that when the writer of Matthew came upon this Markan verse, he would realize that a parable he had in mind or had on hand -- the parable of the laborers of the vineyard -- would illustrate the paradoxical saying. And so he inserted the parable, finishing it off with essentially the same saying or inclusio. Although Butler commented that this reversed interpretation credits the writer of Matthew with too much ingenuity, I believe there is a more cogent refutation, as will follow. In the first place, an explanation is needed by either hypothesis as to why the saying appears where it is hardly apropos. The question had been in regards to what reward the followers of Jesus would gain for having forsaken all to follow him, and a culminating response as to who would get it first and who last is rather out of context. In the second place, if Matthew came after Mark, would the writer of Matthew be so enamored with Mark's first-is-last saying as to illustrate it with a lengthy parable he would invent? It is more probable that he would do so if he had invented the saying himself than if it had come from the writer of a gospel directed towards gentiles, i.e., Mark. Elsewhere in this website one may notice that the TJ indicates this is what happened. The writer of Matthew extracted the first-is-last saying from a lengthier TJ sentence that had been in context and placed it at the end of his invented verses: Mt 19:28-29, where it did not fit so well. Having created the saying himself and therefore liking it, but realizing it could be ambiguous, he invented the parable of the laborers of the vineyard to illustrate it. Then he capped it off with the inclusio, "So the last will be first and the first last." Since the meaning of the parable itself is rather obscure, the writer of Mark could easily afford to omit it in his desire to abbreviate Matthean non-essentials from use in his own gospel. Mk 11:11-17 This is Mark's version of Jesus coming to the temple and "cleansing" it. It occurs in two parts, as discussed in Section 5, apparently so as to allow ample time for the miracle of the drying up of the fig tree to occur over a full one-day period. It is seen to be an alteration of the Matthean version because the writer of Mark, in making the alteration, lost track of the people involved. In the Matthean version, some at least of the people who followed Jesus into Jerusalem are implied to have been present to witness the cleansing of the temple, since at the end of that event the blind and lame among them were healed. In Mark, these followers are not heard from again on the day of his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, whereupon Jesus goes into the temple, looks around, and goes back out again without doing or saying anything. Those who had been following Jesus into Jerusalem seem to have vanished by the time he reached the temple. Only after Jesus' second entrance into the temple, when the cleansing occurs according to Mark, is there suddenly a multitude of people present at the temple to hear him teach; where they came from is not mentioned. There had been no announcement that Jesus would appear in the temple on the very next day. At this point, then, one sees that the writer of Mark had resumed following Matthew's outline, at Mt 21:14, of a single temple event. Thus the writer of Mark again suffered from "editor's fatigue," making an alteration that added a first entrance into the temple without any mention of the many people who had been following Jesus there, and then resuming his following of the text of Matthew by having a multitude suddenly be present on the next day for Jesus' cleansing of the temple and teaching. It is not unreasonable that an editor altering another's story would slip up in this manner. However, it would be unreasonable to expect that, if Mark had come first, the writer of Matthew would decide to omit Mark's first temple visitation of Jesus, for whatever reason, and then notice that by so doing the unexplained disappearance of the people on the first day and their unexplained reappearance on the second day would both be resolved. This analysis is not meant to imply, however, that Matthew's version is free from redactions of its own made by its writer when converting his source document into an acceptable gospel. Mk 11:18-19 These two verses have no parallels in Matthew. In the first of them the chief priests and scribes are said, by implication, to have heard of Jesus' cleansing of the temple and therefore "sought a way to destroy him." The use of "heard" here makes it appear that they were not around when the event occurred. Yet in the same verse they are said to have feared him because "the multitude was astonished at his teaching," thus implying that they had been around after all when he had supposedly taught, in order to have witnessed the astonishment of the people in the temple. Since the Matthean version does not suffer from this unrealistic aspect, it must be preferred as holding priority over Mark. The preferred reading of the second of these two verses is, "And when evening came, they went out of the city." Here, "they" should normally refer back either to the multitude or to the chief priests and scribes, but to make sense it needs to refer to Jesus and the disciples. However, the disciples are not mentioned in the previous four verses. These two problems with these verses are indicative of the inept editing of the writer of Mark when making additions to Matthew. Mk 11:21-23 Here Peter points out the withered fig tree to Jesus, who then answers them, as if he should be answering not a question from Peter, but a question from some or all of the disciples. And he talks not at all about the fig tree but instead about having the faith to move mountains. These out-of-context responses are understandable if they derived from the editorial alterations made by the writer of Mark to the parallel text of Mt 21:20-21. He changed the disciples' question there of how Jesus was able to cause the fig tree to dry up into an exclamation of amazement by Peter alone. However, since in Matthew Jesus had answered them at this point, the writer of Mark, in continuing to follow Matthew's content, carelessly repeated them instead of using the word him. Equally incongruous is that in Mark Jesus' response did not even mention the fig tree! It appears that at this point the writer of Mark was eager to move on to Jesus' discussion of the much greater potential miracle of moving mountains, and so he abbreviated out Matthew's clause indicating how much greater a miracle could be accomplished than the tree- withering miracle, causing the discontinuity in discourse. Noteworthy also is that in Matthew Jesus is talking to the disciples here, as if they should be capable of performing such miracles, but in Mark this potential power is extended to "whoever," i.e., to all, which would include gentiles. Mk 11:25 "And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses." The analysis of John Chapman can scarcely be denied here that this verse contains parallels to portions of the Lord's Prayer in Mt 6:9a and 6:14.[25] Now if Mark had preceded Matthew, it is practically inconceivable that the writer of Matthew, upon noticing this verse within Mark, would have gained the impetus to scroll way back in his own text and there construct a lengthy Lord's Prayer around the Markan verse. However, it would have been expedient and plausible for the writer of Mark, upon noticing that the portion of Matthew he had been following at that point (Mt 21:22) related to prayer, to dip back into Matthew's Sermon on the Mount for the thoughts from the Lord's Prayer that would comprise Mk 11:25. Although it might be assumed that the Lord's Prayer was known before any of the Gospels came out, that assumption has no support. Bishop Ignatius makes no mention of it whatever in his several epistles, which otherwise contain much reverential material, and mention "prayer" 22 times. Additional support for this position stems from Mark's use of "Father... in (the) heaven(s)," a phrase its writer preferred not to use, judging from his sole use of it here versus the 20 uses of it in Matthew. Thus it is more likely a Matthean expression, and an Aramaic or Hebrew one at that, borrowed this once by the writer of Mark, than a rare Markan expression repeatedly used by the writer of Matthew.[26] Still further support comes from the inappropriateness of Mark's "whenever you stand praying, forgive." The instruction to forgive would not plausibly have been restricted to occasions when praying standing up. However, if the writer of Mark had been extracting from the Lord's Prayer of Matthew here, he would have noticed in its introductory context (Mt 6:5) the bit about "when you pray... they love to stand," which he then utilized in part.[27] This even suggests that the writer of Mark felt that the rendering of prayer need not require a humble posture, but could be performed standing up. A comprehensive, well-argued discussion of Mk 11:25 and its dependence upon Matthew is given by Butler.[28] It is sometimes questioned how or why the writer of Mark could have omitted the Lord's Prayer, if he had been extracting from Matthew, since this prayer became such an important part of the observance of the church, and his gospel indicates that prayer itself was not distasteful to him. Although this has been covered elsewhere in this website, the key point here is that the Lord's Prayer in Matthew is immediately preceded by the admonition, "do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do," and "do not be like them." It does not take an expert in psychology to realize that this would have raised the hackles of the writer of Mark, if he was a gentile writing his gospel in Greek for gentiles while relying upon the Hebraic form of Matthew as his main source. To that, add that Matthew had probably not yet had more than a very few years to circulate before Mark was written, and so the Lord's Prayer had not yet even become established within the churches. Thus the writer of Mark was simply omitting what would obviously have been distasteful to him -- Do not pray like the gentiles, but pray like this Mk 11:30-33 30"Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men? Answer me." 31And they argued with one another, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say, 'Why then did you not believe him?' 32But shall we say 'From men'?" -- they were afraid of the people, for all held that John was a real prophet. 33So they answered Jesus, "We do not know."... At verse 32a we see that the question among the chief priests, scribes and elders concerning "From men?" is left hanging.[29] If this had been a rendition of an actual reported discussion, the discussants would likely have expressed to themselves why it was they would not be able to answer "From men" to Jesus' question. It would not be left for a later Gospel editor to fill in the reason. Before embarrassing themselves in front of Jesus by not having an answer, they would at least have had to express amongst themselves why it was they dared not reply "From men." The parallel account in Matthew (Mt 21:25-27), then, appears as the more historical account, for there the discussion does occur among the group. The Markan version is thus seen as being an editorialization of that which occurs within his source -- Matthew. This editorial behavior on the part of the writer of Mark is consistent with his desire seen more distinctly elsewhere of seeking change for the sake of change, relative to the Gospel of Matthew. It is also consistent with his desire to place the Jewish clergy in the worst possible light: in Matthew their fear of the people was only a possibility that could come about if their reply was "from men," while in Mark such fear has become a fact. Mk 12:1 "And he began to speak to them in parables." Following this, however, Jesus speaks only the one parable of the Vineyard. Hence Mark's "parables" -- plural -- here was inappropriate. In Matthew at this point, however, Jesus had just spoken the parable of the Two Sons, not in Mark; and immediately following the parable of the Vineyard he spoke a third -- that of the Wedding, which also does not appear in Mark. So it was appropriate that Mt 21:33 begins "Hear another parable." Mark's inaccuracy can be seen to have been an error subconsciously incurred by the writer because he was aware from Matthew that Jesus at that time was speaking more than one parable. This seems ever so much more plausible than that the writer of Matthew noticed that Mark's "in parables" was used too loosely or improperly and so inserted two more parables here from some source so that Mark's plural would become valid. Mk 12:28 After Jesus has verbally put down the Sadducees, Mark reads, And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?" One must wonder about the scribes. What scribes? No scribes are mentioned as being around, and even in the episode previous to Jesus' encounter with the Sadducees, it is not mentioned that scribes were among the Pharisees and Herodians. However, in the Matthean parallel that the writer of Mark was evidently following here (Mt 22:34- 35), the Pharisees are mentioned to have regrouped together, with one of them being a lawyer. So the writer of Mark could assume that among them were some scribes, who were little different from lawyers in their learning. This suggests Markan dependence upon Matthew; for looking at it the other way around, the writer of Matthew, if he were to have noticed this problem in Mark, would in all probability have fixed it by adding the presence of scribes to Mt 22:34. However, there are no scribes mentioned there in Matthew. Additional evidence of Matthean priority in this verse is that in the Matthean parallel the question is "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" The use of "great" instead of "greatest" or "first" is a definite Aramaism. This (and many other of its Aramaisms) points to canonical Matthew being the translation of a Semitic original, with the writer of Mark not happening to preserve this awkward Aramaism in his parallel text. (During translation, the original content of necessity is expressed in a manner compatible with the language of the final product, without many idiomatic expressions from the original language necessarily showing through.) If viewed the other way around, with Matthew being secondary and first written in Greek, one sees no reason why its writer would have introduced Aramaisms that were not present in the text he was purportedly utilizing/copying.[30] Is he supposed to have tried to fool the clergy and other people of his own era into thinking that his text had first been written in Aramaic when all would know that it hadn't, if Mark had come first? But of course, we know that the tradition was that Matthew had indeed been first written in the Semitic tongue, and was the first Gospel. In this same verse the Judaistic flavor of "in the law" is consistent with this conclusion. Mk 12:34b "And after that no one dared to ask him any question." This is a close parallel to Mt 22:46b, which sensibly refers to the Pharisees' embarrassment over not being able to answer Jesus' questions to them. Here in Mark, however, the remark follows after Jesus' compliment to the scribe for having spoken wisely. Thus in Mark one sees that it is entirely inappropriate, being so because the writer of Mark decided to place it ahead of the Matthean pericope (Mt 22:41-45) that involved the question about David's son which Jesus' confronters could not answer, rather than after it. He did so apparently because he wished to substitute a different sentence after his own rendition of this pericope, and yet still wished to make use of the "no one dared to ask him" sentence. Although this sentence is not true, we may blame the writer of Matthew for that; the writer of Mark merely made use of it without, apparently, thinking about whether or not it is correct. Mk 12:38-40 "And in his teaching he said, 'Beware of the scribes, who like to go about in long robes...'" [there follow extracts that parallel Mt 23:6-7,14]." This needs to be pointed out as an apparent Markan dependence upon Matthew because it is so much simpler for the redactor to extract three verses from another's lengthy exposition of 39 sentences than it is to reverse the procedure. (The same has been noticed regarding Mark's brief summary of the wilderness-temptation story and use of a few verses from the Sermon on the Mount.) Moreover, in Mk 12:38a above we find the additional problem that what is said about the scribes in the first clause is not derogatory, in contrast to the rest of the pericope, and lacks any substance. To go about dressed in a robe was simply normal behavior. Here it is to be mentioned that the word "long" modifying "robes" was inserted into the English translations of the gospel; it is not present in the Greek from which the English was derived. In abbreviating the invective of Mt 23:5 against the scribes and Pharisees, so as to eliminate mention of the phylacteries and fringes on the robes -- items that would not be understandable or relevant for gentiles, the writer of Mark is seen to have produced this vacuous clause involving scribes wearing robes. Careless editing of another's text is a common way in which such a problem arises. Less likely is that an original text deriding the scribes utilized such fatuous language. Also to be noticed here is that "And in his teaching he said..." betrays the fact that Jesus had spoken more than what the writer of Mark presents, which is then only a summary. His knowing there had been more at this point is consistent with Matthew having been his source of knowledge. This subtle slip-up is precisely the kind of error that an editor plagiarizing another's work can easily incur. The discussions here stem from the work of Butler and Chapman.[31] Mk 13:9 "they will deliver you up...". This "they" is especially ambiguous, as it might refer to one nation or another, one kingdom or another, or to false prophets. But in the parallel of Mt 10:17-18 it is apparent that "they" refers to the "men" of Mt 10:17a. Again the writer of Mark has betrayed his knowledge of Matthew, by copying its "they" without proper consideration of how his alteration of the Matthean verse would affect the literal sense of its meaning. This error can be seen to have occurred because within his eschatological discourse the writer of Mark dipped back to Matthew's instructions to the disciples (Mt 10:19-22) to use in his parallel of Mk 13:9-13. Matthew's doublet of "But he who endures to the end will be saved" there and in the eschatology (Mt 10:22b & 24:13) may be what prompted him to make the connection. However, the real context of this theme of persecution of the disciples lay within the instructions to the disciples.[32] Mk 13:14 This verse reads: 14But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. This parenthetical insert occurs in the Matthean parallel also (Mt 24:15). So obviously either Mark depends upon Matthew here or vice versa. The Matthean verse includes the clauses: "...sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place." It then provides enough information for the reader to understand, if he is familiar, or becomes familiar, with Daniel (Dn 9:27, 11:31 and 12:11). Hence its parenthetical insert makes sense. However, the Markan verse omits this, apparently in keeping with its writer's desire to minimize dependence upon the Jewish scriptures. In so doing, the parenthetical insert that he retained does not let the reader understand anything. And his wording "where it ought not to be" is his replacement for Matthew's "holy place." Either of two hypotheses of the MAH explains this. 1) The writer of Mark was covering up for his ignorance or uncertainty of what this holy place was. (According to F. W. Beare, it was the great altar of the temple in Jerusalem upon which Antiochus IV Epiphanes, for example, had once built an altar to Zeus.[33]) 2) He did not want Jesus to refer to the Temple, which he had had to cleanse, as a holy place. Mk 13:26 26And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. Again "they" has no reference noun, as it appears within a fresh pericope that had started out with "But in those days." However, in the parallel of Mt 24:30 that the writer of Mark appears to have been following, we see that it refers back to "all the tribes," a phrase the writer of Mark omitted by the present hypothesis because it implied a reference to the twelve tribes of Israel and thus shunned the gentiles. This omission caused the problem. In addition, upon comparison with Mt 24:30 we see that it has the Son of man coming "on clouds of heaven with power and great glory." This expression, when combined with the "Son of man" phrase, allows one to be quite certain the source of the Matthean verse is Dn 7:13-14: ...behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man... And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom... Without the "of heaven" present in Mark, one can't be at all certain it derived from Daniel. But since it's in the Matthean verse, this points to the writer of Matthew having borrowed it from Daniel. Hence Mark was likely secondary here on this account also,[34] and its writer, in copying it from Matthew, was careless or desirous of making small changes like this for the sake of change. It is not at all clear that he even realized it had stemmed from Daniel, here or at Mk 14:62, since Matthew does not state that the verse has any connection to Daniel or any other prophet. Mk 13:33-37 This is the parable of the master going away on a journey and in the meantime entrusting his home to his servants; its emphasis is upon a warning to the servants to stay ever alert for their master's return, which could be at any hour -- even at midnight or at dawn. Because of its total lack of realism, since the servants need their sleep after a hard day's work, it is not seen as any original parable available to the writer of Mark, but rather as an amalgamation of pieces from other parables in one or more sources at his disposal.[35] It very easily fits into the category of Matthew having been this source. Matthew's absent master of Mt 24:45-48 and of the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-30), which occur in the vicinity of Mark's parallel verses, provided the thought that the master would leave on a long journey, entrusting his property to his servants. Matthew's theme that the Son of man is coming at an hour that is unexpected, which occurs at the point of parallelism (Mt 24:42,44), provided the same Markan theme as applied to the master's return. Matthew's verse about the thief coming at an unknown hour of the night (Mt 24:43) provided the Markan input for the master's return to be at any hour including late at night. The very close identity between the parallel verses just before this parable (Mt 24:36 = Mk 13:32) rules out anything but a direct connection between Matthew and Mark here, and the much greater plausibility of two Matthean parables being condensed into one by the writer of Mark rather than the reverse procedure implicates Mark as secondary to Matthew. Thus the writer of Mark is seen to have fused Matthew's "thief in the night" and its "absent master" into one person.[36] This explains why, in Mark, the unknown time of return of the Son of man (Mk 13:26,32) requires that a vigil be kept each night as if to ward off a thief (Mk 13:34). Mk 14:9 9"And truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her." Here "the gospel" is used in an absolute sense -- not followed by "of God" -- strongly indicating that some preexistent written gospel already was known at the time of writing of Mark. In Matthew, the parallel verse (Mt 26:13) has "this gospel," which then probably refers to the Gospel of Matthew itself rather than to oral "good news," since preparing one's live body for burial cannot be considered good news. It should be especially clear that in the case of Mark it does not refer to an unwritten, oral gospel, because it requires a particular gospel to be referred to as "the gospel" that would contain the incident of the anointing at Bethany, and because oral gospels all differ on what they comprise, depending upon the reciter. By altering Matthew's "this gospel" to "the gospel," the writer of Mark was perhaps suggesting that his gospel written in Greek, and not Matthew's (at that time written in Hebrew and/or Aramaic), would constitute the gospel for the world. Mk 14:39-41 Here Jesus' second prayer at Gethsemane is not stated explicitly; rather, it is just stated that he used the same words as before, in his first prayer. No third prayer is mentioned at all, except that he came again to the disciples to ask them if they were still sleeping. One has to assume that there had been a third prayer in order to make sense out of "And he came [to the disciples] the third time." In Matthew (Mt 26:36-45), on the other hand, the first two prayers are stated and a third is mentioned as being the same as before. These prayers must have been especially disconcerting to the writer of Mark, who we have seen wanted his Jesus to be brave and authoritative. It is understandable then that he abbreviated these sorrowful prayers by one third -- probably as much as he dared since their occurrence was known from the Hebraic Gospel of Matthew. This behavior is more likely than that the writer of Matthew, if following Mark, invented words of the second prayer. Mark's omission of the words of this prayer, moreover, may additionally have been prompted by its contorted logic: "..if this [cup] cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done" (Mt 26:42). He did drink it -- face up to the crucifixion -- but it happened anyway; it didn't pass him by. A writer who is keen on abbreviating another's work will tend to omit that which he doesn't understand, and which his readers would likely also not understand. In addition, one may notice Mark's use of "the third time." If the story were being told for the first time in Mark, its writer would likely have used "a third time." In Mt 26:44 the preferred Greek text upon which the Gospel translations are based reads "a third time." This little alteration in Mark is further confirmation of Markan foreknowlege of the contents of Matthew here. Mk 14:50 50And they all forsook him and fled. "They" was intended here to refer to the disciples, but by placement it instead refers to the arresting party and its complement of priests, scribes and elders. One must search back eight verses to find the last point where disciples were indicated. However, in the Matthean parallel (Mt 26:56b), which the writer of Mark is seen to have been following at that point, "disciples" is mentioned explicitly, which was grammatically necessary. The writer of Mark, having Matthew's "disciples" in mind, then carelessly wrote "they" when referring to them. Mk 14:65 "Prophesy!" This doesn't make sense -- prophesy about what? -- unless the writer of Mark was thinking in terms of the Matthean text in front of him (Mt 26:68) and its "Who is it who struck you?" More on this in the next section (4). Mk 14:68 In Peter's first denial of Jesus, he supposedly says, "I neither know nor understand what you mean." The Matthean parallel at this point (Mt 26:70) reads, "I do not know what you mean." One sees that the Markan penchant for adding dualisms to the narrations in his text has here crept into the direct speech in too blatant a form to be ignored. The extra "nor understand" simply would not have been uttered in the real life situation depicted. Instead, it is typical of the sort of redundancy the writer of Mark fed into his gospel throughout -- over 200 dualisms. In this case, the redundancy served also to emphasize Peter's stupidity. Thus the Matthean version without the dualism holds priority here over Mark. Mk 14:70 Here the bystanders told Peter, "Certainly you are one of them; for you are a Galilean." The problem here is that this statement doesn't give the reader any explanation of how they knew Peter was a Galilean. The unknowing gentile reader might think that Galilee was a hotbed of radicals, and that any Jew in an upset state of denial, as Peter was then, was from Galilee. But if the writer of Mark was continuing to follow Matthew here, one sees that he simply made a minor alteration in Matthew's "Certainly you are also one of them, for your accent betrays you." Thus the writer of Mark knew how Peter's Galilean provenance was known, because he had Matthew in hand, but it did not occur to him that his alteration had gone too far. If viewed from the possibility that Mark preceded Matthew, one sees that there are several possibilities the writer of Matthew might have chosen at this point. In decreasing order of estimated probability, he could have (a)repeated Mark as it was, not noticing the problem. Or he could have (b) assumed that one of the bystanders recognized Peter from having seen him around Jerusalem with Jesus in preceding days, or he could (c) assume it was due to his accent. Thus the odds are not very good that the last possibility would come to pass, while the odds are quite good that the writer of Mark would make an inept editorial alteration to Matthew for gentile readers, considering the accumulation of evidence that already points in this direction. Gentiles in Rome would not much care or know about the differences in language between Jerusalem and Galilee. Mk 15:1 Here the name "Pilate" appears for the first time, parallel to Mt 27:1. In Matthew he is introduced as "Pilate the governor," which was the usual procedure, then and now, to let the readers/listeners know what a person's title or status is the first time he is mentioned. In Mark, however, it is just "Pilate." The writer of Mark quite likely supposed that the name was so familiar that it needed no introduction. And why such great familiarity? Because the Gospel of Matthew had by then been around for a few years. This is only suggestive, however, since oral tradition might be able to explain it. Mk 15:7 Here, in introducing Barabbas for the first time, a literal translation of the Greek reads, "Now there was the one named Barabbas in prison with the rebels." Obviously, it should read "a man named Barabbas" or "one named Barabbas." This error is another of the type suggesting that in being well aware of the contents of the gospel he was copying/translating from, the writer of Mark regarded the subject, Barrabas, as a figure already know to him and his readers. In Matthew (27:16) Barrabas is introduced correctly with the anarthrous form of the noun: "a prisoner," not "the prisoner." The RSV Bible corrected Mark's grammar here to what it should have been. Mk 15:8-9 8And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he was wont to do for them. 9And he answered them, "Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?" The problem is that the crowd had not previously heard of Jesus being referred to as the King of the Jews, and so this would not have been understandable to them.[37] Only the chief priests, elders, scribes and council had heard of this, earlier that same morning (at Mk 15:2). On the other hand, the Matthean parallel (Mt 27:17) here has: 17So when they [the crowd] had gathered, Pilate said to them, "Whom do you want me to release for you, Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ?" In Mt 23:10 the Jerusalem crowds were previously exposed to the reference of Jesus being the Christ or Messiah, and so this problem does not apply there. Hence, the above Markan change for the sake of change has here betrayed the fact that Mark is secondary to Matthew. However, this and other references to "Christ" in Matthew (and hence indirectly Mark) are found to be secondary to the Talmud of Jmmanuel source, which does not use the word "Christ," and uses "Messiah" only once. In its parallel to Mt 27:17, it reads: "Which one do you want me to release, Barabbas, the criminal, or Jmmanuel, who is said to be a king of wisdom and the son of an angel?" Mk 15:13 13And they cried out again, "Crucify him." The problem here is that the crowd in Mark had not previously cried out anything to Pilate about what to do with Jesus. They had not previously shouted "Crucify him." Yet, here in Mark we find the word again. . The writer of Mark had omitted two Matthean verses here, the second one being Mt 27:20, which mentioned that the people had been persuaded to ask Pilate to destroy Jesus. Knowing that, however, the writer of Mark evidently thought of that as being equivalent to "Crucify him," so that when the crowd did first shout the phrase at this point within the Matthean text he was following (Mt 27:22b), he inserted "again."[38] Mk 15:17-19 17 And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on him. 18And they began to salute him, "Hail, King of the Jews!" 19And they struck his head with a reed, and spat upon him, and they knelt down in homage to him. It doesn't seem very realistic that the soldiers would have first mocked Jesus, then have struck him in the head and spat on him, and then once again mocked him by kneeling down in homage.[39] So one must compare the Matthean parallel against this to determine if it stands a better chance of having represented the real situation, with careless editing having caused Mark's problem. Mt 27:28-30 reads: 28And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe upon him, 29and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on his head, and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him they mocked him, saying "Hail, King of the Jews!" 30And they spat upon him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. This appears to stand a better chance to have represented reality, as the kneeling before Jesus was part of the mockery. Moreover, the somewhat puzzling aspect in Mark as to why a reed would be used as the weapon with which to hit Jesus over the head is answered. The reed had first been grabbed and thrust into Jesus' right hand to represent a royal scepter, as part of the mockery. Then when the brief fun was over, it was readily available with which to hit Jesus on the head. This appears more primary than Mark's account because one sees plausible possibilities why the reed-as-scepter line in Matthew was omitted by the writer of Mark. He may not have realized it had symbolized a scepter or perhaps felt that his gentile audience would not realize it; or since he very much wished Jesus to be treated as a king, he omitted some of the mockery that pertained to Jesus as king. But if Matthew were thought to have come after Mark, one has to argue that the writer of Matthew was creative enough to invent the use of the reed as a scepter, and perceptive enough to place the mock kneeling somewhat earlier in the event. Mk 15:20 20And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, and put his own clothes on him. The problem here is that nowhere in preceding verses was Jesus stripped of his own clothes. The soldiers had only placed a purple [robe] on him (Mk 15:17). So they could not then have put his own clothes back on him if they had not previously taken them off. In the Matthean parallel (Mt 27:28-31) he had been stripped before the scarlet robe was placed around him. Thus the Matthean account, representing what could actually have happened, must be preferred as primary to the Markan account, which could not have happened as related. That is, if Mark had preceded Matthew, one must assume that the latter writer had noticed this minor discrepancy and corrected it and that the writer of Mark had just been careless in the first place. But with Mark having come after Matthew, one finds a plausible reason for this problem in Mark without needing to assume anything implausible about Matthew at this point. One then sees that either the writer of Mark's penchant for abbreviating Matthew, or his desire that Jesus have been treated with dignity, caused the problem. Mk 15:26 "the inscription of the accusation." There is no previous mention of any inscription in Mark, or of its equivalent -- an overhead-placed writing or placard of the main charge against Jesus. Hence the writer of Mark should have written "an inscription" (anarthrous) here, had he not been following Mt 27:37 and its mention of the written charge placed above Jesus' head. Would the writer of Mark have been familiar with such an inscription from oral tradition? I know of no literature preceding the Gospels, or even including the epistles of Ignatius, that lets us know that oral tradition was aware of any inscription having been emplaced. From Mark's referral to it one might mistakenly infer that the emplacement of an inscription was the normal procedure followed in crucifixions by the Romans. Mk 15:37-39 37And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last. 38And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, 'Truly this man was a son of God!' The problem here is that the mere fact that Jesus apparently breathed his last and died at that time, would have been no cause for the centurion to make his "son of God" exclamation. Dying, with or without a cry beforehand, even a loud cry, was the expected outcome of crucifixion, and if Jesus died more quickly than usual on the cross, this would have been no reason for the centurion to make such an exclamation. As Jackson noted, the great cry with which Jesus supposedly died "fails as a satisfactory explanation for the centurion's confession."[40] Nor can the supposed rending of the curtain form a satisfactory explanation, as the curtain within the temple, which was torn from top to bottom, was not visible from outside, according to Beare.[41] Even if Beare were wrong on this, the odds are negligible that the centurion, with his attention focussed on Jesus at the time of his crying out, would have noticed the curtain of the temple in the distance at the moment of its rending, or even later. There is simply no rational reason for the centurion's outburst. In the Matthean parallel, however, the reason for the centurion's "son of God" exclamation there (Mt 27:54) was the earthquake, whether fictitious or not. It was violent enough to split rocks, to somehow rend the curtain, and to release bodies raised from the dead, which wandered about and were visible to many (though apparently, in Matthean afterthought, this latter occurred only after Jesus' resurrection). In this manner the writer of Mark betrayed his knowledge of the text of Matthew. It is understandable that he chose not to replicate Matthew's fictitious release of raised bodies, but with the omission of the earthquake also, which released the bodies from their graves, the centurion was left with nothing to marvel about. Mk 15:47-16:1 47Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid. 1And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. This is the same mother Mary in both verses, since earlier she is referred to as Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses (Mk 15:40), and in all cases she is accompanied by Mary Magdalene and Salome. So why is she referred to as the mother of James in Mk 15:47 and the mother of Joses in the immediately following verse? This obviously represents change for the sake of change, and so tends to indicate a secondary status for Mark relative to its close parallel here, Mt 27:61 and 28:1. The motivation for this particular change for the sake of change is evident. It would have been too repetitious even for the writer of Mark to have mentioned them in this redundant manner and not use a pronoun in his second reference to them, without making some alteration, even if only a small one. This also supports Markan dependence upon Matthew here, because Matthew understandably does not use a pronoun when referring to the two Mary's the second time, as its two usages are separated by five verses. And so with the writer of Mark following along with Matthew's order and text, while abbreviating out these five Matthean verses that he did not find acceptable, he carelessly followed Matthew's use of writing out the identities of the two Mary's in both places.[42] But to remove some of the obvious redundancy in so doing, he wrote in "James" rather than "Joses." The section of Matthew here that the writer of Mark omitted was Matthew's discussion on the setting of the guard. He had strong motivation to do so, in order to avoid portraying the guards at the tomb as fearful gentiles who needed to turn to the chief priests for solace. Mk 16:2-8 This last portion of Mark pictures the two Mary's plus Salome having gone to the tomb, and after arriving there, saying to each other, "Who will roll away the stone for us...?" However, Mk 16:8 states that shortly thereafter they fled from the tomb and said nothing to anyone. How then would anyone, including the writer of Mark, know that they had been questioning each other about who would roll away the stone? So Mk 16:2 and 16:8 involve a serious contradiction indicating that one or both verses are largely fiction. Furthermore, the editorial nature of Mark here displays itself in that the last portion of Mk 16:4 ("for it [the stone] was very large") is grossly out of place. The writer of Mark evidently knew the stone was large before writing Mk 16:3. How did he already know it? From having read Matthew, in particular, Mt 27:60. Mk 16:2 moreover is seen to be an inept editorial addition invented by the writer of Mark because, even before reaching the tomb, the two Mary's and Salome would immediately have noticed its open entrance with the stone rolled away; hence they would not then start wondering who would roll it away for them. And if they had been wondering that earlier, they would have brought some husky man along with them to roll it away. Thus the Markan account appears to be secondary in that it does not conform closely to an original, historical account, but rather shows dependence upon Matthew. Mk 16:6-7 Here the three woman are "amazed" when they see the young man in white sitting down. This reaction does not ring true, however, since in reality they would simply have assumed he had been the one who had rolled away the stone. And the wearing of a white robe does not impart amazement. Instead, the amazement seems to have been brought in by the writer of Mark because he had been following the Matthean account at Mt 28:2-7, where the angel who caused the guards to tremble with fear must indeed have caused amazement, if not fear, in the two Mary's. Further, Mark's young man in white possessed angelic powers of discernment, for he somehow knew (in Mk 16:7) that Jesus had earlier told his disciples that they would see him going to Galilee before them. Hence this also appears patterned after Matthew, namely Mt 28:7. Mk 1 - 16 Previous analysts who have presented arguments favoring Markan dependence upon Matthew have noted the improbability that the writer of Matthew, if his gospel were second after Mark, would, over and over again, just happen to have on hand relevant chunks of material to slip into the Markan text here and there, leaving no detectable suture. Examples of this include Mt 3:7-10,12,14-15; 4:3-10,13; 8:19-22; 10:5-8,13,15-16,23,27-32,34- 40a,41; 11:16-30; 12:6-7,27-28,33-45; 13:14-17,25-30,33,36-52; 14:28-31; 15:12-14,23-24; 16:2b-3,17-19; 17:13; 18:7; 19:10-12; 21:10b-11,28-32,43; 22:40; 23:1-5,8-13,15-39; 24:9-13,37-41; 26:52-54; 27:19,24,43,62-66; 28:4. It should be evident that the omission of many pieces of Matthew by the writer of Mark easily explains this. This is a cumulative argument, hence all this is here lumped into a single point of evidence favoring Matthean priority over Mark. On the other hand, many of the additions that the writer of Mark appears to have made to the Matthean text disclose reasons for suspecting this was indeed what happened. This is not to say, however, that the writer of Matthew's text itself doesn't exhibit sutures here and there indicative of his editing of the source document (Talmud of Jmmanuel) available to him. REFERENCES 1. Meagher, John C., Clumsy Construction in Mark's Gospel (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1979), pp. 36-37. 2. Meagher, Clumsy Construction, pp. 38-39. 3. Butler, B. C., The Originality of St Matthew (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951), pp. 126-127. 4. Mann, C. S., in The Anchor Bible: Mark, vol. 27 (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1986), p. 220. 5. Jameson, H. G., The Origin of the Synoptic Gospels (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1922), pp. 120-121. 6. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, p. 91. 7. Cope, Lamar, "The Argument Revolves: The Pivotal Evidence for Markan Priority Is Reversing Itself," in New Synoptic Studies, W. Farmer, ed. (Macon, GA: Mercer Univ. Press, 1983), pp. 144-148. 8 Mann, Anchor Bible, vol. 27, p.268. 9. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, p. 89. 10. Chapman, John, Matthew, Mark and Luke (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1937), p. 6. 11. Goulder, Michael, Luke -- A New Paradigm, Vol. 1 (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1989), pp. 255-256. 12. Maluf, Leonard, Message #8966 of the Synoptic-L archives. 13. Goodacre, Mark, "Fatigue in the Synoptics," J. New Testament Studies 44 (1998), pp. 45-58. 14. Parker, Pierson, "The Posteriority of Mark", in New Synoptic Studies, William R. Farmer, ed. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983), pp. 79, 85. 15. Wilcox, Max, "Peter and the rock: A fresh look at Matthew xvi. 17-19," NTS 22 (1975), pp. 73-88; see p. 73. 16. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, pp. 132-133. 17. Jameson, Origin of the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 124-125. 18. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, pp. 94-95. 19. Chapman, Matthew, Mark and Luke, pp. 16-17. 20. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, p. 95. 21. Chapman, Matthew, Mark and Luke, p. 71. 22. Chapman, Matthew, Mark and Luke, p. 18. 23. Riley, Harold, The Making of Mark (Macon, GA: Mercer Univ. Press, 1989) p. 122. 24. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, pp. 150-151. 25. Chapman, Matthew, Mark and Luke, pp. 76-77. 26. Chapman, Matthew, Mark and Luke, pp. 189-190. 27. Jameson, Origin of the Synoptic Gospels, pp. 135-136. 28. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, pp. 134-136. 29. Riley, The Making of Mark, p. 137. 30. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, p. 150. 31. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, pp. 74-75; Chapman, Matthew, Mark and Luke, p. 7. 32. Butler, B. C., "The Synoptic Problem," in A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, R. C. Fuller, L. Johnston and C. Kearns, eds. (Nashville: Nelson, 1969), pp. 815-821; see p. 820. 33. Beare, F. W., The Gospel according to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 468. 34. Riley, The Making of Mark, p. 157. 35. Tuckett, C. M., The Revival of the Griesbach Hypothesis: An Analysis and Appraisal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 183. 36. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, pp. 83-85. 37. Riley, The Making of Mark, p. 181. 38. Riley, The Making of Mark, p. 182. 39. Riley, The Making of Mark, p. 185. 40. Jackson, Howard M., "The death of Jesus in Mark and the miracle from the cross," NTS 33 (1987), pp. 16-37; see p. 17. 41. Beare, The Gospel according to Matthew, p. 536. 42. Riley, The Making of Mark, pp. 194-195. Go to: Next Section (Sec. 4) Return to: Contents Beginning of this topic Dependence of Mark upon Matthew (Continued) 4. Markan Improvements of Matthew's Textual Content The writer of Mark avoided copying many sections of Matthew, either because, in many instances, its use of Judaisms seemed unnecessary for a gentile audience to hear or read, or because, in other instances, it was not understandable to him or did not agree with his own views. He at the same time avoided a large number of Matthew's errors. So in this sense alone Mark can be said to be an improvement over Matthew. However, in this section I give some 58 examples of Markan improvements and reverential upgradings that involve significant alterations to parallel Matthean text. However, an occasional improvement through Mark's omission of a few words or up to a verse in length is included below. Mk 1:1 "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." In Mt 1:1 its writer spoke quite inappropriately of his gospel as a genealogy. The writer of Mark has partially corrected that here by calling it the beginning of the gospel. However he retained an echo of Matthew's introduction by referring to it as the beginning rather than the gospel itself, in analogy to Matthew's genealogy being the beginning of that gospel. He has also upgraded Matthew's "Son of David" to "Son of God." Of course, since he decided not to include the genealogy as being any necessity for gentiles to learn, he did not need to mention David here, and could let "Son of God" substitute for a genealogy. The possibility does exist, however, that "Son of God" is a later scribal addition. His use of the word "gospel" here, which is not in the Matthean parallel, could reflect the fact that until the first written gospel appeared, the word had implied only the "good news" of the Christian faith or of the kingdom of heaven. After the first gospel (Matthew) appeared, however, its entirety would become known as a gospel, and so the writer of Mark wished his writing to be known as a gospel from its beginning, and also favored the use of the word in his text. Had Mark come before Matthew, the writer of Matthew would surely have also used the word "gospel" in the introductory lines of his gospel. Mk 1:7 "...the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie." The parallel verse of Mt 3:11 instead has it "....whose sandals I am not worthy to carry." We notice that the Markan form portrays Jesus as even more worthy relative to John the Baptist than does the Matthean verse -- John is not worthy even to touch the thong of Jesus' sandals, let alone carry them. This Markan improvement towards greater reverence for Jesus relative to John is consistent with Mark's omission of Mt 11:1-14, which contains Jesus' high praise for John. Mk 1:8 "....he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." We notice that the parallel verse of Mt 3:11 has it "....he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." The extraneous, italicized phrase is well explained under the Mt-TJ Verse Comparisons, but otherwise it doesn't make sense if the writer of Matthew had followed Mark since in both Matthew and Mark fire is otherwise the symbol of hell or Gehenna. Nor would it make sense to suppose that the writer of Matthew added the phrase to give it some obscure meaning like "fire of judgment," since baptism has a meaning of initiation into something new, while judgment involves the very different meaning of a decision on one's fate based upon one's actions of the past. Thus the writer of Mark omitted it because the phrase in Matthew seemed inexplicable and incompatible with baptism by water. Mk 1:11 "and a voice came from heaven, 'Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.'" In the Matthean parallel (Mt 3:17), the saying is "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." Since the voice came from heaven, i.e., from the sky (ouranioV), it would have been heard by all present. Even if only Jesus had been present with John, this statement from the heavens doesn't distinguish which one was being addressed. In all probability others were present, too, as implied by Mk 1:5, and would God be addressing all of them? The Markan verse then accords less with reality than the Matthean verse, in which "This" indicated to the people present that the person they had just witnessed, stepping out of the water after being baptized, was the one being referred to. The writer of Mark then bears the greater burden of having been the redactor, making the change because in his mind, and that of his potential readers, it would have been obvious that it was Jesus who was being referred to. Mk 1:34b In this healing of the sick and casting out of demons, this portion of the verse is: "and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him." It is not present in the Matthean parallel at Mt 8:16. It appears to be an addition inserted to further bolster Jesus' image as an authority figure so deserving of respect that the possessing demons would not even speak out if he ordered them not to. The writer of Mark may have inserted it partially as a substitution for Matthew's quotation from Isaiah (Mt 8:17), which he felt was unnecessary for gentiles to read or would be confusing to them; i.e., if Jesus took on their infirmities [or weaknesses, as the Greek text reads], why did he then not appear to be sick or weak? Already by this point in Mark one notices that its writer wished to portray Jesus as strong, not weak, as in the inserted clause of Mk 1:13b, "and he was with the wild beasts," and would not have desired that he take on weaknesses. At the same time, the writer of Mark expounded upon one of his favorite themes: the Messianic secret, which was a secret to be kept except in gentile lands. On the other hand, if the writer of Matthew had been including most of Mark and expanding upon it, he would not likely have wished to omit this half verse in Mark, since he would not wish to downgrade Jesus' authority, and since he showed no aversion toward writing about demons or the Messianic secret. Mk 2:7 In the healing of the paralytic, in which Jesus forgives the man for his sins, Mk 2:7 has the scribes questioning, "Why does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" However, in the Matthean parallel (Mt 9:3) the scribes only say, "This man is blaspheming." Thus, Matthew supplied no explanation why this was blasphemy, and so the writer of Mark corrected this omission, which allowed him to add some non-Matthean substance to his text. Although this pericope is among those we believe was available to the writer of Mark from the document Peter had brought to Rome decades earlier, the forgiveness-of-sins theme suggests that for this portion of his text the writer was making use of Matthew. Mk 2:12 12And he [the paralytic] rose, and immediately took up the pallet and went out before them all; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We never saw anything like this!" This may be compared with the Matthean parallel (Mt 9:7-8), which reads, 7And he rose and went home. 8When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men. We see here that the writer of Mark did not wish to dilute the power and authority of Jesus by implying that "men" in general had this same authority to heal, as stated in the Matthean parallel. In fact, he was reluctant to even grant such authority to Jesus' disciples (e.g., see Mk 6:7 and Mt 10:8, where authority in Mark is given for the disciples only to cast out demons; or see Mk 6:47-51 and Mt 14:23-32, where the walking-on-water episode in Mark is restricted to Jesus only). Hence he made a significant reverential improvement by omitting the Matthean clause that gave such authority to men. Mk 2:15 15And as he sat at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were sitting with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many who followed him. The Matthean parallel (Mt 9:10) lacks the final clause "for there were many who followed him." This clause is seen to be a bit of apologia for the purpose of explaining why Jesus would be eating with such unsavory table companions -- among many people it couldn't be helped that there would be many tax collectors and sinners. Hence this is an upgrading of Matthew, albeit not a logical one, since it does not follow logically that out of all those who were following him there, those at the table would be predominantly tax collectors and sinners. Mk 3:3 "And he said to the man who had the withered hand, 'Come here.'" Then followed the healing. Actually, the command in Greek is better translated "Rise into the midst." In Matthew (Mt 12:10-11) there is no such corresponding command. It appears to be a Markan addition designed to further portray Jesus as a commanding figure, and if Mark were written first and Matthew second one would not expect it to be absent from Matthew. Mk 3:7 In this verse Jesus and disciples depart to the sea, after the Pharisees went out of the synagogue to conspire against him as to how to destroy him. However, in the Matthean parallel (Mt 12:15) their withdrawal is preceded by a clause indicating that Jesus was aware of this conspiracy. Thus Matthew strongly implies that Jesus withdrew out of fear of being killed, while Mark, by its omission of Matthew's "aware of this," gives little or no hint of this. Hence this very much appears to be a Markan omission so as to avoid any implication of fear on Jesus' part. If Matthew had come second, however, its writer is very unlikely to have added the implication of fear by the Son of God to the Markan account. In addition, where Matthew reads, "And many followed him," Mark reads, "a great multitude from Galilee followed," along with a great multitude from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and from Tyre and Sidon, also not in Matthew. The writer of Mark greatly escalated the size of the crowd, apparently in order to enhance Jesus' image. The Matthean verses immediately following (Mt 12:17-21) do not appear in Mark even though they are favorable towards gentiles; the present hypothesis explains this by allowing that it was the later translator of Hebraic Matthew into Greek who added the pro-gentile quotation from Isaiah. Mk 3:19b,31-32 This pertains to the house that Jesus is said to have gone to in Mk 3:19b or 3:20a and preached in, and to which his mother and brothers are said to have come. In the parallel of Mt 12:46 it is implied that Jesus was inside a house while continuing with his various preachings, but nowhere earlier is there any mention or indication that he had been in a house for any of it. Thus the writer of Mark made the indicated improvement, unless it was an accidental improvement due to his greater tendency, relative to Matthew, to give Jesus a house to stay at. Mk 3:29 Comparison of this verse with Matthew's parallel at Mt 12:32 indicates that Mark omits "And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven." As pointed out by Butler, it should be self-explanatory why the writer of Mark omitted it.[1] Disrespect towards Jesus should be discouraged, not tolerated. This omission represents a strong reverential upgrading of Mark relative to Matthew's text. Mk 3:30 The first intervening pericope, where Jesus is said to have been "beside himself" and to be possessed by Beelzebul, has an inclusio at Mk 3:30. It may be considered a Markan improvement over Matthew, as it clarifies just why it was that Jesus spoke about the sin of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit at Mk 3:29. In Matthew this was rather obscure because of the distraction of the intervening story about entering the strong man's house and plundering his goods, which was not followed up by any concluding inclusio. But here in Mark its writer has tied 3:30 back to 3:21-22, so that this intervening story, which he utilized from Matthew, would not cause the point to be lost that Jesus' Jewish friends did not even appreciate him. They had blasphemed against his spirit when saying "He is besides himself" and "He is possessed by Beelzebul," because Jesus' spirit could be equated with the Holy Spirit. Thus, these Jewish folk who supposedly had blasphemed against Jesus' spirit were never to be forgiven for that. Mk 4:8 In the Matthean parallel the order of the degree of bounty from the seeds that fell on good soil (Mt 13:8) is listed as 100-60-30-fold. In the Markan verse it is reversed to read 30-60-100-fold, which is the arrangement that maximizes the climax of the parable and most emphasizes the value of the good soil. It was a natural improvement for an editor/copyist to make, although we cannot be sure it wasn't just a "change for the sake of change." Mk 5:6 Here the Gerasene demoniac sees Jesus from afar, and then runs and worships him. In the Matthean story (Mt 8:28b) the two demoniacs simply come out of the tombs and meet Jesus -- no worshiping. Thus this is a Markan editorial touch of added reverence towards Jesus on the part of the demon. The entire verse, moreover, betrays itself as an insert to the Matthean story, because in Mk 5:2, which parallels Mt 8:28, the demoniac had just met up with Jesus already; thus he did not need to back off and then run up to him from afar to worship him! Mk 5:8 "For he [Jesus] had said to him, 'Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!'" This verse is a parenthetical insert by the writer of Mark to explain the situation of who was speaking in the previous verse, namely the demon. As such it can be seen to be an explanation relative to Mt 8:29, which did not make it clear that it had been the demon(s) speaking through the man (or men) until two verses later. The writer of Mark appears to have been quite knowledgeable about possessing spirits and the symptoms they could produce. Mk 5:19 "Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." The use of "the Lord" here to mean "Jesus Christ" is a Christian usage that developed some years after his Palestinian ministry had ended. Hence the writer of Mark himself placed it on the lips of Jesus, as the verse has no parallel within Matthew although the same pericope about the Gerasene demoniac does occur there (Mt 8:28-34). This represents another reverential upgrading of Mark relative to Matthew. If Matthew had originally come out after Mark and been based on it, it is not likely the writer of Matthew would have omitted this reverential statement. Although it might be argued that the writer of Matthew omitted it because it is complimentary to gentiles -- the country of the Gerasenes and the Decapolis being outside of the land of Israel -- this would not explain why he would then have retained the pericope itself or would not have retained this verse but omit the mention of the Decapolis. Mk 6:3 Here is the same verse as in the preceding section (3), but viewed with a different slant. During the incident when Jesus was rejected in Nazareth, Mark has the people in the temple say, Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of...? In Matthew, however, the parallel verse (Mt 13:55) reads: Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers...? Now, carpentry was an honorable profession, and if Jesus had indeed been a carpenter before his ministry began, and Mark had preceded Matthew, the writer of Matthew would have had no plausible reason for not stating so within his gospel. However, the writer of Mark, following Matthew, did have a plausible reason for not stating that Jesus was the son of a carpenter or the son of Joseph.[2]. He would have learned from Matthew's nativity section that Jesus was not the son of Joseph, but merely his stepson. Moreover, he did not include any of the nativity information in his own gospel, which suggests he had a serious problem with it. The immaculate conception he read of in Matthew may not have been acceptable to him, with its involvement with angels, and/or he may not have wished to think of Jesus either as stepson of a Jewish father or as an illegitimate son. And so he made the correction, or improvement, that Jesus was the son of Mary. In so doing, he apparently did not wish to mention Joseph, since he had omitted all mention of him previously, but did apparently feel he could retain the carpentry detail. This he accomplished by wrongly altering Jesus into the carpenter and not mentioning his stepfather. Regarding Luke, we see that its writer had no problem with inclusion of nativity material in his gospel. He, unlike the writer of Mark, had had some access to Matthew's source, the Talmud of Jmmanuel, and its wealth of material. He realized he could form his own nativity section using items from this source, while avoiding the use of nativity material already utilized within Matthew. He was evidently not averse to the idea of an immaculate conception, and could even go so far as to include the participation of the angel Gabriel in it (Lk 1:26-35). Hence he had no problem with Jesus being Joseph's son (Lk 4:22b). However, rather than correcting Mark where it was wrong he avoided mention of the carpenter issue; this was one of his many compromises between greatly preferring Mark over Matthew while avoiding some of Mark's errors. Mk 6:9 In Matthew's instructions to the disciples they are strangely told not to provide themselves with any sandals (i.e., Mt 10:10. A plausible though obscure reason why Matthew reads this way is presented within the Mt- TJ Verse Comparisons of this website.). The Markan verse fixes this up by specifying that they wear sandals. In fact, if Matthew hadn't contained this weird instruction, there would have been no need for the writer of Mark to even mention sandals. Mk 6:12-13 These two verses give vague statements as to what the disciples went out and did on their mission. This, in conjunction with Mk 6:30, is an improvement over Matthew, in which no accomplishments at all of the disciples are reported, nor is their return reported though they had been sent out (in Mt 10:5). Had Matthew followed after Mark, surely its writer would have included the disciples' supposed deeds, from Mk 6:12-13, of preaching repentance, casting out demons and healing the sick. From here on, the order of the pericopes that the writer of Mark included in his text follows that in Matthew, except for a few stray verses. Mk 6:14-29 This episode on the beheading of John the Baptist contains several Markan sentences, clauses and/or phrases that are additional to what's in the parallel Matthean account (at Mt 14:1-12). Depending upon one's viewpoint, it can again either be argued that the writer of Mark added to Matthew, in order to make his account seem like an improvement over that of his source, or that the writer of Matthew omitted portions of Mark's account for the same reason. In such a case, the version that is argued to have come first should most closely represent a historical event, since the editor/writer of the secondary version would be more distant from the time and source information of the event, and would therefore be more likely to introduce fictional or erroneous features. Harold Riley, for one, has noted that the Markan additions to the Matthean text contain such features,[3] and are sufficiently numerous, to qualify as being secondary additions. Some of the additions are redundancies, which are merely the Markan style, and thus cannot be argued against here. However, Mk 6:20 reads "for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man," while Mt 14:5 has "he [Herod] feared the people". Only the latter makes historical sense, since Herod would not have feared John himself after John was in prison. The same Markan verse states that "When he [Herod] heard him [John] he was much perplexed; and yet he heard him gladly," which has no Matthean parallel. This also represents probable fiction, since one does not, psychologically speaking, go and listen to a man speak if his preaching perplexes you, and do this gladly. Mk 6:21 starts out, "But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet..." On the other hand, Mt 14:6 simply has, "But when Herod's birthday came..." As noted by Riley, this "But an opportunity came" appears to be a Markan editorial clause in support of Mk 6:19, which presupposes that Herodias had had a grudge against John for quite some time. In Matthew, the thought that Herod's wife, Herodias, wanted to have John killed is not made explicit until two verses later (Mt 14:8). But here in Mark this motivation expressed in Matthew is anticipated and added in editorially. Neither the writer of Mark nor we would have any way of knowing if and for how long Herodias harbored the thought of having John actually be killed before she expressed the thought. Mk 6:21 also adds, "[Herod...gave a banquet] for his courtiers and officers and the leading men of Galilee." Here Riley has noted that it would have been awkward for the leading men of Galilee to have traveled all the way to the banquet, which was in Machaerus, where John was being held in prison. This was on the east side of the Dead Sea, some 90 miles from Galilee. In Mk 6:23 Herod states to Herodias's daughter, "Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom." This has no parallel in Matthew. Riley notes that it is most unlikely Herod would have granted any such thing to her, and that the saying appears prominently in the book of Esther (Est 5:3,6; 7:2). It is the writer of Matthew who is most noted for having inserted Scriptural verses into his text; thus if Mark had come before Matthew, the latter writer would likely have eagerly retained this sentence in Mark. And of course the word "kingdom" was not appropriate for describing Herod's jurisdiction. So this also appears to be a Markan addition, associated with lack of knowledge on the part of the writer/editor. These five items within this one pericope, due to their improbable or fictional character, strongly point to the Markan version not being based upon historical reality. Therefore the Matthean version, which Mark parallels, deserves priority over Mark. Mk 6:20,26 Here there is a particular Markan improvement over Matthew to be noted, not mentioned in the above. Herod is described as knowing that John the Baptist was righteous and being glad to hear him, and then being sad when the daughter asked him to have John beheaded. In the Matthean parallels of Mt 14:5,9, on the other hand, Herod is pictured as wanting to put John to death, but then being sad when he had to have it done. The writer of Mark eliminated this inconsistency of Matthew. Mk 6:29-31 In the Matthean parallel Jesus withdraws "to a lonely place apart" (Mt 14:13) when he hears of the beheading of John the Baptist, as if he had been shocked and fearful. Mark removes this undesired possibility by having Jesus tell his disciples to come (with him?) to a lonely place so that they -- the disciples -- can rest from their labors after having earlier been sent out two by two. Relative to Matthew, the writer of Mark portrayed Jesus as being fearless and his disciples as being tired -- perhaps too lacking in stamina to be good disciples? Another interpretation of Mk 6:31, "And he said to them, 'Come away by yourselves to a lonely place...'" is that the variant reading within the uncial D is actually more original, being a "harder" reading. It is, "And he said to them, 'Go away by yourselves to a lonely place apart...'" By this reading, the writer of Mark was again downgrading the Jewish disciples, this time, as in Mk 6:48c, by indicating that Jesus didn't want to have them around. The occurrence of the phrase "by yourselves" here (and in the Greek) instead of "with me" strongly supports this interpretation. Mk 6:41,43 In Mark's version of the feeding of the five thousand the following clause occurs that's not in the Matthean parallel (not in Mt 14:19): "and he divided the two fish among them all." This appears to be a Markan improvement over Matthew; although in Matthew it is mentioned how the loaves were distributed by the disciples, there is no explicit mention of the distribution of the fish. The writer of Mark thus corrected this oversight in his gospel. By so doing, he heightened the miraculousness of the event. At the same time, he added to the reverential aspect by specifying that it was Jesus, not the disciples, who should receive full credit for the multiplication and distribution of the fish. Towards the end of this pericope, the writer of Mark completed his improvement of Matthew by awkwardly adding the phrase "and of the fish" to the statement he had copied from Matthew so that he rendered Mk 6:43 as: "And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish." C. S. Mann has commented upon how awkward this verse is, and how the above phrase "seems almost an afterthought."[4] Such awkwardness, when combined with other indications of editing as noted above, is strong additional indication of editorial action. In his awkward editorial improvement, however, the writer of Mark forgot, when he came to the last verse of the feeding pericope, to include the fish when stating how many had eaten the loaves. Thus, he failed to follow through on his improvement over Matthew, thereby exhibiting "editorial fatigue." If, on the other hand, it is supposed that Mark preceded Matthew, then one would need to argue for the improbability that the writer of Matthew would have omitted important details about the fish, present in Mark's account. The improbability of this is to be considered along with the preceding indications that the writer of Mark edited Matthew's account. Mk 6:45,53 Just before the walking-on-water incident, both Matthew and Mark indicate that Jesus instructed his disciples to go in their boat to the other side of Lake Galilee. However, Mk 6:45 adds that they were to go towards Bethsaida, while Matthew fails to specify any particular destination. Just after this incident, when they had crossed over, both Matthew (Mt 14:34) and Mark (6:53) mention that they reached land at Gennesaret, not Bethsaida! (Bethsaida is on the northeast corner of the lake, while Gennesaret is on the northwest side, seven miles distant.) Thus it appears that, once again, the writer of Mark made a typical addition ("to Bethsaida") to the text he was copying from Matthew in order that his gospel would seem more original due to possessing increased detail, while omitting Peter's walking-on-water attempt. But then when he went back to copying from Matthew, he copied/translated Mt 14:34 without alteration into the first part of Mk 6:53, forgetting that this would conflict with his Bethsaida insertion. This could again be called "Markan fatigue." His preoccupation with adding his next insertion ("and moored to the shore"), to the last part of Mk 6:53, may have contributed to his careless editing here. Although it might be argued that the strong winds blew the disciples off course, this is unlikely, as it would have required winds from the east to do this, while strong winds are more likely to be comprised of a component from the west. In any event, after Jesus stepped into the boat the wind ceased, and they could have continued on their predetermined course towards Bethsaida, if that had been their actual destination. Mk 7:18-19 These verses read, 18"...Do you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him, 19since it enters, not his heart but his stomach, and so passes on?" (Thus he declared all foods clean.) The Matthean parallel at this point (Mt 15:17-18) reads, 17"Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and so passes on? 18But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man." The Matthean verse did not make it absolutely clear from its two verses here that the food you eat cannot defile you; rather it went on to emphasize what can defile you -- words out of the mouth. Thus the writer of Mark made the improvement of clarification by speaking of what comes in from the outside as not defiling a man. To emphasize this even further, he added the remark shown in parentheses (not in Matthew), so that it would be perfectly clear to gentiles who would be Christians that they need not adopt the Jewish custom of washing their hands before eating. This stands as plausible enhancement of Matthean text by the writer of Mark, because if viewed the other way around, the writer of Matthew would have had no motivation for de-emphasizing the Markan emphasis here, because at the end of his pericope (Mt 15:20b) one sees that he agreed anyway with what the writer of Mark would emphasize. Mk 7:25 This verse occurs in the pericope of the Syrophoenician (a Greek, i.e. gentile) woman whose daughter was possessed. In the parallel Matthean verse (Mt 15:22), where she is a Canaanite (non-gentile), she comes forth to Jesus and makes her plea. But in this Markan verse she first prostrates herself at his feet, another strong reverential upgrading by the writer of Mark. The gentile supplicant thus showed proper respect for Jesus. Mk 8:1 At the beginning of Mark's Feeding of the Four Thousand, it is a "great crowd" (or actually a "much" crowd) that had gathered, while in the parallel Matthean text (Mt 15:32) it is just "the crowd." This again appears as a minor Markan enhancement of Jesus' importance. Mk 8:22-26 This little miracle story, not in Matthew, may be an invention of the writer of Mark made to enhance his gospel relative to Matthew. This possibility arises because it could well be a doublet of the healing story of Mk 7:32-37, as follows, from the translation of C. S. Mann:[5] Mk 7:32-37 Mk 8:22-26 32 and they bring to him 22 and they bring to him and they beseech him to and beseech him to touch him lay his hand on him 33 and taking him away 23 he led him forth he put his fingers into and spitting in his eyes his ears and spitting he touched his tongue putting his hands on him 34 and looking up 24 and looking up and says he said 36 and he ordered them 26 and he...said, Do not enter the village to tell no one On the other hand, we must also allow for the possibility that this was a genuine event recorded in the recovered stolen writing later available to the writer of Mark but forgotten by the writer of the Talmud of Jmmanuel. In either event, it is almost inconceivable that the writer of Matthew, if basing his gospel upon Mark, would have omitted this Markan miracle story. Mk 8:33 This verse, which rebukes Peter, follows Mt 16:23 very closely except that it lacks Matthew's "You are a hindrance to me." On the hypothesis that the writer of Matthew was dependent upon the Gospel of Mark, and softened Mark's harsh portayal of the disciples, it would not make sense that the writer of Matthew would have added it in. On the other hand, it makes sense that the writer of Mark, if not omitting the sentence through oversight or the desire to abbreviate, did so because he felt that nothing a disciple could do should have been any stumbling block or problem for the Son of God. Mk 8:34 This verse reads, 34And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." The Matthean parallel (Mt 16:24), however, just starts out as "Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If any man would come after me..."' This then appears to be an upgrading of Matthew by the writer of Mark, having the purpose of showing that a message of which he particularly approved had gotten across to a much larger audience (the multitude) than to just the disciples. If viewed the other way around, the writer of Matthew, had he been following Mark, would have had no reason in his gospel to omit "the multitude" or "the crowd" here, and thus greatly limit the audience who had received this important advice. Mk 8:35 Here the writer of Mark showed his interest that the gospel -- a tangible written account of how to be a Christian -- be shown the same respect and priority as the name of Jesus itself. Thus he added "and [for] the gospel's [sake]" to the Matthean parallel he was following at that point (Mt 16:25). If Matthew had followed after Mark, its writer would have had no reason whatsoever to remove this phrase about the gospel. Mk 8:38 At the parallel point in Matthew we find that Mt 16:26 speaks of forfeiting one's life while Mt 16:27 speaks of the Son of man's coming some time in the future. Yet they are supposed to be connected thoughts, since a "for" (or Greek "gar") is used to connect them. The first part of Mk 8:38, involving not being ashamed of Jesus, is not in Matthew and mediates between these two thoughts, forming a transition. This then appears to be a Markan improvement, which, if Matthew had come second, its writer would not likely have omitted. Mk 9:47 Here Mark reads: ...it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell. while Matthew (Mt 18:9) reads: ...it is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. Mark's "kingdom of God" appears as a reverential upgrading of Matthew's "life."[6] And perhaps by this time, after repeating Matthew's previous "enter life" in two of his own verses (Mk 9:43,45), it occurred to the writer of Mark that it would make sense to improve upon or clarify it. "Enter life" can imply the time of very birth, which does not make much contextual sense, while "enter the kingdom of God" implies at or after death, which is then after the time of sinning and of eye plucking. Mk 10:13-16 In these verses in which Jesus blesses the children, the Matthean parallel at Mt 19:13 mentions that Jesus was to pray for them, but by the end of the pericope (Mt 19:15) he has failed to do so. The writer of Mark eliminated this inconsistency by not saying that Jesus was to pray in the first place. Mk 10:17 At this point a man runs up to Jesus, kneels before him and addresses him as "Good Teacher." However, in the Matthean parallel (Mt 19:16) the person simply comes up to Jesus and addresses him as "Teacher," without any kneeling or prostrating of himself. The Markan version is a very significant upgrading in reverence, or improvement, being twofold in character. It is extremely unlikely that if Matthew had come after Mark, its writer would have downgraded this high degree of Markan reverence. Further discussion of this pericope is found in the next section. Mk 10:29-30 This involves the hundred-fold reward to be received in the present life by those who leave behind houses or relatives or land for Jesus' sake (and for the gospel's sake). In the Matthean parallel (Mt 19:29) it is not clear if this reward will be received in this life or in the afterlife, though the context implies it will be in the afterlife. The Markan improvement makes clear the reward will come in the present life, in keeping with that writer's greater interest in material possessions (as exemplified in Mk 10:19, where the commandment "Do not defraud" is substituted in place of Matthew's "Love your neighbor as yourself"). However, this Markan improvement is not without the customary indications of editorial ineptitude. To receive a hundredfold bounty of houses and of brothers ... and of mothers... and of lands, etc., is quite nonsensical. Does anyone want or need a hundred mothers? And again, "for the gospel's" sake appears to be a Markan addition, as noted earlier. Mk 10:38 In the story of the request by James and John, Mark has a clause not present in Matthew (Mt 20:22) where Jesus asks them: "or [are you able] to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" The meaning here is a baptism into death, so that this is a very significant and portentous utterance. It is thus more plausible that Matthew does not contain it because Matthew came first and it was not in its source, than that the writer of Matthew simply omitted it had Matthew been written after Mark. However, the ineptitude of the writer of Mark as editor shows through here also, in that he wrote "with which I am baptized" instead of "with which I will be baptized." Mk 10:46 46And they came to Jericho; and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. The Matthean parallel at Mt 20:29 just starts out: "And as they went out of Jericho." The writer of Matthew had forgotten to say that they had already been in Jericho before leaving it, or else had mistakenly misplaced the scene as occurring as they left instead of as they were arriving. The writer of Mark has corrected this oversight. The progression through Luke is seen by its mention only of "to Jericho" (Lk 18:35). In this episode of the healing of the blind beggar, Mark mentions his name but Matthew, in its parallel (in which there two blind beggars) does not. This appears to be information available to the writer of Mark from the recovered, old document preserved by the church in Rome that Peter and (John) Mark had brought to Rome decades earlier. Included in the original information was also the mention of Bartimaeus throwing off his mantle as he arose. (The writer repositioned his pericope from this document into a later healing pericope within the Matthean framework.) If Matthew had followed Mark, the writer of Matthew would not likely have omitted such valuable details. But with Matthew's source having been written some years afterwards (after the writing of the recovered document), its writer by then would likely have forgotten quite a few such details. Mk 10:50 Here the blind man who was about to have his sight restored threw off his outer garment, leaped up and came to Jesus. This was amongst a crowd along the road from Jericho. In the Matthean verses being followed at this point (Mt 20:32-34 along the road from Jericho) Jesus asks the blind men what they want, and then he touches their eyes to restore their sight. Presumably Jesus walked up to them to do this, as nothing to the contrary is mentioned. Thus we see that the writer of Mark has made Jesus into a more respected figure here by having the blind man rush to Jesus without any implication that Jesus came to him. Mk 10:52 At the end of this same pericope, the writer of Mark similarly enhances the image of Jesus as a commanding figure by having him tell the man with the restored sight to go (depart), which command was not in his Matthean source. Then the writer of Mark went back to following Mt 20:34c by having the man follow Jesus, forgetting that his addition had just ordered the man to "Go." Thus we see another example of "Markan fatigue" here. Mk 11:2-7 Here Jesus acquires and rides a colt into Jerusalem -- a colt on which no one has ever sat. In the Matthean parallel (Mt 21:2-7) he apparently rides both an ass and a colt, in keeping with a saying from Zechariah. Thus the writer of Mark has improved his gospel over Matthew by eliminating this seeming absurdity. This argument might be reversed, except that the clause about the "colt on which no one has ever sat" can be judged to be a fiction, since Jesus had not been around in previous days to know if anyone had ridden it or not. The clause seems to have been added in order that Jesus be treated more regally, or with greater dignity. Thus it is a Markan fiction, indicative of Mark being secondary to its parallel verses in Matthew, which do not contain the fiction. A similar flourish to lend dignity occurs at Mk 4:38 where Jesus has a cushion in the boat to rest his head on, not present in Mt 8:23-26. Mk 11:15 Here Jesus begins to "drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple." He may not have succeeded in driving them all out, if he only began to do it. In Mt 21:12 he drives them all out, a seemingly incredible feat for just one person. In Mark, the word all is not present. Thus the writer of Mark has made this angry act less incredible and therefore more believable to his audience. There are other indications of Markan editing within this same pericope. Jesus could not have taught immediately after the ruckus he raised, yet the writer of Mark inserted the teaching theme at Mk 11:17-18. And in 11:17 the phrase "for all the nations" (not in Matthew) is inserted, which very much appears to be one of many Markan additions designed to enhance the status of gentiles. However, it was an inappropriate addition here, since the temple was obviously a place of worship for Jews, not gentiles. Mk 12:6 In the Markan form of the parable of the wicked tenants, the owner of the vineyard finally sends his "beloved son" to collect some of the fruit. In Matthew (21:37) it is just "the son" who is sent in this third attempt by the owner. The Markan version is a very substantial upgrading of Matthew, and makes the point clearer that this son represents Jesus in the parable, since "my beloved son" is what he was called in Mt 4:17 & 17:5, and Mk 1:11 & 9:7. It is thus very improbable that Matthew was dependent upon Mark here, but rather the other way around. The writer of Luke (20:13), as customary with him, tended to follow Mark's alterations from Matthew; in particular, he retained the "beloved" son, as would be expected. Mk 12:9 At this point in the parable, Jesus asks the chief priests, scribes and elders in the temple what the owner of the vineyard would do about the killings by the vineyard tenants. Then he immediately answers his own question in 12:9b. However, the reason for speaking a parable is to try to get one's listeners to do the thinking and answering of questions for themselves. In the Matthean text that the writer of Mark was following here (Mt 21:40-41), however, the question was indeed answered by the listeners of the parable, not by Jesus. We may then infer that the Matthean form of this verse is the more original, with this indeed having been Jesus' reason for using parables -- to cause his listeners to think. The writer of Mark could well have been motivated to make the change primarily so that Jesus would be the sole teacher, fully in control, and would not be dependent upon the chief priests, scribes and elders to provide an answer. This is a more compelling reason for the difference between Matthew and Mark here than that the writer of Matthew, if utilizing Mark, had recognized the more subtle point that the Markan parable could be made more genuine in appearance by allowing the listeners to answer the question. The writer of Matthew did not seem to be aware of this reason for speaking parables, judging from Mt 13:35, where reference is made to a prophet (to Psalm 78) in an attempt to explain it. And he would not likely have put the correct answer to Jesus' question on the lips of the chief priests, scribes and elders had it not been that way in his source, since he repeatedly ascribed Jesus' arrest and its planning to these groups, which he disliked. Mk 12:27b At the end of the short discourse to the Sadducees on resurrection, we find the following statement coming from the lips of Jesus: "You are quite wrong." This is not paralleled in Matthew, and therefore stands out as a Markan addition to Matthew because it makes Jesus more of an authority figure. It is less plausible that the writer of Matthew, had he been following Mark, would have removed this statement indicating that Jesus was an absolute authority who could rightfully judge and pronounce others incorrect. Although at the beginning of this pericope both Matthew and Mark have Jesus indicating his questioners were wrong, only Mark emphasizes it by this concluding verse. In so doing, the writer of Mark was also emphasizing the ignorance of Jesus' Jewish listeners, in this case, the Sadducees. Mk 12:29 The first or greatest commandment stated both here and in the Matthean parallel (Mt 22:37) derives from Dt 6:5. But only Mark includes the Deuteronomic prefix: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one." Various arguments can be presented either way on this to favor either Matthean or Markan priority. However, the strongest arguments indicate why the writer of Mark would have included it even when it was not in the Matthean text, and why the writer of Matthew would not have excluded it if he had been following Markan text, as follows. Within the land of paganism, where the writer of Mark was located, monotheism needed to be emphasized if gentiles were to be converted to Christianity. Thus the writer of Mark in Rome had strong incentive to have included the monotheistic prefix to the quotation from Deuteronomy.[7] In this instance there is little doubt that he was aware of the source of this first commandment from Deuteronomy with its prefix. If the writer of Matthew had been following Mark, however, he would not likely have omitted the monotheistic prefix he would find in Mark because there it is part of a quote from the Lord of a passage from the Torah, and because it was directed to Israel. But as for placing this prefix in his gospel in the first place, when it was not present in his source, this was not necessary since his gospel was intended primarily for Jews, and they had been monotheistic for several centuries. Besides, this prefix was not a commandment but an ancillary statement of belief, and so was not quite appropriate in this context. For purposes of the writer of Mark, on the other hand, the prefix would likely have seemed appropriate to include. As to why the writer of Matthew would have placed a verse from Deuteronomy followed by one from Leviticus (Mt 22:39) on the lips of Jesus, it was because a substitution was necessary for the unacceptable material in his source at this point. Mk 12:36 Here in the "Son of David" pericope, Mark reads, "David himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit, declared, 'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand...'". This is a close parallel to Mt 22:43-44, except that in Matthew it is just "Spirit," not the more christological Holy Spirit. Thus this represents a significant reverential improvement by the writer of Mark. If viewed the other way around, the writer of Matthew would not likely have downgraded Mark's Holy Spirit to Spirit, had he been copying from Mark. He had nothing against the phrase, as he used "Holy Spirit" five times in his gospel. Mk 13:1-2 In Mt 24:1-2 Jesus' disciples come to him without saying anything, yet Jesus answers them. In this Markan parallel this inconsistency is removed: a disciple first speaks to Jesus, then he responds. Mk 13:4 In Mt 24:3 the disciples ask Jesus when his coming (the Second Coming) will be. The writer of Matthew had gotten ahead of himself here, as the disciples had not yet been told of a Second Coming. The Markan verse corrects this by having the (four) disciples ask Jesus only when the temple would be destroyed and what the sign for that event would be. Mk 13:10 This verse: "And the gospel must first be preached to all nations," interrupts the flow of thought between verses 9 and 11, while repeating the Markan theme of the importance of the gospel. Thus it stands out as an attempt by the writer of Mark to add his own emphasis to the text from Matthew he had selected to follow at this particular point,[8] namely Mt 10:17-22. It is easily seen that Mt 24:9, with its mention of the disciples risking being delivered up to tribulation or death, could have brought these earlier Matthean verses to the mind of Mark's writer. Mk 13:10 is itself a parallel to Mt 24:14a, which reads, "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world." So it is Matthew's "gospel of the kingdom" that the writer of Mark has expressed in the secondary form "the gospel."[9] And the word "first" within the Markan verse is odd, as Butler pointed out,[10] because it makes no practical or historical sense, following Mk 13:9. That is, if the disciples should have to undergo beatings and bear testimony before governors and kings, this would occur at different times and places for the different disciples. Must the gospel then be preached to all nations before the first disciple is so mistreated, or before the second... or the twelfth? And what's to prevent it from being preached later, too? But from the parallel in Matthew that the writer of Mark was following, one sees that "first" here refers to Mt 24:14b, where a single event is mentioned -- the end, or apocalypse. So with the taking of Matthew's verse out of context, where preaching of the gospel will precede the apocalypse, Mark's verse is left with this preaching of the gospel not preceding any particular event and being a falsified prophecy as well. Mk 13:11 Here, where Mark parallels Mt 10:20, Matthew uses the phrase "the Spirit of your Father" while Mark has "Holy Spirit," which is a christological upgrade. This is indicative of Mark being secondary to Matthew. Mk 13:18 In the Matthean parallel (Mt 24:20) Jesus says to "pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath." In the Markan verse the sabbath phrase is omitted. The writer of Mark -- having a gentile viewpoint -- recognized that it should be all right to flee on a sabbath since the sabbath was made for man (Mk 2:27), whereas the writer of Matthew at this point had evidently forgotten about his text that relaxed the sabbath restrictions (Mt 12:8). Mk 13:27 "....and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven." The parallel Matthean verse instead has it "....and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Mt 24:31). Since the coming of the Son of man would affect those on earth, it apparently did not make sense to the writer of Mark that the elect would be gathered only from heaven and not from earth. So as an improvement he added the "ends of the earth" phrase. As a result early Christians could consider that they might live to be among these elect. In particular, the writer of Mark was ensuring that gentiles "from the ends of the earth" would be among the elect. Mk 14:4 In Mark's rendition of the woman's anointing of Jesus at Bethany, those present said to themselves what a waste of money it was to pour out the expensive oil when it could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor. In Matthew (Mt 26:8-9), on the other hand, the disciples express this thought aloud to Jesus in indignent tones. Thus the writer of Mark is seen to have portrayed Jesus as exhibiting his mind-reading capability in knowing why those present were reproaching the woman. It is more plausible that the writer of Mark would upgrade an event in his source text, by giving it a touch of the miraculous, than that the writer of Matthew, if following Mark, would edit out the miraculous. Mk 14:10-11 Here the chief priests promise to pay Judas silver if he would betray Jesus to them. In the Matthean parallel, they pay Judas 30 pieces of silver (Mt 26:15). From the point of view of Matthean priority over Mark, this is a purposeful Markan omission. It is likely that the writer of Mark reasoned that Jesus was worth inestimably more than any 30-shekel bounty, while Judas was undeserving of any bounty. His solution, then, was to omit the value of the silver and not let Judas receive any of it, there being no mention then or later that he was paid any silver. From the viewpoint of Markan priority, the writer of Matthew decided to amplify Mark's text at this point, choosing the value of silver (30 shekels) that Zechariah was owed upon renouncing his job as a shepherd, because he donated the silver to the treasury of the temple (Zec 11:12-13). However, if the source text of the writer of Matthew had not already mentioned 30 pieces of silver, or a similar amount, it is quite unlikely he would have inserted a relatively small sum like this, on his own initiative, as bounty. It should have been worth much more to the chief priests, he would reason, to put this wisdom teacher and miracle worker out of business. He could, for example, have inserted 200 pieces of silver as the bounty, in allusion to the money hidden away by Achan, who later confessed his misdeed and was then killed (Jos 7:18-25). Mk 14:13-17 Here Mark has an interesting little story, which deviates considerably from Matthew's parallel at Mt 26:18-19. In it Jesus provides prophetic instructions to two disciples who are sent out to prepare the Passover meal. Since it supplies details not in Matthew, it constitutes an editorial improvement over Matthew. However, if Matthew were secondary, its writer would have had no good reason for omitting this story, with its important details and display of Jesus' faculty for foreknowledge of a situation. One detail of the story suggests it was written by a gentile (the writer of Mark) located in a gentile land (presumably in Rome) and unfamiliar with customs in Palestine. The two disciples are to look for a man carrying a jug of water, but in Palestine the custom was for the women to tote the water.[11] A minor error at the end of this pericope helps confirm that this story was an invention of the writer of Mark. After being sent out to prepare the meal for all 13, in all likelihood at least one of the two would have been required to remain there, preparing it, until mealtime. Yet, Mk 14:17 has Jesus coming with the twelve to the "large upper room" for the meal. There is no mention that the two had first returned to rejoin the other ten disciples. This was then an oversight on the part of the writer of Mark. Lest it be thought that the deviations from Matthew here were too great for the writer of Mark to have invented, one may notice that their essence replicates important portions of Mk 11:1-6, causing C. S. Mann to suggest Mk 14:13- 17 may be a doublet of Mk 11:1-6.[12] That is, both passages contain the following elements: Jesus sends out two of his disciples, they go into the city or town, they are to repeat what their Lord or teacher said, and they went and found. Mk 14:21-22 Here there is an important omission of a single Matthean verse that stands out as being a Markan improvement. That verse is Mt 26:25, which reads, "Judas, who betrayed him, said, 'Is it I, Master?' He said to him, 'You have said so.'" Thus, the reader of Matthew may well wonder here why the other disciples didn't immediately spring up from the table and rush over to constrain Judas at this point. This is not so subtle a point that the writer of Mark would not have noticed it and corrected it by omitting the verse. To defend Matthew at this point, theologians usually assume that this conversation was whispered privately. But since this is not stated in Matthew, it makes sense that the writer of Mark would omit the verse. From the viewpoint of Markan priority, it isn't plausible that the writer of Matthew, if going to the pains of having inserted this verse into his copyings of the Markan account, would not then have realized the problem it poses. It is instead much more plausible that this problem was overlooked by the writer of Matthew during the course of fabricating the whole Last Supper conversation relative to the contents of his source document -- the Talmud of Jmmanuel. Mk 14:24 In the Matthean verse (Mt 26:28) the communion wine is likened to Jesus' blood "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." In this Markan parallel the blood is simply "poured out for many;" it would make more sense to a gentile writer that sins be forgiven through repentance at the time of baptism (Mk 1:4). Hence this omission of the forgiveness theme appears to be a Markan improvement over Matthew, at least from an early gentile viewpoint. Mk 14:26,31-32 When Mark refers to the disciples here it is just as "they" or "they all," which could conceivably allow that Judas Iscariot was no longer with them when they walked to Gethsemane but had earlier slipped out to embark upon his deed of betrayal. In the Matthean parallels, however, "them" refers to "all the disciples" (Mt 26:35- 36), forcing Judas to be with the others at Gethsemane, when there would not have been time for him to alert the chief priests who, in turn, would round up their arresting party. This then is a Markan improvement, though quite possibly an accidental one. Mk 14:30,72 This is the prophecy, and its fulfillment, that Peter would deny Jesus three times before the cock crowed twice. In the Matthean parallels (Mt 26:34,75), it reads before the cock crows (once). Although this could be classified as a Markan change for the sake of change, or as an added fictitious element, it is most likely also an upgrading by the writer of Mark of Jesus' prophetic powers. Not only does Jesus foretell how many times Peter will deny his lord, but how many times the cock will crow before this has happened -- a greater feat. It can be seen to be an alteration carelessly thought through, however, as Peter would probably have recalled what Jesus said after the cock crowed the first time, and might then have changed his subsequent behavior; moreover, sometimes two crowings of a rooster come in quick succession, leaving it uncertain if it was two or one. These aspects of unreality are not present in the Matthean version, which then is the version that could actually have occurred, assuming Jesus possessed astounding prophetic powers. Mk 14:65 Here Mark allows for certain members of the Sanhedrin to have covered Jesus' face before ordering him to prophesy. In the Matthean parallel (Mt 26:67-68), he was ordered to prophesy as to who was beating him when he could presumably see who was beating him. Thus the writer of Mark provided the covering of the face as a remedy to Matthew's error. (But still more will be said on this pericope in the next section.) Mk 15:32 "Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Mt 27:42b, on the other hand reads: "He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him." We see that in Mark, "the Christ" occurs in place of Matthew's "him." This appears as a reverential upgrading, pure and simple. Mk 15:43 In this verse Joseph of Arimathea enters the scene. He is said to be seeking the kingdom of God, but is not mentioned as being rich, as in Mt 27:57, which however does not explicitly state he was seeking the kingdom of God. Now in Mk 10:23 its writer had followed Matthew in stating how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Hence, this very much appears to be a Markan improvement over Matthew to remove this fairly evident inconsistency in Matthew. Since the presence in Mark of "kingdom of God" and absence of "rich" together result in a self-consistent improvement over Matthew, the two changes point to a purposeful redaction on the part of the writer of Mark. The verse moreover suffers from another problem that indicates it to be a redaction of Matthew. Here Joseph is described as having been a respected member of the council, whereas earlier in Mk 14:55 it is stated that the whole council sought testimony against Jesus, just as in Mt 26:59. It is inconceivable that Joseph would have asked for Jesus' body, bought a linen shroud, wrapped Jesus in it and laid him in a tomb if the previous night he had been one of those who had condemned Jesus to death (Mk 14:64). Mk 15:44-45 At this point, when Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and requested Jesus' body, Pilate wondered if he were already dead, summoned a centurion to ask him, and learned that he had been declared dead. There is no equivalent to this in Matthew. It appears to be a christological upgrade to confirm, more convincingly than is presented in Matthew, that the man had really died on the cross, a belief that is demanded of Christians (1 Cor 15:3- 4). The questioning on this attributed to Pilate then represents invention on the part of the writer of Mark, who in this instance was on safe grounds, since it is quite plausible that Pilate would have wondered about it. Mk 15:46 Then Joseph laid the body in a tomb that had been hewn out of rock, not in Joseph's own tomb as Matthew (Mt 27:60) has it. This appears to be a reverential upgrade of Matthew, in that the tomb, if it had just been hewn out, had not yet been put to use, and was not explicitly stated to be the tomb for someone else. Thus Jesus was laid in a tomb meant for him, not for anyone else. As R. H. Gundry expresses it, "Mark's omitting to say who owned the tomb (contrast Matt 27:60) rivets attention on its high grade."[13] Mark's omission here then gives the verse a similar upgrading to that of the addition in Mk 11:2, where Jesus would ride a colt "on which no one has ever sat." The writer of Luke furthered the upgrade by stating explicitly that the rock-hewn tomb was one "where no one had ever yet been laid" (Lk 23:53). Additionally, it can be seen as quite unusual for a man to have had his own tomb already prepared, if he were strong and healthy enough to have gone to Pilate to ask for permission to take Jesus' body and then go back to the crucifixion site, take him down from the cross, wrap the body and carry it to his own tomb. Hence the writer of Mark's improvement upon Matthew here elminated this circumstance, which might seem all too improbable to his audience. On the other hand, the writer of Matthew, if Mark had come first, would have had no reason to invent an improbable situation that was not at all essential to his story. The fact that Joseph had already had the tomb carved out in advance for eventual use by himself was worthy of mention by the original author, and retained by the writer of Matthew, just because it was an unusual situation. By the same token, the circumstance of the paralytic being lowered through an opening in the roof in order to gain access to Jesus (Mk 2:4) can be taken to represent an unusual but real event, available to the writer of Mark from the truncated source document then in the possession of the church at Rome. Mk 16:2-8 Now since the writer of Mark was aware that two Mary's had gone to the tomb, and was aware that a stone had been rolled away, etc., and since the pericope shares many detailed thoughts present also in Matthew, especially in Mk 16:6-7, which parallels Mt 28:6-7, it should be clear that the one account is dependent upon the other. With the evidence strong that Mark is secondary here, one must again consider if Matthew isn't the gospel that Mark depends upon. If, on the other hand, Matthew is considered secondary to Mark, one must wonder why Matthew's writer felt obliged to invent such a complicated story about guards having been requested and posted at the tomb, having become as dead men after an angel appeared, having recovered and then telling the chief priests about their encounter with the angel, and having been advised to relate a cover story about it. He could much more simply, if desiring to invent a posting-of-the-guards story, have merely stated that guards had been requested and posted, and that the stone was not rolled away until the guards did it at the request of the two Mary's. After all, a resurrected body that can pass through a closed door (Jn 20:19,26) or who can vanish from one place and suddenly appear in another (Lk 24:31,36) should not be hampered from vanishing from a tomb by a stone. Thus, if Matthew's source had contained much of the essence of the Matthean story, it all becomes explainable. The writer of Mark, viewed here as a gentile writing in Rome, is then seen to have frowned upon actual intervention in human affairs by an angel, just as he had avoided the angelic influence in Matthew's nativity story by omitting it all. And so he removed Matthew's angel here, along with all elements of the story about Roman guards who had become like dead men due to the angel's intervention, and who were said to have fallen asleep on the job. The young man in white, sitting in the tomb, is then Mark's replacement for Matthew's angel, and by implication the person who had rolled away the stone. Thus, this ending in Mark constitutes his improvement over Matthew, with its final thought -- that the two Mary's and Salome fled in fear and were disobedient in not spreading the good news -- being his final slur against the children of Israel. REFERENCES 1. Butler, B. C., The Originality of St Matthew (Cambridge: University Press, 1951), p. 113. 2. Stoldt, H.-H., History and Criticism of the Marcan Hypothesis, transl. Donald L. Niewyck (Macon, GA: Mercer Univ. Press, 1980), pp. 208-209. 3. Riley, Harold, The Making of Mark (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1989), pp. 74-77. 4. Mann, C. S., in The Anchor Bible, vol. 27 (Mark) (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1986), p. 303. 5. Mann, Anchor Bible, vol. 27, p. 335. 6. This has been pointed out by Mann, Anchor Bible, vol. 27, p. 385, who remarked, "It is difficult not to describe this [Mark's phrase] as secondary." 7. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, p. 137. 8. Mann, Anchor Bible, vol. 27, p. 517. 9. Riley, The Making of Mark, p. 154. 10. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, p. 81. 11. Beach, Curtis, The Gospel of Mark: Its Making and Meaning (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959), p. 107. 12. Mann, Anchor Bible, vol. 27, p. 562. 13. Gundry, Robert H., Mark: A Commentary on his Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), p. 982. Go to: Next Section (Sec. 5) Return to: Contents Beginning of this topic Dependence of Mark upon Matthew (Continued) 5. Unsuccessful Markan Improvements It should not be surprising that in some of the attempts by the writer of Mark to improve upon Matthew through use of altered text, he would not succeed. Here I present 8 instances of this. Mk 2:26 Here the writer of Mark added a clause, relative to Matthew (Mt 12:4), in order to inform the reader who was the high priest in the days of David. Unfortunately, he selected Abiathar to be this high priest, while from 1 Sm 21 we know that he was Ahimelech. If Matthew had come after Mark, its writer would in all likelihood have corrected Mark by giving the correct name of the priest rather than by merely omitting Mark's clause. Mk 6:20,26 Recall that the writer of Mark altered Matthew in Mk 6:20 so as to cause Herod to fear and respect John the Baptist as being righteous and holy, in explanation of why Herod was sad in ordering his beheading. Yet Mk 6:20 reads: "for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and kept him safe. When he heard him, he was much perplexed; and yet he heard him gladly." If Herod feared John, it could only have meant that he feared his popularity with the people. This would not have endeared John to him, nor would John's having told him he was an adulterer. And Herod certainly did not continue to keep John "safe." Thus the Markan improvement of Matthew here did not really succeed. Mk 6:39-44 In this version of the feeding of the five thousand, a comparison against Matthew's version suggests that when the writer of Mark read of the "five thousand men, besides women and children" (Mt 14:21) it brought the Roman military to his mind. And to make it understandable that the 5000 could have been easily counted, he had Jesus command them, as if a military commander, to sit in companies of 50 and 100. This image of Jesus as commander was consistent with his redactions elsewhere that showed Jesus to be in charge and unafraid, as in Mk 11:16, where "he would not allow any one to carry anything through the temple." At the same time, it would lend a desired gentile slant to his behavior. The fact that in Mark the crowd would have been easily countable would then indicate this to be a successful Markan improvement over Matthew, except for one problem. Those who ate the bread were five thousand men. The great throng who partook of this repast, however, surely contained many women and children also. It is inconceivable that only the men ate the loaves and not also the hungry women and children. Thus Mark's restriction of the pericope to men, in analogy to companies within the military being made up just of men, caused his intended improvement over Matthew to fail. If it is supposed that the writer of Mark was merely being sexist here, and was not implying that the women and children present didn't eat too, then he is seen as having upgraded the Matthean miracle by having many more than 5,000 be fed. Mk 9:14-29 In this pericope, paralleled by Mt 17:14-20, Mark gives a lengthier, more detailed account of the casting out of the demon from the man's son than does Matthew. However, two items within Mark's account indicate the event could scarcely have occurred as written. In the first, Jesus sees a crowd come running together (Mk 9:25a) even when the great crowd had already rushed right up to him and greeted him (Mk 9:14-15). The second is that this running together of a crowd within the great crowd caused Jesus to commence exorcising the unclean spirit. The Matthean account, though not (necessarily) genuine, exhibits neither of these improbabilities or incongruities. Yet the two accounts, being so similar and occurring in the same order within both gospels, obviously demonstrate that one account depends upon the other. In such a situation, if other differences between the two parallel accounts do not provide any irreversible indications of which account is primary and which is secondary, the likelihood is that the one that could more plausibly have actually occurred is primary. Thus Mark appears secondary here, with its author having had motivation to make alterations and add fictitious details to Matthew's account so that his own account would seem the more genuine one. Another apparent addition by the writer of Mark to this pericope is "the house" Jesus and his disciples entered afterwards, while the incident was still fresh in their minds (Mk 9:28). There was no mention of any house having being available to them at that time. A further indication of editing by the writer of Mark is that Jesus, in answering the disciples' question of why they couldn't drive out the evil spirit, is supposed to have told his disciples, "This kind [of unclean spirit] cannot be driven out by anything but prayer" (Mk 9:29), which is a parallel to Mt 17:21. However, Jesus had not offered any prayer in driving out the demon, but instead had simply ordered it out. In Matthew, a more appropriate answer to the question is given (Mt 17:20), along with Mt 17:21; the writer of Mark omitted the more plausible reply (Mt 17:20) and retained the response (Mt 17:21) that was inappropriate for his altered text. These are further considerations that make it more likely that the writer of Mark had ineptly edited and altered Matthew's account rather than vice versa. Mk 10:17-18 In the Matthean parallel, Jesus is asked what good deed must be done to inherit eternal life, and replies, "Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good [or "one is the good"]. If you would enter life, keep the commandments" (Mt 19:17). This response is rather ambiguous; as pointed out in discussion of the Matthean verse "the good" was a rabbinic term for the Torah,[1] but many Gospel scholars are unaware of that, and quite likely the writer of Mark as a gentile was also unaware. Thus he attempted to improve upon the Matthean verse and remove its ambiguity. This he did by writing Jesus' response in authoritative terms as, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments..." Thus the ambiguity was removed, but the more serious problem was introduced of Jesus not being good. Mk 11:3 In this verse the two disciples tell the caretakers of the colt that Jesus needs it and "will send it back here immediately." This extra clause is not in the Matthean parallel (Mt 21:2-3). It appears as a Markan improvement to Matthew so that Jesus could not be construed as stealing the property of others. However, nowhere later in Mark are the disciples mentioned as having returned the colt. This is another example of a Markan editorial improvement or alteration to Matthew that was not followed through -- "Markan fatigue." Mk 11:13 Concerning the fig tree that Jesus is said to have cursed, the writer of Mark attempted to explain why, in the Matthean parallel of Mt 21:19, the fig tree had held no fruit. It was because "it was not the season for figs" (Mk 11:13b). Then Mark continues to follow Matthew and has Jesus curse the tree anyway for not having any figs. This was a gross error on the part of the writer of Mark, incurred during an attempted improvement over Matthew. It also fits into the category of "Markan fatigue." The fact that Mark makes the tree-cursing miracle occur over an interval of a day instead of at once, as in Matthew, may have been to make the disciples' understandable amazement in Matthew (Mt 21:20) be uncalled for, if the tree had actually had a day in which to wither. In Matthew the disciples were portrayed as being of normal acuity in realizing that a tree should not be able to wither all at once, suddenly.) Mk 14:65 Here we revisit the "cover-his-face and prophesy" verse. This was an attempted Markan improvement over Mt 27:68 that also disclosed Markan foreknowledge of the Matthean verse. By omitting Matthew's question "Who is it that struck you?" the writer of Mark at the same time bungled his improvement of the facial covering, for then both the "Prophesy!" command and the facial covering lack any raison d'être. Mk 15:42-43 Here it states that it was the day before the sabbath (Day of Preparation), but that evening had either come or was about to come. The same Greek participle is used here as in Mk 14:17, where it indicated that evening had arrived, so that the next calendar day had begun and they could commence eating the Passover feast. Even if evening had not quite arrived in Mk 15:42, it would have taken a considerable amount of time for Joseph to go to Pilate, and for Pilate to send out a centurion to check on Jesus' death and report back. Before then, the sabbath would have arrived, on which Jews were forbidden to conduct business or travel. However, in Mk 15:43 Joseph is portrayed as a respected member of the council, thus one who must have followed the Jewish law. No such thing is stated in the Matthean p;arallel (Mt 27:57). Hence Joseph would not, or should not, have gone to Pilate at that time to conduct his business. Thus, the upgrading of Joseph's societal status by the writer of Mark, relative to Matthew, produced this particular bit of Markan "fatigue." In Matthew it is not a problem, because Joseph is not identified as being Jewish, but only as being rich (Mt 27:57). REFERENCES 1. Cope, Lamar, Matthew: A Scribe Trained for the Kingdom of Heaven (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1976), pp. 111-114. Go to: Next Section (Sec. 6) Return to: Contents Beginning of this topic Dependence of Mark upon Matthew (Continued) 6. Markan Anti-Jewish Responses to Matthew's Anti-gentile Statements This reaction on the part of the writer of Mark falls naturally into three categories: (1) omission or amelioration of Matthew's blatantly anti-gentile statements, (2) addition of pro-gentile text or alteration of anti-gentile text into pro- gentile text, and (3) additions and alterations to Matthean text designed to cast Jewish disciples and followers of Jesus in a bad light. These latter in particular exhibit an especially extreme level of literary degeneracy, so that it is no wonder that Christian-leaning scholars, since the 19th century, have avoided the issue by assuming that the Gospel of Mark preceded the Gospel of Matthew. Pierson Parker is a rare exception-a scholar who has dared to present many examples of these nasty innuendos.[1] A good many examples are presented here because they further indicate the strong motivation the writer of Mark had for writing his gospel, based upon his dislike of much within the Gospel of Matthew. (1) Omission of Matthew's anti-gentile statements. These offensive statements in Matthew include Mt 1:21b, 5:47, 6:7, 6:32, 10:5, 15:24, 15:26, 18:17 and 24:9b. They are of the type that denigrate gentiles, as in Mt 6:7, And in praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do.... and of the type that seeks to exclude them from discipleship, as in Mt 15:24, He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." A couple examples of a Matthean anti-gentile statement that was ameliorated follow: Mt 10:18 And you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles. Mk 13:9 ...and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them. Here we see that the Matthean verse has the disciples being taken against their will before governors and kings, to be delivered up then to the gentiles, while the Markan verse portrays the way disciples should behave, testifying willingly in the name of Jesus, without explicit mention of the gentiles who would persecute them. In addition, two verses later Mark has the Holy Spirit as being the source of what they would testify, whereas in Matthew it is "the Spirit of your Father." Mark's "Holy Spirit" appears to be an upgraded form of Matthew's "Spirit of your Father." Mk 13:26 reads, "And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory." There is no clue who "they" stands for. It appears within a fresh pericope that had started out with "But in those days." However, in the parallel of Mt 24:30 that the writer of Mark appears to have been following, and continues to follow, we see that it refers back to "all the tribes," a phrase the writer of Mark omitted probably because it implied a reference to the twelve tribes of Israel and thus shunned the gentiles. Mt 20:25 25..."You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them." 10:42: 42..."You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them." The Markan parallel replaces "rulers" who lord it over the gentiles with "those who are supposed to rule." This alleviates the undesired connotation that gentiles are "lorded over" by their rulers. The writer of Mark had no need to alter the second half of the verse, however, as it concerned the "great men" of the gentiles. (2) Pro-gentile additions and alterations in Mark. The best known example of this is Mk 7:20, where the woman Jesus replies to disparagingly yet whose daughter he heals is a Syro-Phoenician and hence a gentile, while in Mt 15:22 she is a Canaanite, who does not as easily fall into the gentile category. Other examples are: Mk 5:20 In this verse the man whom Jesus had healed, paralleled in Mt 8:28-32, went away to the gentile land of Decapolis to say how much Jesus had done for him. This Markan verse is not paralleled in Matthew. Mk 8:3 Some of those participating in the feeding of the four thousand "have come a long way," thus implying that they came from gentile lands. The parallel of Mt 15:32 does not contain this clause. Mk 11:17 In quoting from Mt 21:13 and Is 56:7, the writer of Mark added a phrase from Isaiah that is not in Matthew: "for all peoples." (3) Anti-Jewish additions within Mark. These are very numerous. Some of these will reveal a fiction, relative to the Matthean parallel, which then suggests that the Markan account is secondary. Those that are disparaging towards Jews in general, not just the disciples, are denoted by **. **Mk 1:34, 1:43, 3:12, 5:43 -- the Markan emphasis of the Messianic secret. These verses admonish the person who was cured, and the near bystanders, not to tell of it to the surrounding people, who were Jews. This is to be contrasted with Mk 5:19-20, where the man cured of being possessed is urged to go home and tell his gentile friends in Decapolis all about it. These latter two verses have no parallel in Matthew, though the pericope itself is paralleled. In Mk 7:36 the "Don't tell" admonition serves to encourage the onlookers to proclaim all the more the miraculous cure of the deaf man, because these onlookers were gentile residents of Decapolis. The "Don't tell" admonitions of Mk 1:34 and 5:43 are not present in Matthew. One is hard pressed to find any statement in the literature that the Markan emphasis on the Messianic secret may have reflected the attitude of the Gospel's writer himself. My search for such has revealed only one, and it was not in rigorously peer-reviewed literature. **Mk 1:40-41 40And a leper came to him beseeching him, and kneeling said to him, "If you will, you can make me clean." 41In anger [pity -- RSV], he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I will; be clean." The Matthean parallel (Mt 8:2-3) reads, 2and behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." 3And he stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." This leper was a Jewish supplicant; so, assuming Matthean priority over Mark, "in anger" was a strongly anti-Jewish addition by the writer of Mark. It has been noted by Bart Ehrman (in Bible Review (vol. 21, Winter 2005, pp. 18-22) that "in anger" rather than "moved with pity" is surprisingly well attested (in Codex Bezae and four other manuscripts cited by Nestle-Aland 27). Ehrman uses the standard argument of textual critics here that a "hard" reading like this would not have appeared in major manuscripts of Mark unless it had actually been present in the original. It is not surprising, of course, that all Bible editions have chosen the "moved with pity" reading, since how could Jesus have been moved "by anger" to perform this healing? The present solution treats both sides of this problem realistically, though it is of course not "politically correct" to postulate that the writer of Mark was anti- Jewish in his outlook. The writer also caused the leper to treat Jesus less respectfully, by omitting "Lord." **Mk 3:5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man... This clause, involving the accusation of hardness of heart, was supposedly spoken within the synagogue and thus was directed to the Jewish people within. It is not present in the Matthean parallel (Mt 12:11-12). **Mk 3:19-21 19...Then he went home; 20and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. 21And when his friends heard it, they went out to seize him, for they said, "He is beside himself." Here we see that Jesus' Jewish friends, probably not referring just to the disciples, for no indicated reason think Jesus is crazy, or "beside himself." This indicates how unworthy these non-gentiles are to have been privileged to have contact with Jesus-they don't recognize Jesus as Lord even when they see him. The inclusio of Mk 3:30, not in Matthew, confirms how unworthy they are-they who will never be forgiven for their sin of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit when they said Jesus was beside himself, or possessed. Mk 4:10f 10And when he was alone, those who were about him with the twelve asked him concerning the parables. 11And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret...." At first this seems like a mere Markan bumble -- to be alone yet be with the twelve and with certain others from the crowd. In the Matthean parallel (Mt 13:10) Jesus and the twelve at this point have withdrawn out of earshot from the crowds. However, in light of Mark's other more obvious instances of rude treatment of the disciples (see the continuation of Sec. 6(3) below), we see that this Markan alteration represents more of the same: the disciples have not been singled out after all to be the recipients of the secret of the kingdom of God. Instead, an indeterminate number of others -- perhaps 5 or 10 or 20 from the crowd -- are allowed to share these secrets with them. Yet, these extra persons plus the twelve disciples themselves, being non-gentiles, do not even understand what they are told, as indicated by the "Do you not understand...?" of Mk 4:13, whereas in Mt 13:16, which verse is omitted from Mark, the disciples are blessed for having heard and presumably understood the parable. The Matthean parallel at this point in the stilling of the storm, Mt 8:25, just has "Save, Lord; we are perishing." The Markan implication is that Jesus doesn't care much about his disciples. **Mk 5:29-34. In the case of the hemorrhaging woman (Mk 5:29), she touches Jesus' garment and is cured. Five verses later he tells her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease." In the intervening verses, inserted relative to Mt 9:21-22, Jesus wants to know who touched his garments, the disciples are insolent to him, and the woman is portrayed as trembling with fear as she admits to Jesus that it had been she. If the healing had occurred in a gentile land, with the woman being a gentile, there is little doubt but what the writer of Mark would not have portrayed her as coming "in fear and trembling." **Mk 6:4 And Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house." This follows the parallel of Mt 13:57 very closely except for the addition of the phrase "and among his own kin." Here the writer of Mark found an opportunity to emphasize that Jesus' own (Jewish) kinfolk did not appreciate him. **Mk 6:6 And he marveled because of their unbelief. This pertains to Jesus not being able to do any mighty work there in his own country, presumably because of the unbelief of the Israelites. So Jesus could only marvel, or shake his head, at this great degree of unbelief. This verse has no parallel in Matthew. It portrays the Israelites as being especially hard-hearted or ignorant. Mk 6:48b-49 ...And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the sea... This rendition of the walking-on-water scene is very close to the Matthean parallel from which it was derived, Mt 14:29, except for the addition "He meant to pass by them." In both versions Jesus is coming towards the disciples in their boat. Thus Jesus obviously would not have gone from his spot in the hills out onto the lake (if we accept the reality of the event), coming right towards the boat, only to pass them by. So this can only represent more Markan denigration of the disciples, shown by Jesus' supposed indifferent attitude towards them. Since the writer of Mark strongly favored making gentiles into disciples of Jesus, a plausible conclusion is that his strong disapproval of Jewish disciples is part of the same theme. Whether his purpose behind this was also in retaliation of Matthew's anti- gentile slurs is an additional possibility. Whichever the reason, this verse is one that discloses Mark's dependence upon Matthew. Mk 6:51-52 51...and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, 52for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. It is totally unrealistic that immediately after having been confronted with the miracle of Jesus walking on the water, followed by the storm wind ceasing as soon as he got into the boat, that the disciples would at that time be wondering about the loaves of bread and how they had fed 5,000. At this time, the loaves would not have astounded them, but what they had just witnessed a few seconds before would have. Quite evidently, Mk 6:52 is an inept Markan substitution for Matthean text (Mt 14:33) in which the disciples once again show themselves as being unfit to bear that title. Mk 8:17 "....Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?" Only Mark has the added question by Jesus to his disciples: "Are your hearts hardened?" It is not in the parallel of Mt 16:9. It is a serious implication or charge against the morality of the disciples. In most places within Matthew it is directed towards the Pharisees, but in Mark it is often directed against the disciples, too. Mk 8:21 And he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?" The Matthean parallel continues on with both the explanation of what Jesus had meant about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees and with narration mentioning that finally the disciples understood what he meant (Mt 16:11-12). By omitting this, the writer of Mark was again portraying the Jewish disciples as being extra dumb: they just could not comprehend. In so doing, however, he failed to complete the main point of the passage -- the meaning of the warning being to avoid the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. As Chapman has noted, this then indeed appears to be a Markan omission rather than a Matthean addition because, if Mark had come first, its writer would have had no reason for introducing Jesus' statement "beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod" (Mk 8:15), if he was not even going to explain what it meant to his audience.[2] In addition, Mk 8:21 simply repeats 8:17, further suggesting a Markan redaction. Chapman went on to explain that the writer of Mark had substituted the Herodians for Matthew's Sadducees in this pericope very likely because Herod Agrippa had lived in Rome and so Herodians would be much more familiar to his Roman audience than would Sadducees. This example, then, exhibits Markan dependence upon Matthew in addition to emphasizing the disciples' stupidity. Mk 9:10 So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead meant. The "matter" here refers to what the disciples had seen during the transfiguration. It is a sentence not in the Matthean parallel (around Mt 17:10). It impugns the intelligence of Peter, James and John that they did not even know what it means to "rise from the dead." Mk 9:32 But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to ask him. This follows Jesus' warning to his disciples of what would befall him in his coming ordeal. In the Matthean parallel (Mt 17:22) the disciples are distressed at the news, but here in Mark they are portrayed as being both non- understanding and fearful. Mk 9:33-34 and when he was in the house he asked them [the disciples], "What were you discussing on the way?" But they were silent; for on the way they had discussed with one another who was the greatest. Here the writer of Mark denigrated the disciples relative to Matthew by making a more shameful issue out of what the disciples had been discussing, as well as by having them fail to respond to a question from Jesus. In the Matthean parallel the disciples instead merely ask the question of Jesus "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" (Mt 18:1). The writer then found a way to denigrate the disciples a second time in the same verse, by additionally implying much more strongly than in Matthew that they had been discussing which of them was the greatest. Mk 9:38-39 John said to him, "Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us. But Jesus said, "Do not forbid him..." Here one of the Jewish disciples was so insolent as to complain to Jesus about the man (a gentile?) who did a healing or exorcism, because he was not following them, the disciples. In fact in this pericope, which is not in Matthew, we see the disciples as being both ignorant (for forbidding the man), and impertinent (for expecting that the man should be following them instead of Jesus). The writer of Luke retained this pericope (Lk 9:49-50), as might be expected since Mark deviated greatly from Matthew at this point; however, he removed the disciples' impertinence by slipping in "with": "and we forbade him, because he does not follow with us." Mk 10:14 But when Jesus saw it [the disciples rebuking the children] he was indignant... In the close Matthean parallel at Mt 19:14 there is no mention of Jesus being indignant at the disciples. Can't those disciples in Mark do anything right? **Mk 10:32 And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; and they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. This nonsensical attitude, of followers of Jesus being astonished and even afraid of seeing Jesus walk ahead of them, could well be further disreputable attributes placed by the writer of Mark upon Jewish folk, if not upon the disciples, too. It doesn't make sense in any other light. Mk 10:35 And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him, and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." In the Matthean parallel (Mt 20:20-21) the request is instead by the mother that her two sons sit at Jesus' left and right in the kingdom of heaven. The writer of Mark has made it more insolent in two ways: eliminating the mother so that the request comes straight from the two disciples, and altering the request into a selfish demand that Jesus was supposed to satisfy in their present lives on earth. Reasons why even the Matthean verse and its pericope were just a Matthean invention in the first place are given in the Mt-TJ Verse Comparison section of this website. Mk 11:12-14, 20-21 -- The cursing of the fig tree. In the Matthean account, the fig tree withered as soon as Jesus cursed it. The disciples all marveled at this (Mt 21:18-20). In the Markan parallel, Jesus cursed the fig tree and the disciples definitely noticed it. But on the next day as they passed by the same point and saw the fig tree totally withered, apparently only Peter of the Twelve remembered the curse. And neither he nor the others is said to have marveled at the miracle. It seems that, relative to Matthew, 11 of the 12 were portrayed as being demented, and all twelve as being incognizant of the marvel of this display of Jesus' spiritual power. It is noteworthy that only in Mark is it stated that the disciples heard the cursing, which was a preparatory addition setting the stage for the next day's lack of marveling at the miracle by the disciples. A separate indication here of Markan editing of Matthew lies in Mk 11:20-22. After the writer of Mark had changed the question coming from the disciples in Matthew into a remark by just Peter, he went back to following Matthew more closely by having Jesus answer them (Mk 11:22/Mt 21:21). Mk 14:4-5 4But there were some who said to themselves indignantly, "Why was the ointment thus wasted? 5For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor." The above two verses are quite similar to the parallels of Mt 26:8-9, with the exception highlighted here being some in place of Matthew's the disciples. Why would the writer of Mark have made this alteration towards ambiguity? In the light of all the other anti-Semitic remarks we have seen he added in, the answer can only be that he did not wish to credit the Jewish disciples with such a righteous, intelligent suggestion. Worthy Christian disciples were indeed expected to have concern for the poor. Therefore, he substituted "others" for Matthew's "the disciples." There could have been a few gentiles eating dinner at Simon's along with Jewish folk, since the writer of Mark does not even mention presence of the disciples. At the same time, we see that he specified 300 denarii for what Matthew calls "a large sum" in order to lend seeming substance to his gospel. **Mk 14:11a And when they [the chief priests] heard it [Judas's intention of betraying Jesus] they were glad. This bit is not in Matthew. It can be seen to serve the writer's purpose of portraying the Jewish clergy in the worst possible light-being glad that one of Jesus' disciples would wish to betray him-while at the same time supplying what might seem to be a vivid detail that would lend authority to his gospel. Although the Gospel of Matthew often portrays the chief priests in a bad light, which the writer of Mark incorporated, here we see that he added such a statement of his own. Mk 14:31 But he [Peter] said vehemently, "If I must die with you, I will not deny you." And they all said the same. In the Matthean parallel at Mt 26:35 there is no descriptor like "vehemently" that would emphasize Peter's upcoming failure to rally around his Lord. Mk 14:40 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to answer him. This occurs at the end of the second lament of the Gethsemane passion scene. The Matthean parallel does not contain the clause "and they did not know what to answer him." Again the writer of Mark was portraying the disciples (Peter, James and John) as extra dumb. However, the addition is seen to contain an error that helps give it away as a redaction: since Jesus had not asked them any question this time around, they could not have provided him with any "answer." Mk 14:47 But one of those who stood by drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. This closely parallels Mt 26:51, which reads, "And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear." The difference between them is that the writer of Mark apparently did not wish to credit this act to any of the twelve Jewish disciples. In downgrading the worthiness of the Twelve to have been disciples, he did not wish to attribute any courageous act to them. Hence he removed the inference that the defender of Jesus had been a disciple. This solution ties in well with that of the following passage, Mk 14:51-52, below. Mk 14:51-52 And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked. This incident, not in Matthew (or Luke) at all, occurs immediately following the disciples' forsaking of Jesus and their fleeing. In light of the preceding slurs against the disciples, we may, without undue speculation, interpret this incident in the same light. The idea that the disciples would forsake their Master and flee rather than try to defend him must have been very repugnant to the writer of Mark, judging from his editorial personality displayed elsewhere in his gospel, and his omission of Mt 26:52 ("Put your sword back into its place..."). Thus we may view this young man as being a caricature of the disciples, and at the point of being seized, he flees so shamefully as to run away totally naked. This interpretation is consistent with the fact that the pericope starts out stating that the young man followed Jesus. This stands in direct contrast to the preceding verse stating that the disciples had forsaken him and fled. However, at this point in the story Jesus was standing, talking to the surrounding arresting party, and not in any position to be followed anywhere. Hence this again betrays the inept hand of the writer of Mark as an inventive editor. Mk 14:54 And Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest; and he was sitting with the guards, warming himself at the fire. All that Matthew has at this point is Peter sitting outside in the courtyard (Mt 26:69). Peter is being denigrated here through becoming cozy with the enemy-the guards. The writer of Mark "rubs it in" by mentioning Peter warming himself by the fire once again, at Mk 15:67. The writer's distaste for the Jewish disciples, including Peter in particular, extended even to the title/attribution of his gospel. Although he had utilized the document that stemmed from Peter and (John) Mark with which to supplement parts of Matthew, he chose to name his gospel after Mark rather than after Peter. **Mk 15:1 "And as soon as it was morning the chief priests, with the elders and scribes, and the whole council held a consultation; and they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him to Pilate." In the Matthean parallel (Mt 27:1), it is just the chief priests and elders who took counsel to decide to put Jesus to death by handing him over to Pilate. By including the whole council here (plus scribes), the writer of Mark is, in essence, reconvening the Sanhedrin. But that body had already condemned Jesus as deserving death (Mk 15:64b). It would not likely reconvene very early in the morning to decide the precise method of putting Jesus to death when it could have done so the previous night. Considering Mark's strong anti-Jewish bias, one immediately notices motivation for its writer to have made this addition to the Matthean text: It would implicate more Jews in Jesus' execution, thereby undermining Matthew's stance of favoring discipleship for the children of Israel but not for gentiles. Mk 16:7 "But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee...." In the Matthean source here we read "Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee...." (Mt 28:7). Thus the writer of Mark has singled out Peter as being other than one of the disciples, so shameful to him was his denial of Jesus three times, followed by fleeing. **Mk 16:8 And they [the two Mary's] went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid. Even the two women, being Jews, do not escape the writer's derogatory treatment. Although Matthew, at Mt 28:8, has its two Mary's departing in both joy and fear, and with the intention of reporting what they experienced to the disciples, only Mark has them be too fearful to even report to a disciple what they saw. Although some of these Markan additions are reversible -- by claiming that the writer of Matthew softened and made more reverential Mark's rough language -- some really are not reversible. And one must search hard to find just one or two instances in which Matthew seems to be harsher on the disciples than Mark. The most notable, apparent case of this is Mt 17:20 versus Mk 9:29 -- in Matthew the disciples could not cast out the demon due to their little faith, while in Mark it was because "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer." However, under the discussion of this Matthean verse, Mt 17:20 is explained as a later revision, presumably made at the time Matthew was translated into Greek, or shortly thereafter, with the verse of Mt 17:21 having been present earlier, when the writer of Mark copied it, but then not later erased from all transcriptions of Matthew. (4) Markan omission of Judaistic material. It is now understandable why such a large percentage of the Matthean omissions by the writer of Mark was of Judaistic material. He wished to minimize Jesus' Jewish ancestry (through Joseph) and hence omitted the Genealogy, and so also the Nativity. The omission of Joseph the carpenter as Jesus' father or stepfather at Mk 6:3 (// Mt 13:55) may also have been for this reason, leaving Jesus to have been the carpenter. The omitted Sermon on the Mount contains numerous Scriptural allusions. And so on. It is to be mentioned that when a given Matthean passage contained some text that was probably favored by the writer of Mark but other text disfavored because of a Judaism, he had to decide whether to retain it or not. An example is Mt 3:7-10. He must have looked favorably upon John's castigation of the Pharisees and Sadducees but unfavorably upon the material concerning "Abraham as our father" and raising up children to Abraham out of stones. The latter consideration evidently won out, and this passage does not appear in Mark. Altogether the Markan depreciation of the disciples and the Jewish people paints a very unsavory picture of the second evangelist's attitude that could only have been (and can only be) totally unacceptable to the church and to many scholars with Christian ties as well. Hence it is no wonder that, starting a century and a half ago, long before the Holocaust, theologically committed scholars decided that instead of Matthew having come first, as the tradition indicates, they had better place Mark first. Then Mark's denigrating slurs upon Jewish followers of Jesus could be ignored or considered to have been original rough language softened by the writer of Matthew (and the embarrassment of Mark having omitted the Sermon of the Mount and other teachings from Matthew could be eliminated as well). However, this attitude was not and is not a truly scholarly one, as it avoids facing up to the harsh truth. The gentile writer of Mark in Rome was anti-Semitic in attitude, and it was not just his dislike of Hebraic Matthew's anti-gentile slurs that prompted him to include anti-Jewish degradations within his own gospel. REFERENCES 1. Parker, Pierson, "The posteriority of Mark," in New Synoptic Studies, W. R. Farmer, ed. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983), pp. 66-142; see pp. 73-84. 2. Chapman, Matthew, Mark and Luke, p. 19. Go to: Next Section (Sec. 7) Return to: Contents Beginning of this topic Dependence of Mark upon Matthew (Continued) 7. Markan "Changes for the Sake of Change" The writer of Mark would not have wished his gospel to be a mere Greek translation of Matthew. Obviously, if he were to write it and give it a different title or attribution, he would have to make it different from the gospel that provided most of his material, namely Matthew. Some of these differences we have already seen. But let us examine more of them and as a whole. a.) Mark's many omissions of Matthean material. This would go a long way towards making Mark look different than Matthew -- being only 62% as long. While effecting this, the writer of Mark would omit those sections of Matthew he found to be of least value for himself and for gentiles. These would include anti-gentile statements, non- essential Jewish material, statements favorable to the Jewish disciples, and passages he did not find sufficiently understandable. An example of the latter is Mt 13:51-52, not paralleled within Mark (or Luke). It not only speaks favorably of the disciples' intelligence, but has a rather uncertain meaning: "...Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old." One interpretation is that such a scribe will transmit what he knows from the Scriptures while generating his own new twists to it. Another is that such a scribe would not only utilize old scriptural material but include the new, also, i.e., Jesus' teachings. b.) Improvements over Matthew. We have already been over this category in Section 4; and let us also include his attempted improvements here also (Section 5). Whatever changes the writer of Mark would make to his gospel that would improve upon Matthew's story would also help it be different from Matthew. c.) Removal of specifically anti-gentile text, and addition of anti-Jewish text. This latter involved alteration of text so as to disparage the disciples and tend to disqualify Jews in general as being worthy to be disciples of Jesus. We have likewise been over these categories, in Section 6. These changes would also make Mark look somewhat different than Matthew. d.) Addition of factual details. These additions could be made because the writer of Mark had access to the old document that Peter and (John) Mark had brought with them to Rome. This document, having been written on the spot, so to speak, contained more detail and vividness than did Matthew's parallel text, whose source was written some years after the crucifixion. (However, the old document only comprised, roughly, the equivalent content of Mt 8-11, and thus had not been suitable by itself for use as a gospel.) A typical example of the greater detail it made available is the greater wealth of information within Mark's pericope of the healing of the paralytic (Mk 2:2-4). Another is the name of the synagogue ruler, Jairus, which was fed into Mk 5:22 but is absent in Matthew. A further example is the name Bartimaeus supplied at Mk 10:46 and absent in its Matthean parallel (but see under Mt 9:27-33 for full discussion on this). e.) Introduction of fictional detail throughout. In keeping with the greater detail available to him in the short document he had made some use of (see d.) above or Section 1.), the writer of Mark then introduced fictitious or surmised details into the rest of his text to make it look more uniform in this respect. When these fictions are quite blatant, as in the examples below, they point towards Mark being a secondary gospel, since the fictions represent editorial additions. Hence for these cases we use the approach of inquiring if one gospel version could have been part of a real event while the other could not. In that case the fictional account likely came later, having been a creation of the redactor; otherwise, if the other way around, many of these fictional events in Mark would have been copied by the writer of Matthew. The fictions below were included in both direct speech and narration. The first two examples of this come from direct speech in Mark, and the rest from Markan narration. Mk 3:4 reads, "And he said to them, 'Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?'" This is in a recasting or revision of Matthew's pericope of the healing of the man with the withered hand. The corresponding questions in Matthew (12: 10-12) are different. But here the writer of Mark betrayed his ineptitude in inventing realistic direct speech, as the question is one that could not have been answered in the affirmative even if the accusers had favored doing good deeds on the sabbath. A "yes" answer would have indicated favoring doing harm or killing on the sabbath, also. This alteration from Matthew can also be placed in the category of a "change for the sake of change." In Mk 14:20 Jesus says to his disciples, regarding who would betray him, "It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread in the same dish with me." In the Matthean parallel (Mt 26:23), Jesus instead had said, "He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me." We see that by introducing the wording, one of the twelve, relative to Matthew, the writer of Mark made an alteration in the direct speech that simply would not have occurred in reality. As one might suspect, this phrase is anachronistic as placed upon the lips of Jesus speaking to his own disciples. "The twelve" was appropriately used only some years later, as in narration by Paul and the later evangelists, not in direct speech by Jesus to his disciples, and hence does not occur elsewhere in the Synoptic Gospels as direct speech. Regarding fictions within Mark's narration, consider Mk 3:11. The writer of Mark was apparently following Mt 12:15 at this point, when he inserted the verse: "And whenever the unclean spirits beheld him, they fell down before him and cried out, 'You are the Son of God.'" One fictional aspect of Mk 3:11 is the idea that a possessing spirit knows the truth when the person possessed would not. Instead, a possessing spirit knows no more than did the person it previously dwelt in before his/her death, plus perhaps what the person it is possessing knows. Thus the unclean spirits, or demons, would not be any wiser than the normal people within the crowds, and would hold no Messianic secret exclusive to themselves. A second fictional aspect is that persons observing this event, if they had heard certain people call Jesus the Son of God, would have no way of knowing if the words came from unclean possessing spirits within them or from the persons' own unpossessed selves. That is, a possessing spirit can speak out only by speaking through the voice of the person it is possessing. Since Matthew's account does not suffer these fictions, it must be preferred as the more original. This does assume, admittedly, that both accounts are not fiction. A point of consistency, therefore, is to note that the TJ indicates that Mt 12:14-15 is authentic in essence. Mk 4:35 gives the time element for the event as the evening, not present in the parallel of Mt 8:18. But consider everything else that occurs on that same evening according to Mark. There is the boat crossing of the lake in the storm, the encounter with the Gerasene demoniac, the incident of the swine all rushing into the lake, the herdsmen fleeing to report the event to the country dwellers, who then come out from all over to see Jesus sitting with the demoniac, then the crossing of the lake again, then the meeting with Jairus, the curing of the hemorrhaging woman and then the healing of Jairus' daughter. Clearly if all this had taken place in the same day, the first event must have taken place in the morning or at most, early afternoon. Hence "evening" appears as a fictional element fed in by the writer of Mark. Mk 5:42 states that the supposedly dead little girl arose and walked, after Jesus told her to arise, because ("gar" in the Greek) she was 12 years old. This was a careless editorial addition, not present in Matthew (Mt 9:25). The girl had been old enough to understand Jesus and to arise on her own. Hence she could not have been any toddler too young to walk, and no explanation to this effect was needed. However, it is possible that this "explanation" reflected information available in the old document available to the writer of Mark, in which case it fits into category 7.d) above. In Mk 6:19 Herodias wants to kill John the Baptist, as the writer of Mark could deduce this from Mt 14:8, where Herodias prompts her daughter to ask Herod for John's head. However, Mk 6:19 goes on to say "But she could not [kill him]." What had started out as a safe change for the sake of change turned into a dumb little error, since of course she, being a woman and not a male guard or soldier, could not kill John. Carelessness in editing by the writer of Mark is more likely to have caused this problem than that the writer of Matthew fixed Mark's blunder, because in the latter case one would still have to explain why the blunder appeared in Mark's story if it were the original. Mk 6:37 And they [the disciples] said to him, "Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?" In the parallel of Mt 14:16-18 of this feeding of the five thousand, the disciples do not ask Jesus any such sarcastic question. Two hundred denarii would not begin to cover the cost, and it would obviously have been impractical for the disciples to go and buy so much bread to feed a crowd of 5000 and cart it back to them, some 100 loaves per disciple, hoping the crowd would still be there to eat it. The only practical recourse, short of a feeding miracle, would have been for Jesus to dismiss the crowd so that they could go back and find food for themselves in the villages. And so the disciples would not likely have asked the question, to which Jesus does not respond since it wasn't in reality asked. There simply would not have been any cause for such sarcasm. However, the disciples' sarcastic question is consistent with the writer of Mark portraying them as insolent as well as obtuse. And consider the "green grass" of Mk 6:39 in the feeding of the five thousand, where Matthew only has "grass." This appears to be the invention of a vivid detail, since the story had no need to mention the color of the grass any more than the color of the sky or of Lake Galilee. And it is by no means certain that the grass at the "lonely place" would not have been too sparse to show up as green. In Mk 6:45, not in Matthew, the disciples are told to take the boat to the other side: to Bethsaida. Bethsaida is on the northeast side of the Sea of Galilee, but the destination of the disciples' boat, after Jesus reached it, the headwind died down and they had crossed over, was Gennesaret, which is on the northwest side. They had evidently started out from a deserted place somewhere on the east or northeast side, perhaps near Bethsaida. The geographical impossibility of Mark's addition in this case thus gives it away as being a fictitious detail. In Mk 6:48a, after the disciples had gone away in the boat, Jesus had gone up into the hills. Evening came, then Jesus is said to have looked out and noticed that the disciples were "distressed in rowing" the boat. However, after this much time had elapsed, the boat would have been viewed from the hills as but a tiny object in the distance out on Lake Galilee. Jesus could not possibly have seen distressed expressions on the disciples' faces. On the other hand, the Matthean parallel (Mt 14:24) only says that the boat was being beaten by the waves. That much, but no more, could have been ascertained visually from over a mile away, by observing the boat's motions and the spray from the waves beating upon it. Thus it appears that the writer of Mark made this change, probably for the sake of change, because he could be confident that the disciples must have been distressed. He may also have been motivated to make the change in order to emphasize incompetence on the part of the disciples. Mk 8:12 reads: "And he sighed deeply in his spirit," which is lacking in the Matthean parallel of Mt 16:1-2. No one but Jesus himself would know if he had sighed deeply in his spirit at that time. Hence this is a fictional addition, adding to the weight of evidence that Mark is secondary. Mk 9:25 reads: "And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together...", which is not present in the Matthean parallel (in the vicinity of Mt 17:17). The problem with this addition is that from Mk 9:15 on in this pericope the crowd had already been close around Jesus and the disciples. This means the crowd-running-together incident never happened, and so was a Markan invention. And then there is: "they came to Capernaum" in Mk 9:33. Three verses earlier Mark informs us that they had just passed through Galilee, yet Capernaum, being on the northwest side of the Sea of Galilee, was still in Galilee. So Mark's addition to its altered version of Mt 18:1 was a fictitious addition. Mk 13:3 has four of the disciples query Jesus privately, whereas in the parallel of Mt 24:3 it is "the disciples" who query him and then listen to all the further prophecies. As a result of this alteration, in Mark only these four disciples get to hear 34 verses worth of further prophecy. This is quite unrealistic, since the remaining eight disciples were apparently near by, and they too would have been interested in listening. The writer's motivation, besides "change for the sake of change," may have been to give the impression that since the disciple Matthew (or Levi) was one who did not overhear, the Gospel of Matthew can scarcely be considered any more trustworthy than his gospel, which would be attributed to the non-apostle: John Mark. In Mk 15:21 we read that Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross of Jesus, was the father of Alexander and Rufus. This "information" does not occur in Matthew and Luke, which is consistent with Matthew having preceded Mark. (The fact it is also not in Luke is consistent with that writer having had knowledge of the Talmud of Jmmanuel and the fact that this source document did not mention Simon's sons.) Motivation for the writer of Mark to have added it consists of the aura of genuineness that the presence of details can impart, and the fact that Alexander is a Greek name and Rufus a Latin name. Thus, Simon could be considered to have been or have become a gentile, indicating that it was a gentile who had done this good deed. Joseph of Arimathea is presented as being "a respected member of the council" in Mk 15:43. This was a poorly crafted fictitious detail, since Mk 14:64 states that all the councilors condemned Jesus as deserving death. Thus Joseph, if a councilor, would not have suddenly reversed himself and gone out of his way to pay great respect to the man he had just condemned and thereby receive ridicule from fellow councilors. Besides these flagrant cases, there are numerous further added details that contribute towards the Gospel of Mark being different from Matthew, and often one could classify them in either this category, in "change for the sake of change" as in g.) below, or in Section 4 as an improvement over the Matthean story content. As an example of the latter, in the calling of the sons of Zebedee, Mk 1:20 says "they left their father in the boat with the hired servants," while Mt 4:22 just says "...they left the boat and their father." This added (fictitious) detail about the hired servants in Mark can be argued to improve upon Matthew in that father Zebedee is then not left all alone to mend or prepare the nets. Consistent with the above changes for the sake of change are Mark's expressions for "When evening came," which parallel those in Matthew. In Matthew the same Greek expression for this phrase is used six times: in Mt 8:16, 14:15, 14:23, 26:20, and 27:57. Presumably one particular Hebraic phrase underlay its Greek version. In Mark's parallels to these verses, which also contain the same expression, slightly different Greek variants of it are used each time following its first use, at Mk 1:32, 6:35, 6:47, 14:17 and 15:42, respectively. This comes from W. M. Farmer, The Synoptic Problem (Dillsboro, NC: Western North Carolina Press, 1976, pp. 155-156.) As Farmer noted, one need only imagine that the writer of "Mark tended to modify this Matthean expression quite freely wherever he found it in his text of Matthew." Some 180 added details in Mark of this nature are listed in the book by H.-H. Stoldt.[1] They fall partly into this category and partly into the pleonastic category of "change for the sake of change" to be discussed in g.) below. f.) Rearranging the order of pericopes. The pericopes that had been within this document at Rome provided the writer of Mark with a measure of authenticity to his gospel. They had occupied the extent of Mt 8-11, roughly (see Section 2). So he extended this measure of authenticity by translocating some of his renditions of Matthew's pericopes -- the ones paralleled in the old document available to him, plus a few others -- into a larger section of his gospel. This caused many of his pericopes to be in improper order relative to Matthew, as implied by Papias and as indicated in Section 2.A. These changes also served to make his gospel look different from the Gospel of Matthew. g.) Introduction of numerous pleonasms. These dualisms or redundant expressions occur frequently, much more so than in Matthew or Luke. They in particular fall under the category of "change merely for the sake of change." As an example, Mk 13:20b reads, "but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days." The Matthean parallel, on the other hand, reads, "but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened" (Mt 24:22b). This Markan pleonasm, "whom he chose," appears even more redundant in the Greek where "elect" and "chose" contain the same root word. This added clause does not contain new information, because it is not clear in Mark whom "he" refers to -- whether to God or to the Lord, which could mean either God or Jesus. As another example, Mk 14:56-57 reads, "For many bore false witness against him... And some stood up and bore false witness against him..." This passage is then superficially different from Mt 26:60, which does not contain the pleonasm. Mark has some 213 such pleonasms overall. In its text that contains parallels to Matthew, only 37 of them stemmed directly from Matthew; i.e., exist in Matthew also. However, 150 of them were added by the writer of Mark, by the Augustinian hypothesis, in his gospel verses that parallel Matthew.[2] These 150, averaging 9 per chapter, are almost enough by themselves to cause Mark to read superficially different from Matthew. The remaining 26 pleonasms appear within Markan verses having no Matthean parallel. All these pleonasms, along with the changes of the type in d.) and e.) above, account for the fact that the Markan pericopes are generally lengthier than their Matthean counterparts. Though not a pleonasm, the procedure of inserting a favorite word over and over again is another mechanism whereby the writer of Mark could make his gospel read a little differently than Matthew. The key example of this is "immediately" ("euthus"), which occurs 22 more times in Mark than in Matthew. Another example is "began," which occurs 17 more times in Mark than in Matthew. It seems rather evident from this, and from all the clues that Mark is secondary to Matthew, that a key character trait of the writer of Mark was his desire for action -- to start doing one thing right away after another -- using one's strength, as in Mk 12:30. This would be consistent with his omission of verses from Matthew that advise inaction, such as "put your sword back into its place," and "turn the other cheek," "do not resist one who is evil," etc. It would also be consistent with his having been impatient to get his gospel finished quickly, resulting in a hastily written job. h.) Changing the tense of verbs. Mark uses the present tense very frequently (the historic present) when the action has actually taken place in the past and the past tense is used in the Matthean parallel. Mark uses it 151 times versus Matthew's 78 times (outside of the parables), according to Tuckett.[3] This might only be a literary device or literary preference, since use of the historic present vivifies the action. However, the writer of Mark also reverses the procedure at times, as in Mk 12:16- 17, where he uses "they said" and "Jesus said" when Mt 22:21 has it "they say" and "he says." There are at least 17 other instances in which Mark exhibits this same reversal.[4] Hence this could well be more Markan "change for the sake of change." Mk 2:18 reports that John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; that is, were in the process of fasting. This is seen as having derived from Mt 9:14, which indicated that they "fast;" this latter has quite a different meaning, in that it implies they at times fasted but probably weren't fasting at the moment. However, in making his account more action oriented here, relative to Matthew, the writer of Mark introduced an improbability. The "scribes of the Pharisees" (in Mk 2:16) of the immediately preceding pericope were presumably Pharisees themselves, and if they were fasting, what were they doing hanging around the table where Jesus and his disciples were eating with others? Hence this change in verb tense, designed to make Mark's account more dynamic, points to Mark's dependence upon Matthew. Some of the valued Greek manuscripts read "scribes and Pharisees" in Mk 2:16; it is quite possible that this had constituted the original text, and that a later scribe made the small alteration so that the inconsistency mentioned here would be less flagrant. i.) Writing it in Greek. Finally, it needs mentioning once more that the simple act of translating sections of Semitic Matthew into Greek, while often making editorial changes in its content, caused Mark's visual and auditory character to differ very considerably from that of Matthew, at least until a Greek version of Matthew appeared on the scene. Thus the Gospel of Mark was written sufficiently different from Matthew that even a consensus of today's scholars has been fooled into thinking it came before Matthew. However, Mark apparently was the first gospel written in Greek. REFERENCES 1. Stoldt, Hans-Herbert, History and Criticism of the Marcan Hypothesis D. L. Niewyk, transl. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1980), pp. 263-273. 2. Tuckett, C. M., The Revival of the Griesbach Hypothesis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 20. 3. Tuckett, Revival, p. 22. 4. Tuckett, Revival, p. 24. Go to: Next Section (Sec. 8) Return to: Contents Beginning of this topic Dependence of Mark upon Matthew (Continued) 8. Implications of Hebraic Matthew's Translation into Greek First a brief summary is in order as to why so many scholars have concluded that Matthew was first written in Aramaic or Hebrew. This includes extensive evidence and argumentation set forth by Zahn,[1] Jameson,[2] Torrey,[3] Chapman,[4] Butler,[5] and Black. Although some of their arguments may be inapplicable or incorrect, others that are independent of any flawed arguments may well be correct. Following Black,[8] it is acknowledged even by those who dismiss the external evidence (of Matthew having been written in Aramaic or Hebrew) that at least the sayings or discourses within the Gospels do give evidence of an Aramaic substratum. These are very numerous and require intervening narration before most of them would make much sense. Hence the sayings must have existed initially embedded within, and interspersed with, narration that supplied their context. It would be virtually out of the question for the sayings to have existed in Aramaic in isolated form and for a later gospel writer to have invented all the narration and settings, etc., in Greek, to accompany his translations of the sayings. Therefore the discourses, dialogues and narration must have once existed as a single literary unit, all written in the same language -- Aramaic. This Aramaic substratum then persisted into Hebraic Matthew and then into the Greek Gospels of Mark and Luke as well as into the later Greek translation of Hebraic Matthew. And as will be indicated next, the textual evidence does suggest that even parts of the narration within the early version of Matthew had been written in an Aramaic style, or contained Aramaisms. Zahn was one of the first to postulate the present thesis that the writer of Mark made use of Hebraic Matthew, and that a later editor translated Hebraic Matthew into Greek while having a copy of Mark on hand. As Jameson summarizes, this would "account for the correspondences which exist between the two in language [between Matthew and Mark], as well as in subject-matter. It would also meet a difficulty raised by Prof. Stanton to the effect that, though it might be natural enough for a writer like Matthew to have remedied the uncouthness and removed the solecisms he found in Mark, a less skillful writer like St. Mark evidently would not have been likely to substitute awkward terms and expressions for Matthew's better ones. On the above theory the difficulty vanishes, as these corrections would have been made by the Greek translator." This theory is expanded upon in this website paper, where the correspondences in Greek language between Matthew and Luke are also taken into account, along with plausible motivation for Matthew's strong correspondences with the Greek of both Mark and Luke. (The correspondences between the Greek language of Mark and Luke are far less significant in comparison.) The use of Hebraic Matthew by the writer of Mark left Aramaisms or Hebraisms (or Semitisms) within Mark. Others who have pointed out that Mark exhibits Semitisms include Streeter and Lohmeyer.[6],[9] An independent argument also favors Matthew having had priority over Mark and having been first written in Aramaic or Hebrew. The contents of Matthew strongly indicate it was written to recommend Christianity to the Jews. It is natural then that for this purpose it would have been written in Hebrew and/or Aramaic. If, on the other hand, Mark is considered to hold priority over Matthew, and there had been a desire to produce a gospel for Jews, Mark could have fulfilled this aim by being translated into Aramaic or Hebrew,[7] for which there is no evidence, however. It could hardly be the case that Matthew's Semitisms would be the result of an editor deliberately adding in Semitisms while expanding upon the Greek Gospel of Mark. To be doing that, he would need to anticipate that scholars of the distant future would be trying to ascertain which gospel came first, second and third, by searching for Semitisms within Greek Matthew, despite the common knowledge of the day that Hebraic Matthew came first, then Greek Mark then Luke. That is, the external evidence discussed in Section 1 that Matthew had come first, written in the Hebraic tongue, is to be kept in mind. When Matthew was translated into Greek one may expect that its translator would preserve some of the Aramaisms within the narration that the writers of Mark and Luke had mostly not rendered in their Greek, especially since Matthew had been written to convert Jews and its translator's background was likely partly Jewish. As one example, the word "Behold!" or "Look!" ("idou" in Greek and "hinneh" in Hebrew, "hen" in Aramaic) was much more frequently used in that sense in Aramaic/Hebrew than in Greek. In Matthew we see it used much more frequently than in Mark: in Matthew's 25 uses of "idou" within narration of which Mark has parallels, Mark omits it every time, while in parallel discourses Mark retains it 9 out of 13 times. Thus the writer of Mark, in keeping with his pro- gentile slant, was not predisposed to use this word except as necessary within speech that he knew had taken place in the Aramaic language. The Greek word "tote" for "then" (when stemming from "edayin" in Aramaic to mean "after that") is another habitual Aramaism.[10] Matthew uses "tote" 89 times, some 61 of these being within narration, while Mark never uses it in narration, and only 6 times in discourse. Thus the writer of Mark was not disposed to utilize "tote" as a translation for "edayin," particularly in the past tense, and preferred the normal use of other Greek words to render the meaning of "after that." The frequent Matthean use of "tote" to translate "edayin" occurring as a conjunction within narration that is in the past tense may actually distinguish between Aramaic and Hebrew, being an Aramaic use of the phrase and not Hebrew.[11] This suggests that all of Matthew had been written in Aramaic before its translation into Greek several years later. The frequent use of "and" ("kai" in Greek) with which to initiate sentences is very prevalent in Matthew, and this is one Aramaism that the writer of Mark was apparently happy to maintain and even amplify upon. Similarly with the "absolute infinitive," as in "he answered and spoke..." The "Son of man" expression is a Semitism, and is not any native Greek phrase.[12] We have found good reason elsewhere to conclude that "Son of man" was a redaction employed by the writer of Matthew. Hence its being a Semitism is consistent with this writer having written his gospel in a Hebraic language, as the external evidence attests. The use of "the heavens" (plural) is another Aramaism/Hebraism, much more common in Matthew than in the other gospels. Even the "Sea of Galilee" is an Aramaism or Hebraism, since it is not a sea but a lake.[13] The writer of Mark retained this expression from his use of Hebraic Matthew and/or from his special source document, perhaps because his sense of Palestinian geography was so poor,[14] while the writer of Luke corrected it to "lake" (using the Greek "limne"). The latter writer felt freer in rewriting his sources to suit his own taste, in my opinion, and consequently left behind less trace of the style of the sources he had borrowed from; this was understandable if his was the third gospel. When the Semitic form of Matthew was later translated into Greek, a prime opportunity arose to make alterations within Matthew that would help maintain its popularity and authority over the two gospels that had recently appeared on the scene in Greek: Mark and Luke. It was apparently a different person from the one who wrote Matthew originally who did this translation. Reasons why this translation is deduced to have occurred after both Mark and Luke had appeared, and not before one or both of them appeared, have been presented elsewhere;[15] (see its Section III). The addition of some pro-gentile text, to help counteract the anti-gentile text elsewhere within the gospel, is the key alteration made during this latter translation. The prime example is Mt 28:19-20, which would extend discipleship to all nations. Another appears to be Mt 12:17-22. Without such additions, the Gospel of Matthew would not have been able to maintain its popularity and authority over Mark and Luke, considering the rapid spread of Christianity into the gentile world in the 2nd century. It is also likely that here and there the translator of Hebraic Matthew into Greek altered a few expressions to render them more reverential. One of several possible examples of this is the use of "Lord" in Mt 8:25 while the more primitive sounding "Teacher" occurs in the parallel of Mk 4:38. However, one cannot be certain that it was not the writer of Mark who made the change for the "sake of change," or that "Lord" as used in Matthew (or in Matthew's source) did not reflect the meaning of "master" or "lord" rather than of the christianized "Lord." This is but one of several instances where one may never know if an alteration in the manner in which Jesus was addressed was made by Matthew's translator or by the writer of Mark, as in the Table below: Mark Matthew 1:40 No address 8:2 Lord 4:38 Teacher 8:25 Lord 9:5 Rabbi (or Master) 17:4 Lord 9:17 Teacher 17:15 Lord 10:47 Jesus, Son of David 20:30 Lord,...Son of David 10:48 Son of David 20:31 Lord,...Son of David 10:51 Rabboni 20:33 Lord 14:19 No address 26:22 Lord With the hindsight of other web pages of this website, we find that in the above Table under the Matthew column, in Matthew's source "Lord" just referred to "lord" or "master" for Mt 8:2 and 20:30, 31, 33. If we similarly compare the fewer parallels in which "Teacher" is the address used in one of them and "Lord" is not, we find no definite reason to suspect that the translator of Matthew was the more reverential: Mark Matthew 12:28 No address 22:36 Teacher 10:17 Good Teacher 19:16 Teacher 10:20 Teacher 19:20 No address 10:35 Teacher 20:20 No address Thus, keeping in mind that Aramaic Matthew was translated into Greek, one cannot plausibly assume that indications of greater reverence in Matthew necessarily mean that Mark came before Aramaic Matthew. The translator's use of Mark and Luke. A strong need to translate Hebraic Matthew into Greek must have been felt after Mark and Luke had come out in Greek, so that it would appeal more to gentiles than would Hebraic Matthew, and so that it would not become obsolete relative to Luke and Mark. It is only to be expected that the translator would have had transcriptions of both Mark and Luke in front of him when doing his job. Would he depend upon their Greek wording in any manner that would be detectable to us? Another study presents the frequency distributions of strings of successive Greek words within parallels between the Gospels, taken two at a time.[16] The conclusion is inescapable that between Matthew and Mark, and also between Matthew and Luke, there are far too many lengthy strings of identical Greek words (excessive verbal agreement) than would occur by chance or through normal editing. This is not found upon examining parallels between Mark and Luke. One sees that Matthew is the "middle term" here, as scholars would say, and this points to the translator of Matthew as being responsible. He can only have purposely replicated lengthy strings of text from both Mark and Luke, during his translation undertaking, when these closely agreed in content with his own gospel. The most plausible motive for such replication was to let others know that what was in Mark and Luke was not new, but had come from Matthew, since all knew that Matthew in Semitic form had been the first gospel. In that manner, it could be hoped that Matthew would not lose its authority to the newer gospels (Mark and Luke); instead, it would be realized that the latter were merely altered forms of Matthew derived largely from Hebraic Matthew. Now it might be hypothesized that the fact Matthew is the middle term in this respect indicates that the writer of Mark utilized Greek Matthew and so also the writer of Luke. However, it is much less likely that the writer of Luke would have purposely replicated lengthy strings of Greek Matthean text when he otherwise placed his extractions from Matthew within contexts of his own invention, and that the writer of Mark would also have gone out of his way to replicate lengthy Matthean strings of words. Also, the word-string frequency analysis indicates that the writer of Luke did not purposely replicate lengthy word-strings within Mark. Moreover, this hypothesis would contradict the external evidence saying that Matthew had come out first in the Hebrew tongue. If it is instead hypothesized that Matthew being the middle term in this respect indicates it had no Hebraic predecessor, and was written for the first time only after both Mark and Luke had come out, then one does not find motivation for its writer to have purposely replicated excessive numbers of lengthy word strings. And this hypothesis would then contradict the external evidence saying that Matthew had come out first and in the Hebrew tongue. In summary, the hypothesis that the writer of Mark utilized Hebraic Matthew is well supported by the evidence, of which foregoing sections 1, 2, and parts of sections 3, 4 and 6 involve arguments that are especially difficult to reverse in any attempt to claim that the writer of Matthew used Mark. Sections 5, 7-8, by being fully consistent with these other sections, also support the priority of Matthew over Mark. The finding discussed in this section that Matthew, after translation into Greek, is the middle term between Mark and Luke, indicating that its translator utilized both Luke and Mark, also indicates that Hebraic Matthew had held priority over Mark. REFERENCES 1. Zahn, Theodor, Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. 2, J. M. Trout et al., transls. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1909), pp. 573-580. 2. Jameson, H. G., The Origin of the Synoptic Gospels. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1922), pp. 23-24. 3. Torrey, Charles Cutler, Our Translated Gospels (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936). 4. Chapman, John, Matthew, Mark and Luke. (London: Longman's Green & Co., 1937), pp. 181-214. 5. Butler, B. C., The Originality of St Matthew. (London: Cambridge University Press, 1951), pp. 147-156. 6. Streeter, Burnett Hillman, The Four Gospels (London: Macmillan Co., 1964), p. 297. 7. Lohmeyer, M., Das Evangeliums des Markus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1959), p. 41. 8. Black, Matthew An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967). 9. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, pp. 149-150. 10. Chapman, Matthew, Mark and Luke, p. 184. 11. Internet communication of 1 Dec 1998 by Randall J. Buth, Jerusalem University College. 12. Davies, W. D., and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), p. 43. 13. Black, An Aramaic Approach, p. 96. 14. Parker, Pierson, "The posteriority of Mark," in New Synoptic Studies by W. R. Farmer (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983), pp. 68-70. 15. This refers to the file: priority.htm (see its Section III) on this website. 16. This also refers to the file: priority.htm (see its Section IV) on this website. Return to: Contents Beginning of this topic Dependence of Mark upon Matthew (Continued) 9. Summary: Character Profile of the Writer of Mark A clear view of the attitudes, capabilities and theology held by the writer of Mark can be gained from a summary of the types of alterations he made to Matthew. This summary includes the changes and redactions discussed in previous Secs. 3-7, plus the relevant Markan words, phrases and verses that are absent from Matthew as extracted from a list by Stoldt.[1] I have placed them all in the 13 categories below, along with the number of cases in each category. 1. Markan awareness of Matthew indicated by careless editing 65 2. Fictitious added details 46 3. Change for the sake of change (less specific than category 2) 44 4. Improvements to Matthew to make passage easier to understand.... 37 5. Slurs against Jewish disciples and Jewish people alike 29 6. Special material available only to the writer of Mark 21 7. Reverential or christological upgrades to Matthean text 16 8. Jesus as authoritative, in command and/or fearless 13 9. Promoting a gentile theme 6 10. Promoting the written gospel (Mk 1:15, 8:35, 10:29, 13:10, 14:9)... 5 11. Jesus treated with special dignity (Mk 3:9, 4:38, 11:2, 14:15) 4 12. Anti-Judaistic passage (12:32,34) 1 13. Scribal assimilation (Mk 12:41-44) 1 Category 3 is the most incomplete, as many dualisms or pleonisms have been omitted. This category fits an underlying motivation of making the text of Mark be different from just a mere translation of Hebraic Matthew. Except for category 13, only category 6 above reflects well or honorably upon the writer of Mark by present-day standards. Category 13 refers to Mk 12:41-44, which has all the appearances of a somewhat later scribal assimilation taken from Lk 21:1-4. REFERENCES 1. Stoldt, Hans-Herbert, History and Criticism of the Marcan Hypothesis, D. L. Niewyk, Transl., (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1980), pp. 11-17. Return to: Contents Beginning of this topic Dependence of Mark upon Matthew Introduction and index. There are several different lines of evidence all indicating that the Gospel of Mark is, for the most part, secondary to Matthew and dependent upon it. These are pointed out here. The numerous assumptions to the contrary made by Markan priorists are all reversible using plausible arguments, but it would take a book to discuss most of them. Some of them are discussed in A. J. Bellinzoni's The Two-Source Hypothesis: A Critical Appraisal (1985), and others in my book The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins (1992) and in its references. A refutation of eight key arguments supposedly indicating Markan priority is given here. Of primary interest here, however, is to present the positive evidence and arguments indicating Mark came after Matthew and why they are more plausible than arguments that would try to reverse this conclusion. Although some of the arguments presented in Secs. 3-7 could be reversed to favor Markan priority, they are nevertheless presented to indicate that such reversed forms are themselves reversible. A relatively brief account of the present hypothesis explaining Matthean priority over Mark is presented under the title of MAH, which stands for Modified Augustine Hypothesis. There, the means are given by which the MAH renders inapplicable or incorrect the assumptions within standard treatments that support Markan priority. 1. The External Evidence 2. Mark's Order Relative to Matthew's 3. Markan Foreknowledge of Matthew 4. Markan Improvements of Matthew's Textual Content 5. Unsuccessful Markan Improvements 6. Markan Reaction to Matthew's Anti-gentile Statements 7. Markan "Fictions & Changes for the Sake of Change" 8. Implications of Semitic Matthew's Translation into Greek 9. Summary: Character Profile of the Writer of Mark Index of Key Verses in Secs. 3-7 This index is presented for convenience in jumping to the commentary on any of the verses, or groups of verses, for which the arguments that Mark depends upon Matthew are found here to be stronger, or much stronger, than vice versa. Many of the Markan verses not represented in the table below also exhibit Markan dependence upon Matthew, but could be assumed to exhibit Matthean dependence upon Mark almost as strongly, upon adopting assumptions used by advocates of Markan priority. Verses located in Section 3 are in blue, Section 4 in red, Section 5 in green, Section 6 in black, and the blatant-fiction alterations of Section 7 are in pink. Verses in parentheses indicate a further problem within a passage that is discussed in a different section. Mk 1: 1, 2, 6, 7, (7), 8, 10, 13, 14, 16, 19, 22,27, 34b, 44 2: 7, 10, 12, 14, 26, 27 3: 1-6, 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 19-21, 19b,31-32, 29, 30 4: 2, 8, 9, 10f, 10-34, 12, 13, 21-22, 24, 26-29, (33), 34, 38 5: 6, 8, 19, 30-32, (31), 33, 42 3, (3), 4, 6, 7-11a, 9, 10, 11b, 12-13, 14, 14-16, 19, 14-29, 20,26, 6: 29-31, 30-35, 32, 37, (37), 39, 39-44, 41,43, 45, 45,53, 48a, 48b-49, 51-52, 54-55 7: 9, 17, 18-19, 20, 25, 32 8: 1, 10, 12, 14-17, (17), 21, 22-26, 27-29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38 9: 1, 10, 13, 14-29, 25, 30-31, 32, 33, (33), (33-34), 33-35, 36-37, 38-39, 41, 47, 49-50 10: 13-16, (14), 17, 17-18, 23-26, (24), 29-30, 31, 32, 35, 38, 46, 50, 52 11: 2-7, 3, 11-17, 13, 15, 18-19, 21-23, 24, 25, 30-33 12: 1, 6, 9, 27b, 28, 29, 34b, 36, 38-40 13: 1-2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 14, 18, 26, 27, 33-37 14: 4, 4-5, 9, 11, 13-17, 20, 21-22, 24, 26,31-32, 30,72, (31), 40, 47, 50, 51-52, 54, 65, (65), ((65)), 68, 70 15: 1, (1), 8-9, 13, 17-19, 20, 21, 26, 32, 38-39, 42-43, 43, 44-45, 46, 47- 16: -1, 2-8, 6-7, (7), (8) 1. The External Evidence The written evidence outside of what can be deduced from the Gospels themselves is called the external evidence. It is well known to scholars, who, however, have dismissed most of it. Papias. Around A.D. 140 Bishop Papias of Hierapolis wrote, as presented or summarized by Eusebius nearly two centuries later:[1] Mark became Peter's interpreter and wrote accurately all that he remembered, not indeed in order, of the things said or done by the Lord. For he had not heard the Lord, nor had he followed him, but later on, as I said, followed Peter, who used to give teaching as necessity demanded but not making, as it were, an arrangement of the Lord's oracles, so that Mark did nothing wrong in thus writing down single points as he remembered them. For to one thing he gave attention, to leave out nothing of what he had heard and to make no false statements in them. This reads primarily as an apology saying that Mark (that is, the writer of Mark) had done nothing wrong in writing down some events within his gospel in the wrong order. Now this gospel, though shorter than Matthew in length, is still much too long and varied for its order to have been known to be "improper" through any remembrance of oral tradition. Its order had to be improper relative to some other, written document, which then must have been a gospel that preceded it. Hence Mark could not have been the first gospel written. What Papias said about Matthew, however, is consistent with it having been this first gospel satisfactory for use in churches where the audiences were fluent in Aramaic or Hebrew: Matthew compiled the Logia in the Hebrew language, and each interpreted them as best he could.[2] And as we have seen elsewhere on this website, these Logia were the prime candidate to have been the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ), out of which the writer of Matthew formed his gospel. We know that these Logia did not constitute the written Gospel of Matthew itself, because Papias wrote five treatises about the Logia; also, from one of them Eusebius mentioned a teaching or saying not in Matthew (about the millennium). From what may be learned about the TJ, or Logia, from elsewhere in this website, one may learn that it would have been impossibly heretical for Christianity. Thus those who made use of it -- not only the writer of Matthew but to a small extent the writers of Luke and John also -- had to be very careful what they extracted from it and how they altered it to make it acceptable. This process seems to be what Papias had in mind by "and each interpreted them as best he could." This of course also explains why these Logia did not survive, why Papias's treatises about the Logia did not survive, why there is no historical or literary evidence of any document resembling the scholars' "Q", and why next to nothing has survived describing where, when, under what circumstances and by whom the Gospels were really written. The hypotheses of New Testament scholars within academia cannot explain any of this. In interpreting these quotations from Eusebius, it must be kept in mind that long before his time, it had become a very important orthodoxy to accept that the writers of the Gospels were the persons to whom they were attributed. Thus one cannot be sure if Papias himself had spoken as if Mark and Matthew were the authors of the respective gospels, or if it was Eusebius who had worded it to read as if they were. Irenaeus. Around A.D. 170 or 180 one finds that Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons, clearly expressed the tradition of the order in which the Gospels were written in his famous work, Against Heresies: So Matthew among the Hebrews issued a writing of the gospel in their own tongue, while Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel at Rome and founding the Church. After their decease Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also handed down to us in writing what Peter had preached. Then Luke, the follower of Paul, recorded in a book the gospel as it was preached by him. Finally John, the disciple of the Lord, who had lain on his breast, himself published the Gospel, while he was residing at Ephesus in Asia.[3] This tradition was later seconded by other church fathers, including Origen and Augustine. It should not seem surprising that the writer of Mark would have abbreviated Matthew heavily, while at the same time usually expanding upon what he retained. It has been noted by Thomas Fischer that the same thing was done by a redactor of 2 Maccabees: The somewhat verbose epitomizer (or abridger), who modestly remained anonymous, abbreviated the five books of Jason (whose existence we are not to doubt...) into a single book.... This redactor organized and partly expanded the contents, as was the current practice..." [4] Although this took place one or two centuries before Mark was written, 2 Maccabees, like Mark, was written or preserved in Greek. Aristides. The writing of this Greek philosopher, who became a Christian, is especially important in several respects. It is the only testimony which, at least in passing, can be accurately dated. Around A.D. 120-130 he wrote an "apology" to the Roman emperor, Hadrian, explaining how the ways of the Christians were better than those of the barbarians, Greeks and Jews. Key portions of his apology are: The Christians, then, trace the beginning of their religion from Jesus the Messiah; and he is named the Son of God Most High. And it is said that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh; and the Son of God lived in a daughter of man. This is taught in the gospel, as it is called, which a short time was preached among them; and you also if you will read therein, may perceive the power which belongs to it. This Jesus, then, was born of the race of the Hebrews; and he had twelve disciples in order that the purpose of his incarnation might in time be accomplished. But he himself was pierced by the Jews, and he died and was buried; and they say that after three days he rose and ascended to heaven. Thereupon these twelve disciples went forth throughout the known parts of the world, and kept showing his greatness with all modesty and uprightness. And hence also those of the present day who believe that preaching are called Christians, and they are become famous. ...And they do not proclaim in the ears of the multitude the kind deeds they do, but are careful that no one should notice them; and they conceal their giving just as he who finds a treasure and conceals it.[5] Here one notices that the topics from the gospel Aristides speaks about are prominent in the Gospel of Matthew, but not necessarily in Mark or Luke. Mark doesn't have any nativity account, and the last sentence presented suggests the gospel Aristides primarily had in mind was Matthew, not Luke, because its verses summarize what's in Mt 6:1-6, which was left out of Luke. Unfortunately, however, Aristides did not bother to mention if this dominant gospel was written in Hebrew or not, as the other external evidence has indicated. The Gospels' authors. If the Gospels were not written by their namesakes, as we find here and as most scholars agree, it is not surprising that that fact would have been kept covered up during the first decade or two after the gospels came out, and only then supplanted by the orthodox belief that they had been written by their namesakes as further decades elapsed. Thus Aristides did not speak of Matthew, and Justin, some dozen years later, did not mention any of the Gospel namesakes though he quoted heavily from them. It is to be expected, then, that silence on this would prevail, given that the earliest Gospel users, from around A.D. 125-150, knew that the Gospels could not have been written by their namesakes, who must have died decades earlier. Later still, however, as by the time of Irenaeus, the time of first appearance of the Gospels could be argued to have occurred over a century before, when their attributed writers could have been still living. Gospel order. However, there was no good reason for early church fathers to invent a false tradition about the order in which the Gospels had appeared, and in which language Matthew had been first written. There is nothing heretical about one gospel coming out first and another second, etc., which order would have been common knowledge among the clergy, at least, at the church where Matthew was written, and in Rome where Mark was apparently written, and at other churches to which transcriptions of these gospels had been delivered. Hence this tradition of Matthean priority over Mark should be given heavy weight in any consideration of the priority among the Gospels (the Synoptic Problem). That it is given very little or no weight by most of today's scholars reflects the desire of the past century and a half that Mark be the first gospel written. This desire, in turn, was fueled by the unacceptability, as far as theologically committed scholars were concerned, for the writer of Mark to have omitted important teachings of Jesus, if he had copied from Matthew. It should be mentioned that the connection of the man Mark (presumably John Mark of Acts 12:12) with Peter in Rome is supported by Clement of Alexandria. A key part of what Clement wrote, as relayed by Eusebius, is: And in the same books Clement has inserted a tradition of the primitive elders with regard to the order of the Gospels as follows. He said that those Gospels were first written [openly pubished] which include the genealogies, but that the Gospel according to Mark came into being in this manner: When Peter had publicly preached the word in Rome, and by the Spirit had proclaimed the Gospel, that those present, who were many, exhorted Mark, as one who had followed him for a long time and remembered what had been spoken, to make a record of what was said; and that he did this, and distributed the Gospel among those that asked him. And that when the matter came to Peter's knowledge he neither strongly forbade it nor urged it forward.[6] Clement's statement about the gospels containing genealogies having been the ones written first conflicts with the portion of the tradition that says Mark preceded Luke, as Mark has no genealogy. It has recently been interpreted intelligently upon noting that the Greek "pro" could mean not only a sense of "before" in time, but a sense of being "before the public" when the context is right, as in this instance.[7] This would indicate that soon after Matthew and Luke were written, they were set forth before the public, but after Mark was written, it was not. This accords with the much greater number of allusions to verses from Matthew and/or Luke than from Mark by mid-2nd-century writers, such as Justin, Marcion, and the writer of the Gospel of Thomas. Peter & Mark's document in Rome. Most scholars who have studied Mark find that it is not consistent with being the remembrances of Peter; further, it is named after (John) Mark, not Peter. Yet the above quotation, together with that of Papias, does indicate that Peter and (John) Mark had been together in Rome and had had some document that Peter did not urge forward. (Verse Rom 15:20 also strongly implies that Peter had been to Rome ahead of Paul.) Study of the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) strongly suggests that this document in Rome was an early written gospel that had, very early in its existence, been stolen and turned over to a chief priest in hopes of gaining evidence of blasphemy against Jmmanuel. The point at which it was stolen in the TJ's story corresponds to around Matthew's 12th chapter, which is the point beyond which Mark's order of pericopes suddenly agrees very well with Matthew's. Quite possibly Peter was able to recover the document some time after the crucifixion and later take it to Rome with him and John Mark. This writing then must have been what was later erroneously referred to as Peter's remembrances, but was actually a short gospel-like writing. To give it a name, we may call it Ur-Talmud-Jmmanuel, or Ur-TJ. The fact that the Ur-TJ was not urged forward by Peter and did not, therefore, become a known gospel at that time suggests it had been stolen before much of Jmmanuel's/Jesus' ministry had been fulfilled and thus failed to incorporate the essence of Christianity involving the passion and resurrection. Another reason Peter could not likely have urged it forward is that it spoke of Immanuel, not "Jesus" as he was becoming known, and did not treat him as a savior figure or forgiver of sins, but rather as a teacher of spiritual truths. Hence it is understandable that the Ur-TJ -- the first, aborted version of the Talmud of Jmmanuel -- languished for decades in some house-church in Rome until the Gospel of Matthew appeared on the scene in Semitic form. Then the Ur-TJ, along with Matthew, provided the incentive for a writer in Rome to compile a gospel for gentiles, as he could insert information from it not present in the Gospel of Matthew, and at the same time could alter Matthew into a gospel suitable for gentiles, namely Mark. This is an important aspect of the present neo-Augustinian hypothesis relative to the Synoptic Problem. As to who this later writer was, I know of one interesting clue: his name may have been Glaucias. That is the name supplied by Clement of Alexandria for Peter's interpreter in Book 7.17 of his Stromata: It was later, in the times of Adrian the king, that those who invented the heresies arose; and they extended to the age of Antoninus the elder, as, for instance, Basilides, though he claims (as they boast) for his master, Glaucias, the interpreter of Peter. Adrian (Hadrian) was Roman emperor from 117-138. Basilides was "the earliest of the Alexandrian Gnostics, a native of Alexandria and flourished under the Emperors Adrian and Antoninus Pius, about 120-140," according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. This chronology is then consistent for Mark to have been written around 120 by Glaucias, who might have been called writer of Mark by Basilides. However, when Clement of Alexandria wrote of Basilides, circa A.D. 195-200, he had to abide by the orthodoxy established by the time of Irenaeus, that the writers of the Gospels were those whom the Gospels were attributed to. Hence, Clement needed to "correct" Basilides here so that the writer of Mark would be Peter's interpreter, John Mark. By referring to Glaucias as "Peter's interpreter," Clement could have it both ways, as the phrase might be interpreted either as "Peter's disciple" or as the writer of Mark as Papias had done. Clement of Alexandria (150-~211) may then have been among the first to have telescoped the time of the late writing of Mark circa A.D. 120 into the time when the Ur-TJ possessed by Peter and John Mark in Rome was being circulated to interested persons, circa A.D. 50-60. This alteration of chronology would serve to promote the orthodoxy that the Gospels were written early and by their namesakes. We therefore have incentive to examine the order of Mark's sequence of verses relative to Matthew's to ascertain if it gives indication of extra dependence upon Matthew at and beyond the point where the document recovered by Peter had been aborted due to its theft. This is done in the next section. REFERENCES 1. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History (EH) 3.39.15. 2. Eusebius, EH 3.39.16. 3. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 3.1.1. 4. Fischer, Thomas, in Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 4, p. 442. Thanks to Stephen Carlson for making this observation known via the Internet. 5. See the Internet translation by C. D. May. 6. Eusebius, EH 6.14.5-7. 7. Carlson, Stephen C., "Clement of Alexandria and the 'Order' of the Gospels," New Testament Studies 47 (2001) 118-125. Go to: Next Section (Sec. 2) Return to: Contents Spaceship over the Center Liberal Translation of Write-up by Elisabeth Moosbrugger in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 367-68 by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 It was the 5th of September, 1993, when I set about to finish my last nightwatch at the Semjase Silver Star Center. Around 06:10 hours I was in front of the monument at the small parking place between the garden and the carriage house see map, No. 7, between No. 4 & No. 8]. I was about to check in, and could still see some stars in the beautiful, emerging deep blue sky. I was taking pleasure in the "blue hour" of the morning and the still existent stars, when I noticed a seemingly large traveling star. It came out from the forest in the northwest and passed above the garden in the direction of the carriage house. To me it was immediately clear that this could only be a spaceship. It was situated relatively deep in the sky and moved leisurely along its path. Since I was certain that it could only involve a Pleiadian/Plejaren ship, I wished its crew a Good Morning. At the same time I asked, "What are you doing here already?" and followed its flight further over the carriage house. But suddenly -- I scarcely trusted my eyes -- the ship shined some three times brighter. Previously it was as bright as Jupiter, which one can see very well. But now it was at least three times as bright as Jupiter on a clear night. The greatest surprise about it was my own feelings. Outgoing from my breast a deep-feeling of warmth flooded through me, extending over my whole body, which left behind a continued feeling of harmony and peace the whole day. In a flash I knew that this is the feeling of connection among all humans, which the Pleiadians/Plejarens allowed me to receive. Still today I can remember the elevated feeling that flooded through me. It remains as a continuing memory for me to keep, for I had never before experienced anything like that. Shortly after the brightening faded, the light was again back to its normal brightness, and the spaceship disappeared from my sight over the main residence. Beforehand, nevertheless, I gave thanks to the Pleiadians/Plejarens for their kindness to me. Already before this event I had never doubted the existence of the Pleiadians/Plejarens, but after this experience I had 100 percent proof that there are other people in the universe, and that we are all connected in love. A Remarkable Beard Story by Guido Moosbrugger for Jacobus Bertschinger, written in 1989 and published in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 38-40 A translation by J. W. Deardorff, June 2011 As a rule, when a man shaves himself at his morning toilet, that suffices to make him look clean and well-groomed for the whole day. Should he omit shaving for some reason or another -- be it out of pure laziness, lack of time, etc. - - then this in itself is no great problem. However, over a longer time period this minor neglect does not allow itself to be concealed, for as everyone knows, a man's facial hairs grow inexorably longer, even during his sleep in the night, and thus the bristly stubble on the face sprout again the next morning at the latest. These banal facts everyone certainly knows, and they serve only as introduction to the remarkable beard story which I can bring you from the experiential knowledge of Jacobus Bertschinger. The event reaches back to the year 1975, when Billy Meier's family still had their residence in Hinwil. At that time Billy had no full beard, as he has today, and it was customary with him to shave regularly. And so Jacobus reacted with surprise when he was confronted with the following experience: It was in the summer of 1975 -- or more precisely on Thursday, the 17th of July, when Billy left his residence around 9 o'clock in the morning, freshly shaven, and only returned to the house early in the morning of the next day. At this time Jacobus was in Meier's living room, impatiently waiting for Billy to return. He can still very well remember all the details, he assured me. After Billy stepped into the living room two things attracted special notice: First, Billy exhibited a very weary, fatigued expression, especially around the eyes, which he could keep open only with great effort. And second, Billy possessed an abundant beard, as if he had not shaved in a week. However, Jacobus precisely knew that Billy had been gone scarcely one whole day and night, and thus in no way long enough for the relatively long stubble to have been brought forth for all to see. Therefore Jacobus thought, quite correctly, that something was not right here, for how could this circumstance be reconciled with the aforesaid unbearded condition? Or, what would you say if a good acquaintance of yours appeared with a several-day growth of beard, although he had been freshly shaven the day before? Probably you would at first think of a magic drink or of some unknown hair-growth stimulator, to explain the phenomenon. However both explanations are in this case unsuitable, and the solution to the mystery must be found elsewhere. In actuality the solution revolves around the following findings: The Pleiadian friends had taken Billy with them in Ptaah's great space ship on a great journey this way and that through our universe; this extraordinary excursion, which never before has been granted to an Earth person, lasted five Earth days in all. That Billy, despite the stated 5- day absence, returned home again after 22 hours is very puzzling. Yet there is only one single plausible explanation, and it reads: time manipulation! Besides this, however, another curiosity stepped into the picture, for according to Billy, during the whole trip he had not a wink of sleep by day or night. Automatically this raises the question, how was it possible to go so long without sleep? Billy explained that this had not been his achievement. Rather, it was the nourishment provided him that had kept him in a wide-awake condition. Apparently, this particular nourishment possessed by the Pleiadians has a much stronger effect than the stimulant-amines available on our markets. It was no wonder, then, that after these five sleepless days and nights Billy made up for it by sleeping 26 hours straight. [Note: This five-day space trip is catalogued as Meier's Contact No. 31 of 17 July, 1975, commencing at 10:14 hours. It occupies some 44 pages of English-translation contact conversations within Wendelle Stevens's Message from the Pleiades, vol. 1, which does not contain still further conversation withheld by the Pleiadians from their machine-telepathy transmission to Meier that he received later for printing and dissemination, and a bit more filtered out by Stevens himself from his German-translation source.] Locked Out Liberal Translation of Write-up by Guido Moosbrugger in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 186-87 by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 On September 4, 1977, after Billy received an advance message via telepathy from Semjase, Quetzal and Ptaah that on short notice he would have a contact, his 79th, inside one of their Pleiadian space ships, he was beamed out of his office. At that point in time, when he was taken forth, both office doors had been locked, and the key attached to his key ring was even still sticking into the lock on the inside front door of the office, which leads directly outside. After the contact conversation, which apparently had lasted a long time [282 sentences from Semjase plus another 15 minutes of time], through oversight Billy was not transported back into his office, but deposited in the hallway of the residence. The rest of the story and the resulting agitation can be imagined without much trouble. Subsequently -- as already mentioned, both doors were locked from the inside and no emergency key was on hand. An extra key, a skeleton key, had to be made, and with its help both doors were opened, after which Billy could retrieve his keys and resume his work. Further witnesses: Englebert Wächter, Bernadette Brand, Claire Frei, Renato and Mariella Ventura, Milivoj and Maria Ivencevic, Kalliope Meier, Adolf Berroth, Elsi Moser, Olgi Walder, Margret Flammer, Amata Stetter, Hans and Konrad Schutzbach, Herbert Runkel, Marcel Hirt, and Jacobus Bertschinger. Excerpt from Contact No. 79, Saturday, 16 July 1977, 15:37 hours from Wendelle Stevens, Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 4, p. 104 Meier... Dear girl, this is a bit of a surprise, that you take me directly from out of the office. I was just starting to write some letters. But, girl, I am extremely much delighted to see you again. It has been such a very long time since we have seen each other, around four months. Where have you been for so long, and what have you been doing? You know, we all have waited longingly for you and missed you very much. Semjase... 1/This is a very dear welcome, and I offer my thanks to you for it. 2/As well enjoy very much that I can be here again, for I feel very much connected to you all. 3/The time was very long for me, but I had to treat it like I did, and had to be absent. 4/The reason is, that I surely would not have been able to keep myself out of your concerns, thus I would have been helping you in different matters, though I was not permitted to do so My Experience of 4 January 1978 Liberal Translation of Write-up by Guido Moosbrugger in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 196-97 by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 As customary, at the beginning of the year I was visiting the Semjase-Silver-Star-Center at Hinterschmidrüti for several days. So then on the evening of 4 January 1978 I was sitting in the warm living room, while outside a snowstorm raged and an icy cold wind swept around the house. Not even in a dream would anyone in this house have come up with the idea of giving up this refuge without compelling reason. Yet those of us in the FIGU have never failed to experience surprises, and so the unforeseen occurred also on this evening. Quite unexpectedly, around 21:30 hours, the "Pleiadian telephone" rang for Billy from Quetzal -- a telepathic message for a planned contact. Upon concluding the "call," Billy gave Jacobus and me the instruction: "Get everything ready for a contact!" Due to the miserable weather, this instruction hit us like a bolt out of the blue; however, we quickly got up on our feet in order to take all necessary preparations against the wintry onslaught. Next we put on our weatherproof clothing, and wondered which vehicle we should use for the trip. After brief consideration we decided in favor of the Volkswagen, which could perform best under the wintry conditions. We brought along our wireless radio, and eagely scraped away the undesired icy crust from the windshield. After a quarter hour the car was in front of the house ready to go. Then Jacobus took the driver's seat, Billy the passenger seat next to him, and I a seat in the back. We now set out on our travel to a destination "X" that none of us knew. However, underway Billy received telepathically transmitted travel directions from a device in Quetzal's space ship, and imparted them to our car driver -- in which direction to go. Our progress was hampered, to be sure, due to the heavy snowstorm and above all the partially frozen and partially slush covered road; however our high spirits could not be dampened. After a half hour of travel we arrived already at our goal. We stopped at a small bridge at the exit of a forest area and parked at the edge of a small pathway. From our past experience, Jacobus and I knew the rule. We found ourselves now in the immediate proximity of the contact point, and must wait for the return of the contact man. Billy climbed out of the car, hung his wireless set over his shoulder and took his leave from us. With some difficulty he plodded with his boots over a path covered with fresh snow, and headed directly towards a path lying higher up. But what was that, then? Very suddenly Billy disappeared from the scene without a trace. Well, Jacobus and I immediately thought: "Once again such a lightning-quick event, as usual!" Actually, with lightning speed Billy became transported into the pilot's compartment of Quetzal's space ship, we surmised, which somehow hovered invisibly and silently in the air above. For Billy this was nothing special, for he had often experienced such transport before. All of a sudden Billy's voice spoke out over our car radio, and to be sure with a deeper and somewhat darker tone than normal because his radio voice came from the interior of a Pleiadian ship. This effect Jacobus had already noticed on earlier occasions. Billy's radio voice said that we should drive our VW from there back to the nearest houses -- he would then come down to us immediately. As we arrived at the houses, Billy suddenly landed with a giant step from the roadside onto the middle of the road, and climbed quickly into our car. With his tele-transmitter device, Quetzal had set Billy down onto the slope of the edge of the road near our car. We already didn't wonder at how there could be so little trace of snowflakes on his leather coat or Texas hat, although it was snowing extensively. But how could it be otherwise -- everyone knows that it doesn't snow in the inside of a space ship! Looking back today, on the whole I question why Billy in this foul weather would have to forsake his living room seat and make such a troublesome and complicated trip, when the purpose was just to be beamed up into the space ship. Quetzal could just as well have transmitted him from his home as from the snow field -- that would have been simpler for all concerned. Now -- aside from the fact that Jacobus and I would have had one less demonstration to write about -- the measures taken altogether hinged somehow upon Billy's deteriorating health. Because of an overload of work and concerns of all kinds, Billy's free time was always very short, and he concerned himself much too little over his own health. Therefore he constantly failed to get sufficient sleep, and especially enough exercise and fresh air. [The rest of the article discusses how the Plejarens, in failing to get Billy to take better care of himself, at least forced him to get some exercise and fresh air in going to or from a contact.] My First UFO Event, on May 16/17, 1976 Write-up by Guido Moosbrugger in June 1976 in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 73-76 as translated by J. W. Deardorff, June 2011 In mid-May this year I drove to Hinwil (Zürich Uplands) over the weekend with the purpose to examine the credibility of the UFO contactee Edi Meier (Billy) and learn the details of his activities. He had invited me to a visit and I was thankful for that, for with his help I would be able to learn about what I had already long wondered. On Sunday, May 16, 1976 I spent the evening in the living quarters of Billy's family. Later that evening, Mr. Konrad Schutzbach joined us. Just 5 minutes past 10 p.m. Mr. Meier called out to me: "Between 12:30 and 1:00!" "What then?" I wanted to know. He answered only with an idle wave of the outstreched hand, which made several wavelike movements through the air, while he continued watching the television program as if nothing at all had happened. For those who are not familiar with this behavior, I must add that Mr. Meier always receives a telepathic communication before he is ordered by Semjase, the spaceship pilot, to proceed to a contact with her. One hour earlier than expected, namely at 11:30 p.m., Mr. Meier jumped high out of his chair as suddenly as a tarantula and dashed outside. Inquisitively we followed behind. Outside, Mrs. Meier pointed to the direction my eyes should look. In the next moment I also detected a glittering point of light, which traveled with the speed of a satellite across the sky. Mrs. Meier let me use her fieldglasses, which allowed me to distinguish, quite clearly, a blinking red light on the flying object, until it disappeared behind a forested knoll. Mrs. Meier and I immediately sought a somewhat higher observation point in the hope of regaining a view of the sighted object. Instead, breathing heavily, Mr. Schutzbach rushed up to us and summoned us to quickly come with him; there was going to be a contact. With quick steps we were soon in the house again, and as we entered the living room there was Mr. Meier just starting to put on some proper clothing. Mr. Schutzbach helped him buckle the belt of his jeans [it is not easy to get dressed quickly with only one arm], and I picked up the security pistol, which lay on the table, and stuck it in his belt holster. In a great hurry we put on our warm overcoats, in order to be prepared for the nighttime excursion, for it was noticeably cold for this time of year. Mrs. Meier remained in the house with the children, Mr. Meier started up his Mo-Ped nearby, and we pondered over which auto we should take. Soon Mr. Meier clattered off on his vehicle and we followed him in my car. Mr. Schutzbach in the passenger seat gave me directions as necessary so that we would not lose visual contact with Mr. Meier, for we had no idea where we had to go. At first we curved back and forth through the town in order to shake off any pursuers, as Mr. Schutzbach affirmed. By various roundabout ways we reached the destination spot -- Dürstelen. On the way we must certainly have stopped twice, a short distance back, because we evidently had taken a wrong direction. Here and there we drove cross-country. About a half hour after midnight our leader suddenly stopped in the middle of a country lane. Mr. Meier explained the situation to us as follows. For various reasons that became known to me in the meantime, the contact-place location must be changed each time, so that in most cases Mr. Meier does not know where he must proceed to on any given occasion. Along with this, the pilot of the beamship gives us a remote "customs-duty" check-out, so to speak, with the aid of his computer. If Meier is traveling alone, then he will be directed to the landing place of the beamship [or the place from which he will be beamed up to it]. This space ship makes use of its capability of being completely silent and invisible at any given point on earth, during landing or taking off, e.g., and by day as well as by night. Understandably the pilot upholds standards of protection, in order to prevent unauthorized admittance to the space-travel equipment or related activities, whereby only in extreme necessity will use be made of the available defensive weapons. The personal conversation between Mr. Meier and the pilot Semjase mostly takes place in the interior of the space ship, but in warmer weather also outside. The communications take place in the German language. The whole conversation is automatically recorded. At a later time Mr. Meier receives the word-for-word transmission in a telepathic way, and, to be sure, at a moderate tempo, so that he can write down the transcription with a typewriter. [Later, Moosbrugger learned much more about how Meier receives the telepathic transmission: while in a partial trance that allows him to type very rapidly with his one hand.] When Mr. Meier has one or more persons accompanying him or following him, as was the case here, then the command computer will interrupt the guiding process close to the contact location. The pilot then mentally examines the persons [remotely from the spaceship] to determine if the persons present appear to be trustworthy or not. In case this test turns out negative, the plan will immediately be changed or the planned contact aborted. In our case this waiting period lasted unusually long -- around 20 minutes -- until the activity resumed. The reason for this delay, which we learned subsequently, was: The pilot suddenly received notice of something urgent to carry out -- over the North Sea, to be sure -- just at the point when the command computer was prepared to start its activity of checking-us-out. After the North Sea diversion, Mr. Schutzbach and I were examined through the computer's thought-analyzer [which happens without one's being aware of it]. During this time we stood on the forementioned country lane, pacing a little back and forth while eagerly and thoroughly searching the firmament in all directions. It presented an excellent sight in the clear, starry night. So a point-size flying object could not escape our attention, moving in a straight line just over the horizon. It blinked steadily in short intervals. At first I thought it was an airplane, however Mr. Schutzbach, being a private pilot, knew a better answer. He knew that the frequency of the flashes was very unusual. Mr. Meier [who was still with the other two] said that there was a way to determine whether the object was an airplane or something else. Said, done; after a few seconds the blinking of the light suddenly stopped and only a trace more of the flying object could be seen. I was so dumbfounded that I did not rightly know what to say. Mr. Meier's subsequent explanation: "I simply issued the command to the flying object to stop blinking -- with an airplane the experiment would not have been successful." According to Semjase [later], this bit of pleasantry should not have excited us, as it merely involved one of their unmanned telemeter disks, which is used for reconnaissance purposes. Were the blinking to cease, its navigation would temporarily deviate, and on this account it would need to be brought under control again at a Pleiadian station. Around 00:45 hours Mr. Meier finally again received a telepathic communication from Semjase the ufonaut. He told us we should wait here for his return, and to keep a sharp eye on the northern sky. Then he went forth alone on to the contact point. After his return he told us he had traveled about 5 minutes to a forest clearing, where Semjase waited for him in the spaceship. When Mr. Meier had departed from us, I wondered, silently, what would happen if I had run after him as he rode towards the contact location, which I would happily have done. Interestingly, Semjase must have intercepted these thoughts of mine, otherwise she could not have said to Mr. Meier in the Contact Report [In her sentence #4 below, from Contact #52 of 17 May, 1976 at 00:47 hours, as translated within Wendelle Stevens, Message from the Pleiades, vol. 2]: Meier-- It is much more comfortable here inside. Semjase-- l/Surely. 2/You have brought two persons with you, hitherto unknown to me. 3/I had to take over the control of the ship again myself, just as I was over the North Sea, where I had something to do. Meier-- Oh, were you occupied again with something special? Good. Yes, I have brought Mr. Schutzbach and Mr. Moosbrugger with me, Mr. Schutzbach lives near Hegnau, and Mr. Moosbrugger lives in the "Walsertal" in Austria. They both are amiable and good human beings, Semjase-- 4/I have examined their sincerity; their interest is sincere, only Mr. Moosbrugger thought for a moment that he would follow you. 5/But this does not matter, as this was only his eagerness and his loyal interest. Meier-- I greet you from both, as well as from Mr. R. Sch. from Biell. … - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mr. Schutzbach and I now waited patiently outside and maintained our watchfulness. After about a half hour it gradually became too uncomfortable, and we moved our observation point to the inside of the auto. All of a sudden a fiery red disk appeared briefly to the north over a forest cutting; it hovered in the air, then moved like a pendulum back and forth a little, and then suddenly disappeared. Its distance from us was around 3 kilometers, which we were able to reaffirm the next day from a map. Soon thereafter a snow-white, more spherical shaped structure emerged from the same spot, and moved horizontally in a circular path. During this maneuver the sphere seemed to triplicate itself, for we saw another sphere, as in a mirror image, appear below the lower half and still another below the right half. Finally we saw yet a fourth, somewhat smaller sphere, which was released like a drop from the central sphere, yet did not fall all the way to the ground. After a short pause, a shiny reflective disk beamed anew from the same spot in the sky. It apparently came directly toward us, for it became larger and brighter -- however, after a short time it diminished back to its initial size and disappeared from the scene without a trace. With that the "lumiére dans la nuit" spectacle finally ended. For this demonstration it was necessary for us to give thanks to Semjase as well as Mr. Meier, who requested it [during his contact conversation with Semjase]. Mr. Meier himself had not seen any of it because at this point in time he was on his way back to us on his Mo-Ped. Soon we became aware of the clatter of a Mo-Ped and Mr. Meier again joined us. After a cigarette pause, we drove homeward -- directly and without detours [carrying the Mo-Ped with us in the car]. I very much enjoyed watching the driving skill of our one-armed pilot [Meier] around the curves. Around half-past three in the morning we returned to the Meiers' living room. For me this was a most impressive event, which I will never forget. Regarding the credibility of this story, I could relate still further things My witness, Konrad Schutzbach, can confirm that my account is written truthfully to the best of our knowledge. Naturally I cannot resent anyone who can or will not, on the usual grounds, accept this story as reality. As far as I'm concerned, however, I allow myself to be regarded as a spinner of fantasies, but in no case as a liar or deceiver. Landing Tracks of Menara's Ship by Guido Moosbrugger in And Yet... They Fly (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark LLC, 2001), p. 112 On each of the winter days of November 23, 1977 and February 21, 1978, one such track [left behind by a landing of Menara's ship] was laid directly in front of Billy's residence in Schmidrüti [see map, No. 19]. In this cold time of the year, the entire place was covered by a 10-12 centimeters (4-5 in.) thicklayer of ice. But as a result of the very hot gas flow that radiated from Menara's ship, the ice had melted at the landing site almost completely down to the ground. In this connection, there is something else worthy of mention. The track of November 23, 1977 was made during a lightning-fast visit from Menara. In fact, the visit took place within 10 minutes, the exact time it takes for Billy's wife, Kalliope, to take one of her children to the nearby school and return home. A skeptic would then have to figure out how it would be possible for Billy, a one-armed man, to melt such a large area of ice within 10 minutes in broad daylight without being seen by anyone. [Note: Menara is a dark-skinned woman from the Lyra star system. She belongs to one of the races befriended by the Pleiadians who were stationed on Earth for eleven years (1975-86). She often acted as contact person in place of Semjase or Quetzal.] Photo by Meier of circular landing track left behind after Menara's 10-minute visit of Nov. 23, 1977. The circle is about 5 ft. in diameter and located between the carriage house (in photo) and the main residence located behind the photographer. Photo from Moosbrugger, G und sie fliegen doch (1991), Fig. 37. More about the Fir Tree THE TREE'S FOCUS. Meier's photo #57 is shown again below, in Fig. 1. An estimate of the length of the branchlet designated by the two arrows is 20cm. A practical, model UFO close to the camera would be of similar or somewhat greater width, and hence would have about the same apparent width on the photo as the beamship has in front of the tree about which it posed. The distance of this branchlet from the camera is estimated from the "camera equation" to be some 3m. This equation is: Distance = (Actual width) x (focal length) ÷ (width on film) where the focal length was 42mm and the film width was 35mm (film height about 23.4mm). For this camera's focus mechanism stuck just one notch short of the infinity setting, corresponding perhaps to a 20m distance of optimal focus, a 3m distance is indeed too close for an object to be in good focus. According to Stevens' estimate, an object needed to be about 10m away to show up clearly in one of Meier's photos (Stevens, 1982, p. 259). Consistent with this, a similar calculation for a beamship of 7m diameter indicates that in Fig. 1 it was some 78m away from the camera, and therefore well within the Fig. 1. Photo #57 with left portion cropped. Arrows range of best focus for the jammed focus and f-stop settings on at upper right delineate a typical branchlet on the Meier's Olympus 35 ECR camera. Stevens' estimate agrees close-up, out-of-focus tree branches. with a depth-of-field calculation, which, for a camera focal length of 42mm, an f-stop setting of 11 (Stevens, personal communication), and a central focus distance of 50 ft, yields the region of satisfactory focus lying between 13 ft and "infinity." The tree on the right, is thus too close to lie within this depth of field. Unfortunately, this clear focus of the UFO and adjacent tree in front of which it posed here, relative to the out-of-focus nearby tree on the right-hand side of photo #57, went unmentioned in the key attempt at debunking the case (Korff, 1995). By Korff’s hypothesis, the tree about which the UFO posed was a small potted tree close to the camera, and the UFO a model attached to it (Korff, 1995, p. 188). As is evident, however, such hoaxing gear would then have been too close to the camera to be in the excellent focus the UFO and adjacent tree display. We pay primary attention to the Korff 1995 reference here because it is the only Meier-case debunking attempt that is located in the available literature. THE TREE'S MATURITY. In 1985 I showed the photo that best displays the tree's trunk (#66), plus another of this series, to two professors of Forest Science at Oregon State University to determine if they could identify the type of tree. These were Profs. Richard. K. Hermann (now retired) and Edward. C. Jensen. Hermann was raised in western Germany and was very familiar with this species of tree. With certainty they stated that it was a mature abies alba, i.e., a European silver fir. Other forestry experts contacted more recently were less unanimous about the species identification, with picea abies (Norwegian spruce) suggested as an additional or secondary possibility (Hanley, 2001; Hansen, 2001; Holdenrieder, 2001). However, none suggested that it could have been a small potted tree or model tree. Thus it was no mere 1- or 2m tree, which would exhibit an unmistakably juvenile appearance in its profile, density of branches and trunk, as will be discussed soon. Prof. Hermann pointed out that its crown was already showing signs of “stork-nesting,” or near cessation of vertical growth, due, they presumed, to the environmental stress of excessive smog east of Zurich and/or to acid rain. A potted, “baby” tree is far too young to exhibit such effects. The tree’s trunk alone indicates its general maturity, as seen here in Fig. 2. One may notice a nodule on each side of the upper trunk, which the forestry professors pointed out as being spots where a couple of limbs had been pruned or broken off, such that later growth had not yet obscured those spots. Unfortunately, these most important considerations were not investigated by Fig. 2. Enlargement of tree’s trunk, from photo #66, brightness Korff. This tree was at least 13m tall if the information and contrast enhanced. See also Elders & Elders (1983, p. 64). Meier was told by his contactor is correct: that the width of this beamship was 7m. In this case, the trunk diameter down as low as it is visible in the photo would be about 64cm. AN ASSESSMENT OF THE PHOTO SITE. "When I was in Switzerland in May of 1995, I went to Fuchsbuel with a friend and videotaped what we determined to be the precise spot where Meier took that series. This was based on Guido Moosbrugger pointing to that area a day or so prior when we were driving by the Pfaffikersee. "I stood back where Meier had taken photo #57 showing the out-of-focus tree limbs on the right side and lined up my shots accordingly. I noticed that many of the lower tree limbs at the top of the hill seemed to have been sawed off, so I had to break off a small branch with similar vegetation and had my friend hold this several feet in front of my tripod-mounted video camera. Realizing that Meier, of course, was using a still camera--not video--I was only after establishing perspective and approximate distance relationships. "We did our best to estimate where we thought the missing tree might have been located. I figured that based on framing the shots and the lay of the land there, we must have guessed the location of the tree within approximately twenty feet of where it actually was. "As the videotape was rolling, I walked down the hill to several points where it seemed Meier may have walked to obtain the closer shots of the ship moving around the tree and panned the camera to match the panorama shown in Meier's stills. The hill sloped down gently at first but probably about 75 to 100 feet down the hill from my initial 'tree limb' vantage point, the slope increased more dramatically. The grass, as far as remembered, was fairly long--anywhere from 8-14" high or so." -- Marc Juliano Juliano's assessment raises the further problem for a potential hoaxer that the tips of nearby grass blades would show up in any photo that showed a small potted tree's trunk, since strands of meadow grass two or three feet high later in spring or in early summer would extend half way up any such portable, potted tree. Nothing like this shws up in photo #66 (Fig. 2). DID THE TREE "ROTATE"? Meier stood at the top of a hillside in taking his photos, viewing down the slope towards the south and west. A wooded area lay behind him. The lowest portion of the tree's trunk had not been visible, due to the increasing slope of the hillside in the downhill direction, as can be seen in Fig. 3, a recent panoramic view. (The fact that the tree itself is no longer existent is discussed further on.) In Fig. 3. Panoramic view in summer of 2001 looking from south through northwest at the Fuchsbüel- Fig. 4 below it we see Hofhalden site. Courtesy of C. Frehner and J. Jansen. The ground slopes downward away from the several of Meier’s photos camera. Left-hand edge of panorama bears about 138° and right-hand edge about 284°. superimposed upon the landscape panorama, such that the most distant background matches. The total azimuthal range of the tree as viewed by Meier's camera is estimated at 85° (with Meier's photo #65 showing the tree as viewed when he had Fig. 4. Four of Meier’s photos (Nos. 65,119,57,71) superimposed on the 2001 background walked farthest to the panorama. Courtesy of J. Jansen. Meier walked about in between taking pictures, seven northwest, and #69 more of which looked towards the west or northwest, as do #57 and #71. Hence showing it when he had the tree's azimuth in the various photos varies relative to the background. walked farthest to the southeast). We discuss this particular aspect because it was claimed (Korff, 1995, p. 178) that the various vistas taken in by Meier’s camera encompassed a minimum of 180° of azimuth during this series of photos, in which case the vistas of the tree would have varied by some 135°. From this claim, and the prominent gap seen on the left in the tree’s branches near its top, Korff concluded that Meier (for unknown reasons) had rotated a potted baby tree with a model UFO attached before shooting each photo in order that the same side of the potted tree always face the camera. However, a hoaxer using a potted tree would not likely take any such action that would later give away his fraud. One may observe that the tree’s profile does differ noticeably over this net variation in azimuthal view, which is fully consistent with the real tree it is concluded to be, contrary to Korff’s claim. This is shown in Figs. 5 and 6 Fig. 5. Cropped enlarge- Fig. 6a. Cropped enlarge- Fig. 6b. Cropped enlarge- Fig. 6c. Cropped enlarge- ment of Meier’s photo #65 ment of Meier's photo #66 ment of Meier's photo #64 ment of Meier's photo #69 -- the view farthest -- tree viewed farthest -- tree also viewed -- tree also viewed towards the southeast towards the northwest. towards the northwest. towards the northwest. Contrast enhanced. Brightness & contrast enhanced. Contrast enhanced. by a detailed comparison between the tree’s outline over this angular difference. One sees that opposite the gap on the tree's upper left, the tree when viewed towards the northwest (Fig. 6a,b,c) exhibits a dense area of foliage, whereas when viewed to towards the south (Fig. 5) the region on the upper right exhibits a relative sparsity of branches. And viewing the tree's very top, the same 6 or 7 branches can be identified in the view to the northwest (Figs. 6a,b,c), while they are not present in anything like the same configuration in the view to the south (Fig. 5). The rather significant gap seen in the tree's left side somewhat lower down in Fig. 6b, but not seen in 6a, appears to be a result of damage done to the tree when the beamship wedged nearly a half of its width into this spot, while Meier took photo #64 (see blue arrow in Fig. 6c). All around, the detailed occurrence, positions and orientations of the outer branchlets are quite different. However, it is the tree's crown that best shows its distinguishing features, since there the branches are sparsest, allowing them to show up from all sides without being obscured by intervening branches. If one compares the top of the tree in these figures, one sees that the branches there look essentially identical in occurrence and configuration in Figs. 6a,b,c, which were all shot towards the northwest, while they appear entirely different in Fig. 5, shot towards the south. The photo in Fig. 6b was taken from a position that looked almost as far to the northwest as does Fig. 6a; the latter was taken from a spot a little farther down the hillside toward the tree than Fig. 6b. This, then, is an instance in which one must pay attention to the details. It is not too surprising that a couple large-scale features of a tree's outline -- in this instance the gap on the upper left in particular -- could persist over a 90° quadrant and therefore show up on all photos taken within that quadrant. Careful comparison of the tree's top thus shows that the notion the tree “rotated” as Meier moved part way around, taking pictures at various times, is a fiction. PHOTOGRAPHIC TRICKERY? In the photos of Figs. 7 and 8 below, we see the UFO directly behind and within the upper part of the tree. The fact that both the craft’s upper bright side and lower dark side are visible through the manifold irregular gaps in the branches, along with aspects of shadowing seen in other photos of the craft, plus the sheer number of photos in the series, rule out photographic trickery. In addition, it has been determined that Meier had no photo- development equipment of his own. His use of a particular photo-development Fig. 7. Meier's photo #71, cropped Fig. 8. Meier's photo #76, cropped shop to take his exposed reels of film to for processing has been thoroughly investigated and found to be just as Meier related it (Kinder, 1987, pp. 177- 180); however he gave some of his exposed reels on other occasions to an acquaintance to have them developed at a minimal price, and Meier does not rule out the possibility that some of those photos were manipulated without his knowledge -- in particular, photos taken on his lengthy space trip (Stevens, 1982, pp. 100-118). The possibility of computer manipulation to produce the photos shown here is ruled out by their early date of 1975, well before personal computers became available and even before the first “Star Wars” movie introduced special effects in 1977. Hence Meier-case skeptics have settled for the potted “baby” tree hypothesis here, or even a model tree, in conjunction with a model UFO -- a hypothesis we see to be fatally flawed. NOT A POTTED OR MODEL TREE. This conclusion is so pivotal that it may be instructive to remind ourselves of the differences to be expected between a young, potted abies alba and mature ones, if they are not already Fig. 9(a). Young, 2m- Fig. 9(b). Abies alba in Fig. 9(c). Abies Fig. 9(d). Abies Fig. 9(e). Artificial tree tall, potted abies alba Meier’s photo #66, alba in the Black alba at Hoyt for Christmas use tree (contrast en- with contrast enhanced Forest, Germany Arboretum, (Tree Classics, Inc.) hanced). Courtesy of (Gruber, 1994). Portland, OR This material used by Forest Farm nursery, permission of John Williams, Oregon. Wiley & Sons, Inc. evident. Upon comparing an example of the former, Fig. 9(a), with the latter (Figs. 9(b),(c),(d)), we see that the mature trees have developed many offshoots to their main branches along their greater length, while the very young tree has not had time to grow any in its upper portion. The abies alba, as well as other species, can develop quite different profiles and foliage densities, depending upon their age, immediate and past environments, climate, etc., as in Figs. 9(b),(c) and (d). The mature abies alba, and Norwegian spruce as well, may exhibit extensive and numerous preventitious shoots (successive re-branchings), while the very young tree will not have had time for such development to occur (Gruber, 1994, p. 278). When present extensively, these additional re-branchings give the mature fir tree a dense foliage, as in Figs. 9(b),(c) above, in great contrast to the very young fir, Fig. 9(a). Also, the young fir exhibits a conical outer shape while the older, mature fir tends to be much more cylindrical, especially if its crown has suffered from inhibited vertical growth. Just as important, the diameter of a 30cm model UFO, for example, would not exceed three lengths of annual limb growth, or about three times the typical length of one of the twigs seen dangling from the lower portion of the tree in Fig. 2. Instead, the UFO’s width is seen from Meier's photos to be some 20 times this length. This order-of-magnitude distinction alone negates the small potted-tree hypothesis. A model-tree hypothesis, which has been proposed over the Internet, fails for similar reasons. In addition, model trees, especially in those days, were not constructed to look like any particular species of tree, and could not have been identified as a mature abies alba. Instead, they are constructed to be of pleasing appearance, symmetric and conical, as in artificial Christmas trees (Fig. 9(e)), where deformities are undesired. If a symmetric model tree had been trimmed to have an irregular outline and a bare trunk, the trimmed edges would then also give it away as a model tree in comparison with the Fuchsbüel-Hofhalden tree. Also, artificial trees available from stores do not, of course, exhibit nodules where limbs once grew out. A VERY LARGE MODEL UFO? The remaining possibility that the UFO was not “genuine” is that it was a very large model, many meters in diameter. This has not been proposed by Meier-case skeptics, probably because of the tremendous logistical problems that would be encountered in: (a) constructing and storing such a model without news of this reaching the ears of anyone in the area who could report their awareness of it to Meier’s friends or to Wendelle Stevens and his investigative team on their many trips to Switzerland; (b) attempting to transport a 7m model UFO, too wide to fit into a two-car garage, to that location on narrow rugged roads, unnoticed by owner and neighbors along the way; (c) setting up ladders, scaling them and attaching such a huge model to the tree without any support lines or bracing showing up in the photos, and without attracting the attention of the landowner or a group of curious spectators; (d) repeating procedure (b) five or six times in the short period of one afternoon for the different locations of the UFO relative to the tree. A further reason is: (e) precisely the same UFO appears in several dozen of Meier’s other photos taken on other occasions, and in these the UFO has been claimed by debunkers to be a small model. A large metallicized balloon has not been proposed either, no doubt because its manufacture in sufficient structural detail would be very complicated, its existence also could not likely be kept secret, it would lack sufficient rigidity to penetrate into the tree’s branches, as in Figs. 6, 7 and 8, and because of (e) above. THE VANISHING TREE. A key reason the baby-tree or model-tree hypothesis has been promoted, no matter how fatally flawed, is that within a few weeks after this photo session took place the tree vanished. After the photos were developed, two of Meier’s friends (Margarite Rufer and Jacobus Bertschinger) visited the site and noticed that the upper portion of the tree was faintly glowing. On a subsequent visit to the site not too long afterward they noticed that the whole tree was dead. On a third trip to the site, with Meier, they were startled to find the tree entirely absent with no indication that it had ever existed -- no hole in the ground, no disturbed grass or dirt, no bark chips or sawdust, no branches, no needles. The only difference noted was that in the area where the tree had been the grass was up to a foot taller than elsewhere (Stevens, 1982, pp. 48, 126-127). Hence Fig. 3 does not show the tree in question. When Meier, on a later contact, asked his alien contactor what happened to the tree, she told him that they had “changed its time.” Now, the turning brown and withering of tree foliage that UFOs approach too closely is well-known within ufology (Phillips, 1981), and the glowing of tree branches soon after a UFO was hovering close to them is not unknown (Faruk, E. A., 1989). However, the disappearing act that occurred here was again unique and therefore unacceptable to many ufologists. Although they may concede that what an advanced alien civilization could do should seem like magic to us (Newman and Sagan, 1981), if or when any such deed occurs in a particular case, this piece of wisdom is all too likely to go unnoticed and unheeded. Thus some alternative hypothesis, no matter how contradictory to the facts, gets promoted, as with the photos under discussion and the potted-tree fiction. However, as one leading ufologist has said, “We shouldn’t be surprised at anything we find. We’re ignorant!” (Friedman, 2001). Friedman’s advice is pertinent regarding other aspects of Meier’s photo opportunities. How could it be, one may ask, that no one in the Swiss countryside nearby ever reported seeing the beamships while Meier was photographing them? When Meier asked Semjase this question on one of his contacts, she told him that they normally keep their craft invisible, but for the photo sessions they allowed it to be visible from a very narrow, selected viewing angle, namely just that of Meier himself. Certainly, if Meier were a hoaxer whose unknown accomplice(s) had been utilizing helium balloons from which to support an array of tethering and support wires from which one or more model UFOs were suspended, as suggested by Korff (1995, pp. 219-220), all this would have been noticed, reported on and publicized. There was no lack of effort on the part of the early investigators to uncover reports of this nature from neighbors living in the general vicinity, and no shortage of skeptical neighbors. However, no such reports were forthcoming. A report that relates to this photo series is relevant here. In 1976 or 1977 Meier was told by his alien contactor, Semjase, that they had removed all specific memories of this particular tree from the mind of its property owner, in a manner undetectable by him (Moosbrugger, 1977). Moosbrugger also reports that this man had for years been sawing off the lower limbs of the tree for use as firewood (Moosbrugger, 2001, p. 137), and this helps explain the extra dense foliage seen in the tree's upper half. One can scarcely imagine how advanced a level of psychics/psychology/telepathy would be involved in suppressing such memories without suppressing other memories. Presumably this man is the Herman Wyss mentioned by Korff (1995, p. 187), whose residence was located down the hill from the tree in question, and who declined having knowledge of the tree when Korff queried him in 1991. Any such alien mind-altering action is, of course, as unacceptable to us as it is incredible. However, reports abound in the ufological literature of aliens eliminating or suppressing abduction memories (e.g., Hopkins, 1981). It is only prudent to assume that aliens greatly advanced over us in their evolution would be greatly advanced in all fields of science and technology, including fields we are not yet aware of, and would not be advanced just in space travel. They may well be capable of remotely removing selected memories from a person, as well as implanting thoughts or memories. The implantation of "screen" memories into the minds of some abductees is a well-known UFO phenomenon (e.g., see Sandow, 1998; Butler, 1994; Bartley, 2000). It can well be appreciated that if this tree had not been caused to vanish, and if Swiss authorities would in that event not have cut it down, it and the 11 photographs would constitute proof positive that the UFO was a large craft, or beamship, and no small model. This then provides a good example of the Pleiadian implementation of the plausible deniability strategy. Without the tree existing as everpresent proof, negative skeptics can just argue that it's impossible for aliens to do things that seem impossible to us to do with our present level of science and technology, and they will generally gain the approval of any scientists who become informed of the matter. SHOULD THE TREE HAVE APPEARED IN AN EARLIER PHOTO? In discussing this photo-series, we need to mention one of the beamship photos (#25) that Meier took earlier, on 27 February, 1975, from about the same location (Korff, 1995, pp. 161,188,193). In that photo, Fig. 10, the tree in question does not appear, whereas the same forested hill in the middle background does appear in photos #65 and #119 (see Fig. 4); Korff considered this proof that the tree had never existed. However, it will be shown below that for photo #25 Meier had stood farther to the southeast than for photos #65 and #119, and had not pointed his camera far enough to his right (towards the northwest) to have allowed the tree in question to appear. Two distinct features in tree-line height in the middle Fig. 10. Meier's photo #25 taken in February, background are discernable in both color photos #65 1975, from the Fuschsbüel-Hofhalden site and #119, and these are shown in Fig. 12 below. Fig. 12. A cropped portion of Meier's photo #25, top; and below, a cropped portion of #119. Arrow (a) points to a distinctive jump in the far foreground tree line, and arrows (b),(c) to distinctive jumps in tree-line height in the background. The angular spacing a-b relative to b-c in photo #119 is seen to be significantly greater than in photo #25, indicating that #25 was taken from a position significantly to the southeast of #119. The angular difference, or parallax, is about 1.3°, relative to the original photo’s 45° field of view. If the foreground tree line is 300m distant, simple triangulation indicates that Meier had been standing at least 6.8m farther to the southeast when taking photo #25 than when taking #119. [tan(1.3°) x 300m = 6.8m.] This is a minimum, because the two lines of sight to one of the background tree-line features are not quite parallel since the far background is not infinitely far away. A plan-view diagram of the layout is shown in Fig. 13. In constructing it, care was taken to properly position the edges of the photos relative to point "a" in #25 and #119, and also the location of the tree, which was some 66 meters from the camera for a beamship width of 7 meters. The 45° arc of each photo's field of view is indicated. We see that when taking photo #25, Meier’s camera would need to have been swung at least 5° to the right in order that the left-hand edge of the abies-alba tree just barely appear in view. Thus, there is no basis whatever for the claim that the vanishing tree had not been existent in February, 1975. Yet, it is a conclusion a negative skeptic could easily jump to if not interested Fig. 13. Overhead view of the layout where in looking into the details. Meier took photo #25 in February from position 1, and #119 in July from position 2. A VANISHING TREE TEST CASE. The vanishing of the abies alba, or Dashed lines indicate camera's lateral field of view. Arrows labelled "to 'a'" point to “Wettertanne,” as some of the locals call such a tree, raised feature "a" in Fig. 12. T = tree, which should persistent questions and incredulity among some of Meier’s friends, not and does not appear in photo #25. as to how it could possibly have been accomplished. He was Drawing thanks to M. Wolf. eventually able to convince his contactor, Semjase, that she should demonstrate that it could actually be done, and she set a date of Oct. 17th, 1976, for a demonstration. However, she imposed several confidential conditions: no one could be present when the event happened, Meier must not point out the tree in advance, and she would not make her craft visible to anyone on this occasion. On the afternoon of the 17th, Meier, on his moped, led a group of about a dozen in their cars to a grassy spot next to a wooded area, where they released a hot-air balloon that Meier and two friends had constructed a short while before (with some aluminum attached, to see if it would attract the attention of a nearby radar station). Meier stated that the vanishing-tree demonstration would occur in that general area, and that those present should take a close look all around and take photos if desired. Meier also took some photos, they released the hot-air balloon, and then Meier left on his moped in the general direction of the balloon’s drift, but then rode on home. The group followed the balloon along in their cars for a ways, and later hunted Meier up at his house, where he had been waiting for them. They all went back to the site where they had released the balloon, whence Meier asked them if they noticed anything different. They didn’t, until he pointed out where a 3-5m tall young fir tree had been standing an hour before, close alongside a shorter shrubby beech tree that still stood, in the grassy area close to the woods. His beforehand photo proved that this small fir had existed, and the contorted shape of the beech shrub, where the fir tree had blocked its growth on one side, helped confirm the fir’s prior existence. There was no disturbance to the grassy ground that would indicate another tree had been there (Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 137-139; Stevens, 1982, pp. 149-152). The available before- and after-photos, shown in the Moosbrugger reference, are not shown here, as they are not close-ups. He was one of the dozen witnesses, another of whom is also identified by name. This demonstration could not satisfy the witnesses’ desire to know how it was accomplished, but persuaded them that the Pleiadians could actually perform such a “magical” act. However, it will not satisfy a skeptical non-witness who demands conclusive physical evidence and disregards witness testimony. And the uniqueness of this kind of alien-human interaction tends to further deter ufologists from examining the Meier case in depth. This is notwithstanding the fact that numerous UFO sightings are on record in which the witness unpremeditatedly wished that the UFO would do something and it immediately obliged: e.g., come closer or shine brighter, or reply to a flashlight or car headlight signal to the UFO. THE UFO's "ANTENNA". It may be necessary to briefly discuss the antenna-like appendage atop the beamship, or UFO, seen in Fig. 10, as the skeptic may assume it to be a support rod on a model UFO to which an invisible line, like fish-line leader, could be attached. It is present also in the photo series just presented, and is best seen in photo #119 (Fig. 12, bottom). Since in this series the UFO was a large object and no model, it follows that the same UFO in Fig. 10 was no small model either. Thus this appendage may serve some UFO function. When Meier asked his ET contactor about it, he was told it was part of an energy-collecting device. Whether it was or wasn't, I don't know, but it was no model-support rod. DOES ANOTHER TREE LOOK LIKE THIS ONE? In one of Meier's 8mm-movie-film segments, the beamship or UFO circled repeatedly above a tree whose outline may superficially resemble that of the abies alba under discussion. Although Korff did not present and discuss any of Meier's movie-film segments in his book, he is on record on television for claiming that the tree at the different site within the movie film looks the same as the Fuchsbüel-Hofhalden tree (Korff, 1994). Fig. 14. Left. Meier's photo #66 from the Fuschsbüel-Hofhalden site, with insert of a section from 8mm frame of the 18 March, 1975 movie, enhanced. Courtesy J. Jansen. Right. Another video-frame capture of the tree with the beamship above it, 18 March, 1975. From this assumption, Korff brazenly claimed that Meier again utilized the same small potted tree in a UFO hoax, again facing it the same way towards the camera. This "movie" tree is quite blurry due to the movie camera and film's poorer resolution. Nevertheless, very significant differences can be seen between the two trees. The movie-film tree shows a region of active growth at the center of its crown that is completely missing in the in-focus tree. On its upper right-hand side, it exhibits two strong out-branchings not matched at all by the in-focus tree. While there is a similar gap at the upper left of both trees, at the underside of its gap the in- focus tree exhibits a much more pronounced "shelf" of branches, below which the profile is significantly more vertical than for the movie-film tree. Lower down on the left the in-focus tree bulges out significantly while the movie-film tree does not. Such differences are only to be expected, since we have already shown conclusively that the Fuchsbüel tree was a mature tree. In conclusion, after ruling out the hoax hypothesis, we are left with the result that Meier's photos here back him up 100%, and support the witnesses to the two vanishing trees. Thus, truth can be stranger than fiction, except that after some 55 years of having experienced the UFO phenomenon, the ET "magic" involved should not seem so strange to us. Return to: One level up Return to: Contents References Bartley, J. (2000). "The aliens use of 'OPSEC'." At this web site. Butler, Richard D. (1994). "'Abduction' experience classification." At this web site. Elders, L. J. & Elders, B. (1983). UFO…Contact from the Pleiades, vol. 2. Phoenix, AZ: Genesis III Publishing. Faruk, E. A. (1989). "The Delphos case: Soil analysis and appraisal of the CE2 report." J. UFO Studies 1, pp. 41-65. Or see: www.earthfiles.com/earth066.htm. Friedman, S. (2001). Statement he made on the Coast-to-Coast radio program, 10 Jan. Gruber, F. (1994). "Morphology of coniferous trees: Possible effects of soil acidification on the morphology of Norway spruce and silver fir," in Godbold, D. L. and Hüttermann, A., eds., Effects of Acid Rain on Forest Processes. New York: Wiley-Liss, p. 315 and Fig. 8.56. Hanley, D. (2001). Personal communication, March 1. Prof. Hanley is a WSU Extension Forester in the College of Forest Resources, University of Washington, Seattle. Hansen, E. M. (2001). Personal communication, March 14. Prof. Hansen is with the Dept. of Botany and Plant Pathology, College of Agricultural Sciences, Oregon State University. Holdenrieder, O. (2001). Personal communication, March 2. Prof. Holdenrieder’s affiliation is with the Section of Forest Pathology and Dendrology, Dept. of Forest Sciences, Federal Inst. of Tech., Zurich. Hopkins, B. (1981). Missing Time: A Documented Study of UFO Abductions. New York: Richard Marek Publishers. Kinder, G. (1987). Light Years: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. Korff, K. K. (1994). Statements he made on Fox TV's program "Encounters," aired on Dec. 18, 1994. Korff, K. K. (1995). Spaceships of the Pleiades: The Billy Meier Story. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Moosbrugger, G. (1977). "UFO-exposures critically examined;" in Stevens (1988-1995), vol. 3, p. 271. Moosbrugger, G. (1991). Und sie fliegen doch. Munich: Verlag Michael Hesemann. Moosbrugger, G. (2001). And Yet… They Fly (English transl. of above). Tulsa, OK: Steelmark LLC. Newman, W. and Sagan, C. (1981). "Galactic civilizations: Population dynamics and interstellar diffusion." Icarus 46, p. 296. In this paper the authors acknowledge the statement to have derived from Arthur C. Clarke. Phillips, T. R. (1981). "Close encounters of the Second Kind: Physical traces." 1981 MUFON UFO Symposium Proceedings, p. 99. Sandow, G. (1998). "The abduction conundrum." The Anomalist No. 7 (Winter 1998-99). Stevens, W. C. (1982). UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report. Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives (out of print). Stevens, W. C. (1988-1995). Message from the Pleiades, vols. 1-4. Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 1 Mt 1:1 1The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. TJ 1:1 1This is the book and arcanum of Jmmanuel, who is called "the one with godly knowledge," who is a son of Joseph, of Jakob (Jacob), of the distant descendants of David. David was a descendant of Abram (Abraham), whose genealogy traces back to Adam, the father of a species of terrestrial human beings. Adam was begotten by Semjasa, the commander of the celestial sons who were the guardian angels of El, the great ruler of the travelers from afar. TJ 1:1 1Das ist das Buch und Arkanum Jmmanuels, der da heisst «Der mit göttlichem Wissen,» und der da ist ein Sohn Josephs, des Jakob, der fernen Nachkommen Davids, der da war ein Nachfahre Abrams, dessen Geschlecht zurückreicht zu Adam, dem Vater eines irdischen Menschengeschlechtes, der gezeugt war von Semjasa, dem Anführer der Himmelssöhne, die da waren die Wächterengel Gottes, des grossen Herrschers der Weithergereisten. THE PROBLEM. As noted by W. B. Tatum and many others, the Gospel of Matthew is much more than just a genealogy.[1] Why wasn't it called a book of Jesus' teachings and ministry, or some such? Tatum listed six interpretations that have been made by various scholars: Matthew's "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ" was meant to introduce the entire gospel. It was meant to introduce Mt 1:1 to 4:16. It was meant to introduce Mt 1:1 to 2:23. It was meant to introduce Mt 1:1-25. It was meant to introduce Mt 1:1-17 (just the genealogy). It was intentionally meant to be ambiguous. Tatum made mention of a verse from Genesis: Gn 5:1 1This is the book of the generations of Adam... and that it closely parallels the start of Mt 1:1. However, he did not state any definite opinion on this problem or preference for one of the above six possibilities, except for noting that the Matthean genealogy in its present form resulted from redactional (editorial) activity on the part of its writer. SOLUTION. The TJ calls it a book about Jmmanuel, with "teachings" being implied in its title word: "Talmud." Its writer had no need to dip into the Hebrew Scriptures for phrases, verses and passages with which to Judaize his writing. He was merely writing down what Jmmanuel told him, plus likely using his own memories of some events. On the other hand, the writer of Matthew appears to have made use of the phraseology of Gn 5:1 above in his very first words. That verse in Genesis introduces the genealogy of Adam down to Noah and his sons. We shall see similar usage of Old Testament phraseology on the part of the writer of Matthew under discussion of Mt 3:16, and such occurs also in 5:2 ("And he opened his mouth and taught them," as in Dn 10:16). In the present case, it is as if the writer of Matthew were saying, "Let this phrase point you to Genesis where you will find the true genealogy starting from Adam; don't read what the Talmud of Jmmanuel says about it." The TJ must have circulated around among different hands for a little while before the writer of Matthew acquired it. Thus none of the possibilities proposed by Tatum comes very close to the solution, since they miss the main point that the writer of Matthew was intent to direct the knowledgeable reader to the genealogy in Genesis. In closely repeating the wording of Gn 5:1, the evangelist paid little attention to the problem this would cause for astute readers of his gospel. Evidently, he was content to start his explicit genealogy with Abraham, the first great Jewish patriarch, rather than going back further to Adam. One of several conjectures by a different scholar, J. Nolland, does come very close to the above solution, however; this was the possibility that the writer of Matthew had Gn 5:1 in mind so as to point towards "an Adam typology."[2] It is interesting to examine the heresies within this very first TJ verse. The first occurs in speaking of El as a ruler of celestial sons who were distant travelers to our world instead of referring to him as Creator of the world. This extraterrestrial or ET, is written here with the appropriate Aramaic title, El or El, and in different font to distinguish him from the Christian God. (The TJ's publisher utilizes "god" with a small "g" to denote the ET leader and distinguish him from the concept of true God.) El refers to the title of the leader of these ETs as well as to the particular ET who holds this title at any given time. There may or may not be any need to make the latter distinction, since these ETs are thought to be very long-lived. This TJ verse is also heretical in mentioning that Adam was begotten by Semjasa, which refers to the "Samyaza" who was the leader of 17 other "sons of heaven" who took wives from among the daughters of men, according to the Book of Enoch (more on this in the next segment). Adam was of course supposed to have been created by God, according to Genesis. So the writer of Matthew obviously had to omit these TJ heresies. Another heresy surfaces upon close inspection of verb tense. Jmmanuel "is called the one with godly knowledge," and "is a son of Joseph." This use of the present tense is fully consistent with what Eduard Meier learned from Isa Rashid's initial reading of the TJ: Jmmanuel had lived a long life, and the original Talmud was written while he was still alive, years after the crucifixion. Jmmanuel outlived Judas Iscariot, the main writer of the TJ. In subsequent TJ verses there is mention that Adam was the father of the white human populations, in distinction to the other human lineages or "races" or subspecies. This implies that other aliens of humanoid characteristics had impregnated early native Earth women to generate the several other human lineages. The TJ doesn't go into that, since it's a talmud about Jmmanuel, whose lineage was associated with the "white" population in the European, Mideast and Near East regions. However, it does mention later in its first chapter (TJ 1:89) that El was in some manner responsible also for the other human lineages having been generated. To make some anthropological sense of all this, one might consider the possibility that the Pleiadians/Plejarens and their ancestors were homo sapiens of various skin color who, in past visitations to Earth up to hundreds of thousands of years ago, found some of Earth's native humanoids to be genetically compatible for producing offspring, with the aliens who appeared most recently in the Mideast (during the era in which Adam was born) having been of a Nordic complexion. This seems consistent with the finding announced in 2003 that fossils of homo sapiens dating to about 200,000 years ago had been discovered in Ethiopia with cranial capacity somewhat greater, even, than in modern humans. If some credence is given to what Meier was told by his Pleiadian/Plejaren contactors, moreover, this inferred genetic compatibility could be due to Earth having been a dumping ground, millions of years ago, for criminals within the societies of their ancient ancestors; these criminals were said to have been left stranded here without any implements of civilization, and some of their descendants gradually evolved retrogradingly (see Meier's Contact Report #7). A discussion of the TJ's explanation of the name "Jmmanuel" will follow presentation of Mt 1:23. TJ 1:1 calls the writing an "arcanum" of Jmmanuel-a secret or mystery. This may refer partly to the fact that many aspects of his existence and mission were unknown until revealed by the TJ. However, some particulars are still largely unknown at the time of this writing. These include details of his contacts with, and supplementary education by, extraterrestrials (ETs), details of the implementation of his male ET parentage, and details of his survival of the crucifixion. It may also refer to the mystery of his spirit-form having incarnated previously in other great prophets, starting with Enoch; more on this at the end of the segment on Mt 1:16-17. For each of the verse comparisons in this section of the website, I have estimated the odds that the TJ verse(s) could have been composed by a literary hoaxer. Here we notice the improbability that a hoaxer could possess sufficient creativity to have composed the above TJ verse, which solves the problem Tatum posed in a unique manner. At the same time we notice the strong probability that the writer of Matthew shortened the TJ account in order to eliminate heresies and instead direct the reader to the Genesis account. The chance that this TJ verse could be a hoax and not genuine is therefore estimated here as somewhat smaller than 0.5, namely: PHoax ¯ 0.4, bearing in mind that a probability of 0.5 indicates complete uncertainty (or 50-50). Mt 1:2-6 2Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3and Judah [was] the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar...4and Ram the father of Amminadab... 5and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth... 6and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. TJ 1:37-42,45,49-54 37Abraham begot Jsaak. 38Jsaak begot Jacob. 39Jacob begot Juda. 40Juda begot Ananj. 41Ananj begot Ertael. 42Ertael begot Perez...45Ram begot Amjnadab... 49Sahna begot Boas. 50Boas begot Obed. 51Obed begot Jesse. 52Jesse begot David. 53David begot Salomo (Solomon). 54Solomon begot Asa. TJ 1:37-42,45,49-54 37Abram zeugte Jsaak. 38Jsaak zeugte Jakob. 39Jakob zeugte Juda. 40Juda zeugte Ananj. 41Ananj zeugte Ertael. 42Ertael zeugte Perez.... 45Ram zeugte Armjnidab.... 49Sahna zeugte Boas. 50Boas zeugte Obed. 5lObed zeugte Jesse. 52Jesse zeugte Davjd. 53Davjd zeugte Salomo. 54Salomo zeugte Asa. THE PROBLEM. The question has often arisen as to why, in verses 3,5 & 6, the four women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba (the wife of Uriah) are mentioned within an otherwise all-male genealogy. Women are just not mentioned in Jewish genealogies except in rare cases of "irregularity of descent or where there is something noteworthy about the woman's name."[3] In this case, all four of these women were associated with unsavory aspects: Tamar disguised herself as a harlot to trick Judah into giving her a son; Rahab was both a harlot and a non-Israelite; Ruth was a non-Israelite, being a Moabite, and the Moabites had their own god to worship-Chemosh; and Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, a gentile, when allowing herself to be seduced by David. All four were considered to be gentiles. Thus the strong suspicion has arisen that the women were introduced by the writer of Matthew as a subtle apologia for Mary having been impregnated by a man other than her husband. I.e., worthy offspring can arise from unworthy liaisons.[4] Another possibility is that it may have been known that Mary was not of Jewish descent. In that case, she would have been a gentile, just as the four mentioned women were gentiles and were thus in the class of citizenry that the writer of Matthew would consider to be impure and despised. Again, then, the implication is that worthy offspring can arise from unworthy liasons. See also the discussion under Mt 28:1. SOLUTION AND DISCUSSION. The TJ indicates that one or both of these possibilities is viable, as its plain genealogy mentions no women whatsoever, in maintaining the Jewish custom of tracing descent through the male line, including a stepfather. It does not mention that David was king. Although the Greek from which the RSV was formed has "Aram" instead of "Ram" in Mt 1:3-4, the TJ uses "Ram," as does the German Bible; Ram is usually considered correct, as it occurs in the genealogy of 1 Chr 2:9-10. It may be noticed that TJ 1:48-49 has the name "Sahna" rather than "Salmon" as in Mt:1:4-5. "Sahna" is a little closer to the name "Salma" given by 1 Chr 2:11 for the father of Boaz than "Salmon" of Ru 4:21. The writer of Matthew seems to have preferred "Salmon" over either of the other two, although the German Bible uses "Salma." The TJ's genealogy includes 23 names not within Matthew's list or within the Bible (particularly Genesis) either. However, 17 of the 23 have the same names as those of the "fallen angels" found in the Book of 1 Enoch (i.e., the Ethiopian Enoch, upon using the translation of Richard Laurence rather than that of R. H. Charles). These names are of Semjaza-leader of the men who came down from the sky, took Earth women for wives and procreated giants among their offspring- and of the 17 leading men under Semjaza (only the name of sub-leader "Saraknyal" in 1 Enoch is not in the TJ's genealogy).[5] The presumption is that the genealogy within the TJ was taught to Jmmanuel during his forty days and nights of instruction by his ET contactors, whose people had been keeping track of developments on Earth for past millennia (see also the segment under Mt 4:1-11), and that Jmmanuel later conveyed it to his writer, Judas. A possible sequence of events that this supports goes as follows. These 18 leaders (ETs) whom the Bible calls "sons of God," perhaps along with some of the lower-ranking ETs they led, indeed procreated with Earth women to produce many offspring. However, the OM, which Eduard Meier received partly from his ET contactor named Ptaah during the late 1970s, appears to contain the original writings of Enoch/Henok, of which 1 Enoch contains but a poor approximation. In particular, according to the OM, the group of ETs there called the "sons and daughters of heaven" had arrived many scores of millennia earlier than the time of Adam & Eve, and it was at this earlier time that they mated iniquitously with Earth women in defiance of instructions to the contrary from their highest leader, with giants, for unknown reasons, having developed from the resulting offspring (though the ETs themselves were not of giant stature). The book of Genesis calls these giants "the Nephilim." Much later, the same spirits in different Plejaren bodies, as part of their spiritual need to learn to live righteously, repeated the act, but this time with the permission of their overall Plejaren ET leader. (For this reason, perhaps, the TJ does not speak of this event as being any sin.) At this time, the "sons and daughters of heaven" either had taken on the same names as they (their same spirits) had held during their iniquitous venture thousands of years before, or else were known to have had the same spirit-forms as before by Enoch and given the same names by him. This can lead to a good deal of confusion, and may partially explain why, in writing/editing the Book of 1 Enoch, the custodians of the ancient literature telescoped these two events into one. However, other reasons could be that they could not handle the long time periods involved or the concept of reincarnation and spiritual evolution. The birth of Adam occurred during this second ET-human hybridization episode by the "sons and daughters of heaven." For a good many generations after this second episode, these 18 or so ET leaders, who were genetically compatible with Earth humans, were likely revered as sons of God. Hence their names likely became part of oral tradition and must have been given to later generations. In the writing that later became known as 1 Enoch, however, this latter procreation episode was considered to be a great sin by the custodians of the sacred literature, since it by then had been equated with the first episode ages earlier, which had produced the execrable giants. When the early books of the Old Testament were written, or within a few centuries thereafter, the names that had been handed or written down in the various genealogies are considered here to have been culled of all traces of the 18 "fallen angel" names. By then the statements from 1 Enoch of the great sin the (original) group of "sons of God" had committed had become well known to the custodians of the Scriptures. Hence these 18 or so names had become unworthy of mention due to the stigma of the original group's great sin. Still later, the writer of Matthew for the same reason omitted the "fallen angel" names he found in the TJ when copying from its genealogy from Abraham on. (Three of the TJ's names of the 18 "fallen angels" occur after Abraham, and hence should have appeared within Matthew. Nine of these 18 names in the TJ's genealogy occur before the time of Noah.) This particular kind of editorial behavior is not just a hypothesis, but was actually a sacred directive that at some time had been attached to the end of the 1 Enoch writing. The key portion, from its last chapter, 108, reads: 2."Ye who have done good shall wait for those days, till an end is made of those who work evil; and an end of the might of the transgressors. 3. And wait ye indeed till sin has passed away, for their names shall be blotted out of the book of life and out of the holy books, and their seed shall be destroyed for ever, and their spirits shall be slain..." [Laurence's translation] Thus it was a duty of the custodians of the holy literature to ensure that the names of these "fallen angels" not appear within their Scriptures. This attitude continued into New Testament times and is consistent with rabbis of nearly two millennia ago not giving any credence to 1 Enoch's teaching about angels; in fact, Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai in the second century A.D. pronounced a curse upon those who believed in these fallen ones.[6] The last few chapters of 1 Enoch, where the instruction to blot out all such names appears, are not usually considered to have been written by Enoch himself. For one reason stemming from the quote above, the "holy books" mentioned there were only written centuries after Enoch lived. For another reason, it would be grossly inconsistent for Enoch to have written about these fallen angels, and to have named them, and then say that their names should not be written down after all. It is noted that an explanation may be needed as to: (a) why a given name from among the 18 "fallen angels" doesn't occur more than once in the full lineage given by the TJ, and (b) why practically all of the 18 names do occur. However, regarding peculiarity (a), such tends to hold within the genealogies of Genesis, Matthew and Luke also-there are relatively few repeated names; only the name Jacob occurs twice in Matthew's genealogy (and in the TJ). If lifetimes down to the time of Noah were up to 900 years long, however, that would provide a partial explanation: to avoid confusion, offspring in those very early days were rarely named after parents, grandparents or more distant forefathers while the latter were still alive, and a custom of not naming children after their human progenitors could have continued on for a long time. Besides, male offspring were already designated by "xxx, son of yyy," which carried along the father's name, and so would not need to be explicitly given the father's name. Regarding peculiarity (b), it has already been supposed that until the time that the 1 Enoch writings became well known, the 18 "sons of God" were held in high regard. And assuming that patriarchal lineages were commonly handed down orally from generation to generation, each lineage would from time to time make use of one of the respected names from the 18, when naming a newborn son, while avoiding any repeat of names within a given lineage, as per (a) above. There is a spot within 1 Enoch that lends support to Adam and others in those days being descendants of the "sons of God." In chapter 105 of Laurence's translation, Enoch's grandson Lamech and his wife begot a child "the flesh of which was as white as snow, and red as a rose; the hair of whose head was white like wool, and long; and whose eyes were beautiful." Lamech complains that "He is not human; but, resembling the offspring of the angels of heaven, is of a different nature from ours, being altogether unlike to us." (A very similar description, but of the celestial sons, is given in the TJ's 4th chapter.) Lamech's son, who is Noah in 1 Enoch and the Bible but is Tamjel in the TJ, can then be considered a rare throwback (atavism) to the celestial sons, who were of fair complexion. This incident suggests that the reason he was named after one of the 18 "sons of heaven," if he was named Tamjel and not Noah, was because he had their appearance, which in turn suggests that others who were similarly given names of the 18 may similarly have been throwbacks. According to the TJ, there were seven generations of progenitors between Lamech and Noah whose names were omitted from the Old Testament (and from Luke). Two names in Matthew's lineage, between Solomon and Aza (Rehoboam and Abijah), are not in the TJ's lineage but do occur in the Old Testament. On the other hand, Matthew omits Jehoiakim as being the son of Josiah (at Mt 1:11; see 2 Kgs 23:34), as does the TJ; the TJ instead moves on to Jojachin (or Jojachjn), and Matthew to Jechoniah (or Jeconiah). Thus the genealogy within the TJ might explain the writer of Matthew's omission here, if the TJ's Jojachin is Jehoiachin, which experts say is another form of Jechoniah. So the TJ suggests to us to keep in mind the possibility that the Old Testament's genealogy, which was more or less followed by the writer of Matthew, may not be entirely correct or complete, while that supplied to Jmmanuel by his ET contactors may be. Matthew says that Jechoniah had brothers, while 1 Chr 3:16 indicates only one brother; the TJ's genealogy doesn't contain mention of anyone's brothers. In the spelling of some of the TJ's names, such as "Isaac" as "Jsaak," Meier as editor was acting in accordance with his contactors' wishes. They told him that in an old language of theirs the symbol for the i,j,y sound looked like a "J," and that many of the old names should be spelled using the "J" symbol, just as "Jmmanuel" is. So Meier complied. Matthew's verse 1:2 is shown above, along with the TJ cognate, because the former has "and his brothers" following mention of Judah. The TJ again just has a plain, no-frills genealogy. The reason for Matthew's mention of brothers here could be the one given by M. Johnson: the writer of Matthew wished to emphasize the importance and unity of Israel's 12 tribes, founded on Judah and his 11 brothers, considering Matthew's later mention of "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mt 15:24) and of how all twelve disciples would "sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Mt 19:28).[7] There is much more that a careful analyst could do in comparing the nitty-gritty of the TJ's genealogy with Matthew's. For example, regarding "Amos" of Mt 1:10 (the son of Manasseh), the spelling given in 1 Chr 3:14 and elsewhere is "Amon." The TJ has "Amon." It has been suggested that the writer of Matthew may have altered it to "Amos" in allusion to Amos the prophet. Similarly, in the Greek text of Mt 1:7 the name "Asa" of 1 Chr 3:10 is spelled "Asaph" in apparent allusion to Asaph the lyrical prophet.[8] In the TJ the name is "Asa." The odds are against a New Age literary hoaxer being cognizant of 1 Enoch, and in particular, of the son of Lamech being a throwback to "the angels of heaven," of being aware that 1 Enoch instructs custodians of the literature to blot out all names of the "fallen angels," and additionally to have constructed a different genealogy that starts with one of these celestial sons (Semjasa) and contains others not in the Bible. And the odds also appear to be against a hoaxer having inserted the additional names because a substantial number of them, in either the TJ's German or English text, have spellings different from those found in even those German translations of 1 Henoch that most closely resemble the TJ's names.[5] The odds also seem against a hoaxer having noticed and taken action to remove the four women's names from the genealogy, and the "and his brothers" phrase discussed above. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 1:8 8and Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah. TJ 1:55-59 55Asa begot Gadeel. 56Gadeel begot Josephat. 57Josaphat begot Jora. 58Jora begot Armeneel. 59Armaneel begot Usja. TJ 1:55-59 55Asa zeugte Gadeel. 56Gadeel zeugte Josephat. 57Josaphat zeugte Jora. 58Jora zeugte Armeneel. 59Armeneel zeugte Usja. THE PROBLEM. It is well known that the writer of Matthew omitted three names between Joram and Uzziah that are mentioned in 1 Chron 3:10-11, namely Ahaziah, Joash (or Jehoash), and Amaziah. It has been conjectured that the reason was: In order that he could group the generations starting from Abraham into three groups of 14, and/or because he felt the omitted persons were too closely linked to the evil King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. POSSIBLE SOLUTION. (In the above TJ text, we recognize that "Jora" is "Joram" and "Usja" is "Uzziah.") The writer of Matthew would have noticed two names unfamiliar to him here in the TJ, their not being in 1 or 2 Chronicles or 1 or 2 Kings: Gadeel and Armeneel. From our viewpoint, the custodians of the sacred literature would long since have omitted or purged those names if they had considered Gadeel and Armeneel evil. The assumption made here is that they did so, and the writer of Matthew did not restore the names of Ahaziah, Joash (or Jehoash), and Amaziah there, not to mention Gadeel & Armeneel, because he noticed that by leaving them out he could form three groups of 14 from Abraham to Jesus. Having the TJ in front of him then helped him decide which names to omit - the same ones the TJ did not contain plus the two strange names. A possible reason for "Armeneel" to have been purged is if it held the meaning of "place of God" or "palace of God", where the reference was to some place other than Jerusalem. The TJ's genealogy could fit here if Armeneel was fairly long lived, since Ahaziah was king only 1 year, at age 22 according to 2 Kgs 8:26, and Jehoash was only 7 years old when he began to reign. It may be noted that during Joram's 11-year reign he is not mentioned as having any sons other than Ahaziah. This feeds the suspicion that by minor editorial alterations Armeneel became an unmentioned son of Joram, and Amaziah became Uzziah's father while expunging Armeneel from that role. Both Mt 1:7-8 and TJ 1:54-55 have "Asa" as the father of Jehoshaphat/Josaphat, whereas the name "Asaph" rather than "Asa" is the preferred reading from the Greek manuscripts. Yet, 1 Chr 3:10 uses "Asa." From the TJ perspective, this could have come about shortly after Semitic Matthew was translated into Greek, if its first two or three transcriptions were then utilized in making many further transcriptions, with one of these first two or three containing the "Asaph" alteration or error. That transcription in turn would happen to be utilized the most in forming further transcriptions, and would then gain the widest distribution and become the preferred reading. Although one will never know the detailed circumstances, there is no difficulty in conceiving of such a plausibility. Mt 1:16-17 16and Jacob [was] the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. 17So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. TJ 1:80-81 80Jacob begot Joseph. 81Joseph was the husband of Maria (Mary), the mother of Jmmanuel, who was impregnated by a distant descendant of the celestial son, Rasiel, who was the guardian angel of the secret. TJ 1:80-81 80Jakob zeugte Joseph. 81Joseph war der Mann der Maria, der Mutter Jmmanuels, die da ward geschwängert von einem fernen Nachfahren des Himmelssohnes Rasiel, des Wächterengels des Geheimnisses. THE PROBLEM. Various analysts have noted that the actual counts do not quite tally up to 14 in each of the three groupings that the writer of Matthew subdivided the genealogy into (e.g., Beare, pp. 62-63). The writer of Matthew either counted Jechoniah a second time in the last group, or allowed his first two groupings to include David twice. That writer's preference for the number 14 may have been due to the numerical values of the consonants making up the name "David" in Hebrew summing to 14. Another possibility is the importance of "14 male lambs a year old without blemish" as a sacrifice to be made on seven certain days of the seventh month, according to Numbers 29, along with the belief in Jesus as the sacrificial lamb. SOLUTION. This problem does not exist with the TJ, which makes no mention of numbers or groupings of generations. (The TJ verses shown are cognates only to Mt 1:16.) It gives 16 generations from Abraham to David, 15 from David to the deportation, and 14 from the deportation to Jmmanuel, but with no mention of the deportation. Due to Matthew not containing all of the TJ's names within its genealogy, the TJ would not suffer Matthew's problem here whether or not a hoaxer is considered to have formed the TJ. But again the odds are not good that a hoaxer would have dreamed up the portion of TJ 1:81 not included within Matthew. PHoax ¯ 0.35. The secret that Rasiel was the guardian angel of appears to have been associated with these ETs' plan of seeing to it that a very highly evolved spirit-that of Jmmanuel/Henoch-would be incarnated at the right time and right place. Raziel does receive mention in the Kaballah and the Zohar as the angel who was the master of the mysteries. Mt 1:18-19 18Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; 19and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. TJ: 1:82 82When Joseph heard of Maria's secret impregnation by a descendant of the celestial sons from the lineage of Rasiel, behold, he was filled with wrath and thought of leaving Maria before he would be married to her before the people. TJ: 1:82 82Als Joseph erfuhr von der heimlichen Schwängerung Marias durch einen Nachfahren der Himmelssöhne aus dem Geschlecht Rasiel, siehe, da war er in Zorn erwallt und gedachte Maria zu verlassen, noch ehe er ihr vertrauet wäre vor dem Volke. THE PROBLEM. Before examining the problem, we should note that use of the word "birth" in Matthew's introductory sentence, 1:18, seems inadequate. There follow some seven verses before the manner of birth is described. However, the Greek text upon which Matthew is based uses a word that means "genesis" as well as "birth," and this wider meaning seems appropriate. Concerning the word "just" in 1:19, the pre-Christian view of the word's Jewish meaning was of a justice that pays strict attention to the law and is not to be confused with kindness or mercy. So if Joseph was unwilling to put Mary to shame, it was out of love or compassion, not out of a feeling of righteousness. Logically speaking, the word should have been "kind," not "just" (Beare, p. 68). C. T. Davis includes this Matthean verse amongst others within the Nativity that depict Joseph as being overly righteous.[9] As we shall see, Mt 1:25 was one of these other verses. One may also ask, why didn't the writer of Matthew inform us of where Joseph lived, upon introducing him here as a main character of the nativity story? We are only told that the birth took place in Bethlehem, and are left to infer later, perhaps from the Gospel of Luke, that Joseph's dwelling place had been in Nazareth. SOLUTION. In the TJ verse, which is only barely a cognate due to the Matthean verse differing so much from it, Joseph behaved more as one might expect. He was not acting as a "just" man on his own. In making his alterations to the TJ, the writer of Matthew is seen to have slipped up in his wording when emphasizing that Joseph was a just man. Regarding impregnation by an alien or "celestial son," we do know, from investigations into different cases of alien abduction, that not only does a woman abductee who is six or seven weeks pregnant sometimes notice that she is no longer pregnant, but she also sometimes notices that the pregnancy occurred in the absence of her having had any sexual activity.[10] A proposed solution to the lack of mention here of Galilee being the place where Joseph was living is deferred until discussion of Mt 2:22. The primary Matthean problem discussed is rather obscure, and not likely to have been noticed by a New Age hoaxer. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 1:20 20But as he [Joseph] considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit;" TJ 1:83-84 83While Joseph was thinking in this manner, behold, a guardian angel, sent by Gabriel, the celestial son who had impregnated Maria, appeared and said: 84"Joseph, Maria is betrothed to you and you are to become her spouse; do not leave her, because the fruit of her womb is chosen for a great purpose. Marry her in all openness, so that you may be husband and wife before the people." TJ 1:83-84 83Indes Joseph aber also gedachte, siehe, da erschien ein abgesandter Wächterengel des Himmelssohnes Gabriel, der Maria geschwängert hatte, und sprach also: 84«Joseph, Maria ist dir vertrauet und du seiest ihr Gemahl, verlasse sie nicht, denn die Frucht ihres Leibes ist zu Grossem ausersehen; vertraue dich in aller Offenheit mit ihr, so ihr vor dem Volke Mann und Weib seid.» THE PROBLEMS. One objection is that what Joseph was told does not seem to have been within a dream, because it occurred while Joseph was still considering to divorce Mary; i.e., while his mind was awake. Another problem is the use of "behold" to alert the reader to the angel prior to the mention that it occurred in a dream; this is both awkward and unprecedented. In Old Testament instances of "behold" being used in conjunction with a dream, the writer first explains that the person was dreaming, and then uses "behold" to introduce a surprising scene within the dream, as in Gn 20:3; 28:12-13; 37:6-7,9; 41:1-2; Dn 2:31, 7:2f; or he at least first mentions the dream before describing what was dreamt, as in Gn 41:17, Jgs 7:13. Here, the phrase "in a dream" comes sufficiently late as to arouse suspicions that it was an editorial insert. A further problem is that Joseph is referred to as "son of David" in the dream. Assuming that it's possible for a person to remember a conversation verbatim from a dream (and how would the writer of Matthew learn about any of this?), the speaker in the dream would not have to identify you, as there is no one else around to listen! He certainly would not have to identify which Joseph he was speaking to, namely "Joseph son of David"! Instead, it is evident that the writer of Matthew here wished to emphasize that Joseph was a descendant of David so as to establish the same lineage for Joseph's (step)son, Jesus. This in turn was to bolster the claim for Jesus as Messiah according to Is (Isaiah) 11:1-2, where the Messiah would be an offshoot of the root of Jesse, David's father. In Matthew this "son of David" reference for Joseph cannot be explained as stemming from Joseph's need to go to Bethlehem as his home city-the city of David-in order to enroll in accordance with Caesar's decree, as all of that is in Luke, not Matthew. SOLUTION. None of these problems exist within the TJ verse. We see that the writer of Matthew inserted "in a dream" into TJ text as the simplest way to distance the event from real life; in so doing, the "behold" from the TJ ended up preceding his disclosure that what was beheld was in a dream. Within the TJ, both Jmmanuel and his contacting ETs used the term "son" in its primary meaning. Hence it is consistent that "son of David" does not appear in the TJ's parallel verse. PHoax ¯ 0.1. Mt 1:21 21she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. In Mt 1:23 the writer has taken the pains to quote the Isaiah verse, saying that they (the parents) would name the child Immanuel. Why then does the saying by the angel that the child should be named Jesus, in the verse above, appear in addition to the quotation from Isaiah (Mt 1:22) saying the child would be named Immanuel? It is totally improbable that the child was given both names at once. Scholars agree that the Isaiah verse was included so as to show that the birth of Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Is 7:14. However, there is no way this could have been considered a fulfilled prophecy by anyone at the time unless the name given to him by his parents had been Immanuel.[10.5] Many a first-time mother could claim that she had been a virgin prior to giving birth, and this claim could be unfalsifiable. Or, if "young woman" is preferred as the translation rather than "virgin," this would even less signify fulfillment of the prophecy. At the very least, the young child would need also to have been named Immanuel to fulfill the prophecy. Davis notes the view of others that Mt 1:21 "is a virtual citation of Isa [Isaiah] 7:14-the chief point of difference being the name given the child."[11] Hence it would be consistent if the redactor had utilized the verse from Isaiah and simply altered the name "Immanuel" into "Jesus." SOLUTION. The writer of Matthew indeed took the latter action. He patterned Mt 1:21 after the Isaiah verse, changing Immanuel to Jesus, and inserted it just ahead of the verse from Isaiah so that readers would believe the child's name had been Jesus, not Immanuel. This was a Christian necessity, since he had been known as "Jesus" for many decades (since the time Paul's influence took hold, around 40-50 A.D.). The TJ of course has no cognate to this verse, since in the TJ the child's name was Immanuel, later spelled beginning with a "J" symbol by his disciple-writer. Hence the TJ does not suffer from the problem. The typical scholar's view should be mentioned of why the writer of Matthew would think that a child born with the name "Jesus" was the fulfillment of the Isaiah prophecy that his name would be Immanuel. That "Matthew uses the Isaiah 7 passage in his Birth Narrative, I think... is a good example of scripturalization -- he is looking to find scriptures that explicate what is happening"(Mark Goodacre's blog, 7 June 2007). This begs the question, however, of the illogic involved, except that the writer of Matthew is not known for consistent use of logic. The Isaiah prophecy could only be fulfilled if the child's name had been Immanuel at birth. The fact that he was later called "Mighty God" and "Prince of Peace," etc., would not validate the prophecy that a virgin (or young maiden) would name her child "Immanuel." The odds are quite poor that a hoaxer would hit upon the first problem as something needing solution, since it seems unknown as a problem within scholarly literature. But if, against the odds, he were to do so, he would not likely spell Immanuel's name starting with a "J," as that would unnecessarily complicate matters and cause his hoax to be less likely of acceptance. PHoax ¯ 0.15. Mt 1:22 22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: TJ 1:85 85"Behold, the impregnation of Maria occurred eleven thousand years after the procreation of Adam through the celestial son Semjasa, to fulfill the word of El, the ruler of those who traveled from afar, who conveyed these words through the prophet Jesaja (Isaiah):" TJ 1:85 85«Siehe, die Schwängerung Marias geschah also elftausend Jahre nach der Zeugung Adams durch den Himmelssohn Semjasa, so das Wort erfüllet würde, was Gott, der Herrscher der Weithergereisten, durch den Propheten Jesaja gesagt hat, der da spricht:» THE PROBLEMS. Matthew's phrase "all this took place to fulfill (Isaiah's prophecy)" indicates that what its writer had just described was needed in fulfillment. However, did Joseph's short-lived resolve to divorce Mary (from betrothal) in any way help to fulfill Isaiah's prophecy? Indeed not. Additionally, Davies & Allison noted that, in the Greek, the same "formula" with almost the same wording is used in Mt 21:4 as in this verse.[12] This indicated to them that both verses are obvious editorial remarks- redactions. SOLUTION. The writer of Matthew caused the problems by omitting what the celestial son had told Joseph happened long ago, by substituting his formula for it, and by placing this ET's appearance and statements into a dream. The TJ does not contain any "formula" statement here, to be repeated later. The TJ verse is actually not a cognate, since only the word "prophet" occurs in both verses above. However, it is set forth here because the context indicates it was the source for Matthew's shorter verse (or, as a skeptic might say, the TJ verse is an amplification of this Matthean verse). Interestingly, Davies & Allison speculated that Mt 1:22-23 might still be part of what the angel was saying. The TJ indeed indicates that it was the celestial son who told Joseph what Isaiah had actually said, and that the writer of Matthew abbreviated this and left it ambiguous as to whether it was his own narration or that of his dream angel. The first problem seems to have been unknown heretofore. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 1:23 23"Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (which means, God with us). TJ 1:86-87 86"Behold, a virgin will be impregnated by a celestial son before she is married to a man before the people. 87They will name the fruit of her womb Jmmanuel, which translated means 'the one with godly knowledge,' as a symbol and honor to god (El). Through god's power and providential care the Earth was made to bear intelligent life when the celestial sons, the travelers from the far reaches of the universe, mated with the women of Earth." TJ 1:86-87 86«‹Siehe, eine Jungfrau wird durch einen Himmelssohn geschwängert werden, noch ehe sie vor dem Volke einem Mann vertrauet ist. 87Die Frucht ihres Leibes werden sie beim Namen Jmmanuel heissen, das gedolmetscht ist , zum Zeichen und der Ehre Gottes, durch dessen Kraft und Vorsorge die Erde mit intelligentem menschlichem Leben befruchtet wurde, durch die Begattung der irdischen Weiber durch die Himmelssöhne, die Weithergereisten aus dem Universum›.» THE PROBLEM. The Isaiah verse, 7:14, which Matthew refers to here, is: ...Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. First, we may notice that "[they] shall call his name Immanuel" is written above in the active voice, whereas the citation of it in Mt 1:23, in the RSV Bible, is written in the passive voice ("his name shall be called Emmanuel"). Actually, however, in the preferred Greek text of Matthew (and in most Bible translations), it is also written in the active voice: "they will call his name Emmanuel." What may be a minor problem, however, is that the interpretation "God with us" was not taken to mean that Jesus was God for at least another 50 years. That is, Jesus was probably not identified as God, or Theos, even by Paul, unless in Rom 9:5; Paul otherwise referred to him as the Son of God and Christ. So, would Joseph and Mary have considered their son to be God himself? That seems quite unlikely, in which case they would have interpreted the name "Immanuel" somewhat differently. It is granted, however, that decades later still, the Jesus-is-God interpretation took hold, so that the writer of Matthew could utilize it as his parenthetical interpretation. SOLUTION. The interpretation given by the guardian angel to Joseph, was that "Immanuel" meant "God's knowledge with us," where "God" was the extraterrestrial leader of great wisdom and spiritual evolution, not the creator of the Earth or universe. This interpretation could therefore have made sense to Joseph, whereas the interpretation in Matthew surely would not have. The full TJ context, TJ 1:85-95, implies that what is written in Isaiah is only a sanctioned condensation of what had originally been written by the prophet. Now, Matthew is subject to the criticism of most scholars who believe the Isaiah prophecy more easily applies to a short-range prediction within Isaiah's own time than to a long-range prophecy for a Messiah some seven centuries later. However, if what survives within Isaiah 7 is indeed only a portion of a lengthier original section, as the TJ indicates, this scholarly assumption need not be true. And there are indications that Is 7:10-17 once received heavy editing: At first the narrator, Isaiah, relates what Yahweh speaks to Ahaz, at Is 7:10-12. He continues to relate it in the third person at Is 7:13 where, however, it soon becomes clear that this third-person voice is that of Isaiah himself. Elsewhere in the text, however, Isaiah uses the first-person voice when expressing his own views. Further into the Isaiah prophecy (Is 9:1) we find a statement indicating that its fulfillment will take place at a "latter time." This kind of ambiguity and inconsistency is one hallmark of redaction. Mt 1:21-23 together form an instance of "editorial fatigue" on the part of the writer of Matthew. This kind of redaction was defined by scholar Mark Goodacre as being when the redactor makes a characteristic substitution or insertion relative to the source text he is copying from, then continues on copying from that source without noticing that the passage no longer makes sense, or that he should have made a further change so that his first change would make sense. In Mt 1:21 he inserted a sentence saying the boy's name would be "Jesus," but then in Mt 1:22-23 he continued on with the parts of TJ 1:85-87 that say this was in fullfilment of the Isaiah prophecy that his name would be Immanuel. Obviously, the name "Jesus" or "Joshua" or "Yeshua" is not the same as Immanuel, thus contradicting that the prophecy had been fulfilled. Now it must be mentioned that the name "Immanuel," "El with us" is the meaning given it not only in Matthew but also in the parallel verse of the 1978 version of the TJ upon replacing "God" with El. And this is what the briefest interpretation of the Aramaic implies: imm=with, anu=us, el=god: imm anu el.[13] However, after one of Meier's ET contacts in 1989 he was informed by his contactor that this point in the TJ was one of many instances where an error had been made, either by the translator (Isa Rashid) or the typist to whom Meier had loaned out the draft TJ manuscript for final preparation before going to print, in utilizing the German Bible too heavily as a guide. Instead, Meier was informed that the intended meaning behind the name is "the one with godly knowledge." This is consistent with TJ 20:23, wherein Jmmanuel explains that the title El means "king of wisdom." Hence from 1992-on the TJ contains the phrase "the one with godly knowledge" here. Even the name "Yeshua," whose short, literal meaning is" God saves," has to be interpreted as meaning "God saves us from our sins." In either case, since the baby in the manger was obviously not the creator of the world, some interpretation needed to be made. The one supplied by Meier's contactor is a rephrasing of "El's knowledge with us." The fact that the TJ received known editorial alteration here might be considered to counteract its other indications of having been the source for the parallel verse in Matthew. However, whoever heard of a literary hoaxer revising his work years later for the sake of accuracy? PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 1:24 24When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife. TJ 1:96 96When Joseph heard this, however, he was mindful of his devoutness to El's laws, so he brought Maria home and married her before the people. 96 TJ 1:96 Joseph aber, indem er also hörte, gedachte seiner Frömmigkeit in den Gesetzen Gottes, so er Maria heimholte und sich ihr vertrauete vor dem Volke. THE PROBLEM. From the discussion of Mt 1:20, we have seen that Joseph had not been asleep. Hence the first part of the Matthean verse here is a redaction also. SOLUTION. Indeed Joseph had not been asleep. With hindsight, the Matthean verse can be seen to be suspect also because it states that Joseph did "as the angel of the Lord commanded," as if this had been a real angel. The writer of Matthew should have written it: "he did as the angel in his dream commanded," to be more consistent with his dream redaction. A contact with an entity like this who is viewed as being a representative of El, and whose sudden appearance would seem supernatural, would be such an overpowering event that it is not surprising that Joseph would obey. From elsewhere in the TJ one learns that these entities were human in appearance, which can then explain why Joseph wasn't totally overcome with fright. One may ask why the writer of Matthew so heavily abbreviated the TJ's statement that Joseph took Mary home and married her before the people. My conjecture is that it was largely due to the writer's distaste of gentiles (see also under Mt 2:22); he wished to deemphasize the connection between Jesus and the gentile land of Galilee (see Is 9:1), and so omitted the TJ's text that Joseph brought Mary "home" to be married before the people there. From the TJ, it is clear that Nazareth, in Galilee, had been Joseph's home. Although in Mt 2:22-23 Nazareth and Galilee are mentioned, verse 2:22 provides an apology for mentioning Galilee, to be discussed later below, and in 2:23 the "Nazarene" prophecy provided a reason why Nazareth could be mentioned there. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 1:25 25but [Joseph] knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus. TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Here it is stated that Joseph did not "know" Mary until after Jesus was born; however this is information that would have been private between Joseph and Mary and therefore unknown to the writer of Matthew. SOLUTION. The TJ contains no cognate to that verse. The writer of Matthew inserted it to emphasize the virgin birth and Joseph's righteousness, and to reassert that the newborn's name had been Jesus, not Immanuel. The absence of a redaction like this from the TJ must be considered evidence in favor of the TJ's genuineness, as a hoaxer might well have included at least the first part of the Matthean verse. PHoax ¯ 0.3. It is interesting that the phrase "before the people," as spoken by a guardian angel, occurs several times in this TJ chapter, but does not occur in Matthew or in the Gospels. Yet it does occur in several places in the Old Testament. Beside the possible reason for its omission at Mt 1:24, it is conjectured that the writer of Matthew did not appreciate the phrase because it implies equality between men and women. That the writer had a patriarchal outlook is seen especially well under Mt 14:21. In several other places, the TJ's "before the people" is paralleled by "before men," "by men" or "to men" in Matthew (Mt 5:16, 6:1, 6:16, 6:18, 23:28). The overall probability favoring the TJ being a hoax from the accumulation of the above individual probabilities for Mt 1 is only 0.000033. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 2 REFERENCES 1. Tatum, W. Barnes, "The origin of Jesus Messiah (Matt 1:1, 18a): Matthew's use of the infancy traditions." JBL 96 (1977), pp. 523-535. 2. Nolland, J., "What kind of genesis do we have in Matt 1.1?" NTS 42 (1996), pp. 463-471. 3. Johnson, Marshall D., The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Unversity Press, 1969), p. 153. 4. Schaberg, Jane, The Illegitimacy of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), pp. 20-33. 5. Interestingly, the 18 fallen-angel names in the list of Laurence's translation agree more closely with corresponding names in the TJ genealogy than do the names in the list of 19 found in R. H. Charles's translation. E.g. see this URL (Section 2, chapter 6 (Charles) and chapter 7 (Laurence)). One name in the former, Urakabarameel, if split in two, corresponds to two names in the latter: Araklba and Rameel. Without punctuation or vowels in the text when first translated from the Aramaic, one sees how such an error could easily occur. The TJ indicates that the single longer name was correct. The TJ's genealogical names were separated by a word of text as in "so-and-so begot so-and so," and thus the ambiguity does not occur there. In different German translations of 1 Enoch (1 Henoch) both lists of names are also found, but even in the closest one I have found to the TJ's names, there are differences from the spellings of 7 names out of the TJ's German-text 17. The 17 names as given within the TJ's genealogy are: Semjasa, Akibeel, Urakibarameel, Tamiel, Danel, Asael, Samsaveel, Jomjael, Turel, Batraal, Ramuel, Askeel, Armers, Araseal, Anani, Ertael and Savebe. 6. E.g., see the commentary on the 1 Enoch translation of R. Laurence by Michael D. Fortner. 7. Johnson, Purpose of the Genealogies, pp. 151-152. 8. Gundry, Robert H., Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman's Publishing Co., 1982), pp. 15-16. 9. Davis, Charles Thomas, "Tradition and redaction in Matthew 1:18-2:23." JBL 90 (1971), pp. 404-421; see pp. 412-413. 10. Rodwell, Mary, Awakening (Sycamore House, Park Road, Leed LS15 9AJ, UK: Beyond Publications/Fortune Books Ltd., 2002). 10.5 An early use of this argument came from the Jews whom Tertullian was writing against in his An Answer to the Jews, chap. 9. They argued that Jesus could not be the Messiah because his name had not been "Immanuel." This was probably a 2nd-century Jewish argument, as Tertullian was writing circa AD 197-220. 11. Davis, "Tradition and redaction." 12. Davies, W. D., and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, Scotland: T. & T. Clark Ltd., 1988), pp. 210-211. 13. Private communication, May 2005, from Prof. John Huehnergard, Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 2 Mt 2:1-2 1Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, 2"Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him." TJ 2:1-5 1When Jmmanuel was born in the stable at Bethlehem, in the shelter in the land of the Jews during the time of Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, behold, wise men arrived in Jerusalem from the Orient and asked: 2"Where is the newborn king of wisdom of the Jews? 3We have seen a bright light in the sky and heard a voice saying, 4'Follow the tail of the light, because the king of wisdom of the Jews is born, who will bring great knowledge.' 5Therefore we have come to adore the newborn king of wisdom." TJ 2:1-5 1Da Jmmanuel geboren war im Stall zu Bethlehem, in der Herberge im jüdischen Lande zur Zeit Herodes Antipas’, Tetrarch von Galiläa und Peräa, siehe, da kamen Weise vom Morgenland nach Jerusalem und sprachen: 2«Wo ist der neugeborene Weisheitskönig der Juden? 3Wir haben am Himmel ein starkes Licht gesehen und eine Stimme gehört, die sprach: 4‹Folget dem Schweif des Lichtes, denn der Weisheitskönig der Juden ist geboren, der also wird grosses Wissen bringen›. 5So sind wir gekommen, den neugeborenen Weisheitskönig anzubeten.» THE PROBLEMS. First, it has been pointed out that this mention of Bethlehem as the birthplace is quite incidental, as if it should have been mentioned earlier.[1] Joseph was probably not from Bethlehem if, later, he and his family returned from Egypt to Galilee; so an earlier explanation was due as to why they went to Bethlehem. Second, how could any celestial object, such as Jupiter, for example, indicate to magi who dwelled somewhere east of Palestine that a baby of great interest for them was born in Judea? A prominent astronomical display of any sort would not begin to be able to convey enough information and motivation to stir the magi into such an action. The "star" would need to tell them that a very special baby was born, that they needed to travel outside their own country to find him, that he was somewhere in Judea, and that they should start their journey right away. If astrological charts, for example, could reliably impart such detailed information, people all over would have been traveling every which way over the centuries for enlightenment based upon the positions of the planets and stars. Further, why is the star called "his" star? Clearly, this "star" is something the magi saw with their own eyes and was not an angel in a dream. Why would they connect it to a messiah born somewhere? This was a sufficiently important question to be asked within the commentary by J. A. Broadus.[2] It is sometimes thought that a verse in Numbers is relevant, spoken by Balaam: Nm 24:17 ...a star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a sceptor shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab, and break down all the sons of Seth. The thought is that it became part of the messianic tradition and was then utilized by the writer of Matthew, in which case it represents a Matthean redaction. However, this star refers to some descendant of Jacob, not to a star in the sky. It seems to refer at the same time to a "sceptor" who would rise out of Israel, again not to a star in the sky, and moreover, to a person who would be concerned with smiting Moab and the sons of Seth. SOLUTION. The TJ's mention of the birth having taken place during the reign of Herod Antipas is quite startling. However, its discussion will be delayed until the topic of Mt 2:19-20. In the TJ Bethlehem, and the reason for the travel of Joseph and Mary to that city, were mentioned in its previous eight sentences. This section was omitted by the writer of Matthew, probably because it related to events occurring at the time Herod Antipas began to rule, whereas, for reasons to be discussed, the writer wished to alter Antipas into King Herod, and perhaps also because he wished Jesus to have been born in a house rather than in a stable. The bright light in the sky was what we now call a UFO, not a star. The voice they heard might have emanated from the UFO itself, or may have been implanted by its ET occupant(s) into the magi's minds. This possibility is evident to anyone who has studied the UFO phenomenon. Regarding "his" star, we see that from the TJ verse the magi would know that the bright light in the sky, which had appeared to them but not to Herod or the Jewish clergy, was associated with the newly born king of wisdom of the Jews. So, of course, would any reader, such as the writer of Matthew. The latter couldn't very well refer to this "star" as "a star," which would be too vague, or to "the star," which would lack a previous introduction. So he chose "his star." Concerning the TJ's phrase "king of wisdom," it should not be too surprising, since Jmmanuel became known as a man of great wisdom (Mt 13:54), and since similar phrasing was known and utilized in those days, such as the "king of righteousness" and "king of peace" phrases in Heb 7:2. From the viewpoint of the hoax hypothesis, this TJ verse could be but a part of New Age thought. However, since it is fully consistent with the rest of the TJ and shows plausibility due to the reality of today's UFO phenomenon, while the Matthean verse is deficient in plausibility, the nod must go to the TJ. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 2:4-6 4and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he [Herod] inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 5They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: 6'And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel.'" TJ 2:9-11 9Herod Antipas called together all the chief priests and scribes from among the people and inquired of them where Jmmanuel should have been born. 10And they replied: "In Bethlehem, in the Jewish land; for thus it was written by the prophet Micha (Micah): 11'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of the Jews, are by no means the least among the cities in Judea, for from you shall come forth the king of wisdom, who will bring great knowledge to the people of Israel so that they may learn and serve Creation.'" TJ 2:9-11 9Herodes Antipas liess versammeln alle Hohenpriester und Schriftgelehrten unter dem Volke und erforschte von ihnen, wo der Jmmanuel sollte geboren sein. 10Und sie sagten ihm: «Zu Bethlehem im jüdischen Lande, denn also steht es geschrieben durch den Propheten Micha: 11‹Und du Bethlehem im jüdischen Lande bist mitnichten die kleinste unter den Städten in Juda, denn aus dir soll kommen der Weisheitskönig, der grosses Wissen zum Volke Israel bringt, auf dass es lerne und der Schöpfung diene.›» DISCUSSION. There is a very minor problem associated with Matthew's "scribes of the people," which doesn't make as much sense as the TJ's "scribes from among the people." However, the verse comparison is shown as another example of Jmmanuel's knowledge of what the prophet had actually said differing from what the Old Testament says. Actually, Matthew's version of it is not very faithful to the OT either (Beare, pp. 78-79), but the TJ's version differs much more in speaking of a "king of wisdom" rather than a ruler who could be thought of as the Messiah. Again the TJ indicates that the Old Testament verse is inaccurate. The TJ names the prophet as Micah (see Mi 5:2), which of course is correct, while Matthew does not mention the prophet's name. One could conjecture that the writer of Matthew did not fully approve of this minor prophet, perhaps due to his having preached against the use of sacrificial offerings (Mi 6:6-8), whereas from Mt 5:23 and 8:4 one may notice that the writer of Matthew did approve of the rites of sacrifice, probably because of the prescriptions for it within the Torah. Hence he may have omitted the prophet's name out of disapproval. See other instances of this editorial behavior under Mt 28:1. PHoax ¯ 0.5. The above use of the word "Creation" in the TJ to represent true God, or the Universal Consciousness, may indeed have been the term used by the most important prophets that was later "corrected" by the custodians of the sacred literature into the personal god: El or Elohim or Yahweh. In the writing called 2 Baruch: The Book of the Apocalypse of Baruch the Son of Neriah, written by Baruch the scribe of Jeremiah, there are two or three instances of use of the word "creation" that may, however, have survived the later editing. The key one is: 14:17 When of old there was no world with its inhabitants, you did devise and speak with a word, and forthwith the works of creation stood before you. This is from the translation of the Syriac (Aramaic) by R. H. Charles in 1896. Here, "creation" is used in the same sense that Jmmanuel and the TJ use the word: the Intelligence responsible for the origin of all things- all works. The relevance of this finding is increased upon realizing from study of the Meier UFO contactee case, and from further study of the TJ, that Jeremiah was one of the past lives of Jmmanuel (others were Enoch, Isaiah, and Elijah). The sentence could apparently be allowed to survive without further editing because it is worded such that "you" refers to "LORD." Mt 2:7 7Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared. TJ 2:12 12Thereupon, Herod Antipas called the wise men secretly and diligently asked them when the bright light with the long tail had appeared in the sky. TJ 2:12 12Da berief Herodes Antipas die Weisen heimlich und erkundete mit Fleiss von ihnen, wann das starke Licht mit dem langen Schweif am Himmel erschienen wäre. THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 79) noted that there seems to be no reason why the meeting between Herod and the visitors should have been held in secret. Further, there seems no point in the writer of Matthew having mentioned it as being held in secret. Also, if this "star" had been any astronomical object, it would have been visible in Jerusalem for any or all to view over a period of at least several successive nights. Yet, Herod and others in Jerusalem for some reason hadn't seen the "star." Herod needed to ask the magi when it had appeared in the sky. Something is very wrong here. This consideration alone rules out any astronomical object as being the "star." SOLUTION. The TJ (2:12) is very similar, except for two key differences. First, as noted already, the reference is to Herod Antipas, not King Herod, his father, to be discussed (later) in conjunction with Mt 2:19-20. Second, it is clear that something beyond ordinary understanding was involved: since the light with the long tail was able to point out a particular stable within a city, it was clearly no comet, star, or planet. Regarding Beare's criticism, after the compiler of Matthew had altered the TJ's description of the "UFO" into a star, the need for secrecy would not have existed in his story. The compiler simply forgot to omit "secretly" from his text when copying from the TJ text. Herod's invoking of secrecy here is the same behavior that occurs today within governments, the church hierarchy and the scientific establishment regarding any outstanding UFO appearances. Almost no official openly acknowledges the occurrence of anything displaying intelligence and supernatural power within his jurisdiction but over which he, his institution or his nation has no control or explanation. Herod's desire for secrecy was then likely for the purpose of keeping the number of people to a minimum who knew of this threatening event, so that his own fear and inadequacy to deal with it would not become known. The TJ account, as in Matthew, makes it clear that this Herod desired to learn from the magi where the newly born was located and to do away with him, not worship him, for fear of the powers he might later wield. Thus it might be thought that Herod's meeting with the magi was likely kept secret also so that word would not spread that he feared the baby. If so, however, Herod's supposed action subsequently of having all male babies in Bethlehem under the age of two killed would have given away his fear. But under discussion of Mt 2:16-18 we shall see how this massacre of the infants could not have been a real event. As to how the writer of the TJ learned that the meeting had been held in secret, one can only surmise that one of the magi mentioned it to Mary or Joseph, who in later years told it to Jmmanuel, who later passed on the information to his disciple-writer. Another possibility however, recently brought to my attention, is that Gabriel (Jmmanuel's father), through ET advanced technological powers of observation, had monitored the events, and in later years informed his son all about it. It might be considered that the first problem was accidentally solved by the TJ; however the second one, which is even more obscure, gives the TJ a definite edge over Matthew in historical plausibility. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 2:9 9When they [the magi] had heard the king they went their way; and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. TJ 2:14 14After they [the magi] had listened to Herod Antipas, they departed. And behold, the light with the long tail, which they had observed in the Orient, moved ahead of them with a high singing sound until it reached Bethlehem and stood directly over the stable where the infant was born. TJ 2:14 14Als sie nun Herodes Antipas gehört hatten, zogen sie hin; und siehe, das Licht mit dem langen Schweif, das sie im Morgenland gesehen hatten, zog mit hohem Singen vor ihnen her, bis dass es kam und stand zu Bethlehem senkrecht über dem Stall, da das Kindlein geboren war. THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 80) noted that a star cannot give any such guidance. Certainly a star or planet cannot stand still over a village or over a particular stable, nor in any way designate a particular spot within a crowded city. SOLUTION. Many nighttime UFO sightings either involve reports of a lighted "tail" or a solid appearing light beam extending behind or down from the object.[3] Modern UFO reports also mention a kind of humming noise associated with the UFO, in a substantial fraction of all cases, which could correspond to the "high singing sound" of the TJ verse. The problem with the Matthean verse, not existent in the TJ verse, is sufficiently severe that we estimate PHoax ¯ 0.25. It may be classified as a problem of "Matthean fatigue," in that the writer of Matthew replaced the "bright light with the long tail" in TJ 2:3-4,12,14a with "star;" but in this verse he followed the TJ too closely in imparting behavior to this "star" that no natural celestial object could ever duplicate. This caused the problem, which he could have alleviated if, for example, he had originally called the object a pillar of fire, as in Ex 13:21-22. Mt 2:10 10When they [the magi] saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. TJ 2:15 15When they saw this they were filled with great joy. TJ 2:15 15Da sie dies sahen, wurden sie hocherfreut. THE PROBLEM. This Matthean verse was noted by Davis to be a likely redaction, because it appears out of proper context in the narration.[4] The re-sighting of the star definitely ought to have occurred before or within the preceding verse, immediately following the audience with Herod. That is, the star would have been visible to the magi during their 8-10 mile trek south to Bethlehem, and not re-sighted only upon reaching the city. SOLUTION. In the TJ cognate, "this" refers to the magi noticing that "the light with the long tail" which had gone ahead of them to Bethlehem had come to a stop, hovering directly over a stable. Their joy was that of learning that their long quest was over, and that the newly born child they had sought was in the stable. Thus within the TJ context its parallel verse does not suffer from Davis's criticism. This Matthean problem is quite obscure, and not likely to have been noticed by some New Age hoaxer. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 2:11 11And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him... TJ 2:16 16Then they went into the stable and found the young child with his mother, Maria, and with Joseph. And they fell down and worshiped the infant... TJ 2:16 16Alsdann gingen sie in den Stall und fanden das Kindlein mit seiner Mutter Maria und dem Joseph, und sie fielen nieder und beteten es an und brachten ihre Schätze dar, die da bestanden aus Gold, Weihrauch und Myrrhe. THE PROBLEMS. The participial clause "And going into the house" is peculiar in that no house has been previously mentioned, only a "place" in verse 9. And even there, in the Greek text, "place" is not explicitly stated, but rather, literally, "it [the 'star'] stood over where was the child." Suddenly this undefined place has turned into the house. At this point one may thus suspect that some careless editing of his source by the writer of Matthew was responsible for his not having invented "a house" previously for verse 9. Second, this event occurred sometime well into the night, as the magi had to travel from Jerusalem to Bethlehem (several miles), and during their travel there the "star" had been visible. Would the magi have been able to navigate the road in the dark by no more than the light from one or more stars? And where was Joseph? Would it not have been he who would have greeted them and welcomed them into the stable? SOLUTION. Evidently the writer of Matthew, in this early stage of compiling his gospel, had a problem with his King of the Jews having been born in a manger rather than in a more royal setting. And so in Mt 2:9 he omitted this information from his gospel. (It would not be until 18-19 chapters later in his gospel that he would, in his editing, compose verses that would counter this early tendency, namely: "the first is last and the last first," and that to be great one must first be a servant.) Then, in the present verse he needed to say just what kind of abode the magi had entered to see the child, and so he turned the TJ's stable into a house, causing this little known problem. One may notice that the writer of Luke, who apparently gained some access to the TJ after the writer of Matthew was through using it, had no problem with Jesus being born in a stable. The second set of problems doesn't occur within the TJ, since the bright light, being a UFO at low altitude, must have lit up their route at night all the way to the stable. And Joseph was there. Why did the writer of Matthew omit mention of Joseph here? It seems likely he did so in order that he could picture him two verses later as having been asleep so as to have been in a position to have dreamed of an angel. If so, this raised a more serious problem than it solved, for surely Joseph would have been present and awake while the magi bestowed their presents. Estimated probability: PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 2:12-14 12And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they [the Magi] departed to their own country by another way. 13Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." 14And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt. TJ 2:17-22 17However, the voice again rang out from the light high above, saying that they [the Magi] should not return to Herod Antipas because he planned evil for the young child. 18And they returned to their homeland by another route. 19After the three wise men had left, behold, the celestial son Gabriel appeared to Joseph, saying: 20"Arise and take the infant and his mother Maria with you and flee to the land of Egypt. Stay there until I beckon you, because Herod Antipas is planning to seek out the young child and kill him, since he fears that this babe might wield terrible power. 21While you are in the land of Egypt, I will send my messenger to Herod Antipas to teach him the truth." 22And Joseph arose and took the young child and his mother by night and escaped under the guidance of the celestial son Gabriel in the descending light, which fled with them to the land of Egypt. TJ 2:17-22 17Also aber erklang wieder die Stimme hoch oben vom Lichte her, dass sie nicht wieder sollten zu 18 Herodes Antipas gehen, da er Böses für das Kindlein sinne. Und sie zogen auf einem anderen Weg wieder in ihr Land. 19Da die drei Weisen aber hinweggezogen waren, siehe, da erschien der Himmelssohn Gabriel dem Joseph und sprach: 20«Stehe auf und nimm das Kindlein und seine Mutter Maria zu dir und fliehe nach Ägyptenland und bleibe allda, bis ich dir’s sage, denn Herodes Antipas geht damit um, dass er das Kindlein suche und es töte, da er fürchtet, das Neugeborene möge schreckliche Macht ausüben. 21Derweil du in Ägyptenland weilst, sende ich meinen Abgesandten zu Herodes Antipas, ihn der Wahrheit zu belehren.» 22Und Joseph stand auf und nahm das Kindlein und seine Mutter zu sich in der Nacht und entwich unter Führung des Himmelssohnes Gabriel in das niedersinkende Licht, das mit ihnen nach Ägyptenland entfloh. THE PROBLEMS. Mt 2:13-14 has been criticized for the implausibility that a dream by itself would be enough to cause a man and his wife to get up in the middle of the night with their baby to start out on a long journey into a different country.[5] Although dreams have often caused people to take various actions, in this case the family could not very well have fled in the darkness of the night; they would have had to wait at least until the light of dawn. Also, the same problem as in Mt 1:20 occurs here, to wit, the reader is alerted to an angel appearing to Joseph before mention that it is in a dream. Again, for the same reason, this arouses suspicions that "in a dream" was a hasty insertion. A further little problem is that dreams by their very nature are full of illogical aspects. That is why they need interpretation if one wishes to try to understand them. Yet this "dream" is logical, with a clear instruction being followed with a rational reason for the instruction. The same could be said for the Old Testament dreams mentioned in Gn 20:3-7, 31:11-13,24 and 1 Kgs3:5-14, after which this dream may have been patterned. The actions of the Magi (Mt 2:12), on the basis of just a dream, can be questioned on similar grounds. Surely only one of them had had the dream; would not the other(s) have objected to a sudden change in travel plans that would no doubt lengthen their return journey? And this dream apparently had no angel in it to make it extra impressive. One may then ask, why no angel here? SOLUTION. In the TJ, Joseph's reaction is natural. As a secondary contactee having had a couple previous contacts with an alien who had proven trustworthy, and who was considered to be an angel, he would take the angel's sensible command to him very seriously indeed. The real event was much more convincing than a dream could be, and furthermore the alien's aerial vehicle was there for them to enter into, continually reinforcing the reality of it all. The implication of the TJ verse does seem to be that the UFO transported them to Egypt, though this is not made absolutely clear. If not so transported, they could still have traveled by night with the UFO's light to guide their way. The TJ allows us to understand why the writer of Matthew did not place any angel into the Magi's dream. No angel/alien had appeared to them, only the same voice stemming from the light in the sky that they had heard at the start of their journey. Thus the compiler did not need to invent a dream-angel here. It seems that the alien/angel did not wish to risk shocking the Magi by appearing physically in front of them, and so waited until they had departed before appearing again to Joseph. Although the dream problem with Mt 2:13-14 was referred to earlier under the discussion of Mt 1:20, there were additional reasons for rejecting that verse as being genuine. Here the key reason of implausiblity occurs under different circumstances and should not disqualify the above TJ verses from entering into the estimation of overall odds. Matthew has definite problems, the TJ does not, for those who are aware of the reality of the UFO phenomenon, so we estimate PHoax ¯ 0.4. It is interesting that TJ 2:19 mentions in passing that the number of wise men had been three. Matthew omits this detail, and it has only been inferred by readers, from the number of gifts being three, that the number of the Magi had been three. The TJ confirms this inference. Is there any reason why the writer of Matthew would have omitted this information, referring only to "they," unless it be oversight on his part? One strong possibility is that he was aware of one or more nativity stories of illustrious persons in centuries previous wherein more than three important figures had visited the birth site. For example, Confucius, who was born in the 6th century B.C., is said to have been visited by five old men, who came down from heaven, at his birth.[6] One mythologist, Kersey Graves, even likens these five men to the Magi. He also notes that at the birth of Krishna (the avatar of Vishnu) a whole chorus of angels came and visited. At the birth of Socrates an unstated number of magi came, offering their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.[7] Thus, the writer of Matthew may well have avoided mention of the small number of magi who visited Jesus so as to avoid downgrading Jesus' stature relative to Confucius or some other personage. Mt 2:15 15and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt have I called my son." TJ 2:21-23 21"While you are in the land of Egypt, I will send my delegate to Herod Antipas to teach him the truth." 22And Joseph arose and took the young child and his mother by night and escaped under the guidance of the celestial son Gabriel in the descending light, which fled with them to the land of Egypt. 23Here they remained until Herod Antipas had a change of mind and his inner fear abated. TJ 2:21-23 21«Derweil du in Agyptenland weilst, sende ich meinen Abgesandten zu Herodes Antipas, ihn der Wahrheit zu belehren.» 22Und Joseph stand auf und nahm das Kindlein und seine Mutter zu sich in der Nacht und entwich unter Führung des Himmelssohnes Gabriel in das niedersinkende Licht, das mit ihnen nach Ägyptenland entfloh. 23Sie blieben allda, bis Herodes Antipas Gesinnungswandel trieb und sich die Angst in ihm verflüchtigte. THE PROBLEM. Matthew's prophetic quotation here is well known by scholars to derive from Hos 11:1 (..."out of Egypt I called my son"), and refers either to the Jewish people having been led out of Egypt in the Exodus, to Moses who led them out, or to Jacob who was renamed Israel. Thus it did not apply to a future Messiah, and being in the past tense it is clear that it did not refer to anything that would occur in Jesus' time.[8] Hence it is not a prophecy that an author telling a true story would have logically referred back to as being fulfilled. It instead appears to be an inapt insert by the writer of Matthew. Furthermore, Joseph and family were headed toward Egypt while Moses was heading away. Davis has commented upon this discrepancy, saying, "Why is a citation narrating the fulfillment of a return from Egypt (occurring in vss. 19-21) attached to the narration of a flight into Egypt in vss. 13-15? This incongruity of situation and quotation gives evidence of the quotation's secondary insertion."[9] SOLUTION. The TJ cognate is 2:23; 2:21-22 are repeated so the reader will understand the TJ's explanation of why Herod (Antipas) had the change of heart. The Matthean citation is an addition made by the compiler, who was of Jewish background, apparently because he desired to liken Jesus to Moses in stature. Jesus was to be the "greater Moses."[10] However, we see how the TJ verse gave impetus for the compiler to insert unattributed scriptural material referring to Egypt, and that he did not make up the whole story of the flight to Egypt, as many scholars believe. The estimation of odds here is most relevant for TJ 2:23 versus Mt 2:15. The unique circumstances described by the TJ verse, which does not suffer from the serious Matthean problem, points towards the originality of the TJ verse. Accordingly, I estimate PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 2:16-18 16Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under... 17Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: 18"A voice was heard... Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they were no more." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 82) felt that this massacre story was made up just as a setting for the verse from Jeremiah. Although in this instance Matthew's compiler did indicate the source of his citation, he did not do it any justice, as the Jeremiah citation deals with "children" who were actually young adults-old enough to go by themselves to an enemy land-and who the LORD said would return. Its non-historicity is now quite widely acknowledged,[11] since it appears in no other literature, not even that of Josephus, the historian of that locale and era. The phrase, "two years old and under," doesn't make sense, as the killing task would have been much more managable if the maximum age had been set at just a few weeks. The excessively high, two-year age would appear to have been assigned by the writer of Matthew so that the story of Rachel's children (Jer 31:15-17) would be less inappropriate-as many as two of her youngest children might qualify as being no more than 2 years old. SOLUTION. One may readily understand how the TJ's story of Herod (Antipas) wishing to kill the baby Jmmanuel would have brought to the mind of the writer of Matthew the Exodus story of the evil Pharaoh ordering all newborn Hebrew baby boys to be killed (Ex 1:22), and of Moses's escape from this fate. So to enhance the parallel between Moses and Jesus, this writer invented the above story of the very young male children in Bethlehem being slain. And in an attempt to support this invented story, he drew upon Jer 31:15. The fact that these Matthean verses are not in the TJ is consistent with the latter being genuine; a literary hoaxer might not have known of the above arguments against Matthew. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 2:19-20 19But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, 20"Rise, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead." TJ 2:25-26 25Now that Herod Antipas and his followers had changed their attitude, behold, the celestial son Gabriel appeared again before Joseph in the land of Egypt, and said, 26"Arise and take the young child and his mother Maria and move to the land of Israel; all those who sought the child's life have had a change of heart." TJ 2:25-26 25Da aber Herodes Antipas und sein Gefolge anderer Gesinnung geworden waren, siehe, da erschien der Himmelssohn Gabriel wieder bei Joseph in Ägyptenland und sprach: 26«Stehe auf und nimm das Kindlein und seine Mutter Maria zu dir und ziehe hin in das Land Israel; sie alle sind anderer Gesinnung geworden, die dem Kinde nach dem Leben standen.» THE PROBLEMS. This is now the third time that the angel is supposed to have spoken to Joseph in a dream, to take some action that would affect his future life and that of his family. Surely by this time either Mary or Joseph or both would demand some real-life information to help them decide if the threat of death for their infant was over. Surely they could have learned through normal means that King Herod had died. And why is the angel referred to as an angel, when it can be inferred to be the very same angel as the one who appeared to Joseph at Mt 2:13, and presumably, then, the same as the angel in Mt 1:20? In its second and third referrals, it should have been articulated as the angel. For example, when the angel of Mt 28:2 is introduced, it is an angel (anarthrous), but when mentioned again, in Mt 28:5, it is quite properly the angel. Similarly, when the wise men are first mentioned, they are quite properly "wise men" (anarthrous); at their next mention they are properly referred to as the wise men. The writer of Matthew obviously knew of this basic use of grammar. Finally, concerning dreams, we all know how they are relatively illogical, and don't usually make sense unless interpreted in some manner. See, e.g., Gn 41, where Joseph interprets the dreams of Pharaoh. The dreams of Mt 1:20, 2:12,13,19 all violate this common knowledge, thus appearing not to have been dreams after all. Although one might try to categorize these dreams as being of the prophetic or precognitive type, in real dreams of that type the subject visualizes or experiences the future, or potentially future, scene. Instead, these Matthean dreams would require hypothesizing existence of a new category of dream-one in which the dreamer visualizes nothing but a personage who tells him what to do. Also, we may notice that the Matthean verse 2:20 parallels all too closely a phrase from Exodus: Ex 4:19 And the LORD said to Moses in Midian, 'Go back to Egypt; for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.' The fact that Moses was told to go back to Egypt while Joseph, Mary and child were told to go back to Israel did not spoil the relevance of the Exodus verse for the compiler of Matthew any more than did the similar situation with respect to his Hos 11:1 reference in Mt 2:15. This compiler is seen to have grasped for any analogy to Moses that he could find. Further, in the relatively short time Joseph, Mary and child are believed to have been in Egypt, is it at all likely that not just Herod but the others around him would have died? SOLUTION. One sees that Joseph's decision to return was indeed based upon real-life information, which came from an alien they must have come to trust, and not from a dream. The alien in both this and the previous angelic incident was the celestial son Gabriel, whereas in the encounter of Mt 1:20 it had been a different celestial son. So the writer of Matthew, in allowing that the first two angels were different, used "an angel" in both cases. He then followed suit for the final angel of the Nativity; since he hadn't used "the angel" for the second encounter with Joseph, he could hardly have used it for this final encounter. Regarding Herod Antipas, not King Herod. The verse of TJ 2:26 is what brought to the compiler's mind the verse of Ex 4:19. He was again intent to demonstrate that Jesus was no less important than Moses by pointing out a scriptural similitude. However, the analogy would be too far-fetched unless the men seeking to commit the murder had died. History would be too grossly violated if the compiler of Matthew wrote that Herod Antipas had died at that time. (See the TJ verses under Mt 2:1-2,4-6,7,9,15 for mention of Antipas.) The compiler could simply rectify this problem by changing the name Herod Antipas wherever mentioned in the TJ into King Herod in his Matthean nativity narratives, as King Herod had died many years before (in 4 B.C.). In fact, all he needed to do was insert or substitute the title "King" once or twice and omit "Antipas" wherever it occurred in that section of the TJ. This he did in writing Mt 2:1,3,9,12,13, and in his own invented verses: 15,16,19,22. This would mean that Jmmanuel/Jesus was born around A.D. 6, not 6 B.C., if the census of Caesar Augustus mentioned in Lk 2:1-2 actually occurred during the known reign of Quirinius, governor of Syria, as Luke (and the TJ) both imply. One scholar and history professor, T. P. Wiseman, has suggested, apparently for the first time in the academic literature, that the decree from Caesar Augustus indeed not only occurred in A.D. 6, but was the same as the decree that went out at that time for the purpose of collecting a 5% inheritance tax from Roman citizens; the Syrian-Judaic census and the Roman-empire census would plausibly have been taken at the same time.[12] Wiseman thus gives two reasons for believing that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod Antipas, not King Herod. Previously there had been only one reason (the known timing of the reign of Quirinius), which was insufficient to overcome the Matthean tradition involving King Herod. Antipas is commonly believed to have ruled over Galilee from 4 B.C. to A.D. 39, and is known to have acquired the dynastic title of "Herod" in A.D. 6.[13] Thus, the TJ, along with Wiseman's suggestion, provides three reasons for agreeing that Jmmanuel/Jesus was born around A.D. 6. One verse contradicting this solution is Lk 1:5 ("In the days of Herod, king of Judea..."). It can be explained as one of the considerable number of errors made by the writer of Luke, in this case occasioned by his starting to follow the text of Matthew in the Infancy narrative before creating his own text for it. This purported error is compensated by the reference in Acts 5:37 to Judas the Galilean initiating his uprising "in the days of the census." This uprising is believed to have occurred in A.D. 6, and so further dates the decree of Caesar Augustus to that year. The interested reader will be able to find much literature discussing attempts to resolve this dating problem.[14] However, as of the present writing scholars remain totally unaware of the likelihood that the writer of Matthew altered the Herod Antipas of his source document into King Herod. Not only is the TJ verse consistent with the dating estimates from Luke, but it indicates a solution to the dating discrepancy so novel that it had not previously been mentioned in any literature I'm aware of. PHoax ¯ 0.15. Mt 2:22 22But when he [Joseph] heard that Archelaus reigned over Judea in place of his father, Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. TJ 2:28 28The celestial son Gabriel brought them back to the land of Galilee. TJ 2:28 28Der Himmelssohn Gabriel brachte sie zurück ins galiläische Land. THE PROBLEMS. As has been pointed out by Davis, the Matthean verse contradicts its immediately preceding verse, which has Joseph, Mary and child already back in the land of Israel, which included Judea and Galilee.[15] That is, if Joseph had been afraid to go to Judea, and had not yet gone to Galilee, he would not yet have been in the land of Israel, where Mt 2:21 places him. Also, in saying "he withdrew to the district of Galilee," this verse suddenly leaves out the main thought of where they-mother and child, as well as Joseph-went. And why was it Galilee they went to? From the Gospel of Luke one assumes that Galilee is where Joseph and Mary had lived before (Lk 1:26), but this does not answer the question for Matthew, since we find that Matthew preceded Luke, and Matthew does not previously tell us where Joseph had lived. This should have been done in the vicinity of Mt 1:18, where Joseph becomes the focus of the story. Although Mt 1:18 was already criticized for that reason, the criticism is repeated here by asking, why wasn't the city or region in which Joseph had resided mentioned earlier, so that one would understand why it was Galilee he returned to from Egypt? Finally, it is not clear how Joseph would have known that Archelaus, the new ruler of Judea, was more fearsome (if he was) than Antipas, the new ruler over Galilee and Perea (see Beare, p. 84). SOLUTION. From the TJ's solution to the nativity dating problem, we find further reasons that this verse involves redaction. Archelaus was forced to relinquish his reign over Judea and was exiled from Jerusalem to Gaul just before the census of A.D. 6.[16] Hence, the first portion of this verse is a secondary Matthean redaction designed to provide some historical support for the primary redaction that swapped King Herod for Herod Antipas. The TJ cognate is only barely correlated with the Matthean verse and is free of these objections. It is clear, in the TJ, that their trip back from Egypt to Galilee was in Gabriel's "metallic light." This, plus the compiler's renaming of Herod Antipas to King Herod, explain the motivation for the main redactions made in this verse. Concerning the lack of earlier mention in Matthew of Joseph's place of residence, a likely solution is that the writer of Matthew would have preferred it if Joseph had not been living in Galilee. From Is 9:1 we learn that Galilee was known as a land of the gentiles (or of the "nations"), and that Nazareth tended to be scorned by Israelites (Jn 1:46). Thus, from the writer's anti-gentile perspective that Jesus was the Son of the God of Israel who taught his disciples to "go nowhere among the gentiles" (Mt 10:5), and taught that he "was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mt 15:24), it would be preferable to avoid, as far as possible, mention of Mary's husband having dwelt in Nazareth. Hence, prior mention of Joseph's dwelling place was omitted. Although "Galilee of the gentiles" from Isaiah is mentioned favorably in Mt 4:15, it is plausibly argued that Mt 4:14-16, and so also Mt 12:17-22 and 28:18-20, were added later by the translator of Hebraic Matthew into Greek, at a time when it was realized that Matthew should be made more palatable for gentiles so that it could compete more favorably with Luke and Mark. This is consistent with none of these three pro- gentile passages appearing in Mark or Luke. The extent to which Galilee or Nazareth was inhabited by gentiles instead of Jews is not well known; however, the important factor here is the influence that Isaiah's mention of Galilee as the "land of the gentiles" would have had upon the writer of Matthew. Matthew's problems here are the kind one may look for even in rather well executed redactions, but are more abstruse than what a literary hoaxer can be expected to recognize and correct within his own fabrication. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 2:23 23And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, "He shall be called a Nazarene." TJ 2:29 29There they dwelled in the city called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken by the prophets would be fulfilled, "Jmmanuel shall be called the Nazarene." TJ 2:29 29Daselbst wohnten sie in der Stadt, die da heisst Nazareth, auf dass erfüllet würde, was da gesagt ist durch die Propheten: ‹Jmmanuel soll der Nazarener heissen.› PROBLEM. NT scholars have long been perplexed over which prophet(s) may have spoken the above words about "a Nazarene." Recently, an interesting case was set forth by M.J.J. Menken that the primary source is Jgs 13:5,7, where God tells the barren wife who would give birth to Samson: ...you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be called a Nazarite to God from birth. Coming from the book of Judges, and combined with the prophecy of Is 7:14, this could be considered as coming from "the prophets," without a specific prophet being mentioned, and referring to the former prophets before Isaiah's time. Menken pointed out that the verse could have been utilized by the writer of Matthew to draw attention to "the prophetic prediction of Jesus' being conceived without the intervention of a human father," just as Samson had been.[17] The close similarity between Nazarite/Nazirite, Nazarene/Nazorean and "from Nazareth" then added to the relevancy of the verse. However, Jesus wasn't known as a Nazarene, or as a prophet from Nazareth, but rather as the prophet from Nazareth (Mt 21:11). Further, the beginning of the verse states that "he," referring to Joseph, went to Nazareth while it should have referred to Joseph, Mary and Jesus, or "they." In addition, in "He shall be called a Nazarene," "he" literally refers back to Joseph when the entire context demands that it refer to Jesus. These three minor flaws constitute the problem. SOLUTION. Menken may have had it right, but of course could not envision that the source had been Jmmanuel's dictation to Judas. Jmmanuel knew about his own special conception by an alien (ET) father, and knew from the Scriptures about Samson's. However, even more important he knew the correct form of the Isaiah prophecy (Is 7:14) and of Is 11:1, namely, "there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse [the father of David], and a branch [Nazarene?] shall grow out of his roots." The Hebrew word for "branch" sounds like "netser," which is quite similar to "Nazarene." In fact, St. Jerome thought it should have been translated as "Nazarene" rather than "branch."[18] In addition, from Zec 6:12 one has: ...Behold the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall build the temple of the LORD." It seems most likely that it was Jmmanuel himself who put this all together for Judas to write down, using a play on words. The plural "prophets" was used, since it referred to the former prophets in the book of Judges as well as to Isaiah and perhaps Zechariah. The importance of "prophets" being plural here has been stressed by Gundry.[19] It is surmised that the writer of Matthew noticed the connection to the verse about Samson's conception, and so was favorably inclined towards the verse. However, to make it match more closely the verse of Judges, and draw attention to it, he altered "the Nazarene" into "a Nazarene." And in substituting something different for "Jmmanuel," he chose "he." The writer seems to have been reluctant to call the boy "Jesus" when he was still a helpless baby; perhaps he felt the name Jesus should be reserved for the man/Son-of-God/Messianic figure he worshiped. In making these alterations he incurred the other flaw, which perpetuates the inaccuracy he made in using "he" instead of "they" in Mt 2:22b. Since this verse could be argued the other way around, that a literary hoaxer here improved upon Matthew, we set PHoax ¯ 0.5. However, it doesn't seem very likely that a literary hoaxer bent on a New Age agenda would have noticed these flaws in Matthew. The overall odds favoring the TJ being a hoax from the accumulation of the above odds just within Matthew's 2nd chapter is only 0.0002. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 3 REFERENCES 1. Hill, David, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972). Or see Carson, D.A., "Matthew," in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 1981), p. 71. 2. Broadus, John A., Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1886), p. 17. 3. In Walters, Ed & Walters, Frances, The Gulf Breeze Sightings (New York: William Morrow, 1990), photos 11 and 24, a blue light beam extending down from the UFO was photographed in color. Similar beams of various colors emanating from UFOs have been witnessed by others, e.g., the beam that knocked Travis Walton to the ground and then "beamed him up," as portrayed in the movie "Fire in the Sky," which was based upon a true UFO abduction account witnessed by six others who were with Travis at the time. See also Guenther's website and search for cases like those of 29 Sept. 1952 (Southern Pines, NC), 7 Oct. 1954 (Beruges, France), 1 Nov. 1957 (Provencal, LA), 16 Nov. 1965 (Luverne, MN), 7 May 1967 (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), 6 March 1969 (Glenwood, MO), and 13 Aug. 1970 (Kastrup, Denmark). See also this link (the 12 April 1950 memo, part g.). 4. Davis, "Tradition and redaction," op. cit. p. 417. 5. This criticism was made by Marcus Borg in a videotaped class in Religious Studies he taught at Oregon State University in 1989. It is a logical, down-to-earth criticism. 6. Crow, Carl, Master Kung: The Story of Confucius (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1937), p. 45. 7. Graves, Kersey, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors, 6th Ed., (New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, Inc., 1971), pp. 63-67. 8. Borg, Marcus, Jesus: A New Vision (San Francisco: Harper and Rowe, 1987), p. 166, footnote 4. 9. Davis, "Tradition and redaction," p. 414. 10. Gundry, Robert H., Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1982), p. 33. 11. Grant, Michael, Herod the Great (New York: American Heritage Press, 1971) pp. 12, 248; Sandmel, Samuel, Herod (New York: Lippincott Co., 1967), p. 262; and Goulder, Michael, Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974), pp. 239-240, 397. 12. Wiseman, T. P., "There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus...." NTS 33 (1987), pp. 479-480. 13. Hoehner, Harold W., Herod Antipas (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 1972), pp. 105-106. 14. Blomberg, Craig, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1987), p. 195. See also this link. 15. Davis, "Tradition and redaction," p. 407. 16. See Josephus, Antiquities XVII, xii, par. 2, and the very beginning of XVII. 17. Menken, Maarten J. J., "The sources of the Old Testament quotation in Matthew 2:23." JBL 120 (2001), pp. 451-468. 18. Jerome, in Letter No. LVII to Pammachius, "On the Best Method of Translating." 19. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary, pp. 39-40. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 3 Mt 3:1 1In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea. TJ 3:1 1In due course, Johannes the Baptist came to the edge of the wilderness and preached at the banks of the Jordan. TJ 3:1 1Zu gegebener Zeit kam Johannes der Täufer und predigte an den Ufern des Jordans, am Rande der Wüste. THE PROBLEM. Here, Beare (p. 88) noted that Matthew's wilderness area must be taken to include at least the lower reaches of the Jordan valley. He could not believe that John would do his preaching in one region and lead the people to another region for their baptisms, which wouldn't have made sense. Beare also pointed out that the wilderness, or desert, was no place for a preacher to attract large crowds. SOLUTION. The TJ verse is not subject to Beare's criticisms, as the Baptist's preaching occurred at the banks of the Jordan, which is on the edge of the wilderness area. There is little doubt that the compiler's reason for altering the TJ verse in this manner was to make it consistent with his scriptural insertion two verses later (see below) involving "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." The odds seem high that the writer of Matthew fictionalized his source to some extent here, whereas it seems rather unlikely that a literary hoaxer would have noticed this discrepant detail. Together these suggest to me that for this piece of evidence, PHoax ¯ 0.3, given that either the TJ was derived from Matthew or Matthew was derived from the TJ. Of course, those who assume Matthew was derived from Mark would blame the illogic upon the writer of Mark, who is known for his lack of geographical knowledge of the Palestine area. By the same token, however, it is consistent that he would not have detected and corrected this Matthean problem if forming his gospel primarily out of Matthew. Mt 3:2-3 2"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 3For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." TJ 3:2-4 [Not cognates] 2Johannes the Baptist preached of baptism* in accordance with the old laws of El, according to which the way to knowledge was to be prepared. 3He preached that El's laws shall be followed because he is the sole ruler of this human species. 4He preached that above El, however, stands Creation, the source of the worlds, universes and all living creatures. *Note: The TJ's 4th edition uses the word "blessing" instead of "baptism" in its English, when referring to it in this chapter. The editor, Meier, felt that the word "baptism" carries a Christian connotation inappropriate to the original ritual performed by John. I have retained the "baptism" word and root here because of its one-to-one correspondence with the German word Taufe. TJ 3:2-4 2Johannes der Täufer predigte die Taufe nach den alten Gesetzen Gottes, wonach der Weg zum Wissen bereitet werde. 3Er predigte, dass Gottes Gesetze zu befolgen seien, da er für dieses Menschengeschlecht der alleinige Herrscher sei. 4Er lehrte aber, dass über Gott die Schöpfung stehe, die Gebärung der Welten, Universen und Lebewesen. THE PROBLEMS. This is the first spot in Matthew where "Kingdom of heaven" occurs. Both John's listeners and the audience of the Gospel of Matthew therefore would need to have the meaning of the phrase explained, as the people being baptized were not learned theologians. However, it is not explained, here or later. Even if the listeners had been theologians, however, the Scriptures leave the meaning ambiguous. In Ps 145:13 and Dn 6:26, for example, God's kingdom is described in terms of an everlasting realm in heaven from which miracles are wrought both in heaven and earth, whereas in 1 Chr 28:5 and Dn 2:44, for example, this kingdom is an everlasting kingdom on earth. If the intended meaning instead was that God's kingdom in heaven would soon become manifest on earth in the form of Jesus, this lasted for only a very few years before the crucifixion; moreover, Jesus himself prophesied that he (and God's kingdom?) would not arrive until the End Days in some undefined future time. Or did "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" mean that people alive then would, in not too many years, soon be dead, so that for those going to heaven their entry into this realm was imminent? Regarding Mt 3:3, Beare (pp. 89-90) showed it is not the original meaning of Isaiah (Is 40:3), who meant God, not Jesus, when referring to LORD, and whose main thought was not of preaching in the wilderness, but of building a new roadway there. SOLUTION. Relative to the TJ, Mt 3:2-3 can be seen as a substitution for TJ material that would have been heretical to the compiler. To read that El was not true God the Creator (Creation), but was an entity (ET) less than Creation, was absolutely unacceptable. Thus he had to omit the TJ verses or substitute something else for them. He did the latter, utilizing Is 40:3. In assessing a probability value to the absence of parallel TJ cognates here, we note that the second Matthean verse is quite definitely bogus, whereas a literary hoaxer might not have known this. PHoax ¯ 0.45 Mt 3:5-6 5Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan, 6and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. TJ 3:7 7All Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went forth to Johannes the Baptist, acknowledging the wisdom of the old laws of El, and let themselves be baptized by him in the river Jordan. TJ 3:7 7Und es ging zu Johannes dem Täufer hinaus das ganze jüdische Land und alle Leute von Jerusalem und bekannten sich zum Wissen der alten Gesetze Gottes und liessen sich von ihm taufen im Jordan. THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 91-92) remarked upon the improbability that the people being baptized would have made individual confessions to John of their sins. And of course Christian confessional creeds had not yet been composed. Beare suggested that perhaps no words of confession were spoken at all. He noted that the historian, Josephus (in book 18 of the Jewish Antiquities), writing well before the Gospels came out, thought John had conducted his baptisms for the sake of purifying the righteous, not for the benefit of sinners. SOLUTION. From the TJ verse we see that confession of sins was not involved, or not stated to have been involved. Beare seems to have been correct. If confession had been involved, surely John, as a matter of procedure, would have asked Jesus to confess his sins. It is evident that the writer of Matthew would not have utilized the TJ's text of the people having "acknowledged the wisdom of the old laws of El" during baptism, because from the TJ he had read what this had entailed, including "to obey the laws of nature and live according to them" (TJ 3:21). This was unacceptable, as it did not stem from the Torah as he knew it. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 3:7 7But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" TJ 3:9-10 9While he was baptizing many of the people, many Pharisees and Sadducees came to him who humiliated him with malicious talk. 10But Johannes the Baptist spoke: "You brood of adders, who told you that you will escape from future wrath, once your erroneous teachings are revealed?" TJ 3:9-10 9Als er viel des Volkes taufte, also kamen viele Pharisäer und Sadduzäer zu ihm, die ihn mit ihren bösen Reden beschämten. 10Johannes der Täufer aber sprach: «Ihr Otterngezücht, wer hat denn euch gewiesen, dass ihr dem künftigen Zorne entrinnen werdet, wenn eure irren Lehren erkannt sind?» THE PROBLEMS. This is the first verse in Matthew in which Pharisees and Sadducees are mentioned. Why then are they referred to as the Pharisees and Sadducees, as if the writer of Matthew was already aware of their presence in this section of his gospel? In Mt 3:7 John the Baptist starts right out rebuking these Pharisees and Sadducees without there being any mention of any immediate prior provocation. This seems strange or out of character for a preacher held in the highest esteem by Jesus. Just as important, we note how improbable it would be for Pharisees and Sadducees to wish to be baptized by someone who called them a "brood of vipers," before calling for them to repent. And why would John ask Pharisees and Sadducees who it was that had warned them, since any such warning would probably have come from John himself (Beare, p. 93). And why should they be rebuked for listening to the warning of wrath to come? SOLUTION. This is the first mention of Pharisees or Sadducees in the TJ also, where they are introduced realistically as "many Pharisees and Sadducees." The writer of Matthew apparently slipped up here in having read of the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes so often from his TJ source document that he forgot that this was their first mention for his gospel. The linkage of these two groups is not expected by scholars, since the basic beliefs of the two groups differed, and Matthew's use of "the Pharisees and Sadducees" tends to link the two groups together much more so than is done in the TJ's phrasing. Although the two groups appear together within the same sentence three other times in the TJ, in two of these they are again not linked-the two groups are expressed as "the Pharisees and the Sadducees." Only once are they linked as "the Sadducees and Pharisees" (TJ 18:2//Mt 16:1), whose order the writer of Matthew reversed. In the TJ (3:9), the taunting of John by Pharisees and Sadducees is first mentioned. Only after that came John's name-calling and rebukes in response. And in the TJ verse, it is "the people" who were baptized, not Pharisees and Sadducees. These objections on the lack of realism of the Matthean verse seem not to be known, or at least not readily to be found in the scholarly literature prior to the time that the TJ was published. PHoax ¯ 0.2 The meaning of "the wrath to come" referred to in Matthew may not have been clear to its listeners; it is usually assumed to mean the punishment to be inflicted by God on the day of judgment (Zep 1:15). From the TJ context (TJ 3:11-18 below), however, one sees that the "future wrath" referred to the great anger that will ensue amongst followers of the religion when they finally learn that the teachings they had been observing are false. Pharisees and Sadducees were continuing to spread their false teachings, indicating to John that they were under the impression they would escape any such consequent future wrath (presumably to occur within their future lives). Obviously, the "false teachings" portion of the verse had to be omitted by the writer of Matthew, since he believed in the Torah. Mt 3:8-10 8"Bear fruit that befits repentance, 9and do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." TJ 3:11-18 11"See to it that you bear righteous fruit of repentance and learn the truth. 12Turn away from the evil of your erroneous teachings, which you carry out with arrogance and pursuant with your greed for power and treasures. 13Do not think just of saying to each other, 'We have Abram (Abraham) as father.' 14I say to you, with his knowledge and his power, El is able to raise up children to Abram out of these stones, because he has knowledge of the secret of Creation. 15Already the axe has been laid at the root of the trees. Therefore, any tree that does not bring forth good fruit will be hewn down and thrown into the fire. 16You brood of adders, in two times a thousand years you and your followers, who pursue erroneous teachings out of your own haughtiness in your greed for power and treasures, shall be vanquished and, on account of your lies, punished. 17So it shall be, when the human species begin to comprehend, and when the chaff is separated from the grain. 18It will be at the time when your erroneous teachings will be laughed at and the human species discover the truth." TJ 3:11-18 11«Sehet zu; tut rechtschaffene Frucht der Busse und lernet die Wahrheit. 12Kehret ab vom Übel eurer irren Lehren, die ihr in Hochmut und im Sinne eurer Machtgier und Schatzgier betreibt. 13Denket nur nicht, dass ihr bei euch wollt sagen: ‹Wir haben Abram zum Vater›. 14Ich sage euch: Gott vermag mit seinem Wissen und seiner Kraft Abram aus diesen Steinen Kinder zu erwecken, weil er um das Geheimnis der Schöpfung weiss. 15Es ist schon die Axt den Bäumen an die Wurzel gelegt; darum, welcher Baum nicht gute Frucht bringt, wird abgehauen und ins Feuer geworfen. 16Ihr Otterngezücht, in zweimal tausend Jahren werdet ihr und eure Nachfahren, die ihr irre Lehren zu eurem eigenen Hochmut in Machtgier und Schatzgier betreibt, vernichtet und der Lüge bestraft werden. 17So wird es sein, wenn die Menschengeschlechter zu wissen beginnen und die Spreu vom Korne sich scheidet. 18Es wird die Zeit sein, wenn eure irren Lehren belacht werden und die Menschengeschlechter die Wahrheit finden.» THE PROBLEM. Here in Matthew, Beare (p. 93) mentioned that these verses, with their great brevity, fail to give an adequate summary of the essence of John's teaching. Beare could presume that a larger body of material from John the Baptist was available to the writer of Matthew, but that he utilized only that part of it which tied in most closely with early Christian views. SOLUTION. The TJ presents a very substantial message from John and so does not suffer from Beare's criticism. John's speech, which extends beyond what is presented here, is in general agreement with Jmmanuel's message given later in the TJ, causing one to suspect that John had also been a contactee of the same ETs from the region of the Pleiades. From the TJ we find greater reason why John was considered to be a prophet. The fact that Beare's objection is little known, and that a literary hoaxer would take quite a risk adding material that might give a hoax away, suggests to me that the odds for a hoax in the case of the above verse comparison is quite small. However, a typical skeptic might feel that the mention of "two times a thousand years" indicates a hoaxer was using hindsight from our own time, while dismissing the thought that such a person as a long-range prophet who was successful could actually have existed. Thus I assign PHoax ¯ 0.5 here. But the question also arises, how natural was it to express 2,000 years as "two times a thousand years" over 1900 years ago? We know from the Bible that to express a quantity as one number times another number was not too unusual. In the Old Testament one finds the expressions: "seven times seven years" (Lev 25:8), and "a hundred times as many as they are" (2 Sam 24:3, 1 Chr 21:3). In the book of 1 Enoch (14:22-23) we find a certain large number expressed as "ten thousand times ten thousand." In Daniel (7:10), which was written originally in Aramaic, we also find "ten thousand times ten thousand." In Matthew we find "seventy times seven." Hence "times" was used then in the same multiplicative sense as now.[0.8] However, numbers were usually expressed in the Hebraic language without the "times," but when it comes to a large number of years, one finds "a thousand years" expressed as such only once (Ps 90:4). This could be because it was an unimaginably long time span. The only time span longer than that in the Bible, other than "a thousand generations," occurs in Ecclesiastes, and is expressed as "a thousand years twice told" (Eccl 6:6), which means two-thousand years. Hence it should not seem surprising that the TJ's writer usually used the similar expression: "two times a thousand years," for expressing this huge time span. However, he twice used the expression "two thousand years" (in the German translation of the Aramaic) suggesting that either usage was optional for him unless it was instead the translator, Isa Rashid, who sometimes modernized it. Mt 3:11a 11"I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry." 22 TJ 3:22-23a "O you renegades, you brood of adders, get away from this place, because you are impure and cursed in your erroneous teachings. 23Get away from this place, because I can by my own accord baptize you into repentance only with water; but he who comes after me is stronger than I, and I am not worthy of removing his sandals." TJ 3:22-23a 22«Oh ihr Abtrünnigen, ihr Otterngezucht, weicht von diesem Ort, denn ihr seid unrein und verflucht in euren irrigen Lehren. 23Weichet von diesem Ort, denn ich vermag euch mit Willen nur mit Wasser zur Busse zu taufen; der aber nach mir kommt, ist stärker als ich, und ich bin nicht genug, ihm die Schuhe abzunehmen;» DISCUSSION. Two major differences here are worth discussing. In Matthew, John apparently baptized the Pharisees and Sadducees after speaking very harshly to them, calling them a brood of vipers. This would be an improbable event, as noted under Mt 3:7. In the TJ, however, John shoos the Pharisees and Sadducees away with even more harsh language and does not baptize them, apparently because he feels that baptism by water, even if they were willing, would be futile in trying to bring those particular people to repentance. Second, in Matthew John admits to being not worthy to carry Jesus' sandals, while in the TJ he admits to not being worthy to unfasten Jmmanuel's sandals. It turns out that in both Aramaic and Hebrew the words for "carry" (as in Gn 44:1, for example) and "unfasten" or "remove" (as in Ex 3:5, for example) are very similar: nasah and nashal, respectively.[1] On the other hand, Mark's parallel involves unworthiness to stoop down and untie the thongs of the sandals (Mk 1:7). From the present point of view the sequence of editing suggested by this is: (a) the writer of Matthew carried this small part over properly from the TJ into his Hebraic gospel; (b) the writer of Mark properly interpreted Hebraic Matthew's words here, though often expanding upon them as was his style when not omitting sections; (c) the writer of Luke followed Mark or Hebraic Matthew here; and (d) the later translator of Hebraic Matthew into Greek, writing soon after Luke appeared, misinterpreted the word to mean "carry" instead of "remove." Mt 3:11b 11"...he [Jesus] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." TJ 3:23b 23"...He will baptize you with the knowledge of the spirit and with the fire of truth." TJ 3:23b 23«...er wird euch mit dem Wissen des Geistes taufen und mit dem Feuer der Wahrheit.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 94-95) pointed out the great likelihood that "Holy Spirit" here is a (later) Christian interpretation of John's words. SOLUTION. From this verse comparison, and others to come, we find that knowledge and truth are nothing the compiler thought should be dispensed at baptism, since they have nothing to do with forgiving men their sins. Further, since the Torah was God's truth itself, why should Pharisees need to hear any truths other than what comes from the Torah? And if people were encouraged to seek after truth, they would start questioning the truth of the teachings of the scribes and the church. Hence, the TJ verse had to be edited, with the human spirit being altered into the Holy Spirit and "knowledge" omitted. It is unlikely that a literary hoaxer would invent the theme that the writer of Matthew did not wish truth to be the concern of the Christian, and realize that Matthew's "fire" could have derived from a longer phrase that would make sense, and realize that "Holy Spirit" in connection with baptism here was anachronistic. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Now, in Matthew it is the Pharisees and Sadducees whom John is baptizing (see Mt 3:7 & TJ 3:9 above). However, in all the rest of Matthew, contrary to Mt 3:11, Jesus never baptized Pharisees and Sadducees, whether with the Holy Spirit, or with fire or with water. So this verse may be classed as another example of Matthean "fatigue." After making his alteration in what John said, and in continuing to make many other alterations to the TJ's material, the writer forgot to invent a later verse that would demonstrate Jesus baptizing Pharisees and Sadducees with either the Holy Spirit or with fire. However, in the TJ Jmmanuel speaks harsh words of truth to Pharisees and Sadducees (e.g., TJ 23:1-27), which "baptizes" them into the knowledge of the human spirit and the "fire of truth." To baptize "with the fire of truth" is understandable, whereas to baptize "with fire" is not. Mt 3:16 16And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him. TJ 3:30 30When Jmmanuel had been baptized, he soon came out of the water of the Jordan, and behold, a metallic light fell from the sky and rushed over the Jordan. TJ 3:30 30Und da Jmmanuel getauft war, stieg er alsbald aus dem Wasser des Jordans; und siehe, da fiel ein metallenes Licht aus dem Himmel und stürzte über den Jordan. THE PROBLEMS. According to Leander Keck, various readings of this verse "reveal that there is no single tradition of the dove, and that its meaning was problematic from the start."[2] He went on to survey the various interpretations that have been placed on the dove symbology, all being relatively uncertain. Also, what does it mean to say, "the heavens were opened?" Was not the sky always open on a clear day? (The Greek word for heaven or heavens: ουρανος, also means "sky.") The expression seems to derive from Ez 1:1. We may further note that "spirit" is something immaterial and unseen. Hence, it could not have been seen by Jesus, "alighting" upon him or "coming upon him" as if it were a material object like a dove landing on his shoulder. This imagery seems to stem from Is 42:1. SOLUTION. What we are apparently seeing here is the compiler making full use of his wide knowledge of the Jewish literature while weeding out heresies from the TJ. He understood that what was described here was of a similar nature to what Ezekiel encountered with the "wheel within a wheel," and so utilized Ezekiel's introduction of "the heavens were opened" (Ez 1:1) as his own introduction to the Jordan River event. The idea for the compiler to alter an unknown metallic-looking object (UFO) in the TJ into the Spirit of God in Matthew then appears to have derived from Ez 11:5 ("And the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me," or from Is 42:1 ("...I [God] have put my spirit upon him..."). The likely connection between these Old and New Testament verses is discussed by Borg.[3] Other names for a UFO in the Bible are "God's glory," "pillar of cloud", "chariot of clouds," and "pillar of fire" or "chariot of fire." The writer's choice of a bird to represent the descended Holy Spirit should not be too surprising. According to C. S. Mann, "The descent of a bird-especially a dove-upon a chosen person is a common motif in ancient Near Eastern legend."[4] The choice of dove may also have emanated from it being a symbol of innocence and from the desire to emphasize Jesus' innocent and sinless nature. Adding to this is the symbology of the dove in representing the "perfect one," as in the Song of Solomon 6:9, and the dove's importance in the story of Noah's ark (Gn 8:8-12). The TJ is not subject to any of these problems, while avoiding them in an uncontrived manner. Hence the likelihood of a literary hoax here seems rather small, although it has been claimed that the adjective "metallic" did not exist in the Aramaic language in the first century AD, hence the German adjective "metallen" should not have been utilized by Rashid in his translation. However, it can be shown that appropriate Aramaic dictionaries for the appropriate time period do contain examples showing that the Aramaic equivalent of "metal" was used as an adjective as well as a noun. In addition, a supporter of the hoax hypothesis may claim that since awareness of UFOs is a part of the New Age movement, a New Age hoaxer fed it in here. Yet, the very strong evidence pointing to the reality of the UFO phenomenon and all that it explains within Old Testament Merkabah mysticism, more than cancels this claim. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 3:16b-17 ...and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; 17and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." TJ 3:31-32 31Consequently they all fell on their faces and pressed them into the sand while a voice from the metallic light spoke, 32"This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. He will be the king of truth, through which the terrestrial human species shall rise as wise ones." TJ 3:31-32 31Also fielen sie alle auf ihr Angesicht und gruben es in den Sand, derweil eine Stimme aus dem metallenen Lichte sprach: 32«Dies ist mein lieber Sohn, an welchem ich Wohlgefallen habe; er wird der König der Wahrheit sein, durch die sich die irdischen Menschengeschlechter zu Wissenden erheben sollen.» THE PROBLEMS. It has been pointed out by John Meagher that it is surprising the reader is "given no information about how Jesus or the others who are present reacted to such remarkable happenings."[5] Although Meagher's question was directed at the text of Mark, which he assumed was the first gospel, it applies equally well to Matthew due to the close parallels between the two. Although "he saw" may imply that only Jesus saw the Spirit and heard the voice, the fact that the voice was addressed to everyone else there must indicate that they all saw and heard it. A minor problem is that the Greek text of Matthew reads "with whom I was well pleased." According to M. Black, this may be a Semitism-the static perfect tense improperly rendered.[6] SOLUTION. Meagher's observation was quite perceptive. One sees from the TJ that all the people there were awestruck and/or scared to death, except for Jmmanuel (and perhaps John?). The TJ has no exclusionary "he saw" clause. Quite likely Jmmanuel had experienced the presence of his father and his "sky chariot" on a few previous occasions during his years in India, and so was not too startled. The writer of Matthew apparently felt that there was no need to include the fear factor upon portraying the situation as one of the Spirit of God descending like a dove. But he could not of course have included the second sentence of TJ 3:32, since Jesus was to be a figure of worship much more than a teacher of truth and wisdom. The TJ verse shows impressive realism in a manner seemingly too creative for a hoaxer to have invented, while not being subject to Matthew's problems: PHoax ¯ 0.2. If the estimated probabilities that the TJ is a hoax from just the TJ-Mt 3 verse comparisons are accumulated, one finds an overall probability of 0.0022. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 4 REFERENCES 0.8 Johns, Alger, A short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University, 1966), p. 88. 1. Private communication of 28 Oct. 2004 with Bruce Chilton. 2. Keck, Leander E., "The spirit and the dove," NTS 17 (1970), pp. 41-67; see p. 41. 3. Borg, Marcus, Jesus: A New Vision (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), p. 30. 4. Mann, C. S., The Anchor Bible: Mark (Garden City, NY:Doubleday, 1986), p. 200. 5. Meagher, John C., Clumsy Construction in Mark's Gospel (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1979), p. 40. 6. Black, Matthew An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), p. 128. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 4 Mt 4:1-11 1Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil... 8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them... 11Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him. TJ 3:33-4:51 33Behold, after these words Jmmanuel entered into the metallic light, which climbed into the sky, surrounded by fire and smoke, and passed over the lifeless sea, as the singing of the metallic light soon faded away. 34After that, Jmmanuel was no longer seen for forty days and forty nights... 4:4Thus, he lived for forty days and forty nights between the winds of the North and the West, where he received the arcanum (secrets) of knowledge. 5During this instruction period he spent his days with the wise saints of El and the guardian angels, the celestial sons... 51Thus they spoke, the celestial sons between the North and the West, before bringing Jmmanuel in the metallic light back to Israel, to the land of Galilee. TJ 3:33-4:51 33Siehe, nach diesen Worten begab sich Jmmanuel in das metallene Licht, das unter Feuer und Rauch in den Himmel stieg und uber das leblose Meer hinwegglitt, so also das Singen des metallenen Lichtes bald verstummte. 34Danach ward Jmmanuel vierzig Tage und vierzig Nächte nicht mehr gesehen 4:4So lebte er vierzig Tage und vierzig Nächte zwischen den Winden von Nord und West, wo er das Arkanum des Wissens empfing. 5Er verbrachte in Belehrung seine Tage bei den weisen Heiligen Gottes und bei den Wächterengeln, den Himmelssohnen 51So sprachen sie, die Himmelssöhne zwischen Nord und West, ehe sie Jmmanuel im metallenen Licht zurückbrachten nach Israel, ins galiläische Land also. THE PROBLEMS. This is the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. Beare (p. 105) noted that, even symbolically, one probably should not think of the wilderness as the abode of the devil, which this story does. His abode was supposed to be in Hades. Beare also noted that the discussion between the devil and Jesus should not be likened to any real conversation. His particular criticisms of individual verses within the story are logical but too numerous to present here. Then there is the possible contradiction of God's spirit leading Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil himself, whereas Jesus (later) taught his followers to pray to their Father (God, who was also his Father) not to be led into temptation. We are not told if the Spirit knew that the devil would come and tempt Jesus, or if the Spirit just wanted Jesus to undergo 40 days without water or food. And one wonders where "the Spirit" went after it had turned Jesus over to the devil. Since it was the one who turned Jesus over, why did it not later pick him up after his 40-day ordeal rather than leave that task to the angels? But did the angels return Jesus to civilization, where he could learn of John's imprisonment, or not? When and how did the angels leave? Why are we not told any of this? The story has so many questionable or fictitious aspects to it that it is difficult to take it seriously. The title "Son of God" appears for the first time in Matthew within this section. One wonders why the writer did not introduce it earlier, within the Nativity section of Matthew, so as to emphasize the connection between the divine Sonship of Jesus and the miraculous conception.[1] SOLUTION. This TJ section (50 verses are omitted here) is very interesting reading, containing descriptions of the celestial sons and some of their marvels (which seem to have prompted Mt 4:8), a portrayal of El their leader, a brief summary of their history, distinctions between El and Creation, some prophecies for the human race and discussion of Jmmanuel's mission, among other things. However, it is almost as heretical today as it was 1,900 years ago, so that the compiler of Matthew had no orthodox choice but to omit it all in forming his gospel. He evidently considered it the work of the devil, and so substituted for it his story that Jesus was being tempted by the devil in the wilderness during the 40 days and nights. The Son of God title fit in well with the compiler's desire to show that Jesus could overcome the temptations presented by the devil, and outsmart him in quoting from the Scriptures. He did not introduce the title earlier, in the Nativity, probably because of his appreciation of the argument, already presented for him in the TJ, that Jmmanuel was descended from David and Abraham according to Jewish traditions of patriarchy. To call Jesus "Son of God" so soon after presenting him as the son of Mary could have been awkward. In the TJ, Jmmanuel is of course not called the Son of God, except once when Peter called him as much, mistaking his father to have been El rather than Gabriel. It is not particularly improbable that a literary hoaxer could recognize Mt 4:1-11 to be Matthean fiction, and thus not include it. However, the TJ must be read here to understand how improbable it is that a literary hoaxer could generate the 51 verses for which the Matthean pericope substitutes, and how probable that the writer of Matthew would greatly abbreviate and alter it, since he could utilize scriptural verses from Exodus (34:28), Deuteronomy (6:13,16; 8:3) and Psalms (91:11-12). PHoax ¯ 0.1. It may be noticed that Mark (Mk 1:12-13) contains only a two-verse summary of the Temptation story. It is more plausible for a redactor to greatly abbreviate a story-in this case Matthew's 11 verses of the Temptation story-than to proceed in the opposite direction and build an 11-verse story out of a 2-verse summary. This is but one of many scores of reasons why we find it plausible that Matthew preceded Mark. It is consistent with the overall editorial profile of the writer of Mark that he greatly abbreviated the story because he felt its extensive Old Testament quotations would not be of interest to his gentile audience, and because he wanted his gospel to be different from the Gospel of Matthew. Mt 4:12-13 12Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee; 13and leaving Nazareth he went and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, TJ 4:52 52When Jmmanuel heard that Johannes the Baptist had been imprisoned, he left the town of Nazareth, came to and lived in Capernaum, which lies by the sea in the land of Zebulon and Naphtali. TJ 4:52 52Da nun Jmmanuel hörte, dass Johannes der Täufer gefangengelegt war, verliess er die Stadt Nazareth, kam und wohnte zu Kapernaum, das da liegt am See im Lande Sebulon und Naphtali. THE PROBLEMS. In Matthew it is not clear where Jesus had been before he withdrew into Galilee. At last mention, in the previous verse, he had been left in the wilderness. But in the wilderness he could not have learned about John having been imprisoned. So, where did he go after leaving the wilderness in order to hear about John? According to Mt 4:12, it was somewhere else than in Galilee that he heard about John. The unexplained lack of any transition between Mt 4:12 and Mt 4:13 has been pointed out by various analysts.[2] Jesus goes to Galilee, leaves there for no mentioned reason and goes to Capernaum. SOLUTION. These problems do not occur with the TJ, as is seen from the previous TJ verse (presented in the previous segment): Jmmanuel learned about John's imprisonment after being returned to Galilee, and this prompted him to leave Nazareth. We see that the writer of Matthew, when editing his source, left a very rough transition between the end of the actual 40-day event and the beginning of Jmmanuel's ministry in the land of Israel. He did not wish to mention how Jesus had been transported back to Galilee, and so he placed his mention of Galilee after his mention of Jesus having heard of John's arrest. This then led to the problem mentioned above. The TJ verses allow us to infer that it was in Nazareth itself, or possibly nearby in Galilee, that Jmmanuel heard of the news about John. It is difficult to conceive that if a literary hoaxer were astute enough to recognize these problems, which is not very probable, he could avoid them both so deftly. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 4:14-16 14that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15"The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, toward the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles- 16the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. It has been pointed out (Beare, p. 115) that Mt 4:15-16 in no way does justice to the setting that Isaiah actually had in mind for his verses. Beare could see that the writer of Matthew brought in these verses from Isaiah on his own, in keeping with their introductory verse, Mt 4:13, in order to enhance the Messianic image of Jesus. SOLUTION. The TJ's lack of cognate is consistent with Beare being correct here. However, Beare tended to imply that Mt 4:13 was a redaction also, whereas the TJ indicates it is a good rendition of its verse (TJ 4:52b). This latter verse then, which mentions Zebulun and Naphtali, is apparently what brought the Isaiah citation to the mind of Matthew's writer or translator. That is, it is possible that the quotation from Isaiah placed in Mt 4:14-16 was added by the one who later translated Hebraic Matthew into Greek, as it is favorable to gentiles but was not utilized by the writers of Mark and Luke. It is rather improbable that a New Age hoaxer would have omitted Mt 4:15-16 from his fabrication, since light, as opposed to darkness, goes along with New Age concepts of enlightenment. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 4:17 17From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." TJ 4:53 53From that time onward Jmmanuel began to preach, saying, "Repent and turn to the truth and knowledge, because they alone bring you life!" TJ 4:53 53Seit der Zeit fing Jmmanuel an zu predigen und sagte: «Tuet Busse und kehret euch der Wahrheit und dem Wissen zu, denn sie allein bringen das Leben!» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 88) attributes this verse to the redactor-writer of Matthew because the content of the preaching merely repeats, word for word, what John the Baptist reportedly had said in Mt 3:2. And not to be overlooked is that "repent" means to change one's ways. Just to urge "repent" lacks meaning unless the admonition includes the way one is urged to change from or to turn to. The clause, "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" does not at all fulfill this need. Besides the meaning of "kingdom of heaven" being unclear and unexplained, the clause does not tell the listener whether to eat, drink and be merry now because the end time is coming soon, or to quit committing some unspecified sin so as to be allowed access to heaven. Thus the saying in Mt 4:17 would not have been spoken by a teacher of wisdom, who would realize that wisdom is gained through learning from one's mistakes (sins). SOLUTION. The TJ supports Beare's deduction while allowing us to understand what prompted the compiler to utilize "repent" here and at Mt 3:2. Obviously, he did not wish to emphasize Jmmanuel's teaching on seeking truth and knowledge, since that would detract too much from the orthodox view of Jesus being a figure of worship: only Jesus himself could bring (everlasting) life. Thus the writer's abbreviation of the TJ verse left him with a rather meaningless verse, which, however, he liked so well he utilized it at Mt 3:2 as well. In the TJ, Jmmanuel in the above verse does not repeat any of John's wording, though what he says above does include John's admonition to "learn the truth," which is found in TJ 3:11. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 4:19 19And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him. TJ 4:55-56 55And he said to them, "Follow me; I will teach you knowledge and make you fishers of people." 56Thereupon they left their nets and followed him. TJ 4:55-56 55Und er sprach zu ihnen: «Folget mir nach; ich will euch das Wissen lehren und euch zu Menschenfischern machen.» 56Alsbald verliessen sie ihre Netze und folgten ihm nach. THE PROBLEM. On Jesus' ability to enlist helpers, or disciples, Beare (p. 117) commented that it obviously could not have happened so abruptly as this, implying that there had to be more of an inducement than just to become "fishers of men." SOLUTION. In the TJ verse the extra words are few, but the inducement of acquiring knowledge from a man who could demonstrate the power of his spirit was great. Thus the TJ indicates that when Jmmanuel acquired new disciples, the acquisition did occur swiftly. One continues to find that the idea of either the disciples or the common people becoming educated beyond church teaching was unacceptable in the eyes of the writer who compiled the TJ into Matthew. This writer quite likely had once been a scribe, as is pointed out elsewhere in this analysis, and the person who was wise enough to teach knowledge in those days was most notably identified as being the church scribe.[3] Thus, with the hindsight provided by the TJ, the ex-scribe who compiled Matthew seems to have resented the idea that the common man could become as educated as he, or more educated, through everyday learning outside of the church. Therefore, phrases involving the seeking of knowledge on a personal level were edited out by the compiler, causing one scholar to comment upon its omission: "Perhaps the most striking [omission] is the lack of any admonition to seek wisdom."[4] The TJ indicates that this element had indeed been present in Jmmanuel's original message. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 4:23 23And he went all about Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people. TJ 4:60 60Jmmanuel went about in the entire land of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the knowledge of the spirit and healing all diseases and shortcomings [or infirmities] among the people. TJ 4:60 60Und Jmmanuel ging umher im ganzen galiläischen Lande, lehrte in ihren Synagogen und predigte das Wissen des Geistes und heilte alle Krankheit und alle Gebrechen im Volk. THE PROBLEM. Why did the writer of Matthew refer to the synagogues, there in the land where Jesus supposedly was raised since childhood, as their synagogues? If Jesus was a Jew, these were his synagogues as much as anybody else's synagogues. This was a sufficient peculiarity to attract the attention of Beare (p. 121). SOLUTION. The portion of the TJ that survived was written only some years after Jmmanuel's Palestinian ministry was over, by a disciple who by then had traveled to, or was en route to, the land of India with Jmmanuel and two others. This disciple knew that neither he nor Jmmanuel would ever be returning to Palestine, so they must no longer have thought of themselves as Palestinians or Israelites or Jews since, as one learns from further reading of the TJ, they considered much of the Torah, and especially the teachings of scribes and Pharisees, to be false, distorted or incomplete. Thus Jmmanuel and/or Judas referred to "their" synagogues instead of to "the" synagogues, "his" synagogues or "our" synagogues. The writer of Matthew then overlooked this little detail, and copied the TJ's "their synagogues" without alteration. The writer of Matthew himself retained a largely Jewish outlook, and so would not likely have written "their synagogues" of his own composition even if he then lived in Ephesus or Antioch, where there were Jewish communities. Beare's suggested solution to the problem was that Jesus was preaching in Aramaic just to Israelites (the lost sheep of Israel), while the people of Galilee may have included more Greeks than Jews. But this does not seem to be a viable solution, since the synagogues themselves were not Greek, but were Jewish. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Upon accumulating the estimated probabilities that the TJ is a hoax from just the TJ-Mt 4 verse comparisons, one finds a summary probability of 0.00086. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 5 REFERENCES 1. Verseput, Donald J., "The role and meaning of the 'Son of God,' title in Matthew's Gospel," NTS 33 (1987), pp. 532-556; see p. 532. 2. See, for example, Marxsen, Willi, Mark the Evangelist (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1969), p. 96. 3. McKenzie, John L., "Reflections on wisdom," JBL 86 (1967), pp. 1-9; see p. 2. 4. Carlston, Charles E., "Proverbs, maxims and the historical Jesus," JBL 99 (1980), pp. 87-105; see p. 92. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 5 Mt 5:3 3"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." TJ 5:3 3"Blessed are those who are rich in consciousness and recognize the truth, for life is theirs." TJ 5:3 3«Selig sind die, die bewusstseinsmässig reich sind und die Wahrheit erkennen, denn das Leben ist ihrer.» THE PROBLEM. The Matthean verse has always required interpretation; one such is that "poor in spirit" somehow refers to physical poverty (Beare, p. 128). But why should those who are so poor that they scarcely know where their next meal is coming from be considered blessed, or fortunate, or worthy of adoration? Elsewhere in Matthew it is acknowledged as a matter of course that it is good to share in wealth, as in the parable of the sower where the seeds sowed on good ground bring forth a rich harvest, which is of course considered a good result, not a bad result; or in other parables where it is quite alright that a man should possess the means with which to purchase a field or a pearl of great value. These passages contradict the tenor of this verse. Another interpretation stems from a verse from Isaiah: Is 66:2 ...But this is the man to whom I [the LORD] look, he that is humble and contrite in spirit... The presence of the phrase "humble... in spirit" here may then give rise to another interpretation for "poor in spirit"-that it means to be humble. However, being spiritually contrite or penitent is a far cry from being spiritually poor. A further interpretation stems from the fact that the phrase "poor in spirit" was known within certain circles of the Essenes, as it is to be found in the "War Scroll" (14:7) of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In that context "poor in spirit" contrasts with "hard-hearted," at least according to scholar Frank Cross, who noted that the latter takes on the meaning, in the Bible, of being skeptical or unreceptive to religious teachings.[1] Hence Matthew's "poor in spirit" may have referred to those who are open to religious teachings, if the writer of Matthew was aware of this aspect of Essene thinking. Or, one might interpret "poor in spirit" to mean its dictionary equivalent, that is, a condition of being dispirited, dejected, down in the dumps-a feeling that life is hopeless and not worth living. But why would a teacher of wisdom acclaim such a poor state of mental health to be blessed and a condition to be desired in order to gain access to heaven? The Christian then could wonder if heaven would consist of more of the same. That Jesus was a man of wisdom is attested to in Mt 11:19b and in Mt 13:54b. Hence, teachings purportedly from him that lack meaning or are nonsensical may well be questioned as having come from a man of wisdom. The likely alternative is that they instead came from the writer of Matthew, who was no teacher of wisdom. Beare (p. 128) admitted that it is a difficult phrase. He had to argue that these are they who suffer at the hands of the wealthy but are faithful and place their hope in the Lord. Yet, he felt that Matthew's meaning is that Jesus spoke of a spiritual condition, not of material poverty. But why should anyone be particularly blessed who is in a poor spiritual condition? And if he were so blessed, would that not change his spiritual condition to rich, rather than poor? But then he would no longer be blessed, according to Matthew. This is a "vicious circle." In any event, it should be apparent that "rich in spirit" is the condition to be desired, and, in fact, that phrase does occur in a favorable context in chapter 19 of the Epistle of Barnabas. SOLUTION. Earlier TJ versions use the word "spirit" instead of "consciousness," and in the German also. The editor's (Meier's) alteration here reflects his belief that "consciousness" is closer to the meaning of the original Aramaic text. Here I assume that the original Aramaic had a meaning close to that of "spirit," and was interpreted as that by the writer of Matthew. In that case, the redactor's substitution of "poor" for "rich" was suggested because "poor in spirit" implied a meaning that was acceptable to the writer of Matthew, who, however, did not give his editorial alteration enough thought. "Rich in spirit" could not be countenanced, because in its TJ context it focused attention upon the human spirit and its importance, and does not have any religious overtones, while the "spirit" that had been of most interest to early Christianity, since the preachings of Paul, was the Holy Spirit of God. Whichever of the possible interpretations of "poor in spirit" the writer of Matthew had most in mind, it would seem to serve the aims of the church: those who were not hard-hearted would make good candidates for conversion to the faith, the faithful would not leave the church, and neither the lowly and humble nor the dispirited would have the audacity to question the truth of church teachings. It seems quite possible, also, that the compiler of Matthew kept some verses from Lamentations that he liked in the back of his mind: Lam 3:19-20 19Remember my affliction and my bitterness, the wormwood and the gall! 20My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. To have one's soul be bowed down within oneself well expresses the most common meaning of being "poor in spirit." Within the TJ context, "rich in spirit" and "recognizing the truth" together mean being aware of the existence and power of one's spirit, and its evolution, so that life takes on its real meaning. Such thoughts could not be condoned within early Christianity, and so would have had to be altered, if only by changing one word. This TJ verse is consistent with Mt 6:22-23, which has TJ parallels (TJ 6:30-33) whose meaning was conveyed quite faithfully. That is, from Mt 6:22 we have, "The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is sound [or clear], your whole body will be full of light." The straightforward interpretation of this given by Davies and Allison is: "a good eye is evidence of inner light; when there is a good eye, this is because there is light within; to have a good eye is to be full of light, for the condition of the former is the existence of the latter."[2] To be "full of light" is just another way of saying to be "rich in spirit." The writer of Matthew overlooked the fact that his alteration of this TJ verse would be inconsistent with allowing Mt 6:22-23 to follow their TJ source essentially unaltered. Hence this verse along with 6:22 constitute an example of Matthean "fatigue." In Lk 12:21 one finds the phrase "rich toward God," which just might constitute that writer's use of "rich in spirit" from the TJ after altering it into something acceptable for early Christianity. All of this points to Matthew's "poor in spirit" being a redaction, if the original Aramaic word for "spirit" could also be interpreted as "consciousness." We then find the odds to be small that any literary hoaxer could have invented "rich in spirit" along with the rest of the inspiring TJ verse, but quite high that the writer of Matthew made the change from "rich" to "poor." PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 5:4 4"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." TJ 5:4 4"Blessed are those who endure hardship, for they shall thus recognize truth and be comforted." TJ 5:4 4«Selig sind die, die da Leid tragen, denn daraus erkennen sie die Wahrheit und sollen getröstet werden.» THE PROBLEM. If a person is to be blessed for mourning over some sorrow or misery, the reason for the blessing must consist of something more than just being comforted. Is the dedicated Christian supposed to go out of his way to look for occasions to mourn, so that he may be comforted by someone and thereby be blessed? There needs to be more to this beatitude for a teacher of wisdom to have spoken it. One may then suspect that the lack of substance here resulted from the writer of Matthew having altered his source for some reason. SOLUTION. In the TJ, the German word "Leid" is here translated as "hardship," although it may also be translated as "mourning." From the TJ verse we see that the blessing consists mainly of the experiencer or mourner having learned some important truth from whatever event caused his or her travail. For example, if one mourns over the death of a friend or family member, one may learn from it that death is an essential part of life in general, and that the wonders of life are to be appreciated while we possess it. Or one might learn that death is just a step into the beyond in a journey of innumerable steps for one's spirit. Learning such a truth at a deep level is then what brings the comfort. Those who have researched people's past lives generally recognize that it is frequently through the undergoing of tough experiences that one learns lessons that promote spiritual evolution. The writer of Matthew evidently did not want self-recognition of truth on the part of the individual to be a feature of the religion his gospel would espouse. In editing the TJ verse, he apparently utilized the last portion of Is 61:2, "to comfort all who mourn." On the other hand, the TJ verse would again require an undue amount of creative, enlightened thought for a hoaxer to have invented. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 5:5 5"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." TJ 5:5 5"Blessed are those balanced in consciousness, for they shall possess knowledge." TJ 5:5 5«Selig sind die bewusstseinsmässig Ausgeglichenen, denn sie werden das Wissen besitzen.» THE PROBLEM. As suspected by Floyd Filson, for example, this verse appears to be a redaction mostly because it is essentially a copy of a verse from a psalm:[3] Ps 37:11 But the meek shall possess the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity. And from a logical viewpoint we find the Matthean verse to be false, in that in 2,000 years of history we see no evidence that it is primarily the meek who inherit land. SOLUTION. Some Bible versions actually use the phrase "inherit the earth" in the first line of the verse from the psalm, which causes the unattributed borrowing of the verse by the compiler of Matthew to be even more apparent. His approval of the meek may have been due in part to his great respect for Moses, who is said to have been very meek (Nm 12:3). This TJ verse is deduced to be the parallel to the Matthean verse only by virtue of the obvious parallel verses on either side. It supports the correctness of Filson's analysis. Its advice suggests that gaining important knowledge is accompanied by awareness of a proper balance between options or extremes. This could well be a truism, unlike the Matthean verse. PHoax ¯ 0.1. Mt 5:6 6"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." TJ 5:6 6"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for truth and knowledge, for they shall be satisfied." TJ 5:6 6 «Selig sind die, die da hungern und dürsten nach Wahrheit und Wissen, denn sie sollen satt werden.» THE PROBLEM. On logical grounds, Matthew's verse may be criticized for not being a truism, whether it be today or two thousand years ago. Many who have hungered for righteousness have died for that reason, or lingered in concentration camps or in mental hospitals-they did not receive righteousness. If this verse and the other beatitudes are instead interpreted to mean that the satisfaction or reward will come after death, then there would have been no point in Jesus speaking them; he could merely have said: "Don't be concerned with the way things are, everything will be OK after you get to heaven." SOLUTION. The TJ verse, on the other hand, stands a much better chance of being a truism, in that only those who ask questions find answers, and the satisfaction comes from learning the answers. As before, the alteration would come naturally to the writer of Matthew, or to any early Christian of Jewish background, since truth and knowledge were supposed to be in the custodianship of the priests and scribes. "Righteousness" would have been an obvious substitution for him to make since, as Beare (p. 131) has noted, righteousness was an ideal of the Old Testament and of late Jewish religious thought. This is not to say that the TJ downplays the virtue of righteousness-it speaks highly of it, as in TJ 5:10 below. The Matthean verse by itself constitutes another example of "editorial fatigue." The writer altered the first half of the TJ verse, but failed to alter the second half, thus causing the problem. For example, if he had altered the second half to read, in effect, "for they shall be rewarded in heaven," then self-consistency would have been achieved. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 5:7 7"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." TJ 5:7 7"Blessed are those who live according to the laws of nature, for they live according to the plan of Creation." TJ 5:7 7«Selig sind die, die den Naturgesetzen nachleben, denn sie leben nach dem Schöpfungsplan.» THE PROBLEM. This Matthean verse also lacks the ring of truth, since the dispensers of mercy are often persons in authority who do not need mercy, and hence do not receive mercy. Conversely, persons in need of mercy are often those who have not been in any position to dispense it to others. SOLUTION. The TJ verse is a cognate only by virtue of its first two or three words, and because of the one-to- one correspondence between the adjacent "Blessed are..." verses of both texts. It could well have been the original, as it appears to be a truism within the TJ framework: the laws of nature are part of Creation's laws, whose obedience then furthers the plan of Creation (the Universal Consciousness or Great Spirit). The verse would again be heretical or not understood by a compiler of Jewish background, and the substitution "mercy" would only be natural, when logic is disregarded, since, as Beare (p. 131) noted, the Jewish sentiment of mercy is also an expression of Jewish piety. The concept of mercy has many parallels in ancient writings and in the sayings of rabbis. Regarding the TJ's mention of "nature" here and elsewhere, it may at first seem out of place since the word is not present in the Gospels. However, the concept and word for it were present in the Aramaic language (Tiv'a), just as they were within the Greek world at that time (φυσις). Even Paul mentions nature in the context of learning from it (1 Cor 11:14). A Gnostic writing called "The Treatise on the Resurrection" mentions "the Law of Nature." Again, the TJ verse is quite creative and inspirational, and thus unlikely to have been the work of a literary hoaxer, while the Matthean verse is not the saying of a truth-speaking wisdom teacher. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 5:8 8"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." TJ 5:8 8"Blessed are those who have a clear conscience, for they need not fear." TJ 5:8 8«Selig sind die, die reinen Gewissens sind, denn sie brauchen sich nicht zu fürchten.» THE PROBLEM. Here, Beare (p. 132) mentioned something generally overlooked-that no one was supposed to be able to see God and live. Beare's interpretation is that to "see" God really meant to be in his presence without seeing him, which is an obvious contradiction. SOLUTION. This kind of interpretation of the New Testament is actually surprisingly frequent: that what is meant is opposite to what is said. DISCUSSION. With the TJ verse some interpretation is also called for inasmuch as fear sometimes serves a useful purpose. "Need not fear" is probably to be interpreted here in the sense of having no fear of having done the wrong thing, since the verse relates to conscience. Upon recognizing that the TJ verse was indeed redacted into the Matthean verse, one then sees how natural it was for "pure in heart" to be selected as the substitution for "clear conscience," since "having a pure heart" appears in Psalms 24 as a requisite for being blessed: Ps 24:4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,.... will receive blessing from the LORD. Otherwise, to be "pure of heart" meant essentially the same thing as having a good conscience, as in 1 Tm 1:5. Thus the main change made by the redactor was only in the last half of the verse. With this difference, however, we again see that the TJ verse is not just an echo of the Scriptures, nor is it any known piece of New Age literature. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 5:9 9"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." TJ 5:9 9"Blessed are those who know about Creation, for they are not enslaved by erroneous teachings." TJ 5:9 9«Selig sind die Schöpfungswissenden, denn sie frönen nicht einer irren Lehre.» THE PROBLEM. We may compare this Matthean verse with Mt 10:34, where Jesus says he came not to bring peace, but a sword. There is a strong contradiction between the two, which only an inordinate amount of interpretation can alleviate. Of the two verses, here we object to this one because Jesus' actions so often were of a nature to provoke. However much one may wish that Jesus had been a peacemaker, his words directed against the scribes, Pharisees and chief priests, his action in "cleansing" the temple, etc., all belie this characterization. Would the Son of God himself bless peacemakers if he himself were not one? SOLUTION. Though this and the previous two TJ verses are not cognates of Mt 5:7-9, the ones before and after are, and the intervening three Matthean beatitudes match the TJ ones in number. Hence I have paired them one-to-one here, as it appears that the writer of Matthew at this point had decided to substitute his own thought entirely for each of these TJ verses, which were too unacceptable to repeat anything past "blessed are they." These TJ verses, and TJ 5:9 in particular, are very consistent with the heart of Jmmanuel's teachings. The compiler could not here retain this verse because Creation was a different word and concept than Yahweh, and because the rest of the verse implies that the scribes and Pharisees dispense falsehoods, a charge that Jmmanuel makes elsewhere in the TJ. The compiler himself appears to have had an earlier background as a scribe and Pharisee; hence it is likely that he still adhered to most Pharisaic teachings and could not tolerate Jmmanuel's charges against these teachings. The TJ is not subject to the criticism despite peace being a prime part of New Age rubric. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 5:10 10"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." TJ 5:10 10"Blessed are the righteous, for nature is subject to them." TJ 5:10 10«Selig sind die Gerechten, denn ihnen ist die Natur untertan.» THE PROBLEM. This beatitude of Matthew has been suspected of being a creation of the compiler, rather than a saying of Jesus, since each beatitude seems intended to treat a different topic, while the subsequent beatitude (Mt 5:11) breaks the logic and deals again with persecution.[4] Since verses 11 and 12 deal with persecution in greater detail, it is this verse, Mt 5:10, that is most suspect of being a redaction, in raising the persecution theme prematurely. The fact that its latter half, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," competes with the very same wording in Mt 5:3 further detracts from its authenticity. I.e., does the kingdom of heaven belong to the poor or to the persecuted? SOLUTION. In this TJ verse we read nothing about persecution, which caused the scholar's criticism. It appears that the TJ's use of "righteous," and the presence of the persecution theme in its following verse, caused the compiler of Matthew to think of the persecution theme and use it and the term "righteousness" here in Mt 5:10. (Thus TJ 5:10 can be called a faint cognate of Mt 5:10. The TJ's following verse on persecution is strongly correlated with Mt 5:11, as it did not contain anything unacceptable to the compiler.) In the TJ, each beatitude does deal with a different topic. In the TJ verse we find a statement about being able to control nature, which, if understood by the writer of Matthew, would have been deemed heretical since only God or Jesus himself was supposed to have such power. If not understood, it would still have needed some other word substitutions to make it understandable. The interpretation, in the light of the TJ as a whole, seems to be that the highly evolved spirit or soul can wield power over nature (as in "walking on water"), but hopefully only when it is sufficiently evolved and knowledgeable that the person acts sensibly as well as righteously. This interpretation is somewhat tentative, however, since in modern times the unrighteous can wield a good deal of undesirable control over nature, such as wiping out biological species. Because of the indications that the Matthean verse is a redaction, which the TJ verse does not reproduce, and because the implication of the TJ verse is consistent with its theme of spiritual power developed later therein, the hoax hypothesis cannot receive much support here. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 5:11 11"Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account." TJ 5:11 11"Blessed are you if, on my account and because of our teachings, people defame and persecute you and speak all manner of evil against you; thus they lie about the teachings." TJ 5:11 11«Selig seid ihr, wenn euch die Menschen um meinetwillen und um unserer Lehre willen schmähen und verfolgen und reden allerlei Übles wider euch, so sie daran lügen.» COMMENT. Here we see Jmmanuel's emphasis upon the importance of his teachings, and the downgrading of the same by the writer of Matthew through his omission of that subject. As far as he was concerned, the teachings of importance were already contained within the Torah. Mt 5:12 12"Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you." TJ 5:12 12"Be of good cheer and take comfort; this life and the next life will reward you. For so have the defamers of the truth persecuted the prophets who were before you, and so will they also persecute you." TJ 5:12 12«Seid fröhlich und getrost; das Leben und das Wiederleben wird es euch wohl lohnen; denn also haben die Wahrheitsschmähenden verfolgt die Propheten, die vor euch gewesen sind, und also werden sie auch euch verfolgen.» THE PROBLEM. The Matthean verse, if it does not imply that martyrdom should be eagerly sought in order to get to heaven quickly, at least implies a greater reward in heaven for those who have been persecuted than for others. It is those that have been unrighteously persecuted who will receive much reward. However, Jesus never taught what the different levels of reward or pleasure in heaven are, if any. Yet the opportunity for such a teaching within Matthew does arise at Mt 18:1 when he is asked: "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" SOLUTION. In the TJ verse the reward mentioned is a fulfilling life either for the rest of the disciple's existing life, assuming he is able to escape death by persecution, or in his next reincarnation; thus this verse may incorporate the topic of karma. The TJ verse is less subject to the criticism that it promotes martyrdom and suicide, since it mentions "this life" as well as "the next life," and since later in the TJ it preaches strongly against suicide. Although the editorial substitution of "heaven" for "next life" was an obvious choice for the redactor to make, it did generate this little known problem, which falls into the category of "Matthean fatigue." The writer continues on with the TJ's train of thought without explaining here or later anything about what the great rewards will be for those who are persecuted. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 5:14 14"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid." TJ 5:14 14"You are the light of the world, and consider: The city that lies on top of a mountain cannot be hidden." TJ 5:14 14«Ihr seid das Licht der Welt und bedenket: Es kann die Stadt, die auf einem Berge liegt, nicht verborgen sein.» COMMENT. The two verses, though nearly identical, are displayed here because of the TJ's use of the word "consider," not in Matthew. Jmmanuel was not averse to asking his listeners to think on what he was saying. The context, of course, continues on through the next two verses. Mt 5:16 16"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." TJ 5:16 16"Likewise your light shall shine before the people, so they see your good deeds and recognize the truth of your knowledge." TJ 5:16 16«So soll euer Licht leuchten vor den Leuten, dass sie eure guten Werke sehen und die Wahrheit eures Wissens erkennen.» THE PROBLEMS. If some men watch a couple disciples doing some good deed, or perhaps even curing an infirmed person, they would likely want to thank them for it and/or ask them how they did it. Or, in some instances, they might consider the disciples to be harboring demons. They would be unlikely, however, to treat them as sons of God who can evoke the power of the "Father in heaven," since they could not begin to match Jesus in their abilities, judging from the fact that it was Jesus who attracted the crowds, not the disciples. And why would they let their light shine before men instead of before people of both genders? Although the Gospel of Matthew offers other examples of the prevalent male chauvinistic attitude then, it inconsistently offers examples of the opposite, also. SOLUTION. If and when people saw or heard that the disciples themselves could accomplish some deeds bordering on the miraculous, their questions to them about it would afford the disciples the opportunity to offer Jmmanuel's teachings on it. This would then be an expression of the truth of their knowledge. The writer of Matthew was not interested in propagating or persuing knowledge, except for knowledge of the Jewish scriptures and knowledge of Jesus as a savior figure and Messiah. Hence he made the above substitution for it. And we see that the TJ used "people" where the writer of Matthew used "men." Here, "people" came from the German word "Leute" and appears to have stemmed from the non-gender Aramaic equivalent for "people" ("am") rather than being a non-genderized form of "men" fed in by the TJ's translator. These arguments in favor of the TJ can probably be turned around almost as well; hence we set PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 5:17-18 17"Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished." TJ 5:17-18 17"Do not think that I have come to do away with the law or the prophets; I have come not to undo, but to fulfill and to reveal the knowledge. 18Truly I say to you, Until the skies and the Earth vanish, neither a letter nor a dot of the laws of Creation and the laws of nature will vanish, until all is fulfilled." TJ 5:17-18 17«Ihr sollt nicht wähnen, dass ich gekommen bin, das Gesetz oder die Propheten aufzulösen; ich bin nicht gekommen aufzulösen, sondern zu erfüllen und das Wissen zu offenbaren. 18Denn wahrlich, ich sage euch: Bis dass Himmel und Erde vergehen, wird nicht vergehen der kleinste Buchstabe noch ein Tüpfelchen vom Gesetze der Schöpfung und den Gesetzen der Natur, bis dass es alles geschehe.» THE PROBLEMS. One may wonder just what the clause "I have come..." means, and so his listeners must have been equally puzzled. Jesus didn't explain it, either before or after this point in Matthew. The Christian interpretation is that God sent part of Himself, or of the Trinity, to be born as a man. But Jesus never mentioned or discussed anything like this. Beare (pp. 139-141) noted the common belief that the second Matthean verse could well have been framed within the Palestinian party of Jewish Christians who were determined to preserve their rite of circumcision, and not have been original with Jesus. He pointed out that early Christians knew that heaven and earth had not passed away, but few of them felt that the Jewish law was still binding for them down to the last detail. SOLUTION. The first of the two TJ verses is seen to be essentially identical to that in Matthew, up to its last few words. However, in the context of Jmmanuel's teachings in the TJ, the meaning of "I have come..." is readily apparent.[5] Jmmanuel taught reincarnation, in which we all "come" into our bodies upon birth, in each reincarnation. And so also did Jmmanuel. However, Jmmanuel had a purpose to his life that he was well aware of. His father, Gabriel, and associated ETs educated him on this purpose, especially during the forty days and nights he spent with them after his baptism by John. The clause "I have come (to do or not do this or that)" does imply a known purpose by the speaker. In the TJ this purpose is made clear; in Matthew it is not. In Matthew, only confusion reigns, since here the purpose is given of fulfilling the laws of the Torah, while later in Matthew some of these laws are negated, such as allowing defilement by disobeying rules in the Torah on what to eat (Dt 14, Mt 15:11). In a sense, the contributor to the Expositor's Bible Commentary on Matthew allowed a correct meaning of the "I have come" verses: "The words 'I have come' do not necessarily prove Jesus' consciousness of his preexistence... in the light of Matthew's prologue [the 'coming' language] is probably meant to attest to Jesus' divine origins. At the very least it shows Jesus was sent on a mission."[6] If the meaning of "divine" refers to "god" or "godly," then, in view of Jmmanuel's father being an ET, this statement comes close to the TJ's truth. There may seem to be an apparent minor difference in wording between Matthew's "the law and the prophets" and the TJ's "the law or the prophets." However, the Greek text from which Matthew was translated by the RSV Bible editors reads as does the TJ (and also the German bible), in that "or" is used rather than "and." In TJ 5:17 "the law or the prophets" must be understood to be the unadultered laws of Creation according to Jmmanuel's knowledge of them, expressed by the prophets before they had been distorted by scribes and false prophets (e.g., see TJ 13:8,12,19; 15:74, 16:54, 18:57 and 24:33). Upon encountering the second TJ verse, the writer of Matthew was evidently intent upon editing out "the laws of nature." A characteristic thing to substitute for it, for a scribe of strong Jewish background, would be the law of the Torah. In so doing, however, the second problem above arose. The problem does not exist with the TJ verse, since the laws of nature and of Creation are by definition all encompassing and unchanging. No one is going to come and abolish or alter them. Presumably, the time scale Jmmanuel had in mind before all would be fulfilled was cosmic in scope. As previously noted, in the Gnostic-Christian writing from the Nag Hammadi collection, called "The Treatise on the Resurrection," one of the verses (its 11th sentence) says that Jesus spoke about the Law of Nature. This, along with 2nd-century Gnostic teachings about "two gods" and about reincarnation, could well have stemmed from the TJ. One does not know the extent to which the transcription of the TJ may have circulated around, thereby invigorating the Gnostic movement, before ending up in the hands of the writer of Matthew. Because of the above criticisms of Matthew that don't apply to the TJ, and because of the TJ's self- consistency, the hoax hypothesis is in trouble here. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 5:19-20 19"Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." TJ 5:19-20 19"Whosoever violates one of the smallest of the laws or commandments and teaches the people falsely, will be called the smallest; but whosoever spreads the teachings truthfully will be called great and will receive the reward of the spirit. 20I tell you, if your righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not receive the reward of the conscousness and of life." TJ 5:19-20 19«Wer eines der kleinsten Gesetze oder Gebote auflöst und die Leute die Lehre irrig lehrt, der wird der Kleinste heissen; wer die Lehre aber wahrlich verbreitet, der wird gross heissen und den Dank des Geistes erhalten. 20Denn ich sage euch: Es sei, wenn eure Gerechtigkeit nicht besser ist als die der Schriftgelehrten und Pharisäer, so werdet ihr nicht den Dank des Bewussteins und des Lebens erhalten.» THE PROBLEM. The scribes and Pharisees were the very groups who tried the most strenuously to uphold and obey the laws of the Torah, down to the last detail. Clearly, in view of Mt 5:18, the meaning of righteousness here in Matthew is that connected with the Pharisees' understanding of it, as in Dt 6:25, 25And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us. How then, Beare wondered (pp. 142-143), could the disciples be expected to outdo the Pharisees in righteousness? And what's this about persons in heaven being called among the least or among the greatest? Do people in their afterlives in heaven vie for positions of privilege, prestige, and dignity, or look down their noses upon others in heaven? Or does/will God himself go around stirring up jealousy within his kingdom by proclaiming which resurrected bodies are most worthy and which least worthy? SOLUTION. As noted in TJ 5:18, Jmmanuel had been speaking of the laws of Creation, the laws of nature. Thus, the righteousness he had in mind as the goal for the disciples was the teaching of, and obedience to, those laws, not necessarily the Torah's laws. TJ 5:20 implies that the Torah contains some false or unnecessary rules or laws, while omitting or distorting some of Creation's laws (see also Mt 16:11-12, where the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees are not to be blindly followed). Hence Jmmanuel implies that even when following the Torah's teachings, the Pharisees may not be truly righteous. In trying to follow Creation's laws, then, and not the Pharisees' teachings, the disciples would be more righteous than the Pharisees. As for being called the least or being called great within the TJ, this applied to one's present existence, not to an afterlife. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 5:21-22a 21"You have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.' 22But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment..." TJ 5:21-22 21"You have heard that it was said to your ancestors: 'You shall not kill; but whosoever kills shall be found guilty by the courts.' 22However, I say to you, Exercise justice according to the natural laws of Creation, so that you find the judgment in logic." TJ 5:21-22 21«Ihr habt gehört, dass zu den Alten gesagt ist: Du sollst nicht töten; wer aber tötet, der soll des Gerichts schuldig sein. 22Ich aber sage euch: Übt Gerechtigkeit nach dem Naturgesetz der Schöpfung, so ihr das Urteil in der Logik findet.» THE PROBLEMS. Jesus himself often evinced real anger-at the scribes and Pharisees, at Peter, at the money changers in the Temple, and elsewhere; so also did John the Baptist whom Jesus extolled. Hence this would be very contradictory advice for a religious or spiritual master to give, especially within the church's view of Jesus being perfect. Instead, occasional anger, if not misdirected, is a necessary and useful emotion at times. It is also a problem in 5:22a that "liable to judgment" means judgment by a human court. Otherwise, it wouldn't be textually and meaningfully consistent with the same phrase in the preceding verse.[7] However, anger is not anything that can be judged by a court. Very likely, the writer of Matthew took the "do not be angry" theme from Psalm 37: 8Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. Only three verses later in this psalm one finds the thought "The meek shall possess the land," which forms the basis of Mt 5:5. Hence it rather appears that the writer of Matthew was borrowing appreciably from Psalm 37 in forming the 5th chapter of Matthew. SOLUTION. Again, the TJ verse indicates that the writer of Matthew had to substitute something to replace Jmmanuel's unacceptable teaching about the laws of Creation rather than of the Torah. It was only natural that he would dip into the Scriptures for the material he would use. The TJ's advice on exercising justice is not restricted to any particular group or class of people. However Matthew's admonition for a man not to be angry is restricted to anger against his brother. This suggests that "brother" was thought of as "fellow Jew," as in Deuteronomy 15, so that it may have been considered OK to be angry at gentiles. The TJ's espousal of "logic" or "reason" likely also was not anything the compiler wished to transmit, as the concept is missing from within Judaism and the Scriptures. Although the concept of logic was in use within Greek-speaking lands, the compiler of Matthew, being strongly anti-gentile in outlook, may have wished to avoid it for that additional reason. However, Jmmanuel, being a contactee taught by aliens as well as by experience, would have had good reason for appreciating the use of logic and mentioning it in his teachings. One verse of prophecy in the TJ indicates that he did have some knowledge of Greek literature or sayings: TJ 36:25 "Thus they [humans of the future] will also lose sight of the principle of the oldest wisdom, which states that humans are the measure of all things in life, because they are, after all, a part of Creation." TJ 36:25 «So wird ihm verlorengehen auch der Grundsatz der ältesten Weisheit; dass für das Leben ist der Mensch das Mass aller Dinge, denn er ist doch ein Teil der Schöpfung.» This "man is the measure of all things" expression appears to derive from Plato (in Theaetetus) in the 4th century B.C. Since the TJ indicates that Jmmanuel had been to the land of India and back, before commencing his Palestinian ministry, he had ample opportunity to learn of Greek thought and the rules of logic during his travels along the Silk Road. The consistency of the TJ verses here, as opposed to the problems with Matthew, again count strongly against the hoax hypothesis. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 5:22b 22"...whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be liable to the hell of fire." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 149) was very critical of this last part of verse 22, explaining that it may have derived from a rule of discipline for a religious community. He rightly felt that it is absurd to threaten men with the judgment of the council for one insult and with the hell of fire for another. SOLUTION. The absence of a TJ cognate supports Beare's criticism. This problem with Matthew is fairly obvious. A teacher of wisdom would not have spoken so irrationally. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 5:23-24 23"So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. The preceding verses deal with one's own thoughts and actions, which one is aware of and has the power to control. But here they deal with how to treat your brother's thoughts when they are directed against you, a situation that may not even be real, or which may be highly exaggerated in one's mind. Then verse 25 and subsequent verses switch back to dealing with one's own demeanor. This incongruity is suggestive of editorial action by a writer who was no teacher of wisdom. Verse 24 is inconsistent in that in offering your gift before the altar you are to leave the gift there, then after departing and reconciling with your brother you are to offer the same gift again (if it is still there). It seems as if the key point being stressed there is to make sure one's gift is left at the altar for the priest to receive, and not taken back with you when you go. However, this advice was very impractical, since the gift may have consisted of an animal or of perishable provisions, and one would not know how many days or weeks might be required in order to resolve the problem your brother has against you before you return to finish offering your gift. Davies and Allison could not imagine someone actually doing this.[8] Surely a wisdom teacher would not offer advice so impractical and unrealistic. SOLUTION. The TJ's lack of cognates here speaks for itself. Its verses at this point in the text deal with seeking justice in a manner compatible with logic and the natural laws of Creation. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 5:25-26 25"Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put into prison; 26truly, I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny." TJ 5:25-26 25"Do not accommodate your adversaries if you are in the right, and the judge will probably have to decide in your favor. 26Truly, I say to you, you will attain justice only when you find it yourself and can make your fellow humans understand it." TJ 5:25-26 25«Seid nicht willfährig euren Widersachern, wenn ihr im Recht seid und der Richter voraussichtlich zu euren Gunsten entscheiden muss. 26Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Ihr werdet nur dann Gerechtigkeit erlangen, wenn ihr sie selbst findet und euren Nächsten verständlich machen könnt.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 151) sensibly asked if the Matthean verses mean we are to placate our brother only for fear that he might otherwise invoke the law against us. He found this to be a "rather sordid motive" for seeking to settle a dispute with one's neighbor. SOLUTION. A person with any authority within the church would not have liked to see these TJ verses as part of his religion. They advise the accused in court to vouch for the truth no matter who the accusers are, and to rely upon one's own awareness, not necessarily the voices of authority, in deciding where justice lies. Hence the verses were targets for redaction by the compiler. The improbable degree of creativity needed by a literary hoaxer to have generated the TJ's verse out of Matthew's, plus the wisdom of the TJ's verses as opposed to Matthew's, suggest little chance of a hoax; PHoax ¯ 0.15. Mt 5:28 28"But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." TJ 5:28 28"But I say to you, Whosoever has sexual intercourse with someone other than their spouse shall be delivered to the courts, for it is an act unworthy of humans, contemptible and an offense against the laws of nature." TJ 5:28 28«Ich aber sage euch: Wer ausser seinem eigenen Gemahl beischläft, der oder die soll den Gerichten überantwortet werden, denn es ist menschlich unwürdig, verachtenswert und verstösst wider die Gesetze der Natur.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 152) noted that the Matthean verse seems like an impossible demand, arguing that it is well known that sexual impulses are often not subject to control. SOLUTION. With the TJ, Beare's criticism does not apply, since there is a great difference between a fleeting sexual impulse and the actual act of adultery. PHoax ¯ 0.4. In the TJ, the translation "sexual intercourse" comes from the German "beischlafen," which means to "sleep with" or "lie with." The latter expression is the manner in which sexual intercourse is often expressed in the Old Testament. It is not clear here, however, if the TJ's advice would apply to cohabitation between unmarried adults, as is frequent in today's society, since the previous verse (TJ 5:27) makes it clear that the discussion pertains to adultery. However, elsewhere in the TJ, Jmmanuel speaks strongly against male homosexuality. This latter discourse occurs in the TJ's 12th chapter, of which Matthew contains no parallels. For this reason the present Mt-TJ verse comparison is lacking in entries from it. In that chapter Jmmanuel speaks out regarding marriage and cohabitation, and against adultery and fornication. In eleven of its verses the translation, in TJ editions up through 2001, apparently specified castration and/or sterilization for fornicators, as the punishment or penalty for the offense. An example of one such verse is: TJ 12:11 (3rd and earlier editions) Whosoever indulges in fornication for the sake of pay or pleasure shall be castrated or sterilized, expelled and banished before the people. TJ 12:11 (3rd and earlier editions) Welcher Mensch aber Hurerei treibet um des Lohnes oder der Freude willen, der soll entmannt oder entweibt werden und ausgestossen und verbannt vor dem Volke. The German word behind "sterilized" is "entweibt," which can mean "de-womanized." As far as is known, there was no man-made means of causing a woman to become non-child bearing two millennia ago, though castration for men was of course known; only in the modern era has sterilization for women through surgery become realized. Hence, this collection of TJ verses will weigh heavily against the TJ's genuineness in the minds of those who choose to ignore the possibility of mistake in translation. In an opinion of Eduard Meier reached some time after the 3rd edition of the TJ appeared in print, both "castrated" (entmannt) and "sterilized" (entweibt) in these verses represent mistranslations of the original Aramaic. He now believes that originally the Aramaic had utilized a brief phrase that meant for the guilty person simply to "be removed or cut off (from the community)". This then involved the guilty man or woman being expelled and banished from the community. Meier's opinion receives some support from the TJ's first verse that introduces this penalty. It is: TJ 12:4 (3rd and earlier editions) "It is written, however, 'Whosoever commits adultery and fornication shall be punished, because the fallible are unworthy of life and its laws; thus they shall be castrated or sterilized'." TJ 12:4 «Es stehet aber geschrieben also: ‹Wer Ehebruch und Hurerei treibet, soll bestraft werden, denn die Fehlbaren sind des Lebens und dessen Gesetzen unwürdig, so sie entmannt und entweibt werden sollen.› » The writing this must refer to is in Leviticus. We see from Lv 18:20-29, however, that the penalty for such sexual offenses was for the guilty persons to "be cut off from among their people" (emphasis added): Lv 18:29 For whoever shall do any of these abominations, the persons that do them shall be cut off from among their people. There is no mention of castration. So my conjecture is that the translator, Isa Rashid, thinking within the context of a male fornicator while not rereading Leviticus, wrongly interpreted an Aramaic verb meaning "cut off," to mean "castrated." Then, for completeness and consistency, he had to introduce a similar phrase for women fornicators, who were to be cut off (from the community), causing him to write "sterilization" for their case. The Leviticus penalty must have been well known in Old Testament days and commonly applied, so that the TJ's writer, Judas, might not in every instance have bothered to add "from the community" after "cut off." Alternatively, the phrase "from the community" at TJ 12:4 might have been among the various pieces of the TJ's papyrus rolls that Meier reported were illegible and decayed. This latter possibility has not been invoked elsewhwere in this analysis of the TJ. This solution to the TJ problem is consistent with the fact that in its later verse concerning persons who have been made unsuited for marriage (TJ 20:14) it does not mention eunuchs, while the Matthean parallel, Mt 19:12, does. It is also consistent with TJ 5:28 above, which does not mention anything about castration as a penalty for adultery. Accordingly, the 4th edition of the English TJ now reads, TJ 12:11 Whosoever indulges in fornication for the sake of pay or pleasure shall be cut off from the community. It is a priori unlikely that a literary hoaxer would add a modern concept like sterilization into his fabrication in a purposeful, non-accidental manner. Further, Meier's explanation does not seem implausible. However, since this explanation came only after the matter was brought to Meier's attention in 2002, the skeptics' view will remain that, taken by themselves, these TJ 12 verses suggest that PHoax be given a large "smoking gun" value like 0.99. This value is assigned to them here, and is accumulated here along with the other probabilities, since TJ 12 has no Matthean chapter in parallel to receive discussion. The writer of Matthew would not likely have included these particular verses, indeed any of the TJ's 12th chapter, because the Torah, specifically the book of Leviticus as noted, already contains an extensive code of personal behavior, and because prophecies about the distant future (TJ 12:19-25) were not wanted, since they didn't make sense relative to his belief in an imminent Second Coming. Mt 5:30 30"And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell." TJ 5:30 30"If a thought causes you annoyance, eradicate it and ban it from your brain. It is better to destroy a thought that incites annoyance than to bring the whole world of thought into an uproar." TJ 5:30 30«Wenn dir ein Gedanke Ärgernis schafft, dann vernichte ihn und verbanne ihn aus deinem Hirn, denn es ist besser einen ärgerniserregenden Gedanken zu verderben und nicht die ganze Gedankenwelt in Aufruhr zu bringen.» THE PROBLEM. The whole last half of the Matthean verse merely repeats, practically word for word, the last half of the verse before (Mt 5:29). This is often the indication that it is a redaction in which the editor could not think of anything more original to say. SOLUTION. The TJ verse has only a portion of its second half the same as in its preceding verse. Yet it seems to be continuing the theme of how to deal with lust, as a lustful thought going against one's conscience can be called "an annoyance," and Jmmanuel's advice here is to banish such a thought, just as one tries to banish thoughts during quiet meditation. The writer of Matthew seems to have understood this meaning of the TJ verse as dealing with masturbation,[9] but offered a less practical solution, perhaps so as to perfect the parallelism between it and the preceding verse. This TJ verse is also displayed here because it may exhibit an indication that it derived from an Aramaic original. If a hoaxer had constructed the TJ verse, he quite possibly would have used the German word for "than" (als) instead of "and not" (und nicht). The latter, more awkward translation may have been retained accidentally by the translator, Isa Rashid, or perhaps purposely to provide some evidence that it derived from the Aramaic, because the Aramaic language possessed no comparative form of speech of this type. The Aramaism was innocently edited out of the English version, showing how easily evidence of originality can be lost through translation, in this instance from German into English. On the other hand, the German Bible also uses "und nicht" in its verses Mt 5:29-30, so that this particular suggestion of TJ originality is not compelling. Jewish authorities and early Christian leaders would not have wished their teachings to go unheeded whenever their followers found them to be annoying. This TJ verse on one's thoughts would thus probably have been deemed unacceptable and hence not included within Matthew. The originality and wisdom of the TJ verse also point strongly to its genuineness. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 5:34-35 34"But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King." TJ 5:34-35 34"However, I say to you that you should not swear at all; do not swear by the skies, because they are infinite and immeasurable. 35Neither swear by the Earth, because it is impermanent, nor swear by Jerusalem, because it is an impermanent city built by human hands." TJ 5:34-35 34«Ich aber sage euch, dass ihr überhaupt nicht schwören sollt; so schwört nicht beim Himmel, denn er ist unendlich und unmessbar. 35Und schwört nicht bei der Erde, denn sie ist vergänglich; auch schwört nicht bei Jerusalem, denn sie ist eine vergängliche Stadt, erbaut von Menschenhand.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 454) noted that this set of Matthean verses gives a flat prohibition against swearing, while a second set at Mt 23:21-22 appears to say that one's oath is binding if one swears by the temple or by heaven. Evidently one set, at least, is incorrect and is thus a likely redaction. More to the point here, no reason is given why one cannot swear even by heaven, the throne of God, etc. By this omission, and by the respect the compiler implies here for God, for his footstool, and for the city of the great King, he seems actually to be listing emblems by which he feels it should be acceptable to swear. Reference to Jerusalem as the city of the great King is usually presumed to have derived from Psalms 48:2. SOLUTION. The TJ verse suffers from no such contradiction. It moreover supplies a reason for not swearing -there is no point in basing an oath upon something that has no absolute permanence and thus represents no everlasting truth, or upon something that is too infinite to be tangible. Whether the latter is sensible or not may be debatable, but it provides some sort of explanation. The OT source from which the writer of Matthew drew in making most of his substitutions here seems evident: Is 66:1. It specifies heaven as the throne of God and the Earth as his footstool. Regarding the TJ's discussion about the impermanence of the universe, we accept that as scientifically true today but only on a time scale of tens of billions of years. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 5:39 39"But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." TJ 5:40 40"But I say to you, exercise justice according to the natural laws of Creation, so that you find the verdict in logic." TJ 5:40 40«Ich aber sage euch: Übet Gerechtigkeit nach dem Naturgesetz der Schöpfung, so ihr das Urteil in der Logik findet.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 158) found that Matthew's thought goes beyond mere pacifism. Jesus is here instructing us to accept, or even invite, a further blow on the cheek. We note that this also goes against everyday common-sense logic-why tempt someone into taking further evil actions? "Turning the other cheek" is asking for evil to be inflicted upon yourself. Most importantly, the Matthean advice violates the spirit of the Golden Rule-you should not inflict evil upon someone since you would not wish such evil upon yourself. If people generally desired or invited evil to be inflicted upon themselves, the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) would break down. The writer of Matthew may have been prompted to write the first half of the verse-to not resist evil or not resist one who is evil-from Prv 24:29, which, by itself, is not bad advice: 29Do not say, "I will do to him as he has done to me; I will pay the man back for what he has done." For the last half of his verse the writer of Matthew very likely drew from Lamentations (Lam 3:30): 30let him [a man] give his cheek to the smiter and be filled with insults. SOLUTION. The TJ verse, in contrast to Matthew, reads like enlightened common sense. However, its references to the natural law of Creation, and to logic, again were unacceptable, causing the compiler of Matthew to make a couple of substitutions. I would speculate that he found the TJ verse and its recommended use of logic in applying justice so very unacceptable that he turned to an opposite extreme of accepting injustice, a theme of which he was aware from the Scriptures. Because the TJ verse reads like it came from a teacher of wisdom, while the Matthean verse certainly does not, I estimate PHoax ¯ 0.25 for this verse comparison. Mt 5:40 40"and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well;" TJ 5:41 41"Offer your love where it is warranted, and punish wherever the law of nature demands punishment." TJ 5:41 41«Entbiete deine Liebe rundum da, da sie gerechtfertigt ist, und strafe allda, da das Naturgesetz Strafe fordert.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 159) observed that, taken literally, the words of Mt 5:40 could mean you would end up naked. At best, the verse seems to be a gross exaggeration. This is indeed an example of why so much of the Gospels cannot be taken literally by those doing their best to make sense out of Jesus' teachings as written there. SOLUTION. Although the TJ verse in this case is too uncorrelated to be called a cognate, Mt 5:40-41 appears to have been a substitution for it, made because "law of nature" appears in the TJ verse, while the law the compiler wished to uphold was that of the Scriptures, or Torah. Also, the writer of Matthew apparently wished acts of love to be extended on all occasions, not just when warranted. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 5:41 41"and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This continues the theme of "turning the other cheek," and is equally poor advice if one has the choice of not going the second mile against one's better judgment. The saying referred to the right of a Roman soldier to demand that a Jew carry his gear for a mile. SOLUTION. The compiler of Matthew was continuing to set forth examples of an extreme nature that would counteract the offending verses he found in the TJ concerning the use of logic in deciding what is just and unjust. Because the odds are substantial that a literary hoaxer would have retained and rephrased this verse despite its lack of wisdom, the hoax hypothesis cannot be favored here. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 5:42 42"Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you." TJ 5:42 42"Give to them who ask of you, if they make their requests in honesty, and turn away from them who want to borrow from you in a dishonest way." TJ 5:42 42«Gebe dem, der dich bittet, wenn er in Ehrlichkeit seine Bitte darbringt, und wende dich von dem, der dir in Unehrlichkeit abborgen will.» THE PROBLEM. It is obvious that the Matthean admonition is obeyed scarcely at all in society, because it is too impractical. Banks do not lend to people who they think would not be able to repay the loan. Many people do not give to beggars who they think would waste the money on drugs or alcohol. Thus, J. A. Broadus interprets the verse as allowing the exception of not giving to those who "ask amiss," since God himself does not answer our prayers that he finds improper.[10] SOLUTION. The TJ verse is simply common sense, and does not suffer from the criticism. It indicates that the suggestion of Broadus was on the right track. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 5:43-45 43"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." TJ 5:43-45 43"You have heard it said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44However, I say to you, Practice love and understanding according to the natural laws of Creation, so that through logic you find the right action and perception. 45Offer your love where it is warranted, and despise where the law of nature demands it." TJ 5:43-45 43«Ihr habt gehört, dass gesagt ist: Du sollst deinen Nächsten lieben und deinen Feind hassen. 44Ich aber sage euch: Übet Liebe und Verständnis nach dem Naturgesetz der Schöpfung, so ihr das richtige Handeln und Empfinden in der Logik findet. 45Entbiete deine Liebe rundum da, da sie gerechtfertigt ist, und verachte allda, da das Naturgesetz es fordert.» THE PROBLEMS. The first part of Matthew's verse 5:43 stems from Lv 19:18. It is presumed by Beare (p. 161), and by Broadus,[11] that the last part-hate your enemy-stems from Jewish teachings that love was restricted to one's neighbor (one's own people), since in Leviticus love was to be withheld from one's enemy. Also, hatred of enemies is advised in one of the Psalms: Ps 139:21-22 21Do I not hate them that hate thee, O LORD? And do I not loathe them that rise up against thee? 22I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. Verse 5:43 is not a problem. However, regarding 5:44, a reason for that verse not to have been spoken by Jesus has been given by O.J.F. Seitz.[12] The verse contains the words "enemies" and "persecute," and so does a verse from Deuteronomy: Dt 30:7 And the LORD your God will put all these curses upon your foes and enemies who persecuted you. The love theme is in the preceding verse of Deuteronomy, and the persecution theme was already in the Sermon on the Mount earlier; thus Seitz indicates that the ingredients were all present to have prompted the compiler into having formed Mt 5:44, putting the words into Jesus' mouth. An additional problem with Mt 5:44 is the apparent contradiction between Jesus' call to love one's enemies and his behavior at times when confronting his enemies, the scribes and Pharisees. During his vituperation of them in Mt 23 he expressed his anger at them, and in cleansing the Temple he expressed his anger at the money changers and traders there. Can one be angry and lovable at the same time? The writer of Matthew did not seem to think so, since he specified anger as a sin that warranted going before a court (Mt 5:22). Hence it would have been hypocritical of Jesus to have spoken the way Matthew has it here. Alternatively according to Borg, 5:44 may have been written with Roman enemies in mind.[13] It would then have been anachronistically intended primarily to keep the followers of the new religion on better terms with the Roman occupiers. Regarding verse 5:45, Davies & Allison believe it includes the results of editorial activity, for one reason because the stark contrast between "evil" and "good" appears to be a Matthean redaction elsewhere. They note that the writer of Matthew has no use for an intermediate category of just ordinary people neither exclusively evil nor good.[14] And as a matter of simple logic, would love not lose much of its meaning if one loved everyone equally, no matter how despicably they might behave? In 5:45 we may also notice that even one's enemies must be sons of the Father, since the Father sees that they, too, enjoy having the sun rise on them, and receive rain. Thus the reward for loving one's enemies is no special reward at all, since one's enemies are also sons of the Father. SOLUTION. Although the first verse of each segment above is the same, the next two are quite different. The TJ verses, which are only very distant parallels, do not involve a contradiction as does the Matthean verse, Mt 5:44. They allow that the proper action to take may at times involve despising the despicable, as Jmmanuel did. We see that the TJ verses would have incited the compiler of Matthew to remove any mention of the unacceptable topics: natural law, Creation and reason or logic. Hence we feel that Seitz's solution, above, carries the greater weight, with the love theme in the TJ verses being what prompted the compiler to recall the Deuteronomy verse cited and add an inapposite justification for it. However, Borg's proposed solution might explain a part of the compiler's thinking. In Mt 5:45 for the saying of God sending his sun and rain upon all, the compiler of Matthew could easily have drawn from Dt 4:19 and Ps 147:8 or Is 55:10. The presence of several problems in Matthew here, combined with the uniqueness and wisdom of the TJ verses (5:44-45), give little hope for the hoax hypothesis. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 5:46-47 46"For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?" TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Here Jesus treats the taxpayers as if they were scum, whereas in Mt 9:10-11 he treated them favorably, eating with them and not bad-mouthing them. E. P. Sanders noticed this contradiction, and concluded that the latter verses are the more genuine and the present ones are not.[15] It has been pointed out that Mt 5:43-46 implies that God will reward the one who loves his enemies.[16] But from Proverbs 25 one wonders if this reward will be the heaping of coals upon the enemy's head: Prv 25:21-22 21If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; 22for you will heap coals of fire on his head, and the LORD will reward you. SOLUTION. The TJ agrees with Sanders' conclusion, and indicates that the demeaning words about both taxpayers and gentiles are to be attributed to the writer of Matthew. What this also indicates is that this writer was not the disciple Matthew, who had been a tax collector (Mt 9:9, 10:3). Scarcely anyone demeans his own occupation in this manner. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 5:48 48"You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." TJ 5:46 46"You shall be wise and acquire knowledge, because you shall become perfect in consciousness as the Creation which created you." TJ 5:46 46«Ihr sollt weise sein und das Wissen lernen, denn ihr sollt vollkommen werden im Bewusstsein wie die Schöpfung, die euch erschuf.» THE PROBLEM. Here, Jesus is still addressing the people who had joined his disciples to hear his Sermon on the Mount. The Matthean statement is illogical for two reasons. To be perfect at every turn is an impossibility; to attempt to become perfect through learning and experience is another, more reasonable, goal. Second, within the Christian context of all people being sinners, this statement is a contradiction. To make the statement be reasonable, it is usually interpreted as meaning that total, whole-hearted measures are needed in trying to be perfect. The German scholar Georg Strecker found this verse to be largely redactional because of its use of certain typically Matthean words and phrases, such as "therefore" and "heavenly."[17] This kind of reasoning must be used with great caution, however, since a redactor may utilize frequently occurring words and phrases from his source within his redactions, to make them sound more credible. SOLUTION. Within the TJ context, it is clear that becoming perfect in spirit requires much time-in future reincarnations as well as in the present life-and that progress toward that goal is tied to learning and accrual of wisdom. The alterations the compiler needed to make here involved substitutions that would come easily to mind; e.g., Dt 32:4 speaks of God's work being perfect. The odds are inherently greater here that a redactor abbreviated and altered the TJ verse than the opposite, which would require greater ingenuity on the part of a hoaxer. PHoax ¯ 0.25. When the individual odds for and against the hoax hypothesis from the verse comparisons of this chapter (TJ 5 versus Mt 5), plus from TJ 12, are accumulated, one finds the probability for hoax to be only 0.6x10-8- very, very small indeed. The "smoking gun" from TJ 12 is vastly outweighed by the many "smoking guns" of the opposite sense within Matthew. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 6 REFERENCES 1. Cross, Frank M., "The scrolls and the New Testament," Christian Century 72 (1955), pp. 968-971. 2. Davies, W. D. and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (Edinburgh, Scotland: T. & T. Clark Ltd., 1988), vol. 1, p. 638. 3. Filson, Floyd V., "Broken patterns in the Gospel of Matthew," JBL 75 (1956), pp. 227-231; see p. 228. 4. Ibid., p. 229. 5. This reference is to a paper on the Matthean verses that imply Jesus had reincarnation in mind. 6. Carson, D. A. "Matthew," in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids: The Zondervan Corporation, 1984), p. 142. See also Gathercole, Simon, "On the alleged Aramaic idiom behind the synoptic 'I have come' sayings," JSNT 55, (April, 2004), pp. 84-91. 7. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 1, p. 512. 8. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 1, p. 518. 9. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 1, pp. 525-526. 10. Broadus, J. A., Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1886), pp. 120-121. 11. Broadus, Commentary on Matthew, p. 121. 12. Seitz, O.J.F., "Love your enemies," NTS 16 (1969), pp. 39-54; see p. 52. 13. Borg, Marcus, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1984), pp. 130, 234. 14. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 1, pp. 554-555. 15. Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 229. 16. Broadus, Commentary on Matthew, p.122. 17. Strecker, Georg, The Sermon on the Mount, O. C. Dean, Jr., transl. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988), p. 92. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 6 Mt 6:1 1"Beware practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven." TJ 6:1-2 1"Be mindful of your piety, that you practice it before the people with correct words, lest you be accused of lying and thereby find no reward from them. 2Choose your words using natural logic, and draw upon the knowledge and behavior of nature." TJ 6:1-2 1«Habt acht auf eure Frömmigkeit, dass ihr sie mit richtigen Worten übet vor den Leuten, auf dass ihr nicht von ihnen der Lüge beschimpfet werdet, dadurch ihr keinen Lohn bei ihnen findet. 2Wählet eure Worte in natürlicher Logik und berufet euch auf das Wissen und Handeln der Natur.» THE PROBLEM. The Matthean verse advises one to practice piety or righteousness for the purpose, essentially, of receiving a reward from one's Father who is in heaven. Without being too critical that Jesus does not teach anything about what that reward may consist of, we may nonetheless observe that this verse merely replaces a possible reward from men with a reward from God. Further, if one helps someone by doing them a good deed out of a sense of piety, one realizes at the same time that the person being helped, and others around him, may well be appreciative of your help or kindness and that it cannot go unnoticed. Obviously, this should be no cause for deciding in advance not to act piously, as in not following the Golden Rule, for example. The expectation of receiving possible appreciation often cannot be divorced from an act of piety, since one does not usually offer assistance if one has reason to suspect that the recipient would not appreciate it. Thus this verse seems not to have been spoken by a teacher of wisdom. SOLUTION. The TJ verse has a different thrust to its meaning, being concerned that one's words, which may accompany the practice of one's piety, are correct or knowledgeable. A persistent theme throughout the TJ is the importance of speaking truth and not imparting false teachings. Here the reward for speaking with truth and accuracy would seem to be the satisfaction of seeing positive results emerge from the teachings that accompanied one's piety. It seems very likely that this TJ verse received strong alteration by the writer of Matthew because he did not wish the reader to question the truth or accuracy of what the adherents of the church spoke when acting piously. We see that the TJ is here amplifying upon one of its themes-speaking truth through knowledge-in a manner uniquely expressed, while Matthew continues to exhibit indications and motivations for having altered the TJ verse rather than the reverse. The chance that the TJ verse came from a literary hoaxer thus seems rather small. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 6:2 2"Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward." TJ 6:3 3"When you give alms, do not let it be trumpeted, as do the hypocrites in the synagogues and on the streets, that they may be praised by the people; truly, I say to you, they have lost their reward, because their alms serve only their selfishness."[1] TJ 6:3 3«Wenn du nun Almosen gibst, sollst du nicht lassen von dir posaunen, wie die Heuchler tun in den Synagogen und auf den Gassen, auf dass sie von den Leuten gepriesen werden; wahrlich, ich sage euch: Sie haben ihren Lohn dahin, denn ihr Almosen gilt nur der Selbstsucht.» THE PROBLEM. The Matthean verse fails to let the listener know that this reward the hypocrites receive, of social prestige, is not a worthy reward. The listener is supposed to immediately grasp that the second sentence constitutes sarcastic irony. However, since it starts out with "Truly," which is inconsistent with sarcasm, this would confuse the listener to the Sermon on the Mount. In the previous verse Jesus had said that such behavior would bring no reward from their "Father who is in heaven;" but here he says they truly will receive a reward. Aren't rewards from the Father supposed to be good and God given? Thus the sarcastic tone is unmistakable. SOLUTION. In the TJ verse Jmmanuel's listeners immediately understood what he was talking about-the true reward had been lost, and only the unworthy reward of self-gratification remained. The true, worthy reward is in following your conscience and gaining the satisfaction of knowing that your gifts or alms were helpful, whether or not your helpful giving had been observed by others. Jmmanuel was not being sarcastic. See also under Mt 6:16. It seems likely that the writer of Matthew omitted the last clause of the TJ verse so as not to imply too strongly that givers-of-alms give only out of egoism. He had to omit "lost" since in verse 6:4 he would be implying a future secret reward that is not received at the time of candid alms-giving, and so could not be lost then. It might be argued that a hoaxer improved an ambiguous Matthean verse here, and this could conceivably counterbalance the fact that the TJ verse is the one more likely spoken by a sincere wisdom teacher. The translation of the German word "dahin" can also be a bit misleading, in "Sie haben ihren Lohn dahin" (they have their reward "lost"), in that "dahin" can mean "there" as well as "past." Interestingly, the German Bible's wording of these five words is the same as in the TJ, yet Greek bibles and their English translations give no hint of a meaning of "lost." Yet, the "lost" meaning that "dahin" gives this verse is affirmed by experts of German language. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 6:3-4 3"But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 166) noted that Matthew's saying cannot be taken literally-"the left hand cannot be ignorant of what the right hand is doing." His reconstruction (and that of other scholars) of the true meaning is to give donations quietly, without seeking publicity. However, with this meaning, Mt 6:3-4 simply repeats the meaning of Mt 6:1-2 before it, and hence is a likely candidate to be a redaction. Further, even if the alms giver does not know what he is doing, or does not know the amount of his gift, the recipient and perhaps others near him would know or would find out. Hence the gift would not be a secret after all. And again, no hint is given as to what the Father's reward may be. SOLUTION. We see that the writer of Matthew took the thought of TJ 6:3 and, after shaping it to his liking, went to an extreme in these two verses. In so doing the problems arose. He dared not try to spell out what the heavenly reward would be, since other verses to come would deal with who gets to heaven and who does not, and since it would require too much invented fabrication to specify the existence of different levels of heaven to account for different levels of alms giving. These problems are of a more obvious nature and might be anticipated by a literary hoaxer. But again, they might not be. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 6:6 6"But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who is in secret will reward you." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. It was obvious to Beare (p. 168) that this verse cannot mean what it says. He presented examples wherein Jesus himself did not pray alone, and within a closed room. Key instances are contained in Mt 11:25 and 26:36-44. SOLUTION. This is yet another example of the problem an editor/plagiarist runs into when inventing multitudinous substitutions to replace unacceptable material in his source text. The TJ states no such requirement that one should be alone when praying. The possibilities are that (a) the TJ is genuine (and Matthew a fabrication due to its lack of believability), (b) a literary hoaxer would not have omitted this verse, and (c) a literary hoaxer would have omitted this verse. Although (b) may be somewhat less probable than (c), upon taking (a) into consideration the probability for a hoax becomes less than 0.5. PHoax ¯ 0.45. What were the unacceptable TJ verses in this instance, one may ask, that prompted the writer of Matthew to make the substitution? They appear to have been TJ 6:5-8: 5"When you pray, you shall call upon the almightiness of the spirit and not babble misleading nonsense like the idol worshippers, the ignorant and the selfish, because they think they are heard when they use many words. 6The Creation-spirit part of the human has no need for many words, however humans need the knowledge of how powerful it is. 7Pray therefore to the almightiness of the spirit, in the knowledge that its greatness and power are infinite. 8If you do not know how to pray directly to the almighty power of the spirit, make use of something sacred by which you can reach the consciousness." 5«Und wenn ihr betet, sollt ihr die Allmacht des Geistes anrufen, und ihr sollt nicht irres Zeug plappern wie die Götzenanbeter, Unverständigen und Selbstsüchtigen, denn sie meinen, sie werden erhöret, wenn sie viele Worte machen. 6Des Menschen Schöpfungs-Geist-Teil bedarf nicht vieler Worte, jedoch des Wissens darum, dass er machtvoll ist. 7Betet darum im Wissen zur Allmacht des Geistes, dass seine Grösse und Kraft unendlich ist. 8Verstehet ihr nicht direkt zur Allmacht des Geistes zu beten, dann behelfet euch mit einem Heiligtum, über das ihr in den Geist gelanget.» Obviously the writer of Matthew did not want to include anything about praying to one's spirit or consciousness, since the praying was to be to god or the Father. So he omitted these verses and substituted Mt 6:6. TJ 6:5 lets it be known that praying to one's spirit or consciousness by means of concentrating upon some sacred or beautiful object (TJ 6:8) is quite different from praying to an idol. This is further clarified in TJ 6:19-22. Interestingly, the use of a sacred object to aid in prayer can even be a part of Christianity. The liberal Christian, Hal Taussig, wrote, "Many Christians meditate on everything from wafers to mandalas," and he regards the praying to beautiful objects as a form of spiritual exercise.[1.1] Mt 6:7-8 7"And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard for their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. These are two verses near the beginning of the Lord's Prayer. Their reference to the evil worshiping habits of the gentiles was noted by Beare (p. 168) to depart suddenly from the pattern that had just been constructed, of the hypocritical worshipers of the God of Israel who glorify idols. Hence it could well be a redaction of a compiler who disliked gentiles. Additionally, there is a contradiction or "tension" between 6:8b and 6:9-13, which also suggests that a redaction was generated here by one who was no wisdom teacher. That is, if "your Father knows what you need before you ask him," there should be no need to pray to him. SOLUTION. The Matthean verses appear as substitutions relative to text in TJ 6:6-10 describing the power of one's individual spirit, a theme which could not have been condoned by either early Jewish Christians or Pauline Christians. The different indications that these Matthean verses are not genuine must again be weighed against the probabilities that a literary hoaxer would or would not have omitted the verses. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 6:9-13 9"Pray then like this: 'Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. 10Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread; 12And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors; 13And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.'" TJ 6:11-17 11"Therefore pray as one who knows, and thus pray as follows: 12'My spirit (consciousness), you exist within almightiness. 13May your name be holy. 14May your world incarnate itself within me. 15May your power unfold itself within me, on Earth and in the skies. 16Give me today my daily bread, that I may recognize my wrongdoings and the truth. 17And lead me not into temptation and confusion, but deliver me from error.'" TJ 6:11-17 11«Betet daher als Wissende, und darum sollt ihr also beten: 12‹Mein Geist (Bewusstsein), der du bist in Allmacht. 13Dein Name sei geheiligt. 14Dein Reich inkarniere sich in mir. 15Deine Kraft entfalte sich in mir, auf Erden und in den Himmeln. 16Mein tägliches Brot gib mir heute, so ich erkenne meine Schuld, und ich erkenne die Wahrheit. 17Und führe mich nicht in Versuchung und Verwirrung, sondern erlöse mich vom Irrtum.›» THE PROBLEMS. The first verse of the Lord's Prayer, Mt 6:9, was criticized by Robert Funk, a leader in the scholar's group called the "Jesus Seminar," for its lack of logic. He noted that God's name was considered too holy to pronounce by Jews, while the title of "Father" is not at all holy. "It is difficult to conceive of circumstances under which Jesus would have referred to God as 'Father' and then turned around and said, 'May your name be sanctified.'"[2] Matthew's prayer is a group prayer, as seen by "Our Father," "our daily bread" and so forth. Yet, its preceding verses, Mt 6:5-6, apply to the individual, not to a group, and in Matthew they deal with praying in a room alone. Hence the collective format of the Lord's Prayer is inconsistent with these preliminary verses. Thus it was obvious to G. A. Wells, for example, that this passage can be traced to the group liturgical needs of early Christian communities.[3] Also, Beare (p. 175) pointed out that all the clauses within verses Mt 11-13 have parallels that derive from known Jewish prayers. In the clause "deliver us from evil" in Mt 6:13 it has been pointed out by Davies and Allison that a proper translation from the Greek is "deliver us from the evil one."[4] And they note that "the evil one" is a favorite expression or concept of the writer of Matthew, and occurs in circumstances where it appears to be a redaction. Thus they deduce it to be a redaction here. (The RSV Bible just uses "evil," in order to make it more acceptable to modern worshipers, though they mention "evil one" in a footnote.) SOLUTION. The TJ verses show that its prayer is actually an invocation directed to one's own spirit or consciousness. That Jmmanuel would say the name of one's own spirit should be sanctified is consistent with his indignation in the TJ against those who belittle the spirit. Thus Funk's criticism does not apply to the TJ, from which we see that this particular problem can be classed as one of editorial "fatigue." I.e., the writer altered the TJ's "spirit" into a familiar, non-sacred word for "God" (father), then copied TJ 6:13 essentially intact, thereby causing the illogic noticed by Funk. In TJ 6:11, "Therefore pray as one who knows," or as "one who is knowledgeable," refers to the preceding five sentences. There it is emphasized how great and powerful one's spirit actually is and how to pray to its mighty power. The TJ prayer would have been heretical to the writer of Matthew for being directed to the spirit within instead of to the external Judeo-Christian God. In his editing to remove these heresies he likely borrowed a bit from Jewish prayers, as suggested by Beare, and perhaps for the reason suggested by Wells. That is, the liturgical reason of needing a prayer for the Christian church evidently prompted the compiler to make use of the TJ prayer by editing it into the collective format suitable for group use. The above Prayer-to-One's-Spirit in the TJ applies to the individual and does not suffer from the inconsistency mentioned above for the collective Lord's Prayer. In TJ 6:17 the one who prays asks his spirit to deliver him from error, not from the devil. Thus the objection of Davies and Allison does not apply to it. Avoiding error is often synonymous with making the proper decision, which is a challenging task, worthy of the help of prayer. When one fails at this, as we all do at times, the TJ indicates elsewhere (TJ 18:47-53) that we are meant to learn from our mistakes. In the TJ Prayer there is one point where there may be difficulty in following its meaning: What is the connection between receiving your daily bread and recognizing your wrongdoings? The interpretation that Eduard Meier received from his alien contactor, Semjase, is that receiving your daily bread refers to becoming aware each day of the spiritual power within, and to nourishing your spiritual knowledge after you have discerned your wrongdoings and overcome your faults that would stand in the way of recognizing truth. It is interesting that Christianity stresses God's forgiveness of your sins, while the TJ stresses recognizing what your wrongdoings are, so that you will learn from them and learn not to repeat them. The reader will notice that the usual conclusion to the Lord's Prayer is not present in the main text of Matthew, though it occurs within certain older Bible versions, for example, in the King James version: "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." This conclusion to the prayer is distrusted as genuine by most scholars, for one reason because of its close similarity to text in the Old Testament book of 1 Chronicles: 1 Chr 29:11 Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty. Hence, the same scholars would conclude that the parallel TJ verse (6:18) is non-genuine: TJ 6:18 'For yours is the world within me and the power and the knowledge forever. Amen.' TJ 6:18 ‹Denn dein ist das Reich in mir und die Kraft und das Wissen in Ewigkeit. Amen›. However, the Lord's Prayer Conclusion does exist in some ancient Matthean manuscripts and thus occurs as a footnote in the RSV Bible. Moreover, it dates back to a rather early second-century text called the Didache, which may indicate that the earliest form of Matthew's gospel did contain this Conclusion. It, in turn, would have been suggested to the compiler of Matthew by the TJ text. The appearance of "world (or kingdom)" and "power" within the latter would have suggested the 1 Chronicles verse to him, from which he borrowed "glory" with which to replace the unwanted "knowledge" occurring in the TJ verse. The uniqueness of this prayer to one's spirit along with its compatibility with the rest of the entire TJ, plus the problems with Matthew that the TJ does not suffer, plus the plausibility that the last TJ verse ending in "Amen" prompted the long ending of the Lord's Prayer, suggest to me that PHoax is relatively small, i.e., ¯ 0.2. Since the TJ indicates that the writer of Luke had some access to the TJ, while implying that the original order of the Gospels was Mt-Mk-Lk, as in the Augustinian tradition, it may be asked why that writer did not include the prayer's Conclusion, assumed here to have been present in the early form of Matthew, in his own version of the Lord's Prayer (Lk 11:4). One plausible answer is that he was not fully in agreement with the prayer's theology; e.g., he felt that all power and glory should be shared between the Son of God and God, and not just restricted to God. The translator of Hebraic Matthew into Greek may, in fact, have felt the same way, and thus omitted it, leaving the Conclusion to have been added back in later to only a very few surviving manuscripts. Mt 6:14-15 14"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; 15but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. These verses are suspect of not having come from a teacher of wisdom because they lack meaning. No explanation is supplied as to what it means to have your sins forgiven by the heavenly Father or not forgiven. Does it matter either way? Either way, the sinner may commit the same sin again. The verses also introduce the thought that one should forgive others of their sins, to the extent such forgiveness has meaning, just for the purpose of having one's own sins forgiven by God. Although this interpretation is unacceptable theologically, the text invites the thought without mentioning it is unacceptable. SOLUTION. The verses were not present in the source document, but were imposed by the writer of Matthew. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 6:16 16"And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting can be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward." TJ 6:23-24 23"When you fast do not look sour like the hypocrites, for they put on pretentious faces, in order to shine with their fasting before the people. 24Truly, I say to you, they have lost their reward, because they fast only out of their self-seeking desire for recognition." TJ 6:23-24 23«Wenn ihr fastet, sollt ihr nicht sauer sehen wie die Heuchler, denn sie verstellen ihr Angesicht, auf dass sie vor den Leuten scheinen mit ihrem Fasten. 24Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Sie haben ihren Lohn dahin, denn sie fasten nur um ihres selbstsüchtigen Ansehens willen.» THE PROBLEM. As with Mt 6:2, the punch line is spoken with sarcasm, since practicing fasting for the purpose of being seen by men is not a worthy reward. Yet, the introductory "Truly" is not consistent with such sarcasm. SOLUTION. The following two TJ verses explain the reward to be gained by appropriate fasting (it can benefit your health and expand your consciousness, spirit and knowledge). Thus, Jmmanuel was speaking sincerely when saying "Truly... they have lost their reward," and there is no discrepancy between his use of "Truly" and the reward. Mt 6:19 19"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume..." TJ 6:27 27"Neither should you amass great treasures on Earth, where moths and rust consume them..." TJ 6:27 27«Ihr sollt euch auch nicht grosse Schätze sammeln auf Erden, wo sie die Motten und der Rost fressen....» THE PROBLEM. Here, Beare (p. 182) asked if we are to take this verse seriously, as meaning that followers of Jesus are not to set aside any savings at all. If so, he noted that we should have to regard the advice as totally impractical. Moreover, in Mt 13:52 those who were trained for the kingdom of heaven are likened to a householder who does possess some treasures, Thus, in other Gospel verses Jesus was known as being a teacher of wisdom, while such impractical and inconsistent advice as rendered in Mt 6:19 cannot be considered as wisdom. SOLUTION. Substitution of "lay up treasures" for "amass great treasures" was sufficient to make impractical a statement that had been practical. The compiler of Matthew undoubtedly knew the "money is power" maxim, and may not have wished to encourage followers of the new religion to accumulate more money and power than the church officials themselves possessed. In any event, he at this point extolled utter poverty as being a virtue, as he would do elsewhere in his gospel (e.g., at Mt 16:24 and 19:23). Concerning the hoax hypothesis, it is not likely that a literary hoaxer intent upon converting a whole gospel into a text on spiritual teachings would have perceived a need to make such a small alteration. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 6:20-21 20"but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." TJ 6:28-29 28"But collect treasures in the spirit and in consciousness, where neither moths nor rust consumes them and where thieves neither break in nor steal. 29For where your treasure is, there your heart is also; and the true treasure is wisdom and knowledge." TJ 6:28-29 28«Sammelt euch aber Schätze im Geiste und im Bewusstsein, wo sie weder von Motten noch von Rost gefressen werden, und wo die Diebe nicht nachgraben noch stehlen. 29Denn wo euer Schatz ist, da ist auch euer Herz; und der wahre Schatz ist die Weisheit und das Wissen.» THE PROBLEMS. The problems are several. The disciples are not told what these treasures are, or how to lay them up in heaven. Are these treasures the same thing as the rewards in heaven that are never specified? If so, would one treasure consist of a favorable position at which to sit in heaven relative to the throne of Jesus (Mt 20:21-23), or a throne to sit upon from which to rule over one of the tribes of Israel (Mt 19:28)? These ranks of high standing may not be attainable, however, since to be first you must instead be last or be a slave (Mt 20:16,27), and this might hold in heaven as well as on earth. One treasure would surely be to inherit eternal life (Mt 19:29b), but in 6:20 the writer of Matthew is instead speaking of treasures within heaven after gaining admittance. Yet 6:21 refers back to the present time: where your treasure is; also, the "heart" refers to the source of one's deeds,[5] and thus refers to one's present personality rather than to a future personality when in heaven. It makes no sense that Jesus would instruct his disciples and other listeners about spiritual behavior without explaining what he meant. His disciples would need to understand his teachings if they were ever to carry on the teachings properly to others. SOLUTION. By substituting heaven for spirit, the writer of Matthew generated these problems. And from the TJ we see that Jmmanuel told his disciples, and/or other listeners, what the true treasure is: wisdom and knowledge. These are made up of many small pieces learned or recognized one at a time; each of these may be considered a treasure. These are considered treasures of the spirit, because the spirit accumulates the wisdom and knowledge gained from each lifetime. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 6:24b-25 24"...You cannot serve God and mammon. 25Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" TJ 6:35-37 35"You cannot serve your consciousness and mammon. 36Therefore I say to you: concern yourself about the knowledge of your conscousness, and around that, what you eat and drink and be concerned about your body and what you put on. 37For are not the spirit, life and body more important than all the treasures of the world?" TJ 6:35-37 35«Ihr könnt nicht eurem Bewusstsein dienen und dem Mammon. 36Darum sage ich euch: Sorget euch um das Wissen eures Bewusstsein, und um das, was ihr essen und trinken werdet, und sorget euch um euren Leib, was ihr anziehen werdet. 37Denn sind nicht der Geist, das Leben und der Leib mehr als alle Schätze der Welt?» THE PROBLEMS. Verse 25 does not follow from 24b, though it starts with "Therefore." It does not tell what to do to serve God, only what not to do in order to avoid taking care of one's body. And Matthean verse 25 is self-contradictory, since with life being more than just food, etc., one has reason to be concerned with taking care of one's life. The verse requires considerable interpretation-adding words that are not present or implied within the context of Mt 6:25-34-before one can come to the practical conclusion (Beare, p. 186) that it means everyone, not just the destitute, should not be anxious or concerned about providing food for the table, etc. The Greek word involved here (μεριμναω) includes the meaning of being either anxious or concerned. It is also noted that at this point in Matthew, one has not yet reached Jesus' teaching that what goes into the mouth is not what defiles a man (Mt 15:11). Instead, in Mt 5:17-18 one finds that Jesus has urged full compliance with the (Jewish) law and the prophets; this included strict measures on what to eat and what not to eat; i.e., being concerned about what to eat. SOLUTION. In editing these TJ verses, the writer of Matthew evidently wished to negate the thought of being concerned about gaining knowledge for one's spirit to accumulate. In so doing, he negated too much, by negating concern about the body that houses one's spirit and life itself. In the TJ verses, one should notice that the means by which to take care of one's body should not be mistaken for "mammon," which means material wealth and riches in excess of one's needs. This is made clear in TJ 6:37 above. Thus this pericope falls into the definition of Matthean "fatigue". The redactor inserted the negative particle into the TJ text he was following, then followed the remainder of the TJ verse a bit too closely. This caused the above illogicalities. The fact that the TJ verses do not suffer from any of these problems, have a unique message, yet show parallelism with the Matthean passage altogether indicates a low probability of a hoax. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 6:27 27"And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?" TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 186-187) noted that this verse seems out of place. The previous anxieties in Matthew had been about urgent items, such as where to find the next day's meals, not about postponing the time of one's eventual death by some small amount. And he noted how ambiguous its meaning is in any true sense, since a cubit is a measure of length, not of time. In the scholars' preferred Greek text, the problem area instead reads like: "But who of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature?" Although the units are then consistent, it makes no sense to think of a half- meter length (cubit) as being some tiny increment to add to one's height, since it would be a huge increase in height. SOLUTION. There are four verses of the TJ for which Mt 6:27 appears as a substitute. They continue to mention birds and their lack of independently evolving spirits, and then mention humans with our independent consciousness and actions. In editing out these unacceptable TJ verses, the writer of Matthew decided to substitute something more about not being anxious and placing one's faith in God; however, his substitution was poorly crafted, giving rise to the questions Beare raised. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 6:30-32 30"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? 31Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all." TJ 6:48-50 48"Creation nourishes and clothes the grass in the field, which today is standing and tomorrow is thrown into the stove. Should not you then do much more for yourselves? 49The grass fulfills its mission by serving as fodder and fuel; but are you not of much greater value than grass, O you of little knowledge? 50Therefore, you shall care for the wisdom and knowledge of your consciousness, and take care that you do not suffer from lack of food, drink and clothing." TJ 6:48-50 48«So denn die Schöpfung das Gras auf dem Felde nährt und kleidet, das doch heute steht und morgen in den Ofen geworfen wird; solltet ihr da nicht viel mehr für euch selbst tun? 49Das Gras erfüllet seine Aufgabe, indem es als Futter und zur Heizung dienet; seid ihr aber nicht viel mehr als das Gras, oh, ihr Kleinwissenden? 50Darum sollt ihr euch sorgen um die Weisheit und das Wissen eures Bewusstsein und darum, dass ihr nicht an Speis und Trank und Kleidung leidet.» THE PROBLEMS. It just does not follow, from logic or wisdom, that if God provides for grass, which can in no sense think or take action to protect itself against adversities of its environment, to live and grow for a season, that humans then, with brains and means of caring for their own welfare, should not use their brains and not take care of their own welfare, but should instead let God do all that. (The Greek word rendered as "anxious" can also mean "concerned.") Instead, out of wisdom and common sense has arisen the proverb, "God helps those who help themselves." For this reason Mt 6:31 cannot have derived from a teacher of wisdom. Furthermore, Jesus himself at times expected people to behave sensibly and be concerned for their own future welfare: as in building a house, and building it well to protect oneself from the elements (Mt 7:24-27); or as in seeing a physician when sick (Mt 9:12) and not just letting God take care of the problem; or as in properly patching a garment in taking care of one's clothing (Mt 9:16); or in telling his disciples to beware certain people lest they be turned over to councils and flogged (Mt 10:17). Or in advocating both the Golden Rule (Mt 7:12) and caring for the needy (Mt 25:35- 36), because if you do the latter, the former implies that you would desire that others care for you when you are in need. It follows that one should take care of one's own needs as far as possible, since others may not always be available to take care of your needs, day in and day out. Of course, common sense would have told us this right away. In Mt 6:32 the Gentiles have been singled out as the ones who improperly concern themselves with seeking after food, drink and clothing. The writer of Matthew had no need to point that out unless he was continuing his disparagement of the gentiles, which he had started in Mt 5:47 and 6:7, and which we have found to be hostile redactions. SOLUTION. The greater value of a human than of blades of grass is argued, in the TJ verse, to mean that one should take care of one's body and consciousness/spirit, so that one's greater value can be realized and put to good use. The TJ verses appear to have come from a voice of wisdom, while the Matthean verses do not. PHoax ¯ 0.3. A later TJ verse consistent with this -- a proverb espoused by Jmmanuel, is: TJ 26:25 "Those who take care of a cow will always receive milk; likewise, those who nurture wisdom and apply it through the power of the conscousness bring forth rich fruit." TJ 26:25 «Wer eine Milchkuh pflegt, erhält stets Milch; so erntet auch derjenige reiche Früchte, der die Weisheit pflegt und sie durch die Kraft des Bewusstseins anwendet.» Mt 6:33 33"But seek first his [God's] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well." TJ 6:51-52 51"Truly, I say to you, if you suffer from hunger, thirst and nakedness, then wisdom and knowledge will be crowded out by worry. 52First seek the world of your spirit and its knowledge, and seek to comfort your body with food, drink and clothing." TJ 6:51-52 51«Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Wenn ihr an Hunger, Durst und Nacktheit leidet, dann werden Weisheit und Wissen durch Sorgen verdrängt. 52Trachtet am ersten nach dem Reiche eures Geistes und nach seinem Wissen, und nach der Labung eures Leibes für Speis und Trank und Kleidung.» THE PROBLEM. In the Matthean verse, "all these things" refers back to food, drink and clothing. It clearly is not any truism that all those who seek God's kingdom and righteousness receive sufficient nourishment and shelter. Impoverished Christians in third-world countries come to mind as but one example. The strong suspicion then arises that the misstatement was not spoken by a teacher of wisdom, but rather arose from the pen of the redactor. SOLUTION. The second TJ sentence is the cognate to the Matthean verse, the first being included above for better understanding. The TJ cognate indicates that one should seek sustenance and shelter, for the reason stated, but gives no false assurance of success. However, it gives even higher priority to seeking the realm of one's spirit and its knowledge. It is much more easily visualized how a redactor lacking in wisdom altered the TJ verse to generate a saying acceptable to early Christianity, than it is to visualize a literary hoaxer possessing the creativity to generate the TJ verse out of Matthew. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 6:34 34"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day." TJ 6:53-54 53"Therefore, take care for the next day, for tomorrow will not take care of you by itself. 54It is enough that each day has its own misery, therefore you must not also be at the mercy of the need for your physical welfare." TJ 6:53-54 53«Darum sorget für den andern Morgen, denn der morgige Tag wird nicht alleine für euch sorgen. 54Es ist genug, dass jeder Tag seine eigene Plage habe, also ihr euch nicht noch in Not des leiblichen Wohles erbarmen müsst.» THE PROBLEM. The Matthean verse makes no sense in today's societies, and as W. D. Davies has pointed out,[6] the saying would also strike the wiser Jewish leaders of even two millennia ago as "very much lacking in common sense." Beare (p. 188) noted that most Gospel analysts regard the verse as a Matthean addition, and he agrees. SOLUTION. We may conjecture that the TJ verse, along with its immediate predecessors, was considered threatening to the compiler, in implying that the individual may rightfully take matters into his or her own hands and not rely just on God and church. He could make this fit his theology here simply by adding a negative and omitting the last part of the TJ verse. It is of some interest to sample how critical scholars rationalize these Matthean verses (6:25-34) that are lacking in normal intelligence, without overly offending Christian sensitivities. Davies and Allison remark that the passage "is, obviously, not filled to overflowing with level-headed common sense. But then faith and worldly knowledge often go their separate ways."[7] From the TJ we see, however, that Jmmanuel taught both worldly wisdom and spiritual wisdom. A true wisdom teacher does both, and is not a "flake." It would be a huge stretch to imagine that a New Age literary hoaxer who was intent upon altering Matthew into a set of spiritual teachings, and who believed in "contemplating his navel," would instead urge a balanced approach involving both spiritual wisdom and worldly wisdom. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Upon accumulating the estimated probabilities that the TJ is a hoax from just the TJ-Mt 6 verse comparisons above, one finds a summary probability of PHoax = 6.3 x 10-5, i.e., odds of roughly one in sixteen thousand. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 7 REFERENCES 1. In the TJ editions of 2001 and previous, this verse was erroneously translated from the German using the clause "they have forfeited their reward..." Similarly with TJ 6:24. 1.1 Taussig, Hal, "Disparate Presence," in When Faith Meets Reason, Charles W. Hedrick, ed. (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 2008), p. 152. 2. Funk, Robert W., "The Lord's Prayer: Does it go back to Jesus?" The Fourth R (1989) 2, p. 6. 3. Wells, G.A., Did Jesus Exist? (London: Pemberton, 1986), p. 74. 4. Davies, W. D. and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (Edinburgh, Scotland: T. & T. Clark Ltd., 1988), vol. 1, pp. 614-615. 5. Davies and Allison, A Critical Commentary, vol. 1, p. 632. 6. Davies, W. D., The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1964), p. 300. 7. Davies and Allison, A Critical Commentary, vol. 1, p. 658. The authors go on to argue, however, that the passage must not mean that seeking adequate food and clothing is unimportant, but only that it is secondary to seeking God's kingdom. Thus their interpretation would approximate the TJ's straightforward meaning, if "God's kingdom" were to be expanded to include the human spirit, provided "God" was properly understood. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 7 Mt 7:1 1"Judge not, that you be not judged." TJ 7:1 1"Judge not falsely, lest you be falsely judged." TJ 7:1 1«Richtet nicht falsch, auf dass ihr nicht falsch gerichtet werdet.» THE PROBLEM. The four Matthean verses following this one, spoken by Jesus, all imply that we will be making judgments from time to time, and everyone knows that judgments of all kinds must frequently be made, today as well as 2,000 years ago. And of course Jesus himself made judgments, such as judging that Pharisees in general were hypocrites. Moreover, what's so bad about being judged by others, if they judge you fairly? One expects to be judged by others whenever you do or say something that affects them. Hence, to make sense out of this contradiction, the usual interpretation that has been made is that you must not judge harshly, or not judge people, or make only simple moral judgments. However, without an appropriate qualifier for the verb, the verse is definitely illogical or ambiguous. SOLUTION. With the qualifying adverb in the TJ verse-falsely-it makes sense. Motivation for the writer of Matthew to have made this redaction may have been to discourage people from making any judgments that would be critical of church authorities or ruling authorities. Although one might argue that in the course of time, during translation and various re-transcriptions, the word "falsely" became lost accidentally, this is very unlikely since it is missing twice in the Matthean verse. In assigning an estimate of the probability that this TJ verse came from a literary hoaxer, we must give heavy weight to the fact that the Matthean verse is so well known that one or another of its usual interpretations is usually taken for granted. Thus, the odds are poor that a literary hoaxer would perceive a need for "fixing up" this verse. On the other hand, the TJ verse is fully consistent with the concern of Jmmanuel within the TJ that truth is of overriding value. And as an alteration by the writer of Matthew, it is fully consistent with the picture of this writer being a redactor who wanted Christian followers to depend upon church authorities and teachings in making decisions rather than relying upon their own judgments. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 7:6 6"Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you." TJ 7:9-10 9"You shall not give sacred things to the dogs, nor throw your pearls before the swine, lest they trample them with their feet and turn on you and tear you apart. 10Truly, I say to you: Do not throw your consciousness-related treasure into the dirt and do not waste it on the unworthy, because they will not thank you and will tear you apart, for their understanding is small and their consciousness is weak." TJ 7:9-10 9«Ihr sollt das Heilige nicht den Hunden geben und eure Perlen nicht vor die Säue werfen, auf dass sie dieselben nicht zertreten mit ihren Füssen und sich wenden und euch zerreissen. 10Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Werfet nicht euer bewusstseinsmässiges Gut in den Schmutz und verschwendet es nicht an Unwürdige, denn sie danken es euch nicht und zerreissen euch, denn ihr Verstand ist klein und ihr Bewusstsein ist schwach.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 190) noted that the point of Mt 7:6 is obscure. Quite likely for that reason it has no parallels in the other Gospels. He suggested some possible interpretations, but did not find any of them to be convincing. SOLUTION. In the TJ, on the other hand, it is clearly indicated who they are that Jmmanuel called the unworthy-those whose understanding is so small that they belittle the existence of one's consciousness or spirit. The presence of TJ 7:10, which the writer of Matthew omitted, makes the point of its verse 7:9 clear (see also TJ 5:12, 10:49, 19:16-20 and 23:47-49). Those indicted evidently included most scribes, and the writer of Matthew likely felt himself included. Thus it is not surprising that he altered this verse. It is consistent with a later Matthean verse (Mt 15:26) if his allusion to "dogs" and "swine" was to gentiles, since they comprised the group he considered unworthy of discipleship. The TJ, however, indicates that there had been no allusion to any racial or cultural group, but to those of little understanding and little consideration for others within any culture. Although in the TJ verses Jmmanuel's language may seem harsh, it nevertheless deserves serious consideration as practical advice. The fact that the TJ verses could have come from a wisdom teacher but not the isolated Matthean verse, and the small chance that a literary hoaxer would have perceived a need to insert a clarifying verse here, and could have done so in a highly creative manner consistent with the rest of the TJ, suggest only a small chance for a literary hoax: PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 7:7-8 7"Ask, and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks, receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." TJ 7:11-12 11"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 12For whosoever asks of their spirit (consciousness), will receive; and whosoever seeks through the power of consciousness, will find; and whosoever knocks at the door of their consciousness, to that person will it be opened." TJ 7:11-12 11«Bittet, so wird euch gegeben; suchet, so werdet ihr finden; klopfet an, so wird euch aufgetan. 12Denn wer da bittet seinen Geist (Bewusstsein), der empfängt, und wer da durch die Kraft seines Bewusstseins suchet, der findet; und wer da bei seinem Bewusstsein anklopfet, dem wird aufgetan.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 191) noted that Mt 7:8 is not a general truth (not everyone who seeks finds, etc.). To get around this, Beare had to assume that the entire verse applies to asking for, and receiving, admission into heaven. However, with this interpretation, it is overkill to do all three things in order to gain admittance to heaven. Moreover, it is uncertain what door one should knock upon. Dale Goldsmith has noted that Mt 7:8 is a virtual repetition of 7:7, and is therefore redundant.[1] In failing to provide any new input, Mt 7:8 is therefore illogical, repetitious and strongly suspect of being a redaction. SOLUTION. The TJ verse has the proper qualifiers that it could well be true as written. Thus asking of one's spirit or consciousness represents praying in sincerity, seeking through the power of one's consciousness represents searching for knowledge that will satisfy one's innate curiosity, and knocking at the door of one's spirit or consciousness represents encountering it through meditation or sensing one's conscience. In editing out such TJ heresies, the compiler of Matthew often substituted the "kingdom of heaven" theme in place of the individual spirit or consciousness. He did not do that here, however, perhaps because knocking at the door of heaven would then be immediately rewarded by death (followed by entry into heaven or hell). Mt 7:7 along with Mt 6:14-15 can be considered to constitute "editorial fatigue." At Mt 6:14-15 its writer had stated that if one asks the Father for forgiveness, it will not be granted if you yourself hadn't forgiven another. By the time he reached this point, however, he had apparently forgotten about this, and closely followed the text of TJ 7:11 (but not 7:12), thereby indicating that if one asks for anything, including forgiveness, it will be received without any qualifications. TJ 7:12 is seen not to be subject to Goldsmith's criticism of Mt 7:8, as it amplifies upon its preceding verse in order to explain it, and is therefore not redundant. In estimating the chance for a hoax here, we have the problems with Matthew that are consistent with a redactor having tampered with his source document in a consistent manner, to weigh against the possible work of a hoaxer who, however, is not very likely to have foreseen these problems or known how to remove them in a manner that would produce the beauty of TJ 7:12. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 7:11 11"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?" TJ 7:15 15"So if you, now, though you be wicked, can nevertheless give your children good gifts, how much more will your consciousness give you, if you ask for it." TJ 7:15 15«So nun ihr, die ihr doch arg seid, könnt dennoch euren Kindern gute Gaben geben, wieviel mehr wird euch euer Bewusstsein geben, wenn ihr darum bittet.» THE PROBLEM. This verse, along with Mt 7:7-8, indicates that one will receive good things simply by asking the Father for them. There are no qualifications placed upon this. If one simply asks to receive the kingdom of heaven, for example, then this will presumably be granted. Yet, from Mt 5:3 we read that it's the poor in spirit who receive the kingdom of heaven. From Mt 5:10 we read that it's those persecuted for righteousness' sake who receive the kingdom of heaven. From Mt 6:6 we read that only those who pray privately in their closed room will receive. Once again, a contradiction like this likely indicates that a redactor has tampered with his source text, if that source had derived from a teacher of wisdom and had therefore made sense. The method by which Matthean critics Davies and Allison circumvented this contradiction was by assuming it is implied that only those who are children of the Father in heaven will receive, after asking.[2] Extra words such as these need to be read into the text. However, theirs are not satisfactory, since it is not at all clear who qualifies as being children of the Father. Are they just the "children of Israel" (Mt 15:24), are they all those upon whom the Father causes sun to shine and rain to fall (Mt 5:45), or where between these two extremes do we locate them? SOLUTION. It was the redactor's small alteration of the above TJ verse (from "spirit" to "Father in heaven"), along with his having altered other TJ verses, which caused the contradiction. In the TJ, Jmmanuel several times advises his listeners to get in touch each one with their individual spirit, to pray properly to it or ask properly of it as needed. There are no contradictions there, as advice is given on how to pray properly to one's spirit in order to receive (TJ 6:4-22), and this advice is available to all, without qualifications. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 7:15-16a 15"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16You will know them by their fruits..." TJ 7:21-23 21"Beware of false prophets and scribes who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are like ravenous wolves, preaching to you about submissiveness before sacred objects, false deities and gods, and preaching submissiveness to idols and erroneous teachings. 22Beware of those who forbid you access to wisdom and knowledge, for they speak to you only to attain power over you and to seize your goods and belongings. 23You will recognize them by their fruits." TJ 7:21-23 21«Sehet euch vor vor den falschen Propheten und Schriftgelehrten, die in Schafskleidern zu euch kommen, inwendig aber sind sie reissende Wölfe, und predigen euch Demut vor Heiligtümern, Götzen und Göttern und predigen euch Demut vor Idolen und irren Lehren. 22Sehet euch vor vor denen, die euch die Weisheit und das Wissen verbieten, denn sie sprechen zu euch nur, um Macht über euch zu erlangen und euer Hab und Gut an sich zu reissen. 23An ihren Früchten sollt ihr sie erkennen.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 195-197) concluded that this verse as it stands would not have been uttered in Jesus' time because Israel then was not being harassed by false prophets. Israel's prophets had died out centuries before, and only after the early churches had been established did a rash of new prophets, including false prophets, arise, this time within Christianity. In addition, "there has been much discussion as to whether the 'fruits' by which we are to judge, represent the life or the teachings of the teachers in question."[3] SOLUTION. The TJ verse does not suffer from Beare's criticism, since it includes scribes, not just prophets, and since the disciples who were listening to Jmmanuel's sermon would be told to spread the word primarily in other lands besides Israel, where self-proclaimed prophets and/or oracles may have then dwelled; e.g., some of the Sibylline oracles. Apparently the writer of Matthew omitted "scribes" when replicating TJ 7:21 because he himself had earlier been a Jewish scribe. He similarly omitted its last clause, probably because it might cause readers or listeners to wonder if any teachings in the Torah were erroneous, or if the God of Israel was one of the false gods. And as always he would need to omit any thought that a Christian should want to seek wisdom or knowledge. As to just what the "fruits" refer to, the TJ verse lets us know that it is the unworthy teachings and actions of those who would deny you knowledge and try to acquire power over you. The motivations for the writer of Matthew to have made the alterations we have noticed, upon comparing the two sets of verses, are strong and required no ingenuity. However, the creativity needed by a hoaxer to have amplified the Matthean verses to produce the TJ verses, and in a manner that is free of Beare's objection, is excessive. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 7:17 17"So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit." TJ 7:25 25"Hence, every good seed brings forth a good harvest, but a rotten seed brings forth a bad harvest." TJ 7:25 25«Also, eine jegliche gute Saat bringt gute Ernte, aber ein faule Saat bringt arge Ernte.» THE PROBLEM. This Matthean verse is very similar to its following verse, causing Davies & Allison [4] to infer that this one was a redaction designed to repeat Mt 7:18 with positive statements replacing negative ones. SOLUTION. The TJ verse uses a different analogy (seed->harvest) from that of its following verse, which is very closely paralleled by Mt 7:18 ("A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit"). Thus TJ 7:25 does not experience the problem raised by Davies & Allison. The verse is not strictly a cognate to the Matthean verse, except for its general meaning. It would appear that the writer of Matthew made the change in order to stick to the subject of trees, because he would soon insert another verse, Mt 7:19, involving cutting down the bad tree. This latter redaction, mentioned below, would not then apply to the seed-harvest theme in his source. It is important to note, however, that this TJ verse is one that had been omitted from the 1978 version of the TJ, in which verse Mt 7:17 had been erroneously copied in from the German Bible. This was either an error on the part of the typist who prepared the 1978 version for printing, or of the translator, Rashid-two adjacent verses were copied from the German Bible when one of them (Mt 7:18) was almost identical to a TJ verse (7:26). TJ 7:25 is then one of the more important esoteric corrections Meier received in 1990. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 7:19 19"Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. As noted by Beare (p. 197), this sentence already occurred earlier, in Mt 3:10, and thus is suspect as a needless repetition. The verse can also be seen to interrupt the flow of thought from the preceding and following verses, which deal with perceiving false prophets, not disposing of them. SOLUTION. The verse evidently suggested itself to the writer of Matthew since his previous two verses, which do have close parallels to TJ verses, deal allegorically with trees and fruit. Its insertion also reflects the redactor's preoccupation with the notion that sinners receive their just dues in the fires of hell. While the chances are good that this verse is a repetitive redaction by the compiler of Matthew, the chances are not quite as good that a literary hoaxer would notice this and omit it. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 7:21-22 21"Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?'" TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. In this context, "Lord" was recognized by Beare (p. 198) as a title of worship of Jesus, following later Christian practice. Thus the verses would not have been so spoken by Jesus himself. Beare also discussed the likelihood that Mt 7:21 was consciously constructed by the writer of Matthew to act as a rebuttal to a certain doctrine of Paul-the idea that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be "saved." Other scholars have noted that "in your name" is a phrase used by the early church and not used during Jesus' ministry,[5] since many years elapsed before "Jesus Christ" became a name of worship. For the same reason, the following are also considered to be redactions: "my name's sake" in Mt 10:22, "in my name" in Mt 18:5, and "for my name's sake" in Mt 19:29 and 24:9. Beare further noted (p. 198) that impetus for the "will of my Father" portion of the above verses to be constructed by the compiler might have come from a verse of the Pirke Aboth, the Jewish "Sayings of the Fathers" (Aboth 5:22). SOLUTION. These two Matthean verses, and the next, appear as an insert to the TJ. In this instance, they can be fairly readily picked out as such from being a paragraph of inappropriate subject matter. The three verses on each side of the Mt 7:21-23 insert, save for the duplicate verse, Mt 7:19, discussed earlier, are faithful renditions of the TJ. These surrounding TJ verses of course do not address the compiler's strong concern for separating evildoers from those going to heaven. The TJ does not contain the phrases "in your name" or "for my name's sake," or "will of my Father." For reasons noted above, the chances are good that these verses were an invention by the compiler of Matthew. However, the chances are almost as good that a literary hoaxer would notice this and omit them. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 7:23 23"And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.'" TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 198), as have others before him, recognized the last half of this verse as coming from: Ps 6:8 Depart from me, all you workers of evil. His inference was that it is therefore a non-genuine utterance. SOLUTION. Beare's inference, which the TJ supports, appears to give the correct solution, since it is implausible that Jesus inserted unattributed verses from the Scriptures here and there into his speech as he made it. This verse is furthermore part of the compiler's insertion of the two previous verses, and for that reason also can be judged as having stemmed from the writer of Matthew, not from Jesus. Although the reason why this Matthean verse was found to be non-genuine is different from those of the preceding verses, a literary hoaxer would likely have omitted it if he omitted the previous two verses. [PHoax ¯ 0.5.] Mt 7:28-29 28And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, 29for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. TJ 7:32-33 32And it happened that after Jmmanuel had finished his talk, the people were shocked by his teachings. 33He taught with full power a new doctrine unlike that of the scribes. TJ 7:32-33 32Und es begab sich, da Jmmanuel diese Rede vollendet hatte, entsetzte sich das Volk über seine Lehre. 33Er lehrte nämlich mit Vollmacht eine neue Lehre, und dies nicht wie die Schriftgelehrten. THE PROBLEM. The crowds would have been astonished over what Jesus had taught, not over the degree of authority with which he taught them. It goes without saying that a teacher needs a certain degree of authority about him to command the attention of listeners, and this in itself would not cause astonishment. Thus Mt 7:29 is quite implausible, suggesting it involves a redaction. SOLUTION. TJ 7:33 lets us know that what had astonished the people (not the crowds), or had even shocked them, had been his teachings themselves. They were different than what they had heard before. How to pray to one's spirit or consciousness rather than to Yahweh is one example of what likely had shocked them. The use of the word "Creation" ("Briya" in Aramaic) rather than "Creator" ("Bare" in Aramaic) in describing attributes of the ultimate mystery rather than of a personal God, must have been another. Although the compiler of Matthew seems to have gone along with some of Jmmanuel's verbal chastisement of scribes (and Pharisees), he evidently did not wish to imply that their teachings had been erroneous and in need of replacement by a new doctrine. The differences between the two verses are quite small. Yet the difference that caused the problem pointed out above is a telling one, as the problem is not mentioned in any scholarly literature I am aware of. Perhaps only in hindsight could it have been detected. A literary hoaxer is thus very unlikely to have thought of it, while the omission of "a new doctrine" by the writer of Matthew is as to have been expected. PHoax ¯ 0.15. Upon accumulating the estimated probabilities that the TJ is a hoax from just the TJ-Mt 7 verse comparisons above, one finds a cumulative probability of PHoax = 0.00094. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 8 REFERENCES 1. Goldsmith, Dale, "'Ask, and it will be given...' Toward writing the history of a logion," NTS 35 (1989), pp. 254-265; see p. 255. 2. Davies, W. D. and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (Edinburgh, Scotland: T & T Clark, Ltd., 1988), vol. 1, p. 684. 3. Broadus, John A., Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Philadelphia:American Baptist Publication Society, 1886), p. 168. 4. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 1, p. 709. 5. Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 284. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 8 Mt 8:4 4And Jesus said to him, "See that you say nothing to any one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to the people." TJ 8:4-5 4And Jmmanuel spoke to him, "See to it that you tell no one. Instead, go and present yourself to the priest. 5You were healed through the power of the consciousness and the wisdom of knowledge." TJ 8:4-5 4Und Jmmanuel sprach zu ihm: «Siehe zu, sage es niemand, sondern gehe hin und zeige dich dem Priester. 5Du wurdest geheilt durch die Kraft des Bewusstseins und durch die Weisheit des Wissens.» THE PROBLEM. This verse is in the pericope about the leper Jesus healed. In the first half of the verse, the cured leper is told not to talk about it to anyone except the priest. In the second half he is told the reason for showing himself to the priest is so that his cure would be known to the people (actually, to "them" in the Greek; "people" is just inferred). This contradiction is scarcely believable as having been spoken by a teacher of wisdom, but could easily have arisen from editorial activity on the part of a writer who deeply wished Jesus' miraculous deeds to become known to all. Even if the reason for the "proof before the people" had been to prove that Jesus preached the keeping of the law, as in Mt 5:17-18, making the secret known to the people would nevertheless contradict Jesus' expressed desire in the same sentence to keep the matter secret except to the priest. If, on the other hand, "to them" is interpreted as meaning "to the priests [plural]", that would still allow the supposed secret to spread much more than is implied by 8:4a. Moreover, Lv 14 indicates that the leper is to be shown to "the priest" (singular), and goes on to tell of all the requirements to be carried out by the leper and "the priest." Because of Matthew's emphasis upon adhering to the law, it is then most plausible that Matthew's "to them" referred to the people, not to a group of priests. SOLUTION. The TJ verse indicates that the problem lay with the writer of Matthew's illogical addition to his source: "for a proof to them [or to the people]." We also see that Jmmanuel did not even mention Moses here, but that the writer of Matthew could not fail to fill in the name of the patriarch who instituted the rituals of Lv 13-14. The TJ verse 8:5 is no cognate to the Matthean verse, and was omitted from Matthew for evident reasons: both earlier and later within the TJ it was clear that power of the spirit or consciousness refers to the individual human spirit, not the spirit of God; and the Christian follower was supposed to be worshiping Jesus, not learning that he had taught knowledge about the human spirit. It seems evident that Jmmanuel realized his curing of the leper was no secret, and that the priest might not keep it confidential either. However, his warning must have served to keep the matter hushed up considerably more than if he had advised the opposite, as implied in Mt 8:4b. It thus appears that early in his ministry Jmmanuel wished the fame of his healing powers to be minimized to the extent possible, so that his clerical adversaries would not become too upset before he had had more time to preach and teach. At the same time, he knew that the ex-leper needed to show himself to the priest according to tradition in order that he be officially recognized as "clean." In the unlikely event that a literary hoaxer would notice this little-known problem with Matthew, he would likely have altered Matthew by omitting only "for a proof to the people," and not have added another sentence. PHoax ¯ 0.3. It might be thought that Mark has an advantage over Matthew here, since in its parallel verses (Mk 1:39-40) there is no explicit mention of "great crowds," present in Mt 8:1, allowing the possibility that Jesus had been alone when speaking to the leper. This difference might be explained by the writer of Mark having noticed the contradiction within Matthew and so trying to eliminate it. However, it seems more likely that Mark's omission of Matthew's "great crowds" was a consequence of the writer of Mark having omitted practically all of the lengthy Sermon on the Mount, which immediately precedes the story of the leper's healing. (The TJ in its verse 8:1 uses "many people.") Many of the people in Matthew's "great crowds," occurring just after the end of the Sermon, had come down from the hill where the Sermon had been preached, and so were omitted by the writer of Mark since he had omitted the Sermon. In any event, the verse of Mk 1:39 suggests that many people had been present at the leper's healing in Mark, too, which includes the contradictory "for a proof to them" of Matthew. Mt 8:10 10When Jesus heard him [the centurion], he marveled, and said to those who followed him, "Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." TJ 8:12 12When Jmmanuel heard this [from the centurion], he marveled and spoke to those who followed him: "Truly, I say to you, such trust I have found in no one in Israel." TJ 8:12 12Da das Jmmanuel hörte, verwunderte er sich und sprach zu denen, die ihm nachfolgten: «Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Solches Vertrauen habe ich in Israel bei keinem gefunden.» THE PROBLEM. This is spoken as if Jesus had already traversed many lands outside of Israel. The preferred Greek text translates more correctly as: "from no one in Israel" instead of "not even in Israel," indicating that the editors of the RSV Bible wished to soften its anti-Judaic inference. If Jesus had not found such faith in lands outside of the land of Israel, he would likely have just said, in effect, "Never before have I found such faith." Thus, either translation implies some experience on the part of Jesus of people's faiths in other lands. However, nothing in Matthew directly indicates that he had traveled significantly outside of Israel. SOLUTION. The TJ lets it be known that Jmmanuel had been to India and back (TJ 29:23) before his Palestinian ministry commenced. This is what was attested to in the document that Nicolas Notovitch learned about, in 1887, in the monastery of Himis near Leh, the capital of Ladakh (Little Tibet),[1] and which Swami Abhedananda independently affirmed in 1922.[2] The Matthean verse was thus copied correctly from the TJ in this instance, but the context of its final portion is not appropriate for the Gospel of Matthew, which of course omits the TJ's later mention that Jmmanuel had spent time in the land of India. In the TJ verse, the trust that Jmmanuel found so remarkable was the same as in Matthew-the centurion truly believed that Jmmanuel could heal his servant even from a distance. The writer of Matthew had no need to alter this pericope, especially because the centurion, being a gentile, had said, "I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof," thereby humbling himself. The writer of Mark, then, did not use this Matthean pericope, even though the healings and other miracles formed the highlight of his gospel. To him it was evidently unacceptable for a gentile, especially a centurion, to humble himself in this manner. Presumably, it would have required too much redaction and invented discourse for the writer of Mark to have desired to alter this into a pericope in which the centurion did not humble himself and in which Jesus would go to the centurion's home to heal the servant. Since the wording of the Matthean verse raises the problem discussed, whereas the same wording in the TJ does not raise any problem, the nod here must go to the TJ verse as being the genuine one. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 8:11-12 11"I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth." TJ 8:13-14 13"But I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, from the south and the north, and they will understand my teachings and recognize their wisdom in knowledge. 14However, the children of Israel will be expelled into darkness; there will be wailing and the chattering of teeth." TJ 8:13-14 13«Aber ich sage euch: Viele werden kommen vom Osten und vom Westen, vom Süden und vom Norden, und sie werden meine Lehre verstehen und ihre Weisheit im Wissen erkennen. 14Die Kinder Israels aber werden ausgestossen in die Finsternis hinaus; da wird sein Heulen und Zähneklappern.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 208) recognized these Matthean verses to be non-original. However, he did not spell out the key problem with their imagery, which is: at this point the writer of Matthew confused the physical world with his image of heaven and mixed the two together. Mt 8:11 starts out with real people coming to the land of Israel, but after arriving they find themselves in heaven with the great Jewish patriarchs, feasting! If the intention was that those arriving would soon die and go to heaven, the why's and wherefore's of this are not addressed at all. In Mt 8:12 living Israelites receive the opposite treatment, ending up in one version of the writer's image of Gehenna or Hades-the "outer darkness"-his other image being the "fiery hell." SOLUTION. The compiler of Matthew needed to edit his source in order to remove its emphasis upon the value of wisdom and seeking wisdom. In so doing, he introduced his favorite "kingdom of heaven" theme, apparently not realizing the logical problem so introduced. The TJ's "expelled into darkness" clause probably prompted this imagery by causing him to equate that to Gehenna. The two Matthean verses represent a rare instance in which the writer had something favorable to say about gentiles relative to the children of Israel. It may, however, instead better represent an instance in which the writer could vent his frustration at the children of Israel for not having yet been won over to the new Messianic form of Judaism- Christianity. Recall that the TJ implies that the Gospels were not written until well into the 2nd century, when early Christianity was already spreading rapidly within gentile lands, much more so than within the Israeli people. Likely for this reason the writer allowed the TJ verse 8:14 to stand essentially as is. In the TJ verses, the clause "expelled into darkness" can only be interpreted to mean remaining in ignorance of the laws of Creation, with "wailing and chattering of teeth" apparently implying the suffering of unhappy consequences resulting from ignorance and belief in false teachings. The writer of Matthew took to this phrase, and used it five other times in describing his concept of the experience of hell, whereas it does not occur again in the TJ. However, regarding TJ 8:13, it is debatable if many gentiles came to Jmmanuel's various teaching sessions and recognized the value of his teachings. Although the verse applies to those who would hear him teach during his travels in post-crucifixion years as well as during his Palestinian ministry, his teachings within Palestine and Anatolia all too soon became supplanted by those of Paul. The inferred non-genuineness connected with the Matthean verses, combined with the clear meaning of the TJ verses and motivations for the writer of Matthew to have made changes in them, suggest assigning PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 8:20 20And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." TJ 8:25 25Jmmanuel spoke to him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but I have no fixed place where I can lay my head." TJ 8:25 25Jmmanuel sprach zu ihm: «Die Füchse haben Höhlen, und die Vögel unter dem Himmel haben Nester, ich aber habe nichts Festes, da ich mein Haupt hinlege.» THE PROBLEMS. One problem is that the scribe to whom Jesus was replying would not have known whom he was referring to when saying "Son of man." This is the first point within Matthew where the phrase is used. Jesus never explains what he means by it, even to his disciples. A second, minor problem of logic is that, just like a fox can bed down in a hollow at any suitable spot, Jesus and his disciples could bed down along the roadside or in a town wherever they found themselves at nightfall. So with this analogy Jesus did always have some place to lay his head. SOLUTION. As will be seen in discussion of Mt 9:6, the alteration the redactor made upon its parallel TJ verse seems to be what prompted him to start using the "Son of man" nomenclature. So he slipped in this one additional usage of the phrase beforehand here and 29 more afterwards. It is quite likely he did this in order to bestow the Messianic "son of man" image from Daniel 7:13-14 onto Jesus, but to do so somewhat subtly, thus without explaining what it meant. Naturally, the TJ never uses the phrase. The TJ's utilization of "no fixed place" to lay his head, though Jmmanuel had the use of several different houses at different times, improves the analogy with the foxes' dens and birds' nests. However, the very minor difference between Matthew and the TJ here might only reflect an improved translation by Isa Rashid when rendering the Aramaic TJ into German rather than any alteration by the writer of Matthew. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 8:21-22 21Another of the disciples said to him, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." 22But Jesus said to him, "Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead." TJ 8:27-28 27And another, one of his disciples, said to him, "Master, permit me to go and bury my father who just died." 28But Jmmanuel said to him, "Follow me and let the dead bury their dead." TJ 8:27-28 27Und ein anderer, einer seiner Jünger, sprach zu ihm: «Herr, erlaube mir, dass ich hingehe und meinen verstorbenen Vater begrabe.» 28Jmmanuel aber sprach zu ihm: «Folge mir nach und lass die Toten ihre Toten begraben.» THE PROBLEMS. Jesus' previous conversation had been with a scribe, who of course was not a disciple. So why would the scribe be inferred to be a disciple of Jesus? This is what "another of the disciples" implies. And why is "let the dead bury their own dead" left unexplained? Beare (p. 214) thought it means something like "Let the matter take care of itself," whereas Broadus implies that it means: "Let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead."[3] SOLUTION. From the TJ verse we see that it was one of his disciples who asked permission to go bury his father, not another disciple. This may not be a translation problem, as it is possible that the writer of Matthew, having been a Jewish scribe himself, wished to infer that the scribe of Mt 8:19//TJ 8:24 had decided to become a disciple, and so considered him to be a disciple then and there, even before he could demonstrate it by following Jesus/Jmmanuel. He would then consider the man of Mt 8:21//TJ 8:27 to be another disciple. The writer of Mark omitted this enigmatic episode, while the writer of Luke, though using the word "another," did not imply that he was one of the disciples; thus he corrected Matthew's little problem (see Lk 9:59-60). We also see that the rather enigmatic "Let the dead bury the dead" had the TJ as its source. However, from the TJ's main theme of spirituality, the meaning is quite evidently as Broadus suggested, not Beare. Within the TJ framework, the need for an explanation from Jmmanuel is strongly diminished. The TJ does not exhibit Matthew's first problem; it also suffers less from the second. On the other hand, the hoax advocate would claim the first problem to be an instance in which a hoaxer improved upon Matthew, and the second to be where he lucked out. The two viewpoints are seen here as cancelling each other: PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 8:23-27 23And when he [Jesus] got into the boat, his disciples followed him. 24And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea... 26...Then he [Jesus] rose and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. 27And the men marveled... TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. This is the miracle of the stilling of the sea, and even its introductory verse, 8:23, provides a problem. Five verses earlier, Jesus had given orders to his disciples to take him over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Presumably most of them had already stepped into the boat to prepare it for departure while Jesus was still talking with the scribe and the one disciple who had come up and asked him questions. Thus, it does not make sense that at the slightly later time frame of this verse his disciples would all be following him into the boat. Regarding the miracle itself, Beare (p. 216) noted an extra aspect of incredulity. Even if the wind had suddenly died down, the water should not have become calm until some time later. Lamar Cope has noticed that this miracle shares the following common elements with the similar story in the first chapter of the book of Jonah: departure by boat, a violent storm at sea, a sleeping main character, badly frightened sailors, a miraculous stilling of the seas, and a marveling response by the sailors.[4] Thus, the essence of the story was already available to the compiler of Matthew; about all he had to do was change the main character from Jonah to Jesus. SOLUTION. It is especially difficult to find logical grounds for rejecting the authenticity of a particular miracle story if other miracle stories have been accepted as genuine. However, in this instance the obscure illogicality of the introductory verse, the extra degree of doubtfulness noted by Beare, and especially the story's extremely close similarity to the Jonah story all support the TJ's lack of cognates to this passage. Yet, a literary hoaxer, if constructing the TJ out of Matthew and including most of its miracles, could easily have been unaware of these criticisms to this miracle and have included the story within his hoax. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 8:30-31 30Now a herd of many swine was feeding at some distance from them. 31And the demons begged him, "If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of swine." TJ 8:32 32Then the evil, self-created delusional entities within the possessed asked him [Jmmanuel], "Master, if you intend to drive us out, then let us go into the herd of swine grazing just over there." TJ 8:32 32Da aber baten ihn die bösen Geister in den Besessenen: «Herr, willst du uns austreiben, so lass uns in die Herde Säue fahren, die unweit dort drüben weidet.» THE PROBLEM. The writer of Matthew has taken the pains to mention that the herd of swine was a large distance away. In the preferred Greek text, the herd of swine was "far distant from them." J. A. Broadus suspects that this emphasis was for the purpose of indicating that the herd was too far away to be frightened by the demoniacs, so that the consequent stampede of the herd into the lake could not have been caused by the demoniacs having frightened the herd.[5] Thus the event would definitely have been a result of a Jesus miracle. SOLUTION. The TJ has the same story as Matthew of the healing of the two possessed persons, with Jesus/Jmmanuel driving the "demons," at their request, into the herd of swine, and with their subsequent stampede into the waters. However, the TJ does not contain a parallel to Mt 8:30. Its only introduction of the herd of swine is in TJ 8:32, where the herd is only mentioned as being "over there." Thus, the TJ suggests that Mt 8:30 involves redaction. Besides the explanation of Broadus for this, another possibility is that the writer of Matthew wished the miracle to be located within as ideal a setting as possible (as we shall see when we compare the feeding of the four thousand (Mt 15:32-38) with the feeding of the five thousand). Since the swine represented "unclean" animals, as in Lv 11:7 and Dt 14:8, the miracle setting could be improved by placing the swine far away. Going along with this possibility is that the TJ's "herd of swine" is "herd of many swine" in Matthew, thus enhancing the magnitude of the miracle. It would seem more probable that the writer of Matthew made the alteration to the TJ for one of the reasons suggested than that a hoaxer would have cause to deemphasize Matthew's distancing of the swine from the scene, and deemphasize the number of swine. However, in Mark (5:11) we find that the swine were present "there on the hillside," perhaps not so far away. The supporter of the hoax hypothesis might then argue that a literary hoaxer was following Mark here. Although this would be inconsistent with Matthew containing all the obvious parallels to the TJ and Mark none of them, it is still conceivable. Hence we allow these considerations to cancel out, with PHoax ¯ 0.5. However, Mark's apparent alteration of Matthew here is a small alteration which, if not made as change for the sake of change, may have been for the purpose of emphasizing that this miracle took place in gentile territory, within the Decapolis, where it was OK to eat pork. Additionally, the TJ indicates that the writer of Mark did have available to him material from a rough equivalent of Mt 8-11, as it had been penned by the TJ's author soon after the event. This old document, misnamed "Peter's recollections," presumably contained the same event without mentioning that the swine were far away; thus the writer of Mark may have been correcting Matthew on this point. Upon accumulating the estimated degrees of uncertainty that the TJ is a hoax from just the TJ-Mt 8 verse comparisons above, one finds a cumulative probability of PHoax = 0.077. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 9 REFERENCES 1. Notovitch, Nicolas, La Vie inconnue de Jésus-Christ (Paris: M. Paul Ollendorf, 1894); The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ, Transl. V. Crispe (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1895). 2. Abhedananda, Swami, Swami Abhedananda's Journey into Kashmir and Tibet, Transls. A. Dasgupta and K. B. Kundu (Calcutta: Ramakrishna Vedant Math, 1987; available from Vedanta Press, Hollywood, CA). Further discussion and references supporting this are given in Deardorff, James, Jesus in India (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994), pp. 101-134, and in this website. 3. Broadus, John A., Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Philadelphia:American Baptist Publication Society, 1886), p. 186. 4. Cope, Lamar, Matthew: A Scribe Trained for the Kingdom of Heaven (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1976) p. 96. 5. Broadus, Commentary on Matthew, p. 191. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 9 Mt 9:2-3 2And behold, they brought to him a paralytic, lying on his bed; and when Jesus saw their faith he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven." 3And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, "This man is blaspheming." TJ 9:2-3 2And behold, they brought to him a gouty person, lying on a bed. When Jmmanuel saw their faith, he spoke to the paralytic, "Be comforted, because your faith in the power of my consciousness and your confidence in my teachings of wisdom, which are the teachings of nature and of Creation, has helped you." 3And behold, some of the scribes began stirring up talk among the people: "This man slanders God and our holy teachings."[1] TJ 9:2-3 2Und siehe, da brachten sie zu ihm einen Gichtbrüchigen, der lag auf einem Bette, und da nun Jmmanuel ihr Vertrauen sah, sprach er zu dem Gichtbrüchigen: «Sei getrost, denn dein Vertrauen an die Kraft meines Bewusstseins und dein Vertrauen an meine Weisheitslehre, die die Lehre der Natur und der Schopfung ist, hat dir geholfen.» 3Und siehe, etliche unter den Schriftgelehrten schürten im Volke die Rede: «Dieser Mann lästert Gott und unsere heiligen Lehren.» THE PROBLEMS. Jesus' words to the paralytic would have no meaning for him. He and his bearers were trusting that Jesus could heal him, and when Jesus instead spoke of his sins being forgiven, this would not have been perceived to have been connected to healing. No explanation was given that would relate the man's sins to his illness. Besides, having been a paralytic, he was less likely to have committed sins than the others around him. Further, there is no mention of what his sins were. The words "your sins are forgiven" by themselves, without any proof of their truth, would not begin to constitute blasphemy. Anyone can utter words like that, and if nothing happens, onlookers could care less. As it turns out, there was an outcome-the paralytic was miraculously healed-but that outcome did not become manifested until slightly later (in verse 9:7), when the man got up and went home. The writer of Matthew either erroneously inserted the blasphemy accusation too early in his story, or failed to invent blasphemous dialogue. But we may credit Davies & Allison for mentioning this as a Matthean problem or discrepancy. They remarked that "Matthew does not explain why the outraged scribes believe Jesus has blasphemed."[2] If it is supposed to have been because Jesus should have attributed the healing to God, his failure to do so would not constitute blasphemy, which requires an active utterance against God. And, as already mentioned, the scribes would not yet even have known that the man was healed. SOLUTION. We see that the problems occurred because the redactor's alterations were not very carefully thought out. In the TJ, however, Jmmanuel mentioned that the power of his spirit or consciousness and the paralytic's trust in him (not in the power of God), had helped the paralytic, and this could then be considered blasphemy. And his saying that his wisdom on this stemmed from nature and Creation (and not from God or the LORD), would add to the scribes' perception of blasphemy. Even if they had considered "Creation" as equivalent to "Creator," the bringing in of "nature" here would downgrade the majesty of God. See under Mt 5:7 for discussion of the TJ's utilization of "nature." The writer of Matthew likely derived his theology of connecting (a) healing of illness to (b) forgiveness of sins from Ps 103:3. However, in that psalm (a) and (b) are simply listed as separate blessings among several others that the LORD could bestow; they are not connected except by proximity within a list. Yet such a connection between them formed an important part of the theology of the writer of Matthew. This constitutes one of many occasions of "fatigue" on the part of the writer of Matthew. He replaced an unacceptable sentence from the TJ with one of his own characteristic themes in Mt 9:2, regarding forgiveness of sins. Then in Mt 9:3 he resumed following the TJ text about the talk of Jmmanuel/Jesus having blasphemed. In so doing, he overlooked the fact that his substitute verse did not measure up to a charge of blasphemy. It is interesting to note that the writer of Matthew added the phrase "my son." The likely motivation was to enhance Jesus' image as a compassionate father figure, just as the God of Israel was regarded to be towards his own people. It is scarcely believable that a potential literary hoaxer would have noticed the premature timing of the blasphemy accusation, which is not discussed in the known literature. It is further not too likely that he would realize that blasphemy had not actually taken place in Matthew, and was a situation that he could correct in a natural manner consistent with TJ philosophy. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 9:5-6 5"For which is easier to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? 6But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins"-he then said to the paralytic-"Rise, take up your bed and go home." TJ 9:5-6 5"Yet, what is easier, to say, 'Your faith has helped you,' or, 'Stand up and walk?' 6So that you may know that I am a person like you and yet know how to use the power of my consciousness through my knowledge, I command the paralytic, 'Get up, pick up your bed and go home.'" TJ 9:5-6 5«Doch was ist leichter zu sagen: Dein Vertrauen hat dir geholfen, oder zu sagen: Stehe auf und wandle? 6Auf dass ihr aber wisset, dass ich ein Mensch bin wie ihr seid, dass ich aber die Kraft meines Bewusstseins durch mein Wissen zu nutzen weiss, so befehle ich dem Gichtbrüchigen: ‹Stehe auf, hebe dein Bett und gehe heim!›» THE PROBLEMS. Concerning 9:6, Beare (p. 222) concluded beyond doubt that the Matthean verse is an editorial addition having the purpose of establishing the precedent for the church to exercise the power of absolution (forgiving sins). In view of this objection, and that already expressed in discussion of Mt 9:2, the sentence: "Your sins are forgiven" can be nothing other than a part of the compiler's redactive theme. Also, where is there any astonishment or puzzlement over the mention or meaning of Son of man? Surely the crowd would have exhibited much wonder over that unless the phrase is just an editorial falsification. Instead, the crowds exhibit fear (two verses later) as if they had understood what the "Son of man" referred to, while the best of today's scholars cannot even agree on its meaning. SOLUTION. The TJ cognates, in dealing with the power of Jmmanuel's spirit or consciousness, are seen to have nothing to do with forgiving sins, and indicate that Beare was correct. Here Jmmanuel indicated that it was the power of his own consciousness plus the man's own trust in the power of his consciousness that had effected the cure. He also tells the scribes he is no god, in performing this mighty act, but a man like them. Presumably Jmmanuel's first question was the more difficult one for a healer to have posed, because the healer must previously have demonstrated his abilities many times over in order for the ailing person to have learned that he could place complete trust in the healer. It is of particular interest that the Matthean verse reads "Son of man" just where the TJ has "I am a person like you." This appears to be the spot where the compiler, in his editing and formation of Matthew, first decided to utilize the "Son of man" phrase, as he certainly could not let stand the TJ's heretical words, "I am a person like you." However, he decided to use it in a somewhat subtle or enigmatic manner in which Jesus does not come right out and admit he is the Son of man. The compiler would then be "correcting" the TJ account involving the power of his spirit while reinforcing the idea that Jesus was the Messiah, since the mystical title "son of man" occurs repeatedly in the Book of Enoch ( 1 Enoch or the Ethopian Enoch), where the Son of man was a figure who was the "chosen one" of the "Lord of Spirits." He would also have known about this same Son of man from Dn 7:13, where it applies to a person of messianic qualities who arrived with "the clouds of heaven" and who was given dominion, glory and kingdom. This solution to the "Son of man" problem is supported by the fact that only once before this verse (at Mt 8:20) did the compiler utilize the phrase, whereas he utilized it 30 times from this point onwards. This is despite the fact that "I" as spoken by Jesus in Matthew occurs 24 times before that point without the phrase having been substituted for it. The "Son of man" phrase moreover appears to be anachronistic. We have no evidence that it was ever applied to Jesus until the Gospel of Matthew came out. In all of Paul's epistles, he never once applied the phrase to Jesus. And in the epistles of Ignatius half a century later the phrase is never used as a title for Jesus. (We find elsewhere that Matthew was not written until some time after Ignatius's death.) This solution also explains the awkward wording of Matthew wherein the narrator has to break into Jesus' speech to explain "he then said to the paralytic." Its writer did not wish Jesus to come right out and admit he was the Son of man, which would have been the result if he had forced Jesus to speak of himself as the Son of man once again in the same sentence, or if he had continued in the TJ's vein and used "I" at this point. Therefore he broke in as the narrator so that he could express it as "he said." We have much evidence here that Matthew is not genuine. We also see that if a literary hoaxer had been involved, the chances are exceedingly slim that he could have foreseen these Matthean problems, fix them up without introducing new problems, and in so doing use wording that explains what prompted the writer of Matthew to start using the "Son of man" expression. Instead, we observe here precisely why and how the writer of Matthew altered the TJ to produce verses acceptable to him. PHoax ¯ 0.1. Mt 9:8 8When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men. TJ 9:8 8When the people saw this, they became fearful and praised the new wondrous teachings of Jmmanuel, which could give such power to human beings. TJ 9:8 8Da das Volk das sah, fürchtete es sich und pries die neue wunderbare Lehre Jmmanuels, die solche Macht den Menschen zu geben vermochte. THE PROBLEMS. The Matthean verse refers back to the authority for forgiving sins of Mt 9:6. Its primary illogic lies in the fact that the preceding narrative, of Jesus healing the man and telling him his sins were forgiven, in no way demonstrated that God had given men this same power or authority. The way the matter stands at the end of this pericope, God had given this authority to heal and forgive sins just to the son of man, who one can only assume was Jesus. What other man or person could have healed the paralytic like that? The usual interpretation, however, as augmented by other passages in the New Testament, is that these verses give certain priests and ministers this authority of absolution. A minor problem is that there had been no previous mention of "crowds," only the mention that "they" had brought the paralytic to Jesus.[3] This indefinite "they" were presumably just the people and their friends who were transporting the paralytic. Although they could well have attracted more people by the time Jesus spoke, it is difficult to understand how they could so quickly have turned into crowds (plural). Thus it very much appears that the writer of Matthew was enhancing the story relative to what he found in his source. The verse is an example of the redactor having made just enough changes to cause the resultant story to be illogical, not just ambiguous. Who is to say which men (or women) have the authority to forgive sins? The illogic would spread if we were to ponder the meaning of having one's sins forgiven: is the sinner more likely or less likely to commit the same sin again after having been told his sins are forgiven? Why didn't Jesus ever explain the significance, if any, of having one's sins forgiven? The fact that such questions have been raised before, over the centuries, makes them no less significant. SOLUTION. With the TJ cognate, the interpretation to be made is that Jmmanuel taught that the same power to heal that he possessed lies within us also (TJ 9:6), if we have the faith and knowledge to unlock this power. The problem that Beare noticed actually constitutes an instance of Matthean "fatigue." The writer of Matthew in Mt 9:6 had altered the TJ's "I am a man like you" into third-person talk by the Son of man. Then in Mt 9:8b he reverted to the TJ text (9:8) that said the authority to heal had been given to humans. To follow through and avoid the problem, he should have altered the latter to say the authority had been given to Jesus, if he hadn't been intent on granting it to the church also. The TJ does not speak of crowds, only of "the people," which refers to whatever number of people happened to have been around to witness the event at the time. However, in Mark's parallel, it is mentioned that many had already been assembled with Jesus at the time the event started. This and additional details in Mark in this pericope could well represent reality, extracted from the document available to the writer of Mark but not available to the writer of Matthew. Davies & Allison, following the mainstream consensus, inferred that the writer of Matthew had abbreviated the Markan account and inadvertently omitted the mention of "crowds" or "the many" early in the story. However, since the document that Peter had carried to Rome, much later utilized by the writer of Mark, had been written very shortly after the events had occurred, detail was richer within this document than in the TJ source, which had been written years later. Thus the TJ must have been more vague in general than "Peter's memoirs," as this document has been called, but the latter only encompassed the contents of Mt 8-11, roughly speaking. Since the TJ's verse is consistent with the surrounding TJ context and does not suffer from the Matthean problems, it is more likely here that the Matthean verse derives from the TJ rather than vice versa. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 9:10-11 10And as he sat at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. 11And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with the tax collectors and sinners?" TJ 9:10-11 10And it came to pass as he was eating at home, behold, many tax collectors, ignorant people and truth seekers came and ate at the table with Jmmanuel and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they spoke to his disciples, "Why is your master eating with the tax collectors and the ignorant?" TJ 9:10-11 10Und es begab sich, als er zu Tische sass zu Hause, siehe, da kamen viele Zöllner und Unwissende und Wahrheitssucher und sassen zu Tische mit Jmmanuel und seinen Jüngern. 11Da das die Pharisäer sahen, sprachen sie zu seinen Jüngern: «Warum isst euer Meister mit den Zöllnern und den Unwissenden?» THE PROBLEM. In Mt 9:10 how would it actually be known who were sinners and who were not? They were all sinners to varying degrees, including Pharisees who were on the scene. This uncertainty arises sufficiently often in the Gospels that the word "sinner" has frequently come to be interpreted to mean the poor-the outcasts. Some New Testament scholars read the word "sinners" and think "the poor." Hence they do not make the above criticism, since the poor were identifiable by their clothing and position in life. However, there was no reason for the writer of Matthew himself to have thought in this manner, and Davies & Allison agree.[4] If so, "sinners" in both Mt 9:10 and 11 must be a redaction. SOLUTION. This problem does not arise with the TJ verse. The uneducated or ignorant people and truth seekers could be identified as those eager to ask Jmmanuel questions. PHoax ¯ 0.35. It may be mentioned that the German TJ text also utilizes the wording "as he sat at table," but this was altered to "as he was eating" in the English translation. It may also be noted that "at home" ("zu Hause" in the German) is used rather than "in the house" ("im Hause"). This probably means that Jmmanuel was then at the home he had been living in during his time in Capernaum, and not at Nazareth. As in Matthew, the TJ (4:52) has him leaving Nazareth and living in Capernaum, after the imprisonment of John the Baptist. Mt 9:13 13"Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." TJ 9:13 13"Go therefore, and recognize the falseness of your wrong teachings, so you do not mislead those people who thirst for the truth." 13 TJ 9:13 «Gehet aber hin und erkennet die Falschheit eurer irrigen Lehren, so ihr damit nicht Menschen irreleitet, die nach der Wahrheit dürsten.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 272) noted that the words "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice," directed to some Pharisees, were brought in from Hosea and are not relevant here. The Hosea verse is: Hos 6:6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice... In some older Bibles, "mercy" is the word used in place of "steadfast love" in the Hosea verse, showing even better the source of the Matthean verse. We may also note that the Hosea citation is unattributed to its source, and this, along with its irrelevance to the context of the previous verses, casts grave doubts upon its genuineness. The last part of the Matthean verse lacks meaning because it contradicts some of what has come earlier. For example, in Mt 5:48 Jesus admonishes his followers to be perfect, as God is perfect. This is most easily interpreted as meaning that he is calling the righteous, not sinners. And in Mt 5:20 he told his disciples that their righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, if they were to enter the kingdom of heaven. Although some theologians may attempt to circumvent this by saying that the "righteousness" involved here is that of orthodox Jewish teaching of the law, or of self-proclaimed righteousness, this nevertheless is the very same "righteousness" used in Mt 5:20. And of course, the "sinners" theme is highly suspect here if only because its occurrences in the earlier portions of this pericope have been found to be due to the compiler's redactions. SOLUTION. The TJ verse is a distant cognate, but in both verses it is Pharisees who are being addressed. Again, the ideas that Pharisees were spreading false teachings, and that people should thirst for truth elsewhere than from temple or church authorities, would have seemed distasteful or heretical to any early church scribe of Jewish or Pharisaic background. There would have been ample motivation for the compiler to edit this. In so doing, his emphasis upon mercy, sin and sinners crept in, producing plagiarism and inconsistency. Could a literary hoaxer have reconstructed the Matthean verse to have produced this TJ verse free from the Matthean problems, and have it be so significant and meaningful? Not likely. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 9:14-15 14Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" 15And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast." TJ 9:14-17 14Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, "Master, why do we and the Pharisees fast while you and your disciples do not?" 15Jmmanuel said to them, "How can the ignorant fast and suffer while they are being taught knowledge? 16And how can the teacher fast when he must teach knowledge to the ignorant? 17Truly, I say to you, your teachings are false if you fast according to a religious dogma; fasting serves only the health of the body and the growth of the consciousness." TJ 9:14-17 14Da kamen die Jünger des Johannes zu ihm und sprachen: «Herr, warum fasten wir und die Pharisäer, und du und deine Jünger fasten nicht?» 15Jmmanuel aber sprach zu ihnen: «Wie können die Unwissenden fasten und Leid tragen, solange sie des Wissens belehrt werden? 16Und wie kann der Lehrer fasten, wenn er die Unwissenden des Wissens belehren muss? 17Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Eure Lehren sind falsch, wenn ihr nach den Gesetzen eines Kultes fastet; das Fasten dient nur der Gesundheit des Leibes und der Bildung des Bewusstseins.» THE PROBLEMS. One expects disciples to follow their lord or master, and surely Jesus' questioners here did also. So they must have wondered why Jesus, and not just his disciples, did not regularly fast. Here was their chance to find out, since they were asking Jesus himself. Yet for no evident reason they just inquire about the lack of fasting of his disciples. Beare (p. 229) observed that there is a problem with the second half of Mt 9:15-it has nothing to do with any normal wedding celebration where the groom remains present along with the bride. Although the saying evidently is meant to portray that Jesus would not long be around, any analogy to a wedding is very poor. Furthermore, Beare noted (p. 231) that the first half of the verse has to do with mourning, not fasting, and thus does not relate well to the preceding verse, Mt 9:14, which relates to fasting and not to mourning. Those who make a practice of fasting periodically do not intend to mourn periodically! SOLUTION. From TJ 9:14 we see that John's disciples did include Jmmanuel, not just his disciples, in their question. A likely reason why the writer of Matthew omitted Jmmanuel/Jesus at this point was because he had invented the long period of fasting for Jesus during the Temptation story, and so it would be too blatantly inconsistent to imply that Jesus did not fast. From the TJ viewpoint, judging from its cognate verses, TJ 9:14-17, we conclude that Mt 9:15 is a hastily contrived substitution designed to remove any mention of the value of knowledge and growth or evolution of the consciousness or spirit. Fasting is a frequent feature of spiritual practice, which Jmmanuel evidently did engage in from time to time, willingly if not otherwise during short periods when food was unavailable. An earlier TJ verse mentions its benefits a bit more: TJ 6:26 26"You fast for the sake of your health and for the expansion of your consciousness, spirit and your knowledge." TJ 6:26 26«Du fastest ja um deiner Gesundheit willen und um die Erweiterung deines Bewusstseins und deines Geistes und Wissens.» The TJ verses are more coherent than the Matthean verses, making better sense and relating well to their previous verse. (Concerning a modern awareness about learning and teaching, we may note that though the brain occupies only 2% of the body's weight, it consumes 20% of its oxygen and caloric intake. And concerning TJ 9:16, and example of this comes from U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 20, 2003, in an article discussing the Depression: "For want of money, schools in Dayton, OH, opened only three days a week in January [1933]. In Georgia, more than 1,000 schools were closed. In Chicago, teachers toiled without pay, sme fainting in classrooms for lack of food.") The TJ enables us to discern that the writer of Matthew altered its context of periodic fasting for the sake of spiritual benefit into one of fasting as a part of mourning. This in turn allowed him to obliquely allude to the mourning that would occur after Jesus (the bridegroom) would no longer be around. It is quite improbable that a literary hoaxer could have hit upon the TJ's line of thought here and carried it out so effectively. PHoax ¯ 0.20. Mt 9:16 16"And no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made." TJ 9:18 18"No one mends an old garment with a new patch of cloth, because the patch will tear again from the garment, and the rip will become worse." TJ 9:18 18«Niemand flickt ein altes Kleid mit einem neuen Lappen Tuchs, denn der Lappen reisst doch wieder vom Kleid, und der Riss wird ärger.» THE PROBLEM. Here the only problem is one of why this and the similar following verse were placed at this spot within Matthew. They seem to have no connection to the preceding discussion of the bridegroom, and to fasting and mourning. Beare (pp. 231-232) did not know the answer either, and he and other scholars could only speculate on what the possible interpretations of Mt 9:16-17 might be, while allowing that the two verses were not even connected to their preceding verses. SOLUTION. With the preceding TJ verses (TJ 9:15-17, above) in mind, which the writer of Matthew had omitted, an answer to this problem does emerge. Mending an old garment with a new patch would be like fasting for the wrong reason-a reason that does not serve the growth of the spirit. The old garment only becoming worse a short while later then corresponds to the spiritual condition of the ignorant becoming worse through fasting that serves only a religious cult rather than furthering their spiritual growth. Since the TJ verse makes sense in its context while the Matthean verse does not, this verse comparison does lend some small weight to Matthew being dependent upon the TJ. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 9:22 22Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." And instantly the woman was made well. TJ 9:24 24Then Jmmanuel turned around and saw her, and he said, "Be comforted, your faith has helped you," and the woman was well from that hour on. TJ 9:24 24Da wandte sich Jmmanuel um und sah sie und sprach: «Sei getrost, dein Vertrauen hat dir geholfen,» und die Frau ward gesund von Stunde an. DISCUSSION. This is a verse from the pericope of the healing of the woman with the hemorrhage. The only difference between the two verses is that in Matthew Jesus calls her "daughter." One may suspect that the motivation for this was the same as in Mt 9:2 (see above) where "my son" occurs. And since the word "daughter" occurs (in its normal contextual usage) just three verses earlier, this may have reminded the writer that he could add this fatherly touch here, too. The apparent difference between "instantly" and "that hour" is only apparent, because in the preferred Greek text "that hour," not "instantly," is also used. Mt 9:27-33 27And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, "Have mercy on us, Son of David.".... 33And when the demon had been cast out, the dumb man spoke.... TJ 9:29-36 29As Jmmanuel left and continued on from there, a blind man followed him, crying, "O Lord, you son of wisdom and knowledge who can use the power of your consciousness, take pity on me.".... 36And after the evil self-created delusional entities were cast out, behold, the [two] mutes could speak. TJ 9:29-36 29Und als Jmmanuel von dannen weiterging, folgte ihm ein Blinder nach und schrie: «Ach Herr, du Sohn der Weisheit und des Wissens, der du die Kraft deines Bewusstseins zu nutzen vermagst, erbarme dich meiner.» ...36Und da die bösen Selbstwahnwesen waren ausgetrieben, siehe, da redeten die Stummen. THE PROBLEM. This is the story of Jesus restoring sight to two blind men, followed by his restoring speech to one mute. Beare (p. 236) concluded that it is a doublet because of its similarity to the sight-restoring story of Mt 20:29-34. He felt that neither was original with Matthew. If so, Matthew altered the one blind beggar of Mark into two in both stories. Here we shall not jump to Beare's conclusion, but agree that the story at least contains one redaction, because of its use of "Son of David," which, under discussion of Mt 12:23, 21:9 and 22:42, we shall find to be an anachronistic phrase. SOLUTION. There are TJ parallels to both Matthean stories. But in the first parallel, TJ 9:29-36, there is only one blind man whose sight is restored instead of the two in Matthew, while there are two deaf mutes restored, not just the one in Matthew. The second part of what Beare calls a doublet, referring to Mt 20:29-34, more closely parallels the TJ (21:1-9), with the TJ's healing in Jericho occurring to two blind men, as in Matthew. Beare believed both healings in Matthew were based upon Mk 10:46-52 involving the one blind man. A solution to this doublet problem, consistent with the TJ, starts with the compiler of Matthew faithfully transcribing both sight-restoration miracles from the TJ. The healing miracles, along with the geographical settings, do seem to have been more faithfully reproduced by him than anything else. Thus, Matthew's gospel, at this stage written in Hebrew or Aramaic, pictured one blind man in the first miracle and two in the second. Next, we come to the writer of Mark in Rome, while he was making heavy use of Semitic Matthew and at times inserting details from the document available to him, known today as "Peter's Memoirs" (or proto- Mark), which paralleled material within Mt 8-11.[5] He decided to include the first of the two blind-man stories among the several verse groupings from proto-Mark he would transplant into a later location in his gospel. (He made several such transplants, apparently in order to disguise the point at which his heavy reliance upon Matthew commenced (Mt 12), and to homogenize the detail within his gospel as a whole, so that the proto-Mark portion with its greater detail would not all be concentrated into one small portion of his gospel.) In relocating the one-blind-man story, the writer of Mark noticed that if he were to transplant it right into Matthew's second sight-restoration miracle to take its place, this would have several advantages. It would avoid placing two sight-restoring miracles close together, which might look too suspiciously like editing. The substitution could be done simply without his worrying about whether or not the geographic setting would have to be altered. He would only have to change the two blind men to one, and put in the man's name, available to him from proto-Mark. It would thus put greater detail into the story he extracted from Matthew and help demonstrate the primacy of his gospel, which utilized pieces from proto-Mark. So, Matthew's story of the two blind men near Jericho became Mark's story of the one blind man near Jericho whose name, Bartimaeus, had been recorded by Judas in his stolen writing (proto-Mark) that was later recovered by Peter, but the name had been forgotten by Judas by the time he later wrote the TJ. The main clues suggesting that the writer of Mark derived this one blind-man story in his gospel from proto- Mark and then tampered with it, aside from the TJ, are the presence of the man's name and the explanation to his gentile readers in Rome that Bartimaeus means "son of Timaeus." In redacting this area, then, it is suggested here that the writer of Mark first edited the two blind men into one, and then edited in his name, Bartimaeus, at the beginning of the story. When the custodians of Matthew's gospel in Ephesus or Antioch or Jerusalem learned of this, they would have been greatly upset that in Mark the two blind men of Mt 20:29-34 had been altered into one. They could figure out what the writer of Mark had done, because their own Semitic gospel, at Mt 9:27-31, referred to the one blind man. So, in retaliation, the translator who converted Semitic Matthew into Greek altered this one blind man into two and, in redress of that, changed the number of mute people from two into one. This alteration served to emphasize that Mark's one blind man really should have been two; at the same time it did not devalue Matthew's gospel, since restoring sight to two men and speech to one man was, if anything, a more impressive miracle than restoring speech to two and sight to one. The earliest, Hebraic version of Matthew was then not given further distribution, and was phased out of circulation in favor of the new Greek version, which contained several other significant alterations or additions. Obviously, a solution of this nature could scarcely have been imagined, coming from a literary hoaxer or anyone else, without having a copy of the source for Hebraic Matthew on hand; i.e., the TJ. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 9:35 35And Jesus went about the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity. TJ 9:42 42Jmmanuel went about in all the cities and villages, taught in their synagogues and preached the mystery of Creation and of the laws of nature, so that the consciousness could attain omnipotence. TJ 9:42 42Und Jmmanuel ging umher in alle Städte und Dörfer, lehrte in ihren Synagogen und predigte das Geheimnis der Schöpfung und der Gesetze der Natur, so das Bewusstsein zur Allmacht gelange. THE PROBLEMS. As Beare noted (p. 237), this verse repeats Mt 4:23 word for word except that "the cities and villages" replaces "Galilee" and "Jesus" replaces "he." Although he did not come right out and say it, the obvious conclusion, in a sentence of this length, is that one of these two verses is an editorial repeat of the other. Since this one comes five chapters after the other, it is suspect of being modeled after the earlier one. Again we see the phrase "their synagogues." The same criticism then applies as before (see under Mt 4:23): Why is this written from an outsider's point of view? And criticism should be leveled against the phrase "gospel of the kingdom," since Jesus never explains what this gospel is or consists of. SOLUTION. Although TJ 9:42 is similar to TJ 4:60, which Mt 4:23 parallels, its wording is significantly different. In particular, there is no mention of healing of diseases and infirmities here in TJ 9:42. In omitting the TJ's mention of what it was that Jmmanuel taught and why, the writer of Matthew fell back upon the very language he had used earlier, in Mt 4:23. Thus he again failed to supply clues as to what the gospel of the kingdom entailed. And once again, "their synagogues" stemmed from the TJ verse, as written by Judas Iscariot in collaboration with Jmmanuel either while on the Silk Road to India or after reaching India. Again the TJ impressively avoids the Matthean problems. However, its final clause may be misleading. One's spirit presumably does not reach omnipotence during just one lifetime of learning, no matter how outstanding that lifetime may be, but only reaches towards the omnipotence of Creation in lifetime after lifetime, judging from the rest of the TJ. (E.g., see TJ 34:5-16.) PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 9:37-10:1a 37Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." 1And he called to him his twelve disciples... TJ 9:45-10:1a 45Then he spoke to his disciples, "The harvest is great, but there are few laborers to bring it in. 46Seek and pray in your consciousness that more laborers will be found for the harvesting." 47And so it came to pass that workers for the harvest were found, who gathered around Jmmanuel to become disciples. 1He called his twelve disciples to him... TJ 9:45-10:1a 45Da sprach er zu seinen Jüngern: «Die Ernte ist gross, aber wenige sind der Arbeiter, sie einzubringen. 46Suchet und betet in eurem Bewusstsein, dass sich weitere Arbeiter für die Ernte finden.» 47So geschah also, dass sich Arbeiter für die Ernte fanden, die sich zu Jüngern um Jmmanuel sammelten. 1Und er rief seine zwölf Jünger zu sich... THE PROBLEMS. It is not at all clear that the disciples would have known who the "Lord of the harvest" was, to pray to. Jesus had not used that term before, but instead had used "God" and "your Father." And the phrase is not used again in Matthew. The disciples had not yet, moreover, been told about the Final Judgment and so they would not have associated "harvest" with God's separation of good people from evil people in that final time. Although the writer of Matthew probably knew of, or formed, the phrase from Jer 2:3 ("Israel was holy to the LORD, the first fruits of his harvest..."), that verse goes on to say that all those who ate of this harvest became guilty. So the disciples would have needed instructions on what/who to pray for/to. If the harvest referred to Jesus getting the gospel of the kingdom across to the people so that they might accept it, why then did Jesus not refer to it as his own harvest? Why is there no follow-up to this verse? These laborers, if they were attained, seem to have been distinct from the twelve disciples mentioned in the next verse. There was no need or motivation for an original writer to have written a verse like Mt 9:38 if he had no thoughts as to whether the laborers were acquired and the harvest was successful or not. Yet the verse is there, suggesting that perhaps the writer of Matthew omitted a follow-up sentence from his source document. And why is there no mention, antecedent to the listing of the disciples of Mt 10:1, of how or when the additional seven disciples (besides Peter and Andrew, James and John, and Matthew) were acquired? SOLUTION. The TJ has no strange "Lord of the harvest" phrase. There, the disciples are to direct their prayers for (more) laborers to their consciousness, as is consistent with TJ 6:7-8. And in TJ 9:47 we see that there was a follow-up to the prayer request, and that the latter was successful. The TJ indicates, moreover, that some, if not all, of the additional laborers who were found became disciples, and that their number had become twelve by that point. The key difference in wording here is that in the TJ verse more laborers are prayed for, indicating that the disciples were the laborers who were too few, not yet being twelve in number, while in Matthew the prayer is just for "laborers" to send out. Thus the next verse, TJ 10:1, closely paralleled by Matthew 10:1, continues on to spell out the number and names of the disciples, now that they had reached their final total. This is the first time the disciples are referred to as being twelve in number. It makes sense that Jmmanuel would explain the disciples' mission to them soon after they had reached their full complement-twelve. In the TJ, "harvest" quite evidently refers to those who hear, understand and accept Jmmanuel's teachings (see TJ 14:23; also TJ 15:8 and its parallel, Mt 13:8), and "harvesting" to the disciples' efforts to help get his teachings across to the people. And in the TJ, it is referred to as "the" harvest, not God's harvest. It seems likely that the writer of Matthew omitted TJ 9:47 because he had pictured all twelve disciples as having already been selected, since at Mt 9:10,11,14,19,37 and their TJ cognates they are referred to as "his disciples" or "your disciples." This could imply twelve if one's mind has already desired or assumed them to be twelve in number by this point. Since the writer desired that in the "new world" the twelve disciples be seated in judgment of the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt 19:28), he likely thought of the twelve as having been chosen equally by God within a minimal period of time, rather than being acquired at three or more disparate times, with the last-acquired group having been gained only through the prayerful efforts of the previous or higher ranking disciples. This problem for him he then tried to solve by omitting TJ 9:46 and altering 9:45 slightly. The writer of Mark avoided this problem by omitting Mt 9:37-38, and by having Jesus appoint twelve disciples (Mk 3:14) all at one time. However, in so doing he added an awkward twist: he appointed the twelve only after "his disciples" had already been with him for some time. Thus, it is not clear if all the disciples that had already been gathered by this time were included within the twelve who were appointed. In Matthew, only after more laborers had been harvested was it stated that the number of disciples was twelve. The writer of Luke solved the problem in Lk 6:13 by following the lead of Mark, though he avoided some of Mark's awkwardness by making it clear that 12 apostles were chosen out of a much larger number of disciples. Although he utilized Mt 9:37-38, it was in the later context of a second choosing of disciples, this time seventy or seventy-two (Lk 10:1). The fact that the TJ verses do not suffer from the Matthean problems, while introducing a new solution, in an inconspicuous manner, to the problem of when/where Jmmanuel picked up his final several disciples, allows little chance of a 20th-century hoaxer being involved here. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Upon accumulating the estimated probabilities that the TJ is a hoax from the TJ-Mt 9 verse comparisons alone, we find a summary probability of 2.9 x 10-5. That is, the odds this chapter could have been written by a hoaxer is judged to be only one in about 34 thousand. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 10 REFERENCES 1. In the 1996 TJ, the German word Gichtbrüchigen was translated as "man suffering from gout" when "paralytic" would have been preferable. 2. Davies, W. D. and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), p. 90. 3. Davies & Allison, A Critical Commentary, vol. 2, p. 95. 4. Davies & Allison, A Critical Commentary, vol. 2, p. 100. 5. This proto-Mark is discussed in much greater detail in Deardorff, The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992), pp. 23-62. See also this link. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 10 Mt 10:2 2The names of the twelve apostles are these: ... TJ 10:2 2These are the names of the twelve disciples: ... TJ 10:2 2Die Namen aber der zwölf Jünger sind diese: ... THE PROBLEM. This is the only Matthean reference to the word "apostle," which comes from the Greek word: αποστολο, meaning "person sent out." There is no evidence that the word existed as a designation of the Twelve before the establishment of the early church. The word "apostles" should not appear in any contemporary writing of Jesus' ministry, and its occurrence here indicates that Matthew was written at a time after the need had developed to distinguish between the first 12 disciples (who were later called apostles) and greater numbers of later disciples. SOLUTION. The very close TJ cognate above uses the word "disciple." Like English, German has separate words for "disciple" and "apostle." Although this may be a minor point, it is major in the following context. If the word "apostles" had been present in the TJ it would be pointed out by critics as evidence of a hoax. An original Aramaic document written by a disciple who, with Jmmanuel and two others, left Israel a couple years after the crucifixion, ending up in northern India some 10 years later, should not contain this word originated later by Greek- speaking Christians. The word had not yet been used to designate one of the Twelve at the time Paul wrote his epistles. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 10:5-6 5These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." TJ 10:5 5Jmmanuel sent forth these twelve, commanding them and saying, "Do not go into the streets of Israel, and do not go to the scribes and Pharisees, but go into the cities of the Samaritans and to the ignorant in all parts of the world." TJ 10:5 5Diese zwölf sandte Jmmanuel aus, gebot ihnen und sprach: «Gehet nicht auf Israels Strassen, und ziehet nicht zu den Schriftgelehrten und Pharisäern, sondern gehet hin zu der Samariter Städte und zu den Unwissenden in allen Himmelsrichtungen in aller Welt.» THE PROBLEM. The advice in Matthew here contradicts that of the final two verses in Matthew, causing many scholars to circumvent the problem by proposing that the living Jesus preached one thing while the risen Jesus preached another. Beare (p. 242) found it nearly inconceivable that Jesus would have needed to urge his apostles not to go to the gentiles. It would be easy for them not to risk venturing out of their own land; they would not have to be told not to go out. He thus concluded that these words arose from those within the early Palestinian church who did not wish to extend the Christian mission outside of Israel. This is consistent with other Matthean verses that refer to gentiles in a demeaning sense and as being unworthy of discipleship. SOLUTION. This observation by Beare, which the TJ is seen to support, is quite perceptive. The compiler of Matthew simply reversed the original meaning, because he favored converting only the children of Israel, not gentiles. A somewhat later Matthean verse further supports the TJ rendition. There the disciples are told by Jesus: Mt 10:18 18"And you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles." This verse is almost the same in the TJ. It strongly suggests that Jmmanuel had instructed his disciples to preach to the gentiles; otherwise, if they were to restrict their teaching to Israel they would never be in danger of being dragged before the rulers of gentile nations. Thus it appears that the compiler of Matthew altered the sentence of TJ 10:5 to suit his taste of placing Israelites above the gentiles, but overlooked the fact that Mt 10:18 would then be inconsistent. The verses of Mt 12:17-22 and 28:18-20, which contradict Mt 10:5, are discussed later as being late additions to the Gospel of Matthew, added probably at the time Semitic Matthew was translated into Greek. TJ 10:5 is consistent with its instruction of going to the Samaritans but not going to the Israelites, as according to some writings of Josephus, and judging from Jn 4:9, there was a good deal of animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans even though the latter shared many Jewish customs. Thus, if Jmmanuel felt that his new teachings would not be accepted by Jewish scribes and Pharisees, and therefore not by Israelites in general, he could well have believed they would stand a better chance of acceptance with the Samaritans. That the writer of Matthew is seen to have changed this around suggests that anti-Samaritan and anti-gentile feelings still existed within some persons of Jewish background up to at least the early 2nd century, as indicated also by the aforementioned verse in the Gospel of John. Mt 10:5-6 and 10:18 together form an example of Matthean "fatigue." I.e., the writer of Matthew first altered the TJ verse into a different meaning, then 12 verses later followed the TJ verse without making any significant change, thus producing a gross inconsistency. The fact that the Matthean verse suffers a serious inconsistency while the TJ verse is consistent with its own text strongly suggests that Matthew is non-historical here while the TJ may therefore be historical. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 10:7 7"And preach as you go, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" TJ 10:7 7"Go out and preach and say, 'The laws of nature are the laws of Creation, and the power of the Creational consciousness within human beings embodies life.'" TJ 10:7 7«Gehet also hin und prediget und sprechet: ‹Die Gesetze der Natur sind die Gesetze der Schöpfung, und die Kraft des schöpferischen Menschenbewusstseins verkörpert das Leben›» . THE PROBLEM. This "kingdom of heaven is at hand" saying was given twice before in Matthew, at 3:2 and 4:17, but its meaning was never explained to the disciples. And Jesus hadn't yet preached on what the kingdom of heaven is like. So the disciples could hardly go out and preach on what they did not understand. At Mt 3:2 it might have meant that Jesus was coming soon, but then later it must have meant that, through Jesus, heaven would now be attainable. However, Mt 10:8 suggests a meaning of the disciples being able to perform miraculous healings-of bringing heaven to earth-like Jesus did. Matthew's later parables about the kingdom of heaven being like a mustard seed, like a man sowing seed, like leaven, or like a net, etc., bring in still more possible meanings. The repetition and ambiguity together suggest the verse is a redaction by the compiler of Matthew. Additionally, since Mt 4:17, which this verse largely repeats, was found to be a redaction, it is only consistent that this one also is a redaction. SOLUTION. The TJ indicates that unacceptable material, relating to nature and to Creation, needed to be omitted by the compiler at this point, but that it needed substitution if he was to continue following along the TJ's general course of events. So he substituted a favorite saying of his about the "kingdom of heaven," a phrase that does not appear in the TJ. As was noted in discussion of Mt 5:7, the idea of learning from nature or from the world around us was alien to Jewish thought, in which one's learning was to come from the Scriptures. Since the Matthean verse has been strongly indicated to be non-genuine, and since it is unlikely that a literary hoaxer could have remedied the Matthean problem through such a competent encapsulation of Jmmanuel's teachings, I estimate here that PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 10:9-10 9"Take no gold, nor silver, nor copper in your belts, 10no bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor a staff; for the laborer deserves his food." TJ 10:9-13 9"You shall not amass gold, silver or copper in your belts. 10Also, on your travels you shall not take large bags with you in which to carry food, water and clothing. 11Go on your way with only the bare essentials for eating and sleeping, for keeping yourselves clean, and for a change of clothing. 12Never carry too much with you, because you would only burden yourselves and become welcome victims of waylaying bandits. 13Remember furthermore, all labor is worthy of its reward, and you will not be wanting if you diligently preach and teach the true knowledge." TJ 10:9-13 9«Ihr sollet nicht Gold noch Silber noch Kupfer in euren Gürteln häufen. 10Auch sollet ihr keine grossen Taschen mit euch tragen zur Wegfahrt, darinnen ihr Speis und Trank und Kleidung mit euch tragen könnet. 11Ziehet nur weg mit dem Allernötigsten, so ihr unterwegs essen und schlafen könnet, und so ihr euch säubern und anders einkleiden könnet. 12Traget nie zuviel mit euch, denn ihr belastet euch nur und wäret willkommene Opfer der Wegelagerer. 13Bedenket weiter; jede Arbeit ist ihres Lohnes wert, und so ihr fleissig prediget und das Wissen lehret, also wird euch nichts mangeln.» THE PROBLEM. Matthew's advice is very foolhardy-taking nothing. No one would think of following it. Beare, in an earlier study, asks, "Why should men setting out on a journey afoot be forbidden to carry a staff (the common practice of the time)?"[1] And why not sandals, at least, for the feet? SOLUTION. The TJ advice in its 10:9-10 is much more logical, with moderation urged for efficiency and practicality. Not to amass gold or silver in their moneybelts is quite different from not taking along any money. In the TJ there is no mention of not carrying a staff or not wearing sandals. Matthew's final clause, "for the laborer deserves his food," may appear to be a separate maxim, but the TJ text in 10:13 indicates that it (Mt 10:10b) derived from a verse having a relevant context. The redactions almost surely were made by the compiler to demonstrate a further similarity of the disciples (Jesus' messengers of the new Christian era) with Moses (God's messenger of old). In particular, in Ex 3:22 Moses is told that his people should ask the Egyptians for silver and gold, implying that they need not earn it themselves or carry money around with them. In Ex 3:5, Moses was told (by the angel, or Yahweh, or God) to take off his shoes, and in Ex 4:2-3 to cast his staff onto the ground. These are the interpretations of Robert Morosco,[2] and though any one of them might seem to be a far-fetched deduction, taken together and in tandem with the redactions of Matthew's chapter 2 designed to compare Jesus favorably with Moses, they are very plausible. Thus, it was the compiler of Matthew, not the scholar Morosco, who strained hard to insert Moses into this part of the gospel. The TJ verses are very consistent with instructions of a wisdom teacher some 1,975 years ago, while the Matthean verses show every evidence of having been derived from them, with the motivations being apparent for the changes that were made. PHoax ¯ 0.25. The writer of Mark (Mk 6:9) rectified Matthew's most impractical advice of not taking sandals along, saying, "...but to wear sandals." This would have been totally unnecessary advice to have doled out in real life, and thus appears as a correction to Matthew's redaction. Mt 10:15 15"Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town." TJ 10:18 18"Truly, I say to you, do not stay in such places, because they are abodes of the ignorant and evil; people there will not recognize the words of truth and knowledge." TJ 10:18 18«Wahrlich, ich sage euch: In solchen Orten sollet ihr nicht verweilen, denn sie sind Stätten von Unwissenden und Bösen; die Menschen werden die Reden der Wahrheit und des Wissens nicht erkennen.» THE PROBLEM. This verse immediately follows the advice to the disciples to shun a house that does not wish to receive them or hear them. If some household rejected the disciples, it would make no sense for the whole town to receive divine condemnation because of it. In the Genesis story about Sodom, supposedly all its inhabitants or men were wicked, leading the LORD to destroy it, but the situation envisioned in Mt 10:14-15 makes no mention of a whole town rejecting the disciples. SOLUTION. In the TJ verse, "such places" refer to homes where the occupants won't listen to the disciples. If taken out of context and order, the verse would not be listed as the cognate to the Matthean verse that it otherwise appears to be. It seems quite likely that the TJ's mention of "evil" brought the Sodom and Gomorrah scriptural event to the mind of the writer of Matthew, which he then incorporated into his text to substitute for unacceptable TJ thoughts. This, plus the fatuous nature of the Matthean verse as opposed to the practical advice of the TJ verse, point in the direction of the TJ's verse as having been spoken by a wisdom teacher: PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 10:18 18"and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles." TJ 10:30 30"And you will be led before sovereigns and kings because of my teachings, as witnesses to them and to all other ignorant people." TJ 10:30 30«Und man wird euch vor Fürsten und Könige führen um meiner Lehre willen, ihnen und allen andern Unwissenden zum Zeugnis.» THE PROBLEM. Why would the disciples be subject to being dragged before non-Judaistic sovereigns and gentiles? In Mt 10:5 they were charged with going nowhere amongst the gentiles. Although one might attempt to avoid this problem by claiming that the resurrected Jesus had changed his mind about gentiles, a teacher of wisdom would not suffer such a flip-flop in basic philosophy. SOLUTION. Here the writer of Matthew slipped up. It would seem that he inserted "gentiles" in order to portray them in a bad light, and then forgot that his earlier alteration at Mt 10:5 (Go nowhere among the gentiles) would stand in contradiction. In the TJ Jmmanuel never instructs his disciples to avoid gentile lands. This verse is also discussed under Mt 10:5-6. (PHoax ¯ 0.35 for both sets of verses lumped together.) In the TJ verse, the word "ignorant" stems from the German "Unwissend," and might better be translated as "uninformed" or "unenlightened." Mt 10:21 21"Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death;" TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This is spoken by Jesus to his disciples as he first sends them out, and thus appears to be a short-range prophecy. Beare (p. 245) did not believe it was uttered by Jesus, due to the difficulty in visualizing that such severe family conflict would have risen so soon over his teachings. The implication is that the verse therefore reflects what the compiler could see occurring in his own time, so he inserted it as a "prophecy" he knew to have come true. It appears to be an insertion for the additional reason that in the verses just before and just after it, Jesus is speaking to his disciples, warning them, while this verse breaks the train of thought by being a warning addressed to members of families in general, not specifically to the disciples. SOLUTION. From the TJ viewpoint this verse appears as a somewhat isolated insert, thus supporting Beare's analysis. PHoax ¯ 0.45. I.e., if a literary hoaxer were involved, he might have copied the Matthean verse. Mt 10:22 22"and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved." TJ 10:33 33"And you will come to be hated for the sake of my teachings. But those who persevere to the end will be great." TJ 10:33 33«Und ihr müsset gehasset werden um meiner Lehre willen; wer aber bis ans Ende beharret, der wird gross sein.» THE PROBLEM. As noted under discussion of Mt 7:21-22, "for my name's sake" is a redaction because it is an anachronistic phrase. For a further problem, see under Mt 24:13, which is a doublet. SOLUTION. We see that the writer of Matthew wished to minimize Jesus' role as a teacher relative to his role as a savior figure whose name, expressed in worship, could bring about salvation. The TJ's second sentence is a bit of prophecy, with the meaning that those disciples who endure continued persecutions will have become greater in spirit. However, this does not seem to have been any urging towards martyrdom, coming as it does just before the advice to flee to another city if persecuted, in TJ 10:34. [PHoax ¯ 0.4.] Mt 10:23 23"When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel, before the Son of man comes." TJ 10:34-35 34"When they persecute you in one city, however, flee to another. 35Do not go to too much trouble with the cities of Israel, for truly, I say to you, you will get nowhere with the people of Israel until the end of the world." TJ 10:34-35 34«Wenn sie euch aber in einer Stadt verfolgen, so fliehet in eine andere. 35Mit den Städten Israels begebet euch nicht in zu grosse Mühe, denn wahrlich, ich sage euch: Mit dem Volk Israel werdet ihr nicht zu Ende kommen bis an das Weltende.» THE PROBLEM. The quite different theme of the last part of Mt 10:23 from the first part is quite evident. Beare (p. 245), for one, picked up on this, and did not believe that the Parousia theme, the Second Coming of Jesus, belongs here in the last part of the verse. Beare could find no compelling reason why Jesus himself would have imagined that the Parousia would occur so soon as in the next few weeks or months-an estimated length of time to travel through the towns of Israel then-while preaching; nor could Borg.[3] SOLUTION. TJ verse 10:35 contains much motivation for alteration by a Jewish Christian. The prophecy that the Israelites would be the last to accept Jmmanuel's teachings, whether or not the compiler had come to accept this, would have grated against his past Jewish loyalties, and he would not desire such a prophecy within his book designed to attract the "lost sheep of the house of Israel" to Christianity. He again appears to have obeyed a guideline of redacting the minimum necessary to remove the heretical or unpleasant material. In this instance, it might be said that too little was redacted, leaving behind illogic, which Beare and many others have noted. It is interesting that a guideline of "redact the minimum necessary" is close to what Richard Friedman has found to have been operative during ancient editings of the Old Testament books. In that case he found the guideline to be "retain as much of the original texts as possible without intolerable contradictions."[4] The illogic of Mt 10:23 has caused much anguish for Christians over its interpretation in past decades. It has often been pointed out that if it means the Second Coming would occur very soon, before disciples could finish preaching across the land of Israel, the prophecy may truly have been spoken, but Jesus was wrong. If it is instead a redaction, why would the redactor insert at the later date a statement that should have been demonstrably false to him by then? This remains an enigma. The speculation I favor emphasizes the great importance of the contemporary time to the people of any era, as opposed to either their past or their distant future. For example, we shall see, in discussing Mt 27:8 and 28:15, that the redactor sometimes used a phrase like "such and such persists to this day" in describing what was otherwise supposedly written from the viewpoint of a first-hand observer over a half-century earlier. The editor then seems to have forgotten that what he was adding was supposed to have been written from an earlier viewpoint. Thus, the speculation here is that the redactor, when rewriting so much of the original document, sometimes thought of his own present time as the reference point, and was thinking of the Second Coming as something that would still occur soon within the church's future.[5] He equated the TJ's "end of the world" to the Second Coming. In the TJ, "end of the world" probably meant the period of horrendous calamities to befall earthlings of Jmmanuel's distant future, as prophesied in TJ 25 and some of its parallels in Mt 24, rather than the much, much more distant demise of the Earth and solar system. We see that the TJ verse is consistent with its sub-theme of not spending much time trying to bring Jmmanuel's teachings to the Israelites, and of not trusting the teachings of the scribes and Pharisees. We also see how it prompted the redactor's changes, with the last half of the Matthean verse looking almost like a very bad translation of TJ 10:35. The redactor's equating of "end of the world" with the Second Coming is straightforward and not unexpected, while for a hoaxer to have gone the other direction seems less likely, especially starting with the "towns of Israel" thought. PHoax ¯ 0.35. If one examines the Gospel of Mark where it parallels this general area of Matthew, one finds that Mark's writer omitted this illogical statement in Matthew, thereby making an improvement. Mt 10:24-26 24"A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master; 25it is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household. 26So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known." TJ 10:36-40 36"The disciple is never above the teacher, nor the servant above the master. 37It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master. 38If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they malign those of his household? 39Therefore, beware of Israel because it is like a festering boil. 40However, do not be afraid of them, because there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed and nothing secret that will not be known." TJ 10:36-40 36«Der Jünger ist niemals über dem Meister noch der Knecht über seinem Herrn. 37Es ist dem Jünger genug, dass er sei wie sein Meister, und der Knecht wie sein Herr. 38Haben sie den Hausvater Beelzebub geheissen, wieviel mehr werden sie seine Hausgenossen so heissen. 39Darum hütet euch vor Israel, denn es ist wie ein Eitergeschwür. 40Fürchtet euch jedoch nicht vor ihnen, denn es ist nichts verborgen, was nicht offenbar werde, und nichts ist heimlich, was man nicht wissen werde.» THE PROBLEM. The immediately preceding Matthean verses describe the brutal treatment the disciples might expect to receive if they did not flee from persecution, and verses 24-25 indicate that the disciples could be in store for at least as much defamation as their master. Mt 10:26, however, states that therefore ("so") the disciples should not fear those who would inflict this upon them. This does not follow logically; the master's household-the disciples-should then really fear being maligned. "Therefore" needs to come after its explanatory text, not before. Did the writer of Matthew omit something in his source? SOLUTION. The Matthean verses here parallel the TJ verses very well, except that they omit the TJ verse that's harsh against Israel: TJ 10:39, save for using its word "therefore" (translated in the RSV Bible as "So"). This omitted verse again warns the disciples to beware. Beware of those who would do this, referring to Israelites who could not accept his teachings and who would malign the disciples. TJ 10:40 then continues with "However, do not be afraid of them." So Jmmanuel distinguishes between precautionary avoidance of those who would inflict violence or make unjust accusations, and fear of those who would do this. Actual fear may be unavoidable if or after the disciple is arrested or accosted, but should otherwise be suppressed. It is not surprising, of course, that the writer of Matthew would omit TJ 10:39, as he was very much a Jew at heart. The verse is consistent with other TJ verses, including the "Woe to" verses, in which Jmmanuel excoriates Pharisees and chief priests for their false teachings, but here goes further in tending to chastise Israelites in general for accepting those teachings. The above "therefore" problem with Matthew is not recognized as being such by NT scholars, yet it is one by logical standards. A literary hoaxer is not very likely to have thought of it. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 10:28 28"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." TJ 10:42 42"Do not be afraid of evil slander, nor fear those who take life and limb." TJ 10:42 42«Fürchtet euch nicht vor üblen Nachreden, noch fürchtet euch vor denen, die Leib und Leben töten.» THE PROBLEM. Beare rightly found Matthew's discussion about killing or destroying a soul to be strange; he found the thought that God could kill a soul in hell to be "anomalous." His criticism boils down to the fact that there are no other teachings in Matthew that would confirm or shed light on these statements. With this reasoning we see only illogic in Jesus making statements to his disciples that could have no meaning for them. SOLUTION. The TJ cognate is quite different, and does not contain the illogic of one's soul being capable of being "killed." It is possible that the writer of Matthew thought of a soul that is dispatched to Hades as but a "shadowy existence" of its former self (Beare, p. 248) and thus no longer worthy of being called a soul like the souls that would survive to be resurrected. More likely, however, he thought that souls could indeed somehow be killed, because in 1 Enoch (Chap. 108) it speaks of the total doing away, eventually, of those who have done evil through their spirits being "slain." Hence the compiler's confused thinking about the soul and afterlife caused the problem. The TJ's statement of not fearing those who take life and limb is consistent with Jmmanuel's teachings of reincarnation. However, other statements by him (e.g., TJ 10:20-21, 17:17) indicate very strongly that you should nevertheless take precautions to preserve your life against any who might wrongfully wish to kill or capture you. This suggests that Jmmanuel made a distinction between fearing evil and avoiding evil. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 10:29-31 29"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will... 31Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. The three verses here pertain to the value of humans versus sparrows. Beare (p. 248) commented that this punch-line verse is not very reassuring, when the value of a sparrow has been rated so low. Also, what would cause the writer of Matthew to suddenly inject the thought of a bird falling to the ground? SOLUTION. The compiler of Matthew is with good reason usually considered to have been a Jewish Christian,[6] and quite possibly a former rabbi. As Michael Goulder notes, he would then likely have known of many rabbinical sayings, one of which refers to God's mercy extending even to a sparrow's nest.[7] The compiler may have drawn his sparrow theme from such a source, in making his main point that Christians should have confidence that God will always be with them, whether or not it be to save them. There is a good possibility that the portion of Mt 10:29 that reads, "And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will," represents the writer of Matthew's abbreviated revision of the following two TJ verses. TJ 16:45-46 45"Behold, there was a little bird that circled at great heights and sang, rejoicing about life, when a strong gust of wind came and made it waver. It then suddenly doubted its power to fly, plummeted down and was killed. 46Therefore, never doubt the power of your consciousness and never doubt your knowledge and ability when logic proves to you the law of Creation in truth and correctness." TJ 16:45-46 45«Siehe, da war ein Vöglein, das in grossen Höhen kreiste und pfeifend sich des Lebens freute, da kam ein Windstosss und brachte es ins Wanken, und also zweifelte es plötzlich an der Kraft seiner Flugkunst und stürzte ab und war tot. 46Zweifle daher nie an der Kraft deines Bewusstseins und zweifle nie an deinem Wissen und Können, wenn dir die Logik das Gesetz der Schöpfung in Wahrheit und Richtigkeit beweist.» This was part of what Jmmanuel spoke after he, and to a much lesser extent Peter, had walked on water. It seems more plausible that the writer of Matthew utilized and altered the TJ verse to make it palatable, with the sparrow theme bringing it to mind, than that it would occur to a literary hoaxer to build a little story around the Matthean sentence at a point appropriate to explaining the power of the human spirit. Mt 10:32-33 32"So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; 33but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. These are stirring instructions to the true Christian disciple on how to get to heaven. Goulder believes that they, along with many other verses in Matthew, are a "rhythmic construction" by its writer and not an original utterance of Jesus.[8] However, the passage is also highly suspect from a purely logical viewpoint. It contradicts other passages of Matthew-though passages that may also be largely made up of redactions. For example, it contradicts Mt 6:1, "Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven." And it implies that open, verbal acknowledgement of Jesus Christ will gain the declarer easy access to heaven, while Mt 5:48 implies one must be perfect for that. Such easy access to heaven also contradicts the narrow-gate access of Mt 7:13. It contradicts Mt 12:32, "And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven," since this would be denying Jesus. SOLUTION. The verses appear to have been designed to give Christians more incentive to profess their faith, and thereby to help spread the faith. They have no doubt provided inspiration for many Christians over the centuries to become martyrs. In considering the chances that these verses were omitted from the TJ by a hoaxer, we should probably consider the preceding three verses (Mt 10:29-31) along with them, since together they form a more complete context. The indications are fairly strong that these Matthean verses were inventions of the Gospel writer. In balance, then, the odds favor the TJ's genuineness (due to not containing parallels to these verses) over that of Matthew here. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 10:34 34"Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." TJ 10:43-44 43"Do not think that I have come to bring peace on Earth. 44Truly, I have not come to bring peace, but the sword of knowledge about the power of the consciousness, which dwells within the human being." TJ 10:43-44 43«Ihr sollet nicht wähnen, dass ich gekommen sei, Frieden zu bringen auf die Erde. 44Wahrlich, ich bin nicht gekommen Frieden zu bringen, sondern das Schwert des Wissens um die Kraft des Bewusstseins, der dem Menschen innewohnet.» THE PROBLEM. Without any qualification of this "sword," this is a contradiction of other teachings within Matthew. In particular, it contradicts Mt 26:52 where a defending swordsman is commanded by Jesus to put his sword back in place. Anticipating the following two verses, one can interpret this sword to be an instrument of dividing families, if desired. However, such a metaphor would be misleading, if delivered by a teacher of wisdom, since the sword is a symbol of settling disputes by violence and bloodshed-not a symbol of generating dissension. Also, the same problem concerning "I have come..." discussed under verse Mt 5:17 exists here. SOLUTION. The qualification that was attached to this "sword" by Jmmanuel-the sword of knowledge regarding the power of the human spirit or consciousness-was totally unacceptable to the writer of Matthew, who omitted it without bothering to think up a substitute qualifier. The same solution to the "I have come" problem as discussed under Mt 5:17 applies here. Jmmanuel had learned his purpose for being incarnated, or reincarnated, into his life at that time. Where would Jmmanuel have picked up the phrase "sword of knowledge"? It is known from the Bhagavad Gita, the famous Hindu writing believed to have originated as early as 200 B.C.,[9] and later interpolated into the Mahabharata. In Chapter 4, Verse 42 of the Bhagavad Gita we read: “O Arjuna, with the sword of knowledge cut away all doubt of the self, that is born of ignorance and resides in your heart.” According to K. Klostermaier, "In the opinion of most scholars today, the Bhagavadgita in its major portions antedates [predates] the Christian era."[10] It is likely, therefore, that Jmmanuel picked up the phrase while studying under Hindu gurus during the "lost years" of his youth in India, before commencing his Palestinian ministry, as he would most certainly have then read and studied the Bhagavad Gita. A discussion of the likelihood of this possibility by its originator, Dietmar Rothe, may be found here. The hoax hypothesis is in serious trouble here, as the chances are slim that any hoaxer, if one had noticed the Matthean problems, could have conceived of how to eliminate them so eloquently and in such good consonance with the rest of the TJ's philosophy. On the other hand, the motivations for the Matthean redactor to have altered TJ 10:44 in the manner displayed are clear. PHoax ¯ 0.15. Mt 10:35-37 35"For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36and a man's foes will be those of his own household. 37He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." TJ 10:45-46 45"For I have come to bring wisdom and knowledge and to provoke mankind: son against his father, daughter against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, servant against master, citizen against government and believer against preacher and priest. 46The people's enemies will be their own housemates." TJ 10:45-46 45«Denn ich bin gekommen, Weisheit und Wissen zu bringen und den Menschen zu erregen, den Sohn wider seinen Vater und die Tochter wider ihre Mutter, die Schwiegertochter wider ihre Schwiegermutter, den Knecht wider seinen Herrn, den Bürger wider seine Obrigkeit und den Gläubigen wider seinen Prediger und Priester. 46Und des Menschen Feinde werden seine eigenen Hausgenossen sein.» THE PROBLEMS. Mt 10:35-36 contradicts the implications of Mt 5:9-that the peacemaker, a son of God, is to be blessed. As Son of God, Matthew's Jesus then is implied to be the prime peacemaker of all, and not one to provoke antagonisms, especially antagonisms that require resolution by the sword. Further, the implication is that the persons being depicted involve or include followers of Jesus. However, true followers of Matthew's Jesus have no enemies or foes, as they are taught to love their enemies (Mt 5:44), make friends with their accusers (Mt 5:25), not become angry with their brothers (Mt 5:22) and not make judgments against anyone (Mt 7:1). Thus, any would-be enemies are to be treated as beloved friends instead. Although any such would-be enemy might consider the follower of Jesus to be an adversary, the follower, whom Jesus is addressing, would not reciprocate. He would instead turn the other cheek. Hence, it is inconsistent that Jesus would warn his followers about their foes when he had already admonished his followers to love them and accept whatever wounds they may inflict. At Mt 10:37 the line of thought shifts somewhat to who is worthy or unworthy of Jesus. What this worthiness implies is not explained unless it means going to heaven after death (Mt 10:39b). However, there is no way of gauging how much a Christian loves Jesus, in order to be able to compare this against his degree of love for a family member. If a follower of Jesus feels he must leave his family behind in some manner to go out and show his love for Jesus, one cannot know if he loves Jesus more than the follower who stays behind with his family. The latter follower may feel that a family member needs him where he is, or that to go out and profess his love for Jesus would merely be displaying his piety before men, which he should not do (Mt 6:1). Thus Mt 10:37 lacks any practical or consistent meaning. SOLUTION. With the TJ as Matthew's source, we see that its verses are consistent in that the knowledge about the human spirit, which Jmmanuel brought to certain members of a family who could accept it, may have alienated them from other family members who could not. This would be an inevitable consequence of his teachings, which other TJ teachings do not contradict. Concerning the thought that Jmmanuel's teachings might provoke violent reactions of servant against master or citizen against government, one may note his advice of TJ 10:21, not in Matthew, to "Flee from the unjust;" or that of TJ 5:26, "...You will achieve justice only when you find it yourself and can make your fellow human understand it." Such verses indicate that Jmmanuel was not advocating anarchy here, which impression might be gained if TJ 10:45 were taken out of the TJ context. He did not advocate violence except in justifiable self-defense. His advice to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's (in TJ 23:8 and Mt 22:21) further supports this interpretation against anarchy. Instead, Jmmanuel's provocations were directed towards people's manner of thought and belief systems. Concerning the thought that Jmmanuel's teachings would provoke believer against preacher and priest, possible examples of this quickly come to mind. A Pharisee, after listening to Jmmanuel teach, might then have questioned his priest whether their teaching of resurrection might not be in error, with reincarnation occurring instead. Or, he might then have questioned his priest whether or not "El" or "the Elohim" represented the true Creator. It seems likely that Jmmanuel knew of the verse from Micah, which reads: Mi 7:6 For the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house. but that he did not explicitly cite it because he wished to add to the number of situations of provocation involved. The writer of Matthew then surely recognized that most of these two TJ verses stemmed from Micah, and so eliminated the portion that did not belong. In any event, it is safe to assume he would have eliminated the TJ's mention of provoking a "believer against preacher and priest." Concerning Mt 10:37 and its problems, there is no TJ cognate to that verse. The TJ's mention of "household," along with the compiler's belief that loyalty to Jesus must top all else, would seem to have suggested this thought to his mind. The problems here with Matthew, not present with the TJ, suggest PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 10:38 38"And he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 250) pointed out that it is questionable whether the use of the cross as a symbol of a follower of Jesus would have been made before the crucifixion. Further on (p. 359) he spells out why "taking one's cross" is an anachronistic expression, which could not have been spoken in Jesus' own time (see also the discussion in this website under Mt 16:24). Before Christianity became established, it was believed that "a hanged man is accursed by God," as in Dt 21:23. Hence, at the time the words of Mt 10:38 were supposedly spoken, the cross was still an accursed emblem of hanging, not an uplifting religious symbol. As noted forcefully by Borg, "Before Jesus' death, 'cross' was obviously not yet a Christian symbol but referred to a method of execution used by Romans."[11] SOLUTION. This verse on discipleship appears as part of a substitution to replace unacceptable TJ material dealing with knowledge. Since the Matthean verse appears to be non-genuine, while the hoax hypothesis is concerned with either Matthew depending upon the TJ or vice versa, this consideration alone gives the TJ the edge, with a probability of hoax of perhaps 0.3. On the other hand, there's a pretty fair chance that in this instance a literary hoaxer would have known of one or more of the objections to the genuineness of this verse and hence omitted it; to this we assign a probability of 0.7. Combining these two probabilities we get: PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 10:39 39"He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. For a potential disciple this verse requires heavy interpretation to make any sense. For example, might the first "it" refer to ordinary life and the second "it" refer to an afterlife or the soul? Borg prefers to interpret "losing one's life" here to mean a dying of one's preoccupation with the self as the center of concern, and a "dying to the world as the center of security and identity."[12] But even so, what real sense does it mean to say that if you find either your life or your soul you will lose it? SOLUTION. The verse appears to be yet another attempt to encourage martyrdom for the true Christian. Reasoning similar to that following the previous verse applies here also. The Matthean verse appears to be nothing a wisdom teacher would have uttered, so that its absence from the TJ favors the TJ's genuineness here over Matthew even though a literary hoaxer may not have been likely to include this verse. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 10:40-42 40"He who receives you receives me... 42And whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple... he shall not lose his reward." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. These verses deal with promises of reward for the disciples, and Beare (p. 252) clearly recognized that they were written for the church of Matthew's time, with "little ones" or children referring to "disciples." The same conclusion had earlier been reached by Manson.[13] SOLUTION. There are two TJ verses corresponding to this location in Matthew. They deal with Jmmanuel's precognition that a very long time would elapse before knowledge of the human spirit would become widespread, and that those holding positions akin to scribes, priests and government officials would persecute persons with such knowledge. The compiler, having the background of a scribe himself, would likely have found both verses objectionable and in need of deletion or substitution. PHoax ¯ 0.45. When the individual odds against the hoax hypothesis from this chapter's verse comparisons (TJ 10 versus Mt 10) are accumulated, one finds the probability for hoax here to be only 0.0001. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 11 REFERENCES 1. Beare, Francis Wright, "The mission of the disciples and the mission charge: Matthew 10 and parallels," JBL 87 (1968), pp. 1-13; see p. 10. 2. Morosco, Robert E., "Matthew's formation of a commissioning type-scene out of the story of Jesus' commissioning of the Twelve," JBL 103 (1984), pp. 539-556; see pp. 554-555. 3. Borg, Marcus, Jesus: A New Vision, p. 157. Marcus Borg is another scholar who deduces that the "imminent Parousia" verses likely do not date back to Jesus. 4. Friedman, Richard Elliott, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Summit Books, 1987), p. 79. 5. Reasoning of this general nature still occurs. For example, when pointing out what may or may not be possible for extraterrestrial beings to perform with futuristic technology, many scientists still insist that they could accomplish little more than what our present human science permits. Recall that most scientists at the end of the 19th century felt that all the outstanding scientific questions had been answered then. It is always difficult to place one's own present time within a cosmic perspective. 6. Goulder, Michael, Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974), pp. xiii, 5-6, 13-27, 70. 7. Ibid., p. 155. 8. Ibid., pp. 75, 350, 384-385. 9. Herman, A. L., A Brief Introduction to Hinduism (San Francisco: Westview Press, 1991), p. 89. 10. Klostermaier, Klaus K., A Survey of Hinduism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), p. 95. 11. Borg, Jesus: A New Vision, p. 112. 12. Ibid., p. 113. 13. Manson, Thomas Walter, The Sayings of Jesus (London: SCM Press, 1949). Also, Lamar Cope, in Matthew: A Scribe Trained for the Kingdom of Heaven (Washington D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1976), p. 80, finds that these verses were quite surely composed by the redactor who formed the Gospel of Matthew. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 11 Mt 11:2-3 2Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3and said to him, "Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?" TJ 11:2-3 2When Johannes in prison heard about the works of Jmmanuel, he sent forth his disciples to him and had them say, 3"Are you the one who is to come, the king of wisdom, as foretold by the prophets, or should we wait for another?" TJ 11:2-3 2Da aber Johannes im Gefängnis über die Werke Jmmanuels hörte, sandte er seine Jünger aus und liess ihm sagen: 3«Bist du es, der da kommen soll; der Weisheitskönig, wie die Propheten sagten, oder sollen wir eines anderen warten?» THE PROBLEMS. 1.) Beare (p. 256) pointed out that John had expected the mightier one who would follow him to be one who would exercise divine judgment by means of his wrathful power: through a baptism with fire, a "purging of the threshing floor," and "a hewing down of the tree to the roots." Since Jesus had not acted in this way, but had instead ministered to the sick and ailing, is John then to be considered a false prophet or Jesus not to be considered the Messiah? Either of these possibilities would constitute a contradiction with other Matthean text. 2.) John would not have heard of the deeds of "the Christ," or of "the Messiah," but rather the deeds of a man known by some given name (Jesus or Immanuel of Nazareth). It is not likely that Jesus was known by the Messiah appellation if his name had been "Jesus" instead of "Immanuel," and not likely in any event before his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. 3.) For John to have his disciples ask the question without including any clue of what they meant by "he who is to come" is quite unlikely. He wouldn't have wished his disciples' mission to fail merely because they asked an ambiguous question. 4.) Why would John ask Jesus this question, if, during the baptism, he had already seemed to understand just who Jesus was? SOLUTION. 1.) John's prophecy as given in the TJ was for a time of fulfillment in the distant future, apparently in our own era, when false teachings would be purged and "trees" constructed out of false beliefs would come down. Jmmanuel laid the groundwork for this by his baptism with the fire of truth (teachings of truth about the human consciousness). Thus the actual prophecy of what the one coming after him would be like was considerably different from Matthew's highly abbreviated version of it. In the TJ (see TJ 11:5, below) part of Jmmanuel's response to the Baptist's question was that he was proclaiming the truth of knowledge to those seeking it. Thus with the TJ, there is no contradiction between what John had preached and what Jmmanuel was engaged in, since Jmmanuel's healings were not to the exclusion of his teachings. 2.) "Immanuel" was altered into "the Christ" by the writer of Matthew to emphasize his conviction that "Jesus" was the Messiah, or the "anointed one." 3.) The question John's disciples were to ask had included "as foretold by the prophets" and more, so that Jmmanuel could have had no doubt what John's question was about. Evidently the compiler of Matthew omitted the TJ's qualifier "king of wisdom" because for him Jesus was supposed to be much more a figure of worship than a dispenser of wisdom. Why he also omitted "as foretold by the prophets" is more problematic, but was perhaps because he did not regard the prophesied messiah to be any "king of wisdom," though that is suggested by Is 9:6 & 11:2 (Wonderful Counselor; the one possessing the spirit of wisdom and knowledge), but rather as prophesied for the suffering servant in Is 53:12 (one who "bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors"). However, Is 53 lies within the latter portion of Isaiah believed to have been written not by Isaiah but by some prophet who lived a couple centuries after Isaiah did.[1] Thus the writer of Matthew, if preferring to give priority to Is 53, might have wished at this point to avoid drawing attention to Isaiah or "the prophets" at all, lest Is 9 and 11 and their implications of messianic wisdom come to the reader's mind. 4.) It has long been suggested that one possible reason why John asked this question of Jesus, through his disciples, was, at least partly, so that the latter could learn for themselves that Jmmanuel, known later as "Jesus," was the prophesied messiah.[2] The TJ wording, although only slightly different than Matthew's in this respect, suggests this solution more strongly, as it indicates that John had his disciples ask the question, rather than just asking the question himself through his disciples. It seems likely that John wanted his disciples to learn about Jmmanuel and come to respect him, so as to be willing to become his disciples in case he, John, was never to be released from prison. These problems, especially the last two, are quite obscure. Could a New Age hoaxer have thought of them, and then proceeded to cure or alleviate them in a simple, natural manner? Not at all likely. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 11:5 5"the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them." TJ 11:5 5"The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise, and the truth of knowledge is proclaimed to those who seek it." TJ 11:5 5«Blinde sehen und Lahme gehen, Aussätzige werden rein und Taube hören, Tote stehen auf und Suchenden wird die Wahrheit des Wissens verkündet.» THE PROBLEM. In previous Matthean verses relating to Jesus preaching to the people, we find that he taught in the synagogues (Mt 4:23, 9:35) or on the Mount (Mt 7:28). Thus he was preaching to all those who wished to hear him, not just to the poor. Verses that may seem to have singled out the poor (Mt 5:3 and 9:10) are themselves suspect of redaction, as discussed previously. Joseph of Arimathea is a key example of one who was rich yet became a follower of Jesus, undoubtedly through having heard him teach. Hence consistency indicates that Matthew's "the poor have good news preached to them" is also a redaction. This being the case, the preaching of good news (ευαγγελιον in Greek) also stands out as being a redaction-an anachronism- since evangelizing, or "spreading the gospel," was later terminology that developed after the appearances of the risen Jesus to his disciples and to Paul, following the crucifixion, provided the "good news." SOLUTION. The TJ verse indicates the unacceptable part of the writer of Matthew's source that required alteration on his part (TJ 11:5b). Here "truth of knowledge" apparently has a meaning of the truthfulness of the spiritual knowledge Jmmanuel had been teaching-knowledge about the human spirit. This problem with Matthew is unknown or unattested to within New Testament literature. There is little chance that a literary hoaxer could have perceived it. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 11:11 11"Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." TJ 11:16 16"Truly I say to you, among all those born of women, no one has arisen who is greater than Johannes the Baptist." TJ 11:16 16«Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Unter allen, die von Weibern geboren sind, ist keiner aufgestanden, der grösser wäre als Johannes der Täufer.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (pp. 259-260) commented on the illogic of the second half of Matthew's verse, saying that it is as remarkable a note of deprecation of John as the first half is a tribute. (In this comment, Beare was apparently treating Earth as a portion of "kingdom of heaven.") In an attempt to explain this illogic and degradation, Beare suggested that Mt 11:11b may have been in anticipation of Mt 18:4 (the humble child being the greatest); however, we shall find that that verse also contains a serious redaction. SOLUTION. One observes that often the latter portion of a TJ verse was omitted or altered by the writer of Matthew because the most heretical portion tends to lie near the end of a sentence, causing the Matthean verse to be the shorter of the two. On other occasions he added in his own statements, so that the TJ verse is the shorter. This latter occurred here, as the TJ verse does not include the illogical second part of Mt 11:11. It was apparently appended by the writer of Matthew to clarify that John was not as great as Jesus in stature. This it does without necessarily degrading John, since all personages in heaven might be thought of as greater than any alive on Earth. One might also question why "born of women" appears, since allof us are born of women. However, Jmmanuel's use of "women" here might have been to designate Earth women as opposed to extraterrestrial (ET) women. Jmmanuel, with an ET father (of human-like appearance), might have been placing John at the top of the human race, but allowing for spiritually advanced ETs (born of ET mothers and fathers) to be greater still. Within the TJ framework, we must allow that Jmmanuel very much kept ETs in mind without, of course, calling them by that unknown name, but rather by "celestial sons" or "guardian angels." We see that the writer of Matthew had definite reverential motivation for making an addition to the TJ verse (last part of Mt 11:11), while a literary hoaxer may or may not have deduced this. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 11:12 12"From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force." TJ 11:17 17"But now, in the days of Johannes the Baptist, the Earth suffers from violence, and those who commit violence are expropriating it." TJ 11:17 17«Aber von den Tagen Johannes’ des Täufers bis hierher leidet die Erde an Gewalt, und die, die Gewalt tun, reissen sie weg.» THE PROBLEM. The intention of Matthew's verse is especially unclear, since what could it mean to say that "heaven has suffered violence" at the hands of man, or that heaven could be taken by force? A typical Christian interpretation of this is that "heaven" here means "the church" or "the body of believers." However, such an interpretation is anachronistic and does injustice to the usual biblical meaning of the word "heaven" as a place to ascend to-and the abode of angels. SOLUTION. The TJ verse uses the word "Earth" here, and thus does not suffer from the criticism. However, its German version, of which the English translation above is but one interpretation, is rather ambiguous concerning the timing of "now." One inescapable interpretation, however, is that although John preached that mankind should follow the laws of nature and of Creation, as did Jmmanuel, those in authority continued to flout this teaching and commit violence while seizing land. It was quite likely due to the verse's ambiguity that the writer of Matthew made his alteration; in particular, he may have substituted "kingdom of heaven" for "Earth" so that this verse would connect with, and support, the redaction he had made in the previous verse, in which he brought in his favorite "kingdom of heaven" theme. On the other hand, by the hoax hypothesis, a literary hoaxer might have made Matthew more understandable here. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 11:14 14"And if you are willing to accept it, he [John the Baptist] is Elijah who is to come." TJ 11:19 19"And if you wish to accept it, he is Elisa (Elisha), who was to come again in his next life." TJ 11:19 19«So ihr’s also wollt annehmen: Er ist der Elisa, der da kommen soll in seinem Wiederleben.» THE PROBLEM. Within the Matthean context it is totally unexplained how John could be the same person as Elijah. The Christian concept of resurrection does not involve one person turning into another. Although Elijah was last seen disappearing towards heaven within a "whirlwind" (2 Kgs 2:11), and Mal 4:5 prophesies that Elijah would come again, it can make no sense that Elijah returned to Earth and at some moment displaced the body of John the Baptist and took over. According to Lk 1, which summarizes John's birth and childhood, John was known by his parents from birth onwards. There is no mention that at some point after he became an adult his bodily appearance and demeanor suddenly changed into that of another, namely Elijah, who had supposedly been "translated" into heaven and could return to Earth. SOLUTION. The writer of Matthew did not alter the TJ verse quite enough; thus its mention of an apparent reincarnation as applied to John the Baptist survived into Matthew's verse, causing the problem. With reincarnation, of course, the same spirit or soul of a past life that dwells within a future body enters that body during its fetal stage, stays with it until death, and continues to reincarnate again and again in future centuries. Upon altering the TJ's Elisha into Elijah, in keeping both with the concept of Elijah having been "translated" into heaven and with the prophecy of Mal 4:5, the writer of Matthew failed to realize that his altered verse still did not make sense. Evidently the writer of Luke altered this thought into one that would not suggest reincarnation, by writing that John would go before the Lord (Jesus) "in the spirit and power of Elijah" (Lk 1:17). From a Christian viewpoint, this was an important improvement of Luke over Matthew, indicative of the Gospel of Luke having come after Matthew, with its writer well aware of Matthew. With John's past life having been Elisha instead of Elijah, one sees that a remark within Mt 16:14-a guess that one of Jmmanuel's past lives had been Elijah-makes more sense.[3] That is, the spirits of John and Jmmanuel, who were alive at the same time, are quite unlikely to have both been the spirit of Elijah. In the TJ verse, "who was to come again" refers to John as being the messenger or preparer-of-the-way for Immanuel (not the messenger mentioned in Malachi 3:1), with this John being the same soul as Elisha. Thus the interpretation here is not too different from one that can be drawn from Matthew, except for Elisha having been John's past life, not Elijah. With the TJ verse, one may interpret Mal 4:5 differently, however, than did the writer of Matthew. The Malachi verse is: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. Here, the speaker, the first-person "I", is the Old Testament God, the LORD of hosts mentioned in Mal 4:1-3, and his coming (the LORD's coming) will occur after his Earthly messenger has prepared the way for him (Mal 3:1a). This messenger is to be the reincarnation of Elijah. The rest of this website indicates that Eduard Meier or his spiritual successor may be identified as the relevant reincarnation of Elijah, with the LORD of hosts being his contactor Ptaah or his Plejaren successor, in collaboration with other Plejarens and their alien allies. This coming would occur on the terrible day when they make an overt appearance worldwide in their flying saucers or beamships or UFOs, for which Meier or his successor would hopefully have helped prepare the world. It should be mentioned that only after 1992 did Meier learn from one of his contacting ETs that in the TJ verse above, 11:19, "Elisha" had incorrectly been translated or typed in as "Elijah"-so he corrected it to read "Elisha" in the 1996 version. (Jmmanuel and John couldn't both be the reincarnation of Elijah.) This is a complication certain to upset the scholar, who must keep in mind that an error does occasionally happen, and the dedicated editor corrects it. In this case, the error was probably occasioned by familiarity with the Matthean verse and its use of Elijah rather than Elisha, reinforced by the similarity in the two names. Those who claim the TJ to be a literary hoax at the hands of Billy Meier must contend with the fact that it is unheard of for a literary hoaxer to be so concerned with accuracy that he corrects his initial editing some 18 years later. It is furthermore quite unlikely that a hoaxer would have thought of reasonable arguments why John's past life was Elisha rather than Elijah, or would have noticed a need for making the change, inasmuch as "LORD" in Mal 4:5 is commonly interpreted as being Jesus Christ. I view these considerations as outweighing the seemingly suspicious factor that at this point in the TJ, in 1996, a name was corrected. This leaves the reality of reincarnation, as finally known from present-day evidence, as a likely topic for a wisdom teacher to have spoken about as opposed to the irreality of the translation-into-heaven hypothesis for Elijah. In balance, I find PHoax ¯ 0.25. If one reads Jn 1:21 one finds therein that John the Baptist, when supposedly asked if he was Elijah, denied it emphatically. The scene makes no contextual sense unless one is first aware of the above verse in Matthew. Then Jn 1:19-22 appears as a response to it. But from the TJ viewpoint we know that the writer of John had had access not only to Matthew, presumably, but to the TJ, in which case he learned that John had been Elisha, not Elijah. Thus, correcting Matthew on this important point, while not in any way affirming reincarnation, might have been what prompted the writer of John to invent those particular verses. Mt 11:19 19"The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds." TJ 11:25-26 25"But I have come, eating and drinking, and so they say, 'Behold, what a glutton and winebibber this man is, a companion of tax collectors and the unjust.' 26Yet wisdom is justified through the acknowledged deeds." TJ 11:25-26 25«Ich aber bin gekommen, esse und trinke, und so sagen sie: ‹Siehe, wie ist der Mensch ein Fresser und ein Weinsäufer, der Züllner und der Ungerechten Geselle›. 26Doch die Weisheit ist gerechtfertigt aus den gegebenen Werken.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 262) noted, regarding the final sentence about wisdom, that its meaning is not clear and that its subject matter is not related to the parable that began three verses earlier. Even Craig Blomberg, who makes great efforts to resolve contradictions within and between the Gospels, admits that this Matthean "wisdom" sentence is somewhat enigmatic.[4] His suggestion is that wisdom here may refer to the wisdom of God's plan of salvation for his people. But where is the wisdom in a plan that leaves it uncertain regarding who will be saved, and what salvation, or being like "angels in heaven," consists of? SOLUTION. Within the Christian framework the verse makes little sense because there Jesus is pictured as a figure of worship who can bring about one's "salvation." The TJ cognate above is essentially the same, except "I" occurs instead of "Son of man." However its last sentence has clear meaning within the TJ context that Jmmanuel's deeds were performed through his possession of wisdom of the spirit within, and that one's deeds are what to judge by, more than one's demeanor. The TJ contains much more about Jmmanuel as a man of wisdom than do the Gospels, and makes it understandable that he became known as a teacher of wisdom. This wisdom sentence appears to have survived the compiler's editing process because it did not mention spirit, while it did refer to Jmmanuel's miraculous deeds. The verse constitutes part of an instance of Matthean "fatigue." Previous Matthean text made substitutions for the spiritual wisdom within the TJ text, especially Mt 9:5-6 relative to TJ 9:5-6. Hence, from Matthew, the reader or listener does not know that one who is very highly advanced in spiritual wisdom is capable of performing miraculous deeds. Then, here at Mt 11:19, the writer of Matthew followed the TJ too closely, failing to omit the TJ's wisdom sentence or add an explanation for it that would be compatible with Christian theology. The fact that within the Matthean context the wisdom sentence is scarcely understandable, suggests that it was derived from some source whose relevant context was omitted. Within the TJ context the sentence is fully understandable. This has to point more favorably to the TJ as being historical than as being any hoax, and to Matthew as being the fraudulent document. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 11:20-24 20Then he [Jesus] began to upbraid the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent... 23"And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades... 24But I tell you that it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 263) stated that it was difficult to see why these verses were placed in this location of Matthew. They imply that Jesus had ended his ministry in Galilee, and they admit that it had not brought about any general repentance by the people. Beare concluded (p. 265) that the compiler of Matthew probably meant it to be a warning to the Jews of his own day that if they did not repent and believe in Jesus, they had to expect a worse fate than what Tyre and Sidon, or Sodom, received. Mt 11:24 is moreover almost identical with Mt 10:15, which itself was judged to be a redaction, thus further indicating 11:24 to be a redaction. SOLUTION. Relative to the TJ, these five verses of Matthew appear as an insert, in support of Beare's perceptive analysis. One may also notice that the threat of Hades is contained within Matthew here, which looks like the signature of the compiler. The reason the verses are not in the TJ could be because: (a) they were invented by the writer of Matthew, or (b) a literary hoaxer omitted them. Since such a hoaxer might have included the Matthean verses, or altered them, the probability is less than 1, perhaps 0.85, that he would have omitted them entirely. However, the reasons favoring (a) are strong, giving a probability of perhaps 0.9 that the writer of Matthew invented the verses (i.e., a probability of 0.1 that their absence in the TJ is due to a hoax). The accumulation of these two probabilities (0.85 and 0.1) then gives PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 11:25-26 25At that time Jesus declared, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; 26yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will." TJ 11:27-28 27But at this time Jmmanuel began to speak, "Praise be to Creation, maker of the skies, the universes and the Earth for keeping the knowledge and power of the consciousness hidden from the unwise and the misguided, who spread the erroneous teachings, and for revealing this knowledge to sincere seekers now. 28Yes, it has been good of Creation, and of El and his celestial sons as well, that they have thwarted until now the misuse of power among human species." TJ 11:27-28 27Zu der Zeit hob Jmmanuel aber an und sprach: «Gepriesen sei die Schöpfung der Himmel und der Universen und der Erde, dass sie das Wissen und die Kraft des Bewusstseins allen den die irre Lehre verbreitenden Unweisen und Unklugen verborgen hat und es nun den ehrlich Suchenden offenbart. 28Ja, dies ist also wohlgefällig gewesen von der Schöpfung; also auch von Gott und von seinen Himmelssöhnen, die sie missbräuchliche Macht bisher unter den Menschengeschlechtern unterbunden haben.» THE PROBLEMS. The first Matthean verse makes very little sense. If the "wise" were really wise, would they not already understand these hidden things? And just what are "these things?"[5] The phrase should refer back to the preceding several sentences, but surely Jesus' upbraiding of Tyre, Chorazin and Capernaum, and a prophecy of doom for the latter city, do not constitute important things to have revealed to babes. And why reveal enigmatic things to babes, who would neither be capable of understanding any of it nor remember it in later life? Interpretation is thus necessary, but why then did Jesus not say what he meant, or explain it as he supposedly explained the parable of the weeds? The usual interpretation is that "the wise and understanding" refers to the chief priests, scribes or rabbis who only thought they were wise, and "babes" refers to the unschooled disciples and the working people (Beare, p. 265). Yet the preceding questions persist. The second verse is subject to the same criticism, as it adds nothing of substance and nothing that brings any understanding to the first verse. Davies & Allison remark that after Matthew's upbraiding of the cities, we might expect a complaint to follow.[6] Instead we see an unexpected prayer of thanksgiving. SOLUTION. The usual interpretation of Matthew, given by Beare above, comes surprisingly close to the TJ's meaning, but fails to answer the several questions posed. That is, "these things" referred to the knowledge and power of the spirit or consciousness, it was the unwise and unintelligent from whom it was kept hidden, and it was sincere seekers to whom it was being revealed. It would seem, however, that there were pitifully few sincere seekers who could understand this knowledge and none who could at that time successfully promulgate it. Otherwise, Christianity would have turned out quite differently, and would not even have had that designation. Unlike Mt 11:26, the TJ's following verse (TJ 11:28) does add new substance, though of ambiguous meaning. It would seem to be referring to spiritual power, not physical or military power, due to the reference to "power of the consciousness" in TJ 11:26. However, no clue is given as to how or why this power was purposely withheld from humans by the ETs. Nevertheless, the compiler's reason for editing here is again evident. As has already been noted, the concept of power of the individual's spirit was totally unacceptable, as only the power of God's spirit or the Holy Spirit could be endorsed. Nor did the compiler wish there to be any implication that church scribes dispense false teachings. Also, the mention of Creation as being distinct from El was totally unacceptable. Thus, both verses demanded heavy editing. TJ 11:27 appears to represent the only instance recorded in which Jmmanuel outwardly prayed, or gave thanks to, true God (Creation). He apparently prayed to his own consciousness frequently, however, as suggested by the discussion of Mt 6:9-13, and by TJ 9:46. TJ 11:28 suggests that the thwarting of misuse of power is among the information Jmmanuel learned during his 40 days of instruction under the tutelage of the celestial sons. The expectation of Davies & Allison was not borne out because the writer of Matthew had resumed following the TJ, although in so doing making small editorial alterations. The Matthean insert of 11:20-24 caused the swing in subject matter. With the TJ, the subject is not changed as abruptly, moving from wisdom justified by deeds to knowledge newly being revealed. That the TJ uses the word "universe" is not surprising, since Jmmanuel was taken up in his contactor's spacecraft and given 40 days' of education that included the information that some persons came from other worlds (TJ 4:26-27). That it uses the word in the plural is more surprising, since modern astronomy has only recently, circa 2000, come to view it likely that many other universes exist; Jmmanuel could have been tutored about that. To express "the universes," the Aramaic word for "all" might have been used in the form of a plural noun with article. The fact that the TJ does not suffer from Matthew's little known problems here, despite the verses being parallels of each other, suggests Matthew's dependence upon the TJ. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 11:27 27"All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." TJ 11:29-30 29"All things have now been given over to mankind, and no one knows the secret of Creation, not even one person, and therefore neither El nor his followers. 30And all things have now been given over to me by El, whose guardian angels taught me the laws and knowledge of nature and the laws emanating from Creation." TJ 11:29-30 29«Und alle Dinge sind nun dem Menschen übergeben, und niemand kennt das Geheimnis der Schöpfung, so also nicht ein Mensch und so also nicht Gott oder sein Gefolge. 30Und alle Dinge sind nun mir übergeben von Gott, dessen Wächterengel mich die Gesetze und das Wissen der Natur lehrten, und die Gesetze, die von der Schöpfung ausgehen.» THE PROBLEMS. The verse seems too mystical to interpret clearly. Does no one know the Son except the Father? This caused Beare (p. 266) to surmise that Matthew's verse here was a reflection of theology from the Gospel of John, composed by a mystic of the early church. The term "the Son" presumably refers to Jesus as being the Son of God. However, we have seen earlier how improbable the "Son of God" phrase itself was as a term authentically applied to Jesus during his ministry (e.g., inauthentic within the Temptation story, which is one large redaction; see also under Mt 26:63 and 27:43). Hence, a reference to himself as "the Son" is all the more improbable of being genuine. Instead, it was a later church formulation, being an abbreviation for "the Son of God." SOLUTION. We see that the TJ verse is quite mystical in various ways; enough of its mysticism was carried over into Matthew's gospel to cause the scholar to wrongly assume a connection with Johannine verse. Only in one other spot in Matthew (24:36) is "the Son" used by itself in this manner, that is, without being followed by "of," whereas in the Gospel of John "the Son" by itself is used over and over. Though this caused Beare to be misled, he did recognize the verse as being non-genuine. TJ 11:29 may seem paradoxical in first saying that all things have been given to mankind and then saying that the secret of Creation has not. However, this appears to be simply a way of saying that the secret of Creation is the one exception to "all things" having been given over. This giving over of all things to Jmmanuel by El's guardian angels evidently occurred during his 40 days and nights of intensive learning at their hands. It is easily seen how and why the writer of Matthew would have made the alterations to the TJ he appears to have done, in order to eliminate the unacceptable thought of Creation (or the Creator) being distinct from El. It is less easily seen how a literary hoaxer would have been creative enough to have altered Matthew in this fashion. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 11:28-29 28"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." TJ 11:31-32 31"So come to me, all you who are seeking and thirsting for knowledge and truth; I will refresh you. 32Take upon yourselves the yoke of having to learn the new teachings, for they offer enlightenment; within them you will find peace for your life." TJ 11:31-32 31«Also kommet zu mir her alle, die ihr suchend und nach dem Wissen und der Wahrheit dürstend seid; ich will euch wohl erquicken. 32Nehmet das Joch auf euch, das Erlernenmüssen der neuen Lehre, denn sie ist die Erkennung, so ihr werdet Ruhe finden in ihr für euer Leben.» THE PROBLEMS. To come to Jesus to have rest sounds nice, but what would it have meant to the people listening to him if he had said it? Twelve disciples had come to him, and they were kept very busy just accompanying him all around the region, with apparently very little rest. And if he had meant "rest for your souls," what could this have meant to his listeners? He never taught about one's soul growing weary; can one's soul become tired? The closest Jesus comes to talking about this is later, at Mt 12:43, where an unclean spirit, presumably one which had possessed some person, is driven out and "passes through waterless places seeking rest" but finds none. However, this concerns a possessing spirit, not one's own spirit or soul. A teacher who wishes others to learn from him needs to utter teachings that his listeners can either understand or figure out upon thinking about them, as with parables. The present case does not fit into either category, yet Jesus' listeners were expected to learn here. It must also be asked, what does giving rest from labor have to do with the previous verse and its emphasis upon all things having been delivered to Jesus by the Father? Only in the following verse is "learn from me" stated, but even there the context is one of rest for the soul rather than of learning. In addition, Jesus had earlier attracted sinners and tax collectors (Mt 9:10-13), and stated that he "came not to call the righteous, but sinners." Now in the present verse he is calling those who labor and are under burden. That could include the righteous more than sinners. Such inconsistency is highly suggestive of redaction. Finally, it must be mentioned that the preferred Greek text of Matthew contains "meek" where the Revised Version reads "gentle." Jesus was not meek, however, but confronted the scribes, Pharisees and chief priests in no uncertain terms. The man was thus neither meek nor meek of heart. SOLUTION. The TJ's verses here flow straight out of its preceding ones, as Jmmanuel urges people to come to him for the knowledge and truth that was given to him by El's guardian angels. The TJ verses are consistent with Jmmanuel's theme of teaching spiritual truths, the learning of which can indeed be refreshing for those of open mind. Jmmanuel's new teaching is here described as being "enlightenment" (which stems from the German "Erkennung"). The peace that is mentioned here is then interpreted as being the peace of mind that stems from the enlightenment that will enable you to fulfill the purpose of your life. The consistency of the TJ verses as opposed to the inconsistency of the Matthean verses indicates that only the former stemmed from a teacher of wisdom. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 11:30 30"For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." TJ 11:33 33"because the yoke of consciousness-related development is gentle, and its burden is light." TJ 11:33 33«Denn das Joch der Bewusstseinsentfaltung ist sanft, und seine Last ist leicht.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 267-268) questioned whether Jesus' teachings could be considered any easier a yoke or burden than that placed upon the Jewish people by the scribes and Pharisees. In Mt 5:17-18 we find Jesus saying that the Old Testament laws must be fulfilled down to the last iota, and this is a terrific burden. Thus, much interpretation must be done to make sense out of this Matthean verse in the light of Mt 5:17-18. SOLUTION. With the TJ verse, the burden is light because it refers to spiritual development, which occurs naturally upon partaking of life's opportunities, and is satisfying. And since the TJ's parallels to Mt 5:17-18 are quite different in meaning, this TJ verse does not bring about a contradiction. From the rest of the TJ, we gather that spiritual development involves seeking and learning truths, listening to one's conscience, and periodically getting in touch with one's spirit through sincere prayer or meditation. It is quite unlikely that a literary hoaxer could have anticipated Beare's criticism and then have avoided it in such a simple, straightforward way. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Upon accumulating the individual probabilities against the hoax hypothesis from the verse comparisons of Mt 11 versus TJ 11 we find the summary probability for hoax here to be 0.00021. (These subjective estimates are not, of course, accurate to two digits; the 2nd digit is retained only for the purpose of later reduction of round-off error upon further accumulation.) Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 12 REFERENCES 1. Friedman, Richard Elliott, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Summit Books, 1987), p. 29. 2. Broadus, John A., Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1886), p. 236. 3. In the 1978 and 1992 versions of the TJ, it reads "Elijah" here instead of "Elisha," just as in Matthew. Only around 1992 did Eduard Meier learn from one of his ET contactors that this was an error incurred either by the man who translated the Aramaic TJ into German, or by the later typist whom Meier employed to set the TJ manuscript into print. 4. Blomberg, Craig L., The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1987), p. 124. 5. Davies, W. D. and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), p. 276. 6. Davies & Allison, A Critical Commentary, p. 273. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 12 Mt 12:6-8 6"I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath." TJ 13:12 12"Human beings are creatures with wills of their own, thus they alone are masters over the sabbath, as was previously written in those ancient scriptures and laws that were not adulterated by false prophets, distorters of the scriptures and Pharisees." TJ 13:12 12«Der Mensch ist ein Wesen mit eigenem Willen, also er auch alleiniger Herr über den Sabbat ist, so es schon geschrieben steht in den alten Schriften und Gesetzen, die, welche nicht von falschen Propheten und Schriftenverdrehern und Pharisäern verfälscht wurden.» THE PROBLEM. In connection with Mt 9:13, we noted that the clause "I desire mercy and not sacrifice" stems from Hos 6:6. Thus Beare (p. 271) concluded that it was likely also inserted here by the framer of Matthew in true rabbinical fashion to support the rest of the passage, which he then suspected of being a redaction. Beare (p. 272) further noted that this Hosea citation is really not relevant in its present context. So it looks like a redaction for that reason also. SOLUTION. There is no TJ cognate here to the first part of Matthew's verses, 12:6-7. However, the "masters over the Sabbath" phrase in TJ 13:12 appears to be the source of the similar phrase within Mt 12:8. Although Beare in addition objected to verse 12:5, the reader may check that that verse (which does have a cognate in the TJ) follows well from the preceding verse and need not be assumed to be a redaction. It appears that the compiler could use the "masters over the sabbath" clause from the TJ because it was non- heretical to state or imply that Jesus was lord of the sabbath. However, it is not perfectly clear if "sabbath" in Matthew referred to the Jewish day of worship (Saturday) or to Sunday. Probably only after Matthew's gospel with its Easter story had come out and received some use within the early church did Sunday attain this status for Christians. When that happened (probably in the vicinity of the year 130), the breaking away of Christianity from Judaism must have been essentially complete. In the TJ, "sabbath" of course referred to the Saturday sabbath. Jmmanuel presumably learned what the original scriptures had said, if not from his own past-life memories, from his ET tutors; they in turn must have kept track of this over the centuries, during which time they had been involved with the true prophets of old. Due to the TJ not containing the Matthean redaction, while being plausible in affirming that the Scriptures did not get written without adulterations creeping in, it is the TJ that again looks genuine here. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 12:9 9And he went on from there, and entered their synagogue. TJ 13:13 13And he walked on from there and came into their synagogue, where he continued to teach the people. TJ 13:13 13Und er ging von dannen weiter und kam in ihre Synagoge, da das Volk er weiterlehrte. THE PROBLEM. The Matthean verse and associated passage fails to give any reason why Jesus went into this synagogue in the first place. In other instances in which he entered a synagogue or the temple, the reason for it is mentioned (Mt 4:23, 9:35, 13:54, 21:12), and it was usually to teach. Was he looking for someone ailing to heal on a sabbath? From the subsequent verse we learn that he did meet a man there with an ailment he could heal, but it seems unlikely that Jesus would have anticipated this and so have gone to the synagogue for that specific reason. SOLUTION. The last clause of the TJ cognate indicates the reason had again been to teach. Presumably it was just by chance that he encountered the man with the withered hand there. The last clause may have been omitted by the compiler of Matthew because he preferred to portray Jesus more as a healer and figure of worship than as a teacher. Although Matthew follows the TJ at many points in referring to Jmmanuel (or Jesus) as a teacher, its writer often avoided portraying him as one, apparently because of the heresies the TJ indicated he taught. This problem with Matthew is a minor one and previously unknown, so that it is unlikely that a hoaxer would have noticed it. Rather, it required the hindsight of the TJ to bring it out. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 12:11-13 11He said to them, "What man of you, if he has one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? 12Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath." 13Then he said to the man,"Stretch out your hand..." TJ 13:19-21 19"You brood of snakes and adders, you distorters of the scriptures who, because of your greed for money and power, spread erroneous teachings; had you but one sheep that fell into a pit on the sabbath day, who among you would not take hold of it and pull it out? 20How much more is a person worth than a sheep or your deceitful and erroneous teachings!" 21Then he spoke to the man, "Stretch out your hand!" TJ 13:19-21 19«Ihr Schlangen und Otterngezücht, ihr Schriftenverdreher, die ihr für eure Lohngier und Machtgier irre Lehren verbreitet; welcher ist unter euch, wenn er ein einziges Schaf hat und es fällt ihm am Sabbat in eine Grube, der es nicht ergreife und ihm heraushelfe? 20Wieviel mehr ist nun ein Mensch als ein Schaf und als eure verlogenen und irren Lehren!» 21Da sprach er zu dem Menschen: «Strecke deine Hand aus!» THE PROBLEMS. Here the writer of Matthew allows Jesus to declare it lawful to go out and locate a missing sheep that had fallen into a pit, and pull it out, on a sabbath. However this, and perhaps healing also, would not have been deemed lawful according to the Torah, which explains why the Pharisees soon afterwards consulted together on how to destroy Jesus (Mt 12:14). According to Exodus (16:29) a man should not even "go out of his place" on the sabbath, which would be necessary to do in order to locate and retrieve a lost sheep. And if pulling a sheep out of a pit constitutes work, that of course was forbidden on the sabbath. According to Numbers (15:32-36) the penalty for a man merely being out gathering sticks of firewood on the sabbath was death by stoning. Yet in Mt 5:18 Jesus says that not an iota would pass from the law until the end of the Earth; this referred to the Jewish law of the Torah. Hence the contradiction between 5:18 and 12:11-12 is apparent. Regarding the last sentence of Mt 12:12, C. M. Tuckett has noted that it does not follow from Matthew's preceding argument. Just because it was argued to be alright to rescue a sheep on the sabbath, and therefore also to save a man's life, it does not follow that it was lawful to perform any act whatever on the sabbath that might be considered good.[1]This in fact caused Tuckett to comment, "Thus between verses 12a and 12b there appears to be a marked break, and the conclusion in verse 12b cannot belong to the same stratum of tradition as that which contains the deductive argument in verses 11-12a. This seam suggests a break in the sources used by Matthew." SOLUTION. From the TJ we see that the writer of Matthew added the statement of it being lawful to do good on the sabbath, which is not present in the TJ. Tuckett was quite perceptive here, even if he did accept the hypothesis that Matthew's source was Mark. Verse 12b belonged to the stratum fed in by the writer of Matthew rather than to the original substratum represented by the TJ, and did cause a break or seam. It may be noted that if the TJ-hoax hypothesis is entertained, how improbable it is that a literary hoaxer would have found Mt 12:12b undesirable to include, not perceiving the technical difficulties brought out here. Although Mt 12:11 was copied from the TJ without editorial change, the verse is not contradictory in the TJ, since Jmmanuel made no statement to the effect that the laws of the Torah were to be obeyed down to the last iota. Instead, in this section of the TJ Jmmanuel was stating clearly that it was a false and deceitful law that didn't allow work to be done on the sabbath just as on any other day. What the TJ doesn't say, however, is whether Jmmanuel thought the false teachings were the fault of Moses or of the particular god (Yahweh) who was influencing the Jewish people during Moses's time. Thus Mt 12:11-12a, along with 5:17-18, can be seen to constitute an example of Matthean "editorial fatigue." At Mt 5:17-18, the writer of Matthew had altered the TJ's "the law of Creation and the laws of nature" into "the law." By the time he reached the present verse, however, he seems to have forgotten that he made this alteration. He followed the TJ's text here without making an alteration that would bring his text at this point into agreement with his earlier alteration. In the Matthean verses "sabbath" is written in the plural, in the Greek. This has been attributed to the Aramaic word "sabetta" being widely misunderstood to be a plural when it was actually singular.[2] If so, this is another indication that Matthew had originally been written in Aramaic or Hebrew, as attested by the early church fathers. In the TJ verses we notice Jmmanuel's great anger against those whom he accused of spreading false teachings. We also notice that the writer of Matthew omitted Jmmanuel's consequent vituperation against the Pharisees. This is understandable in this circumstance if he did not wish the reprimand to be directed against their teachings, most of which he himself still upheld. The possibility is quite slim that a literary hoaxer could make it work out that the content of Mt 12:11 would be consistent with his own document without the need to alter the verse's general content. The TJ's vituperation against the Pharisees here lends it added authenticity, though this could be counterbalanced by a claim from a proponent of the hoax hypothesis that the supposed hoaxer did not care for Pharisees and may even have been anti-Semitic. However, it is further unlikely that a literary hoaxer could have anticipated and avoided the criticism by Tuckett. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Concerning the healing of the man's withered hand, it is interesting to notice the progression of embellishment proceeding from Matthew to Mark to Luke. In the TJ and Matthew, the man stretches out his withered hand at the command of Jmmanuel/Jesus, and it was healed. In Mark (Mk 3:3) Jesus first orders the man to rise in their midst (or "Come here") before healing his hand. In Luke (6:6,8) this command was to rise and stand in their midst, before healing him. We see that Jesus progressively becomes a more commanding figure. Further, in Luke it was the right hand-the more valuable hand-that was healed. Mt 12:14 14But the Pharisees went out and took counsel against him, how to destroy him. TJ 13:23 23Then the Pharisees went out and held counsel about him, on how they could destroy him, since he made known their lies and erroneous teachings in front of the people. TJ 13:23 23Da gingen die Pharisäer hinaus und hielten einen Rat über ihn, wie sie ihn umbrächten, da er also ihre Lügen und irren Lehren vor dem Volke kundtat. THE PROBLEM. It's not at all likely that Jesus' act of healing a man with a withered hand on the sabbath would be sufficiently provocative to cause Pharisees to plot how to have Jesus killed. It was not forbidden to enter a synagogue on the sabbath, nor to speak on the sabbath. All Jesus had done, in performing his wonderful deed, was speak a simple instruction to the man in the synagogue. That in itself would not have violated the commandment of doing no work on the sabbath. And since the Pharisees had asked Jesus if it was lawful to heal on the sabbath, not told him it wasn't, a verbal response that it was OK to do good on the sabbath should not have been sufficient cause for them to jump to the conclusion that he should be killed. SOLUTION. We see from the TJ verse that what had most angered the Pharisees was Jmmanuel's speaking in front of the people about the Pharisees' teachings being false. Beyond that, however, the writer of Matthew had omitted some five preceding TJ verses in which Jmmanuel excoriated the Pharisees for their lack of understanding and their teachings on keeping the sabbath day holy. This very strong denunciation of them in front of the people in the synagogue, not reproduced in Matthew, is what enraged the Pharisees on this occasion. The chances are really slim here that a literary hoaxer could have foreseen this little known objection, and have inserted text that avoids it in so realistic a manner. PHoax ¯ 0.15. Mt 12:15-17 15Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all, 16and ordered them not to make him known. 17This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: TJ 13:24-26 24When Jmmanuel learned of this, he withdrew from there, and many people followed him, including many sick people; and he healed them all. 25He warned them, however, not to spread the news about him, because he was afraid he would be captured and put to death by torture. 26But his dedication to the truth prevailed, and so he continued to reveal his teachings and wisdom to the people. TJ 13:24-26 24Und da Jmmanuel das erfuhr, wich er von dannen; und ihm folgte nach viel Volk und viele Kranke, und er heilte sie alle. 25Er aber bedrohte sie, dass sie die Kunde von ihm nicht ausbreiten sollten, denn er fürchtete, dass er gefangengenommen und den Martertod sterben sollte. 26Der Wille zur Wahrheit oblag ihm aber also, so er seine Lehre und die Weisheit dem Volke weiter offenbarte. THE PROBLEMS. The only explanation Matthew offers here as to why Jesus ordered the people he healed not to make him known was to say it was in fulfillment of the prophecy from Isaiah. However, in that prophecy its only portion that comes close to touching upon this aspect is what is given in Mt 12:19, which reads: 19He will not wrangle or cry aloud, nor will any one hear his voice in the streets. This part of the prophecy pertains to the voice of "the servant." There in Isaiah (Is 42:1-4) it is the servant's voice, presumed in Matthew to represent the voice of Jesus, that would not be heard, whereas here Jesus' warning is for the people not to let their voices be heard, speaking of what he had done. Thus Matthew's explanation is entirely wanting. Another problem is that the people who followed Jesus out of the synagogue, and/or who otherwise joined in with these followers, could not credibly all have been sick, and all in need of healing. Yet this is what Mt 12:15b states. SOLUTION. The real reason for Jmmanuel's warning is as given in the TJ verse. But it could not be included by the writer of Matthew, since it expressed temporary fear on the part of Jmmanuel, and because it implied he did not intend to suffer the death of a martyr, unlike Matthew's later story of Jesus dying such a death upon crucifixion. The omission of the TJ's "including many sick people" by the writer of Matthew might have been an oversight, or it might have reflected a desire on his part to have Jesus' miraculous healings encompass a maximum number of people-all who were there, not just all the sick among them. The TJ avoids these problems in a straightforward manner that indicates Jmmanuel was quite human in his emotions. At the same time, the reason is apparent why the writer of Matthew resorted to a scriptural explanation for the "messianic secret," however flawed, rather than reproducing the TJ's explanation. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 12:18-21 18"Behold, my servant whom I have chosen.... 21and in his name will the Gentiles hope." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This is the Isaiah prophecy, Is 42:1-4, interpreted as Jesus being the chosen servant. According to Krister Stendahl, it can only be understood as a paraphrased version of old scriptures that specifically identify the servant with Jacob, while Matthew clearly identifies the servant with Jesus.[3] The last part of the prophecy as given in Isaiah (from the Masoretic text) reads, "and the coastlands wait for his law." Mt 12:21 differs considerably here, where it follows the Greek Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Hebrew scriptures. SOLUTION. Stendahl appears to be correct here, as both before and after this area of text, occurring within the latter half of Isaiah known as Deutero-Isaiah, God speaks of Jacob, referring to him as the servant in question, as does the LXX text explicitly. This is another place where the writer of Matthew would seem to have inserted a section of text favorable to gentiles, in contrast to his several very demeaning statements against gentiles elsewhere. (A further such place is at Mt 28:18-19, discussed under that heading.) But why, then, did not the writers of Mark and of Luke incorporate it into their texts? These questions are explained by Mt 12:17-21 being an addition made by the later translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek who, however, also took liberties with his citations. Otherwise, it is almost inconceivable that the original writer of Matthew would treat gentiles as the scum of the earth in Mt 5-7, turn around and treat gentiles as most worthy of discipleship here, then resume his anti-gentile agenda in Mt 15:22-26. Yet, at the time Mark and Luke came out, written in Greek and appealing to gentiles, it must have been realized that unless Matthew were revised to make it less unappealing to gentiles, its priority, authority and popularity would rapidly give way to the Gospels of Mark and Luke. It's quite understandable that the translator made use of the Greek text of the Old Testament citation when making his addition, as he would likely have been familiar with the LXX. It is consistent with this solution that no copy of the original Semitic text of Matthew has survived. After the improved Greek version came out, the supporters of Matthean priority would have been eager to push it forward to gentiles as well as Jews and to phase out the previous Semitic version as soon as possible. And those who supported the Gospels of Mark and Luke, with their pro-gentile perspectives, would also be happy to see to it that the original version of Semitic Matthew was eliminated. The fact that Greek Matthew contained some additions and differences from the original Hebraic text of Matthew must have been further incentive to phase out the earlier version, since the word of God was not supposed to have to undergo changes. Since only Matthew contains this verse, a literary hoaxer might be strongly inclined to omit it. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 12:22-26 22Then a blind and dumb demoniac was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the dumb man spoke and saw. 23And all the people were amazed, and said, "Can this be the Son of David?" 24But when the Pharisees heard it they said, "It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons." 25Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand; 26and if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand?" TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. This is the very brief story of Jesus restoring speech and sight to the blind mute, followed by discussion of Beelzebul and Satan. In discussing the healing story, Beare (p. 276) noted that it forms a doublet with the somewhat more detailed verses of Mt 9:32-34 and concluded that this part of the doublet was a construction by the writer of Matthew. The lack of any detail to the story is consistent with Beare's suspicion, as is also the placement of the phrase "Son of David" on the lips of the people at a time before the post- crucifixion appearances and before Jesus was generally regarded as a Messiah figure. At this time, Jesus was but a descendant of David, based upon the Jewish custom of tracing lineage. Another problem that suggests the verses are inventions is that 12:22 starts out with "Then a blind and deaf demoniac was brought to him." Jesus is not said to have gone anywhere, and no time has elapsed, since he healed those who had followed him (Mt 12:15). So if the healings had been completed, how could there immediately have been still another healing? From verse 24 we gain the impression that the Pharisees were not actually present with Jesus at this time, since the verse starts out, "But when the Pharisees heard it," indicating some later time. This is confirmed by their referral to Jesus as "this man;" i.e., they were not speaking to him directly. It is further confirmed by the phrase "knowing their thoughts" of verse 12:25, which indicates Jesus did not hear them speak it directly in his presence. Yet, in verse 25 he responds directly to the Pharisees who are not present! Or else, he responds to the people as if the Pharisees were there to hear him. This same criticism persists through Mt 12:26-37. SOLUTION. The TJ's lack of cognates supports Beare here, and also the criticism against the conflicting indications of whether or not the Pharisees had been present. Such a mix-up can occur when an editor hastily invents a discussion, while it wouldn't likely occur in the telling of a real life story. The writer of Matthew failed to insert a sentence just prior to verse 25 that would indicate he soon had another encounter with the Pharisees, and failed to properly qualify the beginning of v. 25 to wit: "Knowing their previous thoughts." Previous TJ verses (9:35-36), which indicate that the earlier healing episode in Matthew (9:32-34) is the one based upon reality, also supports Beare's conclusion. Thus the indications are very strong that the Matthean verses are non-genuine, while a literary hoaxer might have included part of them, since they do purport to contain a healing. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 12:27-28 27"And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. 28But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 278-279) noted that the passage actually destroys the immediately preceding argument. That is, if it is by the Spirit of God that Jesus casts out demons, and if that means the kingdom of God has arrived, how then could Satan's kingdom still be standing? Yet it was implied to be still standing since Satan was not casting out Satan, and Satan's kingdom was not divided against itself. This would not be a saying spoken by a teacher possessing wisdom. SOLUTION. In any defense of the verses' logic, one would need to argue that the arrival of God's kingdom through the coming of Jesus had no effect upon Satan. Though this might be defended feasibly in a philosophical sense, it is not easily defended using arguments from Christianity. One would need to argue that early Christians believed that demons, or evil spirits, did not bear any relationship to Satan. But Satan was regarded as the chief of the evil spirits. The lack of a TJ cognate here supports Beare's objection. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 12:29 29"Or how can one enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Here Beare (pp. 279-280) could only call this a "strange figure" of speech, due to its uncertain meaning and its seeming encouragement of plunder. To derive a Christian meaning from it and its context, as attempted by Beare, one thinks of Jesus himself purging Satan's "house" of demons; yet the verse itself instead refers to someone other than Jesus seizing the goods within a strong man's house. Beare also pointed out that the verse is not in keeping with the contemporary practice of exorcising demons without first breaking the power of Satan, or of "the strong man." SOLUTION. Again the TJ's lack of cognate supports Beare's uneasiness with the verse. The compiler of Matthew may have composed the verse to infer that Jesus had already cast out Satan (the strong man), thus allowing him to cast out Satan's workers or demons (plunder the strong man's goods). To about the same extent that the verse appears non-genuine or unappealing, a literary hoaxer may not have wished to include it. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 12:30 30"He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 280) noted that this verse is a "vagrant saying," as it does not clearly refer to, or connect with, its neighboring verses. Also, its underlying assumption is illogical in that a Christian would not always know if what he thinks or does is supportive of Jesus or not, and in that it lacks any neutral ground between "for" and "against." SOLUTION. Again the TJ supports Beare's deduction. One should wonder, on the other hand, if the TJ were considered to have been written by some literary hoaxer who wished to put across New Age themes, would he have known enough not to incorporate this oft-quoted Matthean verse? PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 12:31-32 31"Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This verse does not follow from either the previous vagrant verse or the one before it. Its initial use of "therefore" is thus most inappropriate. The verse is incongruous in its own right, however. If every sin of man imaginable (except blasphemy against the Spirit) is to be automatically forgiven, including murder and genocide, then there is no need for the Gospel-minded Christian to be at all attentive to not committing sins. One may well wonder why either of these two verses was ever written. The one sensible explanation I have come upon is that Mt 12:32 was meant to convey that those who rejected Jesus' message while he was still alive-and this might even include Saul-could be forgiven, but those who reject the current message of the church, through which the Holy Spirit supposedly speaks, is not to be forgiven.[4] With this interpretation, the writer of Matthew of course betrayed the fact that he was putting anachronistic words into Jesus' mouth. Also, these verses can contradict Mt 6:15, in that if one does not forgive others, you yourself will not be forgiven. Here, however, every sin in two out of three categories will receive forgiveness by the heavenly Father, without further qualification. SOLUTION. These verses therefore represent more of the writer of Matthew's fabrication. Hence they do not appear in the TJ. If a New Age literary hoaxer had composed the TJ, however, it is rather probable he would have retained part of this passage due to its mention of the Spirit. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 12:33-37 33"Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad... 36I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; 37for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This passage is concerned mostly about the saying of good, evil and idle words, and strangely being called to judgment by God specifically for uttering the idle words. Yet just five verses earlier the compiler wrote that blasphemy even against Jesus would be forgiven. Thus, practically every blasphemy is to be forgiven, but careless words may not be! However, if one were to blaspheme against Jesus in a moment of carelessness, would that be forgiven? Beare (p. 280) again gave reasons why it looks like it was the compiler of Matthew, not an original eyewitness to Jesus' ministry, who placed these foolish sayings into their present context. Its first verse, Mt 12:33, is itself non-understandable. SOLUTION. This and the preceding six passages presented here occur in place of TJ text describing the theft of Judas Iscariot's writings, Jmmanuel's taking Judas Iscariot aside to lecture him on right and wrong, and his prophecy that Judas would undeservedly be accused of betraying him. These were unacceptable topics that the compiler had to delete, and they could well have prompted him to substitute material on good and evil in its place. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 12:38-40 38Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." 39But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40For as Jonah was three days and nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This explanation of the sign of Jonah is partly repeated in Mt 16:4, suggesting that one of the two is a redaction. Many scholars have voiced their opinions that this verse is the redaction. For example, Lamar Cope notes that the best Greek rendition of its first clause in verse 40 comes straight from the Old Testament rendition of Jonah 1:17, i.e. from the Greek Septuagint, whose text was known to early Christian scribes.[5] Thus, verses 38-39 must be redactions also. SOLUTION. Again the absence of a TJ cognate supports the scholar's analysis. With the present Augustinian hypothesis (Mt-Mk-Lk Gospel priorities), the Septuagint was made use of at the time that Semitic Matthew was translated into Greek, after Mark and Luke had come out in Greek. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 12:41-42 41"The men of Nineveh will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. 42The Queen of the South will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Here, Beare (pp. 281-282) noted that words about the appearance of the men of Nineveh at the Judgment bear no connection to Jonah's experience in the whale, mentioned in the preceding verse; nor does the appearance of the Queen of the South. Beare thus strongly implied that these are redactive additions stemming from Old Testament material, and are not original sayings of Jesus. The "Queen of the South" here refers to the Queen of Sheba, from 1 Kings 10:1. In addition, we seem to be identifying one repeated clause as the signature of the redactor: "something greater than ___ is here" (see also Mt 12:6 above)-the redactor's way of suggesting the speaker has relevant wisdom, which he is keeping to himself, and that therefore his redacted words will look genuine. These verses are among those that imply that the Last Judgment would have occurred by the end of "this generation" of people living in Jesus' time. Marcus Borg has noted that this implication of an "early end" tends to occur within highly suspect verses, so that wherever they occur their genuineness may be doubted.[6] On the other hand, the seemingly more genuine eschatological verses, occurring in Matthew's 24th chapter, do not say that the end of the world would be imminent.[7] SOLUTION. The TJ's lack of cognate verses again supports the scholars' position, but a literary hoaxer would quite likely not wish to include these obviously irrelevant verses. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 12:43-45 43"When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest, but he finds none... 45...and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. So shall it be also with this evil generation." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This is the passage about the return of the demon. Beare (pp. 283-284) noted the difficulty in seeing what its point is or was meant to be, and how it relates meaningfully to adjacent material of Mt 12. He went on to spell out difficulties with proposed interpretations. SOLUTION. Beare again detected the imprint of the redactor here. The TJ, having no cognate, can shed no light on what the compiler's point may have been. However, there are some who feel that Matthew's frequent lack of any definite meaning adds an aura of religious mysticism, as in this instance, to be appreciated in preference to the TJ's usual logic. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 12:46-47 46While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. 47Some one told him, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak to you." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Here, Beare (p. 284) noticed that verse 46 contains a "certain incoherence." The problem is, if Jesus were still addressing a crowd of people, it must have been outside in the open air. However, if his mother and brothers stood outside, this would imply that Jesus stood inside-inside a house or structure where the people outside could not have heard him. Moreover, Matthew does not mention that Jesus had earlier entered a house-an oversight that the writer of Mark corrected (Mk 3:19b,31), perhaps unwittingly. Verse 47 redundantly repeats the content of verse 46, and is thus not likely part of any narration of a real-life event. Beare assumed it to be a probable "gloss" assimilated later into Matthew from Mark or Luke. The verse is quite well attested, however, being in many important Matthean manuscripts, but is missing from some others and is relegated to a footnote in the RSV Bible. SOLUTION. The incoherence or illogic of verse 46 is of course a hallmark of redactive insertions, which, not usually being based upon truth, are difficult to invent realistically without occasional slip-ups. The writer of Mark seems to have edited its problem away (Mk 3:31-32) while retaining the episode as a whole, probably because Mt 12:50 could apply favorably to gentiles. And he appears to have utilized Mt 12:47. We find that the reason Mt 12:47 is quite well attested to be that it was indeed invented and penned by the writer of Matthew, with its redundancy being a result of insufficient creativity and care on his part. Such Matthean redundancy of an invented passage can be noted elsewhere (e.g., see under Mt 28:9-10). This then explains why the verse occurs in both Mk 3:32 and Lk 8:20, given that Matthew was the first Gospel. The hypothesis that Mt 12:47 is a scribal gloss is actually quite improbable.[8] A scribe was especially unlikely to assimilate a verse from a different gospel into the gospel he was transcribing if such verse would make the reading cumbersome and if it was of no theological importance. 48 Mt 12:48-50 But he replied to the man who told him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" 49And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 50For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. This also appears to be part of an invented pericope, because a teacher of wisdom who would preach "honor your father and your mother" (Mt 15:4) would not treat his mother so cavalierly when she needed to speak to him. It is also unlikely that his mother and brothers would be there at this house, which was close to the Sea of Galilee, since their home in Nazareth was some 15 miles away. That his own household would not likely even have been present is suggested by Mt 13:57 "...A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house." The last verse appears to be an awkwardly worded finale to the redaction: its and's should have been or's since the words do connote gender, and since "sister" appears here but not in verses 48 & 49. SOLUTION. Again the TJ's lack of any cognate verse indicates the problems raised are solved by these verses, along with the rest of Mt 12:17-50, being an editorial insert by the writer of Matthew. In considering Mt 12:46-50 as a unit, we see much evidence that it is a non-genuine Matthean invention. Yet, a literary hoaxer could well have been quite happy to have included it, because of its message of good will towards others. PHoax ¯ 0.4. When the individual odds against the hoax hypothesis from this chapter's verse comparisons (TJ 13 versus Mt 12) are accumulated, one finds the probability for hoax here to be only 0.00029. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 13 REFERENCES 1. Tuckett, C. M., The Revival of the Griesbach Hypothesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 97. 2. Davies, W. D. and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 2 (Edinburg: T&T Clark, 1991), p. 320. 3. Stendahl, Krister, The School of St. Matthew (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968), p. 115. 4. Robinson, James M., "Jesus as Sophos and Sophia: Wisdom tradition and the Gospels," in Aspects of Wisdom in Judaism and Early Christianity, Robert L. Wilken, ed. (Notre Dame Press, 1975), p. 6. 5. Cope, Lamar, "Matthew 12:40 and the Synoptic source question," JBL 92 (1973), p. 115. 6. Borg, Marcus, Jesus: A New Vision, pp. 157, 168, footnote 28. 7. Within Borg's analysis, Mt. 24:34 (another "this generation" verse) is one of the highly suspect verses, and the TJ would agree. 8. Davies & Allison, A Critical Commentary, vol. 2, p. 363, n. 117. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 13 Mt 13:1 1That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. TJ 15:1 1That same day Jmmanuel went out and walked to the sea, where he sat down. TJ 15:1 1An demselben Tage ging Jmmanuel hinaus und wanderte zum Meer, wo er sich setzte. THE PROBLEM. As noted by Beare (p. 290) "out of the house" seems like a Matthean addition. We have noted that the previous pericope of Mt 12:46-50 gave good reasons for having been a Matthean invention. Thus with the implied "house" being part of the invention, Jesus' departure from it here appears to be more of the same. However, this is a very obscure criticism. SOLUTION. The "went out" ["ging... hinaus"] of the (Aramaic -> German) TJ verse likely suggested to the compiler of Matthew to add "house" here, and so build a bridge to his preceding redaction of Mt 12:46-50, for which he had failed to provide a house beforehand. In the TJ verse, "went out" could refer to going out from wherever they had been staying, not necessarily a house. This is an example of a small difference from Matthew which, within the hypothesis of the TJ being a hoax, a literary hoaxer would have had no particular motivation for having implemented. PHoax ¯ 0.35. However, the phrase "that same day" is probably not to be taken literally, as Beare inferred when saying it was a stock phrase of introduction. In the TJ's story, Jmmanuel had just previously been in Bethlehem and in the desert nearby (with Judas Iscariot). Thus it would have been more than a day's walk from there back to the Sea of Galilee, or even down to the Dead Sea. With the TJ's writing having been initiated years after Jmmanuel's Palestinian ministry, its author likely could not often have been at all precise in his chronology, even when relying also upon Jmmanuel's memory. Mt 13:3-11 3And he told them [great crowds] many things in parables, saying: "A sower went out to sow. 4And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. 5Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, 6but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away. 7Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9He who has ears, let him hear." 10Then the disciples came and said to him, "Why do you speak to them in parables?" 11And he answered them, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given." TJ 15:3-11 3He talked to them in parables about various things, saying, "Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4While he sowed, some seeds fell on the pathway; then the birds came and ate them up. 5And some fell on the rocks, where there was not much soil. 6And as the sun rose high, they withered, and because they had no roots, they dried out. 7Some fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up and smothered them. 8Some fell on good ground and bore fruit, some hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold. 9Those who have ears, let them hear." 10The disciples stepped up to him and said, "Why do you speak in parables, when they do not understand your teachings?" 11He answered, saying, "It has been given to you to understand the secrets of the spirit, but it has not been given to them." TJ 15:3-11 3Und er redete zu ihnen mancherlei in Gleichnissen und sprach: «Sehet, es ging ein Sämann aus zu säen. 4Indem er säte, fiel etliches an den Weg; da kamen die Vögel und frassen es auf. 5Etliches fiel auf das Felsige, wo es nicht viel Erde hatte. 6Und als die Sonne hochstieg, verwelkte es, und weil es nicht Wurzeln hatte, ward es dürre. 7Etliches fiel unter die Dornen; und die Dornen wuchsen auf und erstickten es. 8Etliches fiel auf gutes Land und trug Frucht, etliches hundertfältig, etliches sechzigfältig, etliches dreissigfältig. 9Wer Ohren hat, der höre.» 10Und die Jünger traten zu ihm und sprachen: «Warum redest du zu ihnen in Gleichnissen, so sie deine Lehre doch nicht verstehen?» 11Er antwortete und sprach: «Euch ist es gegeben, dass ihr die Geheimnisse des Geistes versteht, diesen aber ist es nicht gegeben.» THE PROBLEMS. As Beare (pp. 291-292, 297) noted, it is scarcely conceivable that Jesus ever delivered a parable about the kingdom of heaven to the crowds without giving them any clues as to how to interpret it. The explanation for it given a little later in Matthew was addressed only to the disciples, and even it does not make sense to many scholars or analysts of the Gospels. Beare felt that if Jesus had ever spoken this parable it was under different circumstances in which the people would have had a better chance of understanding it. In addition, the clause "and immediately they sprang up" (in Mt 13:5) defies logic, in that shallowness of soil is not conducive to seeds sprouting quickly; sprouting first requires moisture, and moisture is retained longer in deep soil than in shallow. SOLUTION. The key difference between Matthew and the TJ here is that Jmmanuel's parable had been concerned with the secrets of the human spirit, not with the "kingdom of heaven." The parable then could have been deciphered by the thinking person who had heard Jmmanuel speak about the human spirit before, or who would hear him speak a little later. They would be able to deduce that the "seeds" referred to words of truth spoken about the human spirit and the laws of Creation. The "good ground" they could deduce referred to persons who could accept these words of truth, having already sought out truth for themselves. This all makes sense within the TJ context of the ultimate purpose of life being to seek and learn in order to evolve one's spirit. The seeds sown among the thorns are then readily interpreted, almost as in Matthew, as being the words of truth received by those whose excessive concern with affairs of the world or accumulation of material riches smothers their desire to seek spiritual truths. And similarly for the seeds sown on the rocks (see TJ 15:36-40 below). The reason the Matthean parable is not similarly understandable is that the "seeds" are not easily construed to represent the "word of the kingdom of heaven," as Matthew's explanation to the disciples (Mt 13:19) gives it. Even if Jesus' listeners were to guess that the seeds represent the "word," they would scarcely be able to guess what that word might be. It might be something within the Torah, such as the Ten Commandments or the "Love your neighbor" admonition, or something Jesus had spoken about before according to Matthew, some combination of these, or something else yet. In the parable, the seeds that fell on the rocks where there was very little soil would have found little or no soil moisture for inducing growth, especially under sunny conditions. And so they could not "immediately spring up." No significant roots could then develop either, since they could not penetrate below the rocks. However the compiler of Matthew evidently felt he could improve upon this part of the TJ's parable by adding "and immediately they sprang up." This he likely did in order to provide a stronger analogy-though at the expense of common sense-for the parable's later interpretation in Mt 13:20 (which does have a TJ parallel: TJ 15:37). In this latter interpretation, these seeds are like those who immediately rejoice in the word but later fall away from it. For that reason the compiler apparently wished these seeds to sprout "immediately." With the TJ text, the "withering" of the seeds of TJ 15:6 apparently refers to their dessication at a high temperature under the sun, causing them to turn sterile. We see that the TJ parable could have been spoken by a wisdom teacher whereas the Matthean version is wanting, as Beare pointed out. And since the problem with the latter's "immediately they sprang up" is quite obscure, a literary hoaxer is very unlikely to have noticed this to correct it. On the other hand, the writer of Matthew had motivation to generate the illogic, which he either ignored or did not perceive. PHoax ¯ 0.3. It may be noted that in Mark's parallel to this parable (Mk 4:8), its writer altered the order of bounty from 100-60-30-fold to 30-60-100-fold. The latter is more natural for emphasizing how much was produced, and for being climactic. Within the tradition of Matthew having been abbreviated by the writer of Mark, one sees that here the latter writer found one of his many opportunities to make a minor change from Matthew for the sake of change. If the writer of Matthew had been copying from Mark, on the other hand, he would not likely have altered it to the non-climactic 100-60-30-fold. Mt 13:12 12"For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away." TJ 15:18 18"For to those who have, more will be given so they may have in abundance; but from those who have not, from them will be taken what they have." TJ 15:18 18«Denn also: Wer da hat, dem wird gegeben, dass er die Fülle habe; wer aber nicht hat, von dem wird auch genommen, was er hat.» THE PROBLEM. The Matthean verse is too enigmatic to make good sense. "For to him who has" what? And "from him who has not" what? Beare (p. 293) thought that this was once a piece of folk wisdom that meant "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," which is spiritualized in Matthew. If so, the religious meaning is still obscure. If it is supposed that it refers to advances in learning the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, as perhaps implied by Beare, with great advances coming to those who have already advanced appreciably, and losses to those who have not, why weren't these secrets ever expressed and explained? Why are there no teachings on how to learn the secrets of the Kingdom? If this refers back to the parable of the sower, then the secrets are the "seeds," which are the "word of the kingdom" according to Mt 13:18. But Matthew's Jesus never speaks of words that lead to spiritual advancement; instead, his words are those advising what to do or not to do to get into heaven in the afterlife. The idea of spiritual advancement is not part of Christianity, since either one makes it into heaven or one does not. Matthew has no concept of Limbo as an afterlife place that might be a region of transition between heaven and hell. At Mt 25:29 there is a doublet of this verse, and its preceding parable, Mt 25:14-28 (the parable of the talents), seems designed for the purpose of explaining the verse. This explanation commends the investing of one's money wisely so as to reap the greatest possible profits. But since this contradicts Mt 6:19 ("Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth"), it is not an accepted interpretation. SOLUTION. Although the TJ's verse is essentially the same as the Matthean parallel, within the TJ context it makes good sense. Three key verses of the intervening six that the writer of Matthew left out are: TJ 15:15-17 15"Truly, I say to you, life and the knowledge of truth are only valuable and good when they are achieved through one's own thinking or through the resolving of mysteries that are recounted in parables. 16As yet human beings have little knowledge and no cognitions, and they are not yet conscious of the laws of Creation and the power of the consciousness. 17First, human beings must learn to recognize the truth and thus to live according to the laws of Creation, so they may become knowledgeable and strong in consciousness." TJ 15:15-17 15«Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Das Leben und das Wissen der Wahrheit sind nur dann wertvoll und gut, wenn sie durch eigenes Denken erlangt werden, so also durch das Lösen von Geheimnissen, die in Gleichnissen genannt werden. 16Noch ist der Mensch kleinwissend und ohne Erkenntnis, und die Gesetze der Schöpfung und die Kraft des Bewusstseins sind ihm noch nicht bewusst. 17Erst muss der Mensch lernen, die Wahrheit zu erkennen und also auch nach den Gesetzen der Schöpfung zu leben, so er dann wissend wird und mächtig im Bewusstsein.» Thus Jmmanuel was saying that one needs a certain basic knowledge about the human spirit and Creation before one can learn much more and attain spiritual knowledge in abundance. Without this basic understanding, derived through thinking for oneself as well as from proper guidance, one is easily led astray by false beliefs to become even more lacking in the understanding of important truths. It seems that Beare was on the right track in his interpretation, but could express it only vaguely since Christianity lacks the concept of spiritual evolution. In the TJ, Jmmanuel actually teaches how to be among "those who have," while Matthew's Jesus does not. The chances are poor that a literary hoaxer could purposely or accidentally have his work of fraud turn out to give full meaning to this enigmatic Matthean verse without altering it significantly. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 13:13-14 13"This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says..." TJ 15:19-20 19"Therefore I speak to them in parables, because with seeing eyes they do not see, and with hearing ears they do not hear; nor do they understand. 20And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says..." TJ 15:19-20 19«Darum rede ich zu ihnen in Gleichnissen: Denn mit sehenden Augen sehen sie nicht, und mit hörenden Ohren hören sie nicht; und sie verstehen es auch nicht. 20Und an ihnen wird die Weissagung Jesajas erfüllt, die da sagt: ...» THE PROBLEM. This verse has been an enigma to many scholars. As Matthew Black has stated it, "The reason given in Matthew for the use of the parable ought surely to be a reason for the very opposite, plain speaking without parable."[1] In other words, if the people did not understand Jesus' parables, he should have spoken to them in plain ordinary language, Black felt. SOLUTION. Again the two sets of verses are practically identical. However, TJ verses before this point, which the compiler of Matthew omitted, explain Jmmanuel's usage of parables. The three most pertinent verses omitted are: TJ 15:12-14 12"They [the people] certainly hear my words, but they still live and think according to the erroneous teachings of their scribes and Pharisees. 13Their consciousness is unknowing and empty, therefore they must first learn to live and think. 14What would be better to make them come alive and think, if not through speaking in parables!" TJ 15:12-14 12«Sie horchen wohl meinen Worten, doch leben und denken sie aber nach den irren Lehren ihrer Schriftgelehrten und Pharisäer. 13Ihr Bewusstsein ist unwissend und leer, so sie also erst leben und denkenlernen müssen. 14Was wäre besser, sie lebend und denkend zu machen, wenn nicht durch das Sprechen in Gleichnissen!» With such verses omitted from Matthew, it is not surprising that scholars have guessed incorrectly at the meaning of Mt 13:13. Black concluded that the problem lay in an incorrect interpretation of an Aramaic word when it was translated into Greek. Instead, it lay in the compiler's inability to tolerate the explanation within the TJ that people should learn to think for themselves. It is much more likely that the compiler of Matthew omitted the verses of explanation than that a literary hoaxer conceived that an explanation was needed and then created it so brilliantly. Naturally the writer of Matthew did not want the people of his day to think for themselves, but rather to listen to the church. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 13:19-23 19"When any one hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart; this is what was sown along the path. 20As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. 22As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the delight in riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. 23As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it; he indeed bears fruit, and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty." TJ 15:36-40 36"If someone hears the word of truth about the spirit and the laws, and does not understand it, then the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in their mind. That is for whom it is sown on the pathway. 37But for whom it is sown on the rocks, that is the one who hears the word and promptly accepts it with joy. 38But this person has no roots within, so that which is heard cannot take hold and grow. Rather, this one is fickle and becomes annoyed when misery and persecution arise because of the truth. 39But for whom it is sown among the thorns, that is the one who hears the word, but the woes of the world and the deception of material 40 riches smother the truth and the knowledge; thus this one brings forth no fruit. But for whom it is sown on good ground, this is the one who accepts the word and seeks and finds the truth, so as to be able to live according to the laws of truth; thus the fruit is allowed to grow and ripen, bringing in a rich harvest. One person bears a hundred-fold, another sixty-fold and another thirty-fold." TJ 15:36-40 36«Wenn jemand das Wort der Wahrheit des Geistes und der Gesetze hört und nicht versteht, so kommt der Arge und reisst hinweg, was da gesät ist in seinen Verstand; das ist der, bei dem an den Weg gesät ist. 37Bei dem aber, bei dem auf das Felsige gesät ist, das ist der, der das Wort hört und es alsbald aufnimmt mit Freuden. 38Er aber hat nicht Wurzeln in sich, so das Gehörte festwachsen könnte, sondern er ist wetterwendisch; wenn sich Trübsal und Verfolgung erhebt um der Wahrheit willen, so nimmt er Ärgernis. 39Bei dem aber unter die Dornen gesät ist, das ist der, der das Wort hört, doch die Sorge der Welt und der Betrug des materiellen Reichtums ersticken die Wahrheit und das Wissen, und also bringt er keine Frucht. 40Bei dem aber in das gute Land gesät ist, das ist der, der das Wort aufnimmt und die Wahrheit sucht und findet, so er nach den Gesetzen der Wahrheit leben kann; so er die Frucht wachsen und reifen lässt und reiche Ernte bringt; und der eine trägt hundertfältig, der andere sechzigfältig, der andere dreissigfältig.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (pp. 297-298) found that this interpretation of the parable didn't fit it. It seems to relate farmers' difficulties to those of Christian evangelists who seek to win converts, without explaining the rewards that would correspond to the potential abundance of the harvest. The explanation "he has no root in himself" seems to lack meaning; hence some analysts suppose that "himself" should instead read "it," referring back to "the word." Another problem is the lack of any indication that those who hear the word and subsequently choke on it or suffer tribulation did not actually understand it. A person can be told something and understand it, yet still fail to take appropriate action. SOLUTION. The TJ version is more understandable because it refers to teachings of truth sown in the mind, not the heart. Thus, the idea is that if one does not understand the Word, i.e., the words of truth, then malicious thoughts (as from scribes, Pharisees and their converts) can easily replace the misunderstood true teachings with false beliefs. In the TJ, "the evil one" (from the German "der Arge") has no basis for being interpreted as "the devil." With the TJ, "this person has no roots within" must refer to having no connectivity with one's spirit within, perhaps not even realizing the spirit exists. There is then no spiritual context within which to place newly heard words of truth, whose meaning then becomes lost. The last TJ verse of the parable's interpretation, TJ 15:40, is consistent with other verses in the TJ where living a fruitful life involves seeking and finding the truth. This represents much more than Matthew's "understanding the word." In this passage, as elsewhere, the compiler replaced "spirit" with "kingdom" and eliminated "truth." His purpose we again surmise was to encourage Christians to accept the teachings of the church as it reflected the kingdom-of-God concept, and not to rely upon one's own consciousness and thinking for acquiring the truth. He could not, of course, come right out and state that the word of truth was the word of the Christian church and its emerging scriptures, since his gospel was supposedly written before the church was formed, so he had to delete "truth." In the TJ, the reward of following a life of seeking and finding truth is spiritual enlightenment, whose benefits become manifest in future lives if not in the present life. Thus again, the TJ version is more consistent with having been spoken by a teacher of wisdom, for the reasons given. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 13:24-30 24Another parable he put before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27And the servants of the householder came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then has it weeds?' 28He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 29But he said, 'No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them into bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'" TJ 15:43-52 43But he put before them another parable and said, "The consciousness-related world is like a man who planted good seeds in his field. 44But while he slept, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the good seeds and went away. 45As the plantings grew and bore fruit, the weeds also appeared. 46Then the servants came to the sower and said, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?' 47He spoke to them, 'An enemy has done this.' Then the servants said, 'Do you want us to go out and pull up the weeds?' 48He replied, 'No, lest you uproot the good fruit when you pull up the weeds. 49Let both grow together until the harvest, and near harvest time I will tell the reapers: First gather the weeds and bind them in bundles, that they may be burned and the ashes strewn over the field so that the soil will be nourished; but gather the good fruit and stack it for me in my barn.' 50For behold," said Jmmanuel, "both grow side by side, the weeds and the good fruit. 51The weeds hinder the good fruit from growing, yet later the weeds will become compost and nourish the ground. 52Were it not for the weeds being made into nourishment for the soil, the good fruit could not grow, since it needs nourishment." TJ 15:43-52 43Er legte ihnen aber ein anderes Gleichnis vor und sprach: «Das bewusstseinsmässige Reich ist gleich einem Menschen, der guten Samen auf seinen Acker säte. 44Da er aber schlief, kam sein Feind und säte Unkraut zwischen die gute Sämerei und ging davon. 45Da nun die Saat wuchs und Frucht brachte, da fand sich auch das Unkraut. 46Da traten die Knechte zu dem Sämann und sprachen: ‹Herr, hast du nicht guten Samen auf deinen Acker gesät, woher hat er dann das Unkraut›? 47Er sprach zu ihnen: ‹Das hat ein Feind getan›, da sprachen die Knechte: ‹Willst du denn, dass wir hingehen und es ausjäten›? 48Er aber sprach: ‹Nein, auf dass ihr nicht zugleich die gute Frucht mit ausreisset, wenn ihr das Unkraut ausjätet. 49Lasset beides miteinander wachsen bis zur Ernte; und um der Ernte Zeit will ich zu den Schnittern sagen: Sammelt zuvor das Unkraut und bindet es in Bündel, dass man es verbrenne und die Asche über das Feld streue, so es dem Erdreich Nahrung sei; die gute Frucht aber sammelt und stapelt sie mir in meiner Scheune›. 50«Denn sehet,» sprach Jmmanuel, «beide wachsen miteinander, das Unkraut und die gute Frucht. 51Das Unkraut hindert die gute Frucht am Wachstum, doch aber wird das Unkraut später zu Dünger und nährt den Boden. 52Wäre nicht das Unkraut, aus dem Nahrung für das Erdreich gemacht wird, so könnte die gute Frucht nicht wachsen, die doch also der Nahrung bedarf.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (pp. 303-305) found several problems with the Matthean parable that forced him to conclude if it had originated with Jesus, the writer of Matthew had reshaped it. One is that the parable's interpretation (Mt 13:37-43) does not deal with the primary focus of the parable itself, which was the requirement of not disposing with the weeds too soon. Another is its difficulty or uncertainty of understandable interpretation, unless that involves an established church as representing the kingdom of heaven and the weeds as representing those within the church who are considered evil. But in that case the parable could not have been spoken by Jesus, years before the first church was conceived or formed. Thus with the parable's later interpretation not being believable and not coming authentically from Jesus (see below under Mt 13:36-43), its originally intended interpretation is totally uncertain-not what a wisdom teacher would have spoken. SOLUTION. The Matthean parable is essentially the same as the first half of the TJ's parable. However, the TJ parable continues on to explain the value of the weeds, and in so doing brings out the point that good can often be made to arise from what appears to be only evil. Thus Beare's objections do not apply to it. The compiler of Matthew apparently could not understand or tolerate this viewpoint, since the kingdom of heaven represented only the good. Hence he truncated the TJ parable. As applied to the spiritual realm, the implication of the TJ's parable is that spiritual forces or entities see to it that one's spirit during incarnations will at times be faced with situations that involve evil, and this provides the person-the spirit-with challenges which, if properly faced, allow it to grow and evolve. Once again, the TJ verses are not susceptible to Beare's logical objections to Matthew's parallels. They appear to have emanated from a teacher of wisdom, not from a literary hoaxer. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 13:31-32 31Another parable he put before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; 32it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." TJ 15:53-54 53He presented the people with another parable, saying, "The consciousness- related world is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. 54It is the smallest among the seeds, but when it is grown, it is bigger than all the shrubs and becomes a tree, so that birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches." TJ 15:53-54 53Ein anderes Gleichnis legte er dem Volke vor und sprach: «Das bewusstseinsmässige Reich ist gleich einem Senfkorn, das ein Mensch nahm und säte es auf seinen Acker. 54Welches das kleinste ist unter den Samen; wenn es aber gewachsen ist, so ist es grösser als alle Sträucher und wird ein Baum, dass die Vögel unter dem Himmel kommen und wohnen in seinen Zweigen.» THE PROBLEMS. Again the foremost problem is that its interpretation is in doubt. One is that it is meant to portray the growth of Christianity through influx of gentiles.[2] Another is that it represents the kingdom of God then being present and from then on being available to all men.[3] However, the former interpretation presumes the existence already of the church, which is not viable. The latter does not do justice to the parable's growth process; i.e., if the kingdom of heaven is suddenly present on earth (the verse says "is like", not "becomes like"), its availability did not gradually grow like a shrub or tree grows. Both interpretations suffer from the kingdom of heaven-a supposed realm within the heavens-being likened to a material process on Earth, i.e., the growth of the church: its membership, its numbers and its buildings. SOLUTION. With the TJ the interpretation is that one's spirit or consciousness starts out being very insignificant, upon its initiation countless incarnations ago, but gradually grows in power and evolves as it accumulates knowledge and wisdom during repeated incarnations. The spiritual realm is the home of the spirit to which it returns between lives. The indications are that the writer of Matthew's little alteration of the TJ's "spiritual kingdom" (or consciousness-related world) to "kingdom of heaven" brought about the problems. It is less plausible to argue in the opposite direction, since a hoaxer would have needed to make a host of other alterations throughout his text, all consistent, in order that this one leave behind no problem. PHoax ¯ 0.3. The difference between birds "of the air" in Matthew and "of the sky" in the TJ is less than it may seem. In the scholars' preferred Greek form of Matthew, the word translated in the RSV Bible as "air" is "heavens," which can also mean "sky." Mt 13:33 33He told them another parable. "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened." TJ 15:55 55He told the people another parable, "The consciousness-related world is like leaven, which a woman took and mixed into three bushels of flour until it was thoroughly leavened." TJ 15:55 55Ein anderes Gleichnis redete er zum Volke: «Das bewusstseinsmässige Reich ist einem Sauerteig gleich, den ein Weib nahm und vermengte ihn unter drei Scheffel Mehl, bis dass er ganz durchsäuert ward.» THE PROBLEM. An understanding of this parable is rendered difficult because of the use of the verb "hid," which follows the Greek text preferred by scholars. Christian attempts to explain the leaven being hidden within the flour as analogous to the initiation of the Church occurring in a silent, secretive manner, detracts from the point of the parable, which has usually been that the "kingdom produces ultimate consequences out of all proportion to its insignificant beginning.[4] The King James version and others also use "hid, while the NIV uses "mixed," as does the New American Bible, the German Bible and others. This may indicate that the verb usually translated as "hid" was altered a bit by some Bible editors to allow a more understandable interpretation. However, even the growth-of-the-Church interpretation is not really satisfactory since it just repeats the thrust of the preceding parable of the mustard seed. Similarly, the "hidden" interpretation repeats an important portion of the parable of the hidden treasure (Mt 13:44). Would a wisdom teacher utter a parable whose meaning even scholars cannot agree upon? SOLUTION. The Matthean and TJ verses are essentially the same, except for "kingdom of heaven" appearing in Matthew as usual where the TJ has 'consciousness-related world" or "spiritual kingdom," and except for the RSV version of Matthew above, using "hid" rather than "mixed." With the TJ referring to the world of the spirit within, and using "mixed" as the verb, the meaning appears more evident-recognition of the spirit within, and its power, brings about a complete transformation, in analogy to the transformational power of the yeast mixed into the flour. Thus from the TJ viewpoint, the Bible versions that interpret the Greek verb to mean "mixed" come closer to the truth. It may not have been the writer of Matthew who was responsible for this confusion, but perhaps the man who translated Matthew into Greek, or a later transcriber. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 13:36-43 36...And his disciples came to him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field." 37He answered, "He who sows the good seed is the Son of man; 38the field is the world, and the good seed means the sons of the kingdom; the weeds are the sons of the evil one. ..." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Here Beare's opinion (p. 311) was that beyond doubt this passage of "explanation" is the work of the writer of Matthew and not of the originator of the parable itself. In particular, Beare found verses 13:37-39 to be total myth, since real people cannot be strictly classified into two types-one type as pure as the "Son of man" and the other as evil as the devil. One may also refer to Beare (p. 27) for works of other biblical scholars who find the passage non-genuine; it seems to be a nearly unanimous scholarly opinion. Sanders summarizes thus, "No one, I think, will maintain the authenticity of this pericope."[5] SOLUTION. In the TJ's parable of the tares, sufficient explanation occurs within the parable itself (presented earlier) so that no extra interpretation is necessary. That is, the weeds, though regarded as a hindrance during the growing season, are also regarded as beneficial if they are later composted or burned and reapplied to the soil. The TJ spells this out, while Matthew omits this conclusion, as its writer did not believe in any intermediate state between good and evil. However, assuming Beare, Sanders and other scholars are correct, not even a literary hoaxer would fall for the explanation these verses give, and so we assign PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 13:44 44"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." TJ 15:58 58"Those who have ears, let them hear: The consciousness-related world is like a hidden treasure in the field, which a person finds and conceals; and in his joy over the discovery he goes out and sells everything he has and buys the field." TJ 15:58 58«Wer Ohren hat, der höre: Das bewusstseinsmässige Reich ist gleich einem verborgenen Schatz im Acker, welchen ein Mensch findet und verbirgt ihn; und in seiner Freude darüber geht er hin und verkauft alles, was er hat, und kauft den Acker.» THE PROBLEM. This parable has been difficult to understand within the Christian tradition because the man covered up the treasure he found. If finding the treasure is likened to accepting Christ as savior, then according to Mt 10:32-33 the fact should be acknowledged before men. John Crosson has called this a self- defeating passage, which, if it is successful, is so because it is paradoxical.[6] SOLUTION. The TJ verse is essentially the same except that "conscousness-related world" or "spiritual kingdom" was again replaced by "kingdom of heaven." Within the TJ context, it is clear that the spiritual kingdom refers to the realm of the spirit within each person. The occasion when the existence of one's spirit is first discovered or confirmed is a time of great joy, and from then on one's spirit is regarded as of utmost value, always to be kept in mind. However, its existence cannot be proven to anyone else, so it remains a treasure hidden from others who deny the existence, pre-existence, power or immortality of one's spirit. This Matthean parable, especially, can be said to exhibit editorial "fatigue." The writer of Matthew replaced the TJ's "spiritual kingdom" with "kingdom of heaven" in Mt 13:44a. Then he continued using the TJ's text unaltered in the rest of the verse. This led to the inability of thinking persons to understand the parable's meaning. Mt 13:47-48 47"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net which was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind; 48when it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into vessels but threw away the bad." TJ 15:60-61 60"Again, the consciousness-related world is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught all manner of fish. 61When it was full, the fishermen pulled it ashore, sat down and sorted the good fish into containers, but threw the useless ones away." TJ 15:60-61 60«Abermals ist das bewusstseinsmässige Reich gleich einem Netze, das ins Meer geworfen ward und allerlei Gattung fing. 61Als es aber voll war, zogen sie es heraus an das Ufer, sassen und lasen die Guten in Gefässe zusammen, aber die Unnützen warfen sie weg.» THE PROBLEM. As Beare noted (p. 315), this parable is not a decent allegory. There are no clues as to what is really meant by the fishing, the net, the sea or the vessels. He went on to discuss (Beare, p. 316) how the explanation that follows in Mt 13:49-50 is unsatisfactory, as is the Christian interpretation. In particular, the sorting of the fish is done right away by the fishermen and not by angels, rather than being delayed until the Day of Judgment. SOLUTION. Again the problem was caused by substitution of "kingdom of heaven" for "spiritual kingdom." In the TJ's parable, it is clear that the spiritual kingdom under discussion is that associated with the individual human's spirit or consciousness. The point of the parable is then seen to be that one's spirit is cognizant of all that goes on with the individual, but learns and grows just from those experiences that bring new and relevant truths to mind (the wisdom of knowledge) and thereby bring enlightenment. This schooling of the spirit is an ongoing process, as with the fishing in the parable, and is not delayed until after death. Within the Christian context, which the writer of Matthew helped develop, it is easy to see that the TJ's discussion of "spirit" here and in the preceding two parables, referred to the human spirit and demanded editorial action. However, it is almost inconceivable that a literary hoaxer could possess the ingenuity or creativity to substitute "spiritual kingdom" for "kingdom of heaven" in the Matthean parables, and thereby cause parables that make little or no sense take on resplendent meanings that are consistent with the whole TJ text. PHoax ¯ 0.05. Mt 13:49-50 49"So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous, 50and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 315) found several illogicalities in these two verses. For example, he noticed that fish caught in the net are actually sorted according to their edibility or marketability, not by whether they are "evil" or not. As another example, he noted that the idea of throwing the evil ones into the furnace of fire seems to have been borrowed inappropriately from the interpretation of the parable of the tares. These problems point to an editor's handiwork, not to an original saying of a teacher of wisdom. Joachim Jeremias also finds verses 13:49-50 to be purely the work of Matthew's compiler.[7] SOLUTION. This passage appears as a substitution for a short TJ passage explaining that Jmmanuel's parables deal with the spiritual kingdom, which rules within the individual but over which the individual's ego is the temporary king. Beare's rejection of these two verses caused him to reject Mt 13:47-48 also, which is the parable of the fish net, while the TJ, having close cognates to it, indicates its genuineness if applied to the spiritual kingdom. This is a reminder that Beare was frequently incorrect, judging from the TJ, though correct somewhat more often than not. On the other hand, David Catchpole found verses 13:47-48 to be authentic while finding 13:49 to be inauthentic,[8] which is essentially the correct combination of deductions according to the TJ. The Matthean verses here would not likely be utilized intact by a literary hoaxer, but would perhaps be utilized in some altered form. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 13:54 54and coming to his own country he taught them in their synagogue... TJ 15:67 67Arriving in his home town of Nazareth, he taught in the synagogue... TJ 15:67 67So kam er in seine Vaterstadt Nazareth, und lehrte in der Synagoge, ... THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 319) mentioned that Matthew does the same peculiar thing that Mark does of not naming Nazareth. Beare and others could deduce that "his own country" referred to Nazareth. Why not name it? Jesus had already been in his own country-Galilee-while speaking the parables. So he was coming to his own town, Nazareth. SOLUTION. The TJ cognate, though close, is seen not to suffer from the criticism. The motivation for the compiler to omit Nazareth seems to have been to avoid naming the village that rejected Jesus. This explanation regarding the omission of Nazareth will be discussed further under Mt 14:1. When the individual odds against the hoax hypothesis from this chapter's verse comparisons (TJ 15 versus Mt 13) are accumulated, one finds the probability for hoax here to be only 0.000044. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 14 REFERENCES 1. Black, Matthew, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and to Acts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967) p. 213. 2. Jeremias, Joachim, The Parables of Jesus, transl. S. H. Hooke (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963) p. 149. 3. Dodd, C. H., The Parables of the Kingdom (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961) p. 154. 4. Carson, D. A., "Matthew," in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981), p. 319. 5. Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985) p. 142. 6. Crosson, John Dominic, Finding is the First Act: Trove Folktales and Jesus' Treasure Parable (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979) p. 120. 7. Jeremias, Parables of Jesus, pp. 81-85. 8. Catchpole, David, "John the Baptist, Jesus and the parable of the tares," Scottish Journal of Theology (1978), pp. 557-570. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 14 Mt 14:1-4a 1At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus; 2and he said to his servants, "This is John the Baptist, he has been raised from the dead; that is why these powers are at work in him." 3For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison, for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife; 4because John said to him... TJ 16:1-4a 1At the time when Jmmanuel was staying in Nazareth, news about him reached Herodes. 2And he spoke to his people, "Surely this is Johannes the Baptist, who has arisen from the dead and who therefore possesses such mighty powers." 3For Herod had seized Johannes, bound him and put him into prison because of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philippus, and had him beheaded. 4However it had come to pass previously that Johannes reprimanded Herod, saying,... TJ 16:1-4a 1Zu der Zeit, als Jmmanuel in Nazareth weilte, drang die Kunde über ihn vor zu Herodes. 2Und er sprach zu seinen Leuten: «Das ist sicher Johannes der Täufer; der ist von den Toten auferstanden, deshalb wirken in ihm solche Kräfte.» 3Denn Herodes hatte Johannes gegriffen, gebunden und in das Gefangnis gelegt wegen der Herodias, der Frau seines Bruders Philippus, und hatte ihm den Kopf abschlagen lassen. 4Es begab sich zuvor aber so, dass Johannes ihn rugte und sprach:... THE PROBLEM. In the opening verse to the episode of Herod the tetrarch and the beheading of John the Baptist, "At that time" is unnecessarily vague. It must refer to the time frame of the preceding Matthean verse or later, and so it refers to the end of Jesus' visit to Nazareth, or to some time afterwards. The preceding verse, Mt 13:58, states that Jesus "did not do many mighty works there," which indicates that his visit to Nazareth was then over. In either case, the events of the following 12 verses do not appear to be a flashback, which they otherwise may seem to be. That is, there would not have been sufficient time for these events, including the burying of John's body by his disciples and their seeking out of Jesus, to have taken place after Jesus left Nazareth. At least,this seems to have been the reasoning of W. G. Kümmel, who criticized the compiler of Matthew for not noticing that the beheading episode, plus the actions taken by John's disciples, were a flashback, and not allowing for it in his editing.[1] Similarly, it is concluded by D. A. Carson that either verses 3-12 are an excursus (an addition as an afterthought) or else the chronology of that section is wrong.[2] SOLUTION. With TJ 16:1, the time referred to is clearly during Jmmanuel's stay in Nazareth. The TJ's use of the words "was staying" (or alternatively "dwelled" ("weilte")) suggests he was there several days or perhaps weeks, and not just passing through. It was during this time, then, that Herod heard of Jmmanuel and the miracles he had wrought earlier. TJ 16:3-17a constitutes the actual flashback, which is clearly initiated with the words, "However it had come to pass previously...", and so Kümmel's criticism does not apply to the TJ. Herod evidently thought that the spirit of the dead John might be inhabiting the body of Jmmanuel. The end of the minor flashback brings the reader back to the existent time, through the time required for John's disciples to bury the body and then locate and travel to Jmmanuel in Nazareth. The writer of Matthew omitted the anticipatory mention of Herod having John beheaded in TJ 16:3, probably for the reasons expressed under the discussion of Mt 14:9; this gospel writer did not wish to denigrate Herod Antipas any more than necessary. In the earlier discussion of Mt 13:54 we noted the attention paid by Beare (p. 319) to the peculiar lack of mention of Nazareth. Mt 14:1 above is another example of the compiler's avoidance of the word, and explains his motivation for the redaction. That is, he was "punishing" Nazareth for its inhabitants' unbelief in Jesus' healing powers by omitting mention of the town's name in this section of Matthew. However, his avoidance of it at Mt 14:1 compounded Matthew's flashback problem. In considering the TJ-hoax hypothesis, one can only wonder how a hoaxer would have been perceptive and creative enough to realize that omission of "Nazareth," along with omission of the anticipatory mention of John's beheading, caused the flashback problem. Only with hindsight does this become apparent. Indeed, a New Age hoaxer would not likely even have been aware of the flashback problem. On top of this, we find reasonable cause why the writer of Matthew did not wish to write down the name "Nazareth" at this point in his gospel. PHoax ¯ 0.1. Mt 14:9 9And the king was sorry; but because of his oaths and his guests he commanded it [the head of John the Baptist] to be given. TJ 16:10-11 10The king was pleased that Herodias had persuaded her daughter to demand the head of Johannes the Baptist, because this way he was not guilty in the eyes of the people, inasmuch as he had taken an oath. 11But Herodias' daughter did not know that Herodes and her mother had agreed, even before the dance, to demand the head of Johannes the Baptist through her. TJ 16:10-11 10Und der König war froh, dass Herodias ihre Tochter überredet hatte, das Haupt des Täufers zu fordern, denn so traf ihn vor dem Volk keine Schuld, da er ja den Eid geleistet hatte. 11Herodias’ Tochter aber wusste nicht, dass Herodes und ihre Mutter schon vor dem Tanze eins waren, durch sie das Haupt des Täufers zu fordern. THE PROBLEMS. As expressed by Beare (p. 324), it is surprising that Herod would be distressed by the request, because he was earlier reported as already inclined to execute John and was looking for an excuse to get it done. John had essentially charged Herod with adultery, and this could not have been graciously accepted by Herod. Davies & Allison agree: "the reference to Herod grieving makes sense only in Mark."[3] And why is "oaths," the plural, used? Only one oath is mentioned. Mark has it the same way (Mk 6:26), indicating, with the assumption of Markan dependence upon Matthew, that Matthew indeed had it in the plural. SOLUTION. In the TJ (16:10) version the "king" is indeed glad, not distressed, and Beare's criticism does not apply to it. However, Beare's opinion is not generally expressed; those favoring biblical inerrancy wherever possible assume that Mark's version of the event is to be implied, in which Herod is said to have liked John and kept him "safe" in prison (Mk 6:20). But the writer of Matthew may have held a relatively favorable view of Herod Antipas, in comparison with his abhorrence of Herod the Great, and presumed hatred of his brother Archelaus, who in 4 BC had instigated the slaughter of 3,000 Jews but had been opposed by Antipas. A favorable view of Antipas may also have been due to the fact that he is known to have celebrated Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem. It might also be due in part to a verse the writer of Matthew had read earlier within the nativity section of the TJ: TJ 2:24 24When Herodes Antipas realized that he had nothing to fear from the young boy [Jmmanuel], who was credited only with great wisdom and knowledge, he felt safe in his realm. Thus, he promised the delegate of the celestial son Gabriel he would no longer pursue Maria, Joseph and Jmmanuel. TJ 2:24 24Da Herodes Antipas nun sah, dass er von dem Knäblein nichts zu befürchten hatte und dass ihm nur grosse Weisheit und Wissen zugeredet war, fühlte er sich ungefährdet in seinem Reich, so er dem Abgesandten des Himmelssohnes Gabriel zusagte, Maria und Joseph und Jmmanuel nicht weiter zu verfolgen. Thus the writer of Matthew may well have held Herod Antipas in a much more favorable light than he held King Herod. TJ 16:11 is included along with 16:10, as it informs us that Herod and Herodias had agreed before the birthday celebration dance to induce her daughter to ask for the Baptist's head. The writer of Matthew may have thought of this prior agreement as akin to an oath, and therefore mentioned "oaths" (plural) in his verse. He did not, however, include this TJ verse here, because of his relatively favorable view of Herod Antipas. He was thus interested in placing all the blame for the beheading on Herodias. Now consider another topic: the incorrect use of "king" in Mt 14:9 and TJ 16:10 as a title for Herod Antipas. It could easily just represent loose usage of the term by the writer of the TJ, since the correct title is given upon first mention. Josephus, for example, loosely used the title "king" for the ethnarch Archelaus a couple of times.[4] The writer of Mark, in his parallel verses of Mk 6:14-28, then made the wrong choice in thinking either that "king" was correct and "tetrarch" incorrect or that "tetrarch" was not very understandable to gentiles, and so he utilized "king" throughout. The writer of Mark did improve upon Matthew by adding, in Mk 6:20, that Herod considered John to be a "righteous and holy man" and that he "kept him safe." This nearly eliminated the contradiction commented upon by Beare. However, this addition generated its own inconsistencies, since Herod would not have feared John, due to his influence with the people, and at the same time have looked kindly upon the man who wielded such power with the people and who had charged him with adultery. And Herod certainly did not "keep John safe" by having him beheaded. These explanations for the differing wordings in Mark and Matthew are every bit as plausible as the "mainstream" contention that the writer of Matthew was following Mark and failed to correct one of Mark's usages of "king" in front of Herod's name, and that the writer of Mark was merely carelessly inconsistent in having Herod treat John with respect for being holy and righteous but yet having him beheaded. The fact that the key problem lies with Matthew and not with the TJ, combined with the absence of any anticipation of the TJ's "solution" to the problem in scholarly NT literature, suggest that the possibility of hoax here is rather slim: PHoax ¯ 0.2. Now it may be asked of the TJ, just as of Matthew, how did either writer learn of the details of Antipas' birthday celebration, and that, for example, Herodias had prompted her daughter to ask for the head of the Baptist? With Matthew or Mark we know of no answer to this question, but with the TJ, there is one. In the TJ's chapter 4 one of the marvels that Jmmanuel was shown during the period of 40 days and nights was a facility that permitted the guardian angels to view "the entire land of Israel, alive and true, humans and animals and everything that was there," with no secret being concealed (TJ 4:15-16). They must have kept close tabs on John the Baptist, if as we have supposed, he was also a contactee of theirs, though as was usually the case, they avoided direct interference in human affairs. It is conjectured, then, that Jmmanuel learned what had transpired from one of the guardian angels, possibly from his father, Gabriel; this could have occurred while he was being transported away by the "metallic light" from Israel to Syria (i.e., after the Ascension), or subsequently. Still later, Jmmanuel's writer would then learn of the beheading event from Jmmanuel and/or have it dictated to him by Jmmanuel. It should be noted that the modern UFO phenomenon presents many instances in which UFO intelligence has disclosed its knowledge of intimate human affairs, such as the intricacies of how our underground nuclear missiles can be disarmed, and what UFO witnesses are thinking at the time of their sightings.[5] Mt 14:13 13Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. TJ 16:18 18When Jmmanuel heard this [of the beheading event as told to Jmmanuel by John's disciples], he was overcome with fear and retreated by boat to a deserted area. However, when the people heard that, they followed him on foot from the towns. TJ 16:18 18Und da Jmmanuel das hörte, überkam ihn Furcht und er wich von dannen auf einem Schiff in eine einsame Gegend, doch so das Volk das hörte, folgte es ihm nach zu Fuss aus den Städten. THE PROBLEM. Here, Beare (pp. 325-326) noted that the introductory sentence was not very clear. It seemed to him that Jesus was portrayed as going away, having heard of John's beheading, as if he were seeking refuge. The problem is that Matthew does not explain why Jesus suddenly withdrew, forcing the questioning reader to wonder. The fact that Matthew's flashback or excursus of verses 14:3-12 does not seem like one, due to 14:1-2, made it seem to many scholars, e.g., Carson,[6] that "this" in 14:13 must refer back to 14:1-2 (when Herod heard of Jesus' fame) rather than to John's beheading. It is not clear here whether or not Beare understood the flashback problem; by following Mark's version more closely than Matthew's he seems to have taken the flashback for granted. SOLUTION. In the TJ's previous verse, it is apparent that "this" refers to the beheading event. The compiler of Matthew most certainly deleted the motivation of fear here, and Beare almost guessed that it belongs back in. Another scholar who argues similarly to Beare on this is E. Bammel. In keeping track of Jesus' movements before and after the beheading of John, Bammel finds a change at this juncture that "points to Jesus having felt himself to be in a state of danger after the beheading of his baptizer." The TJ confirms Bammel's deduction (made in 1984).[7] It is inherently less likely that a literary hoaxer would notice this rather obscure problem and correct it than that the writer of Matthew would omit any mention of fear on the part of Jesus. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 14:14 14As he went ashore, he saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick. TJ 16:19 19Jmmanuel saw the large crowd from the water, and feeling sorry for them, he went ashore and healed their sick. TJ 16:19 19Und Jmmanuel sah vom Wasser aus die grosse Menge; und es jammerte ihn derselben, so er an Land ging und ihre Kranken heilte. THE PROBLEM. The crowds evidently were following Jesus along the shore as he went in the boat. Otherwise they would not have been there when he landed. And if they could see him, he certainly would have seen many of them while still in the boat and before coming ashore. So why does Matthew imply that he didn't know the crowd was there until he went ashore? SOLUTION. The TJ verse describes the situation as it more likely actually happened. It is possible that this minor Matthean problem, not commented upon in any literature I'm aware of, arose only from a flawed translation when Semitic Matthew was translated into Greek. This is an example, in that case, of Rashid's translation having been the more accurate one. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 14:17 17They said to him, "We have only five loaves here and two fish." TJ 16:22 22They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves of bread and three fish." TJ 16:22 22Sie aber sprachen: «Wir haben hier nichts als fünf Brote und drei Fische.» THE PROBLEM. This verse is from the feeding of the five thousand, and its criticism is one of hindsight. Is it just an improbable coincidence that the number of elements of food in a nature miracle of this sort is found to total seven, the sacred mystic number? One may suspect the embracing of the sacred to have been the reason because in the feeding of the four thousand, which appears to be a repeated, further improved version of this feeding, there are said to have been seven loaves and a few fish (Mt 15:34). There could just as well have been only one fish, or three or four or five, as two fish. SOLUTION. The reason why the compiler of Matthew seems to have redacted three fish into two indeed appears to have been so that the sum (5+2) of the ingredients in this miracle would equal seven, the mystic number. There seems no reason whatsoever for a hoaxer to have altered the TJ verse in the opposite direction, or to have stooped to such a minor alteration. Here and in Celestial Teachings is the first time that a change of this nature has been suggested; would a hoaxer bent on pushing a New Age philosophy have been creative enough to invent it? PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 14:19 19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. TJ 16:24 24And telling the people to stay put, he took the five loaves of bread and the three fish, spoke secret words, broke the loaves of bread, cut up the fish and gave them to his disciples; and the disciples gave them to the people. TJ 16:24 24Und er hiess das Volk sich lagern und nahm die fünf Brote und die drei Fische, sprach geheimnisvolle Worte und brach die Brote und die Fische und gab sie den Jüngern, und die Jünger gaben sie dem Volk. THE PROBLEM. The idea of blessing bread, abbreviated as just "blessed," or "blessing," without stating the direct object of the blessing (the noun in the accusative case-the bread), is not present in the Old Testament scriptures. Rather, it developed within early Christianity only as the Communion rite developed. Thus it appears to be an anachronism attributed to the lips of Jesus. There is one Old Testament mention of God blessing bread (Ex 23:25), but it is not, of course, expressed in the abbreviated form that developed after the Christian Communion practice had became commonplace by the late date of the writing of Matthew. "Blessed" is expressed in the same manner in Mt 26:26, which then involves this same redaction and is strongly suspect of involving further redaction. Another problem, though a minor one, is that although the loaves were distributed and multiplied, there is no mention that the fish were likewise distributed. This has caused R. H. Gundry to liken this feeding to the communion sacrament, which doesn't involve fish.[8] If this were the intent, it would indicate another anachronism within the passage. SOLUTION AND DISCUSSION. The TJ's "stay put" is a liberal translation of the Gernan "sich lagern," which could also be translated as "recline." In the TJ verse Jmmanuel does not bless the bread, but rather speaks some mysterious words. These may or may not have been akin to a blessing or prayer of some sort, one doesn't know. Regarding the TJ's distribution of the fish along with the loaves, its German has it, literally, as "...and broke the bread and the fish and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people." Since it was awkward for whatever Aramaic verb had been used for "broke" to refer to cutting or breaking up the fish also, the writer of Matthew had evidently let it refer just to the loaves; in so doing the fish fragments were neglected from this point on. This is an example of a detail so minor that the skeptic may wonder how any literary hoaxer of the TJ would have taken notice to correct it. Upon examining Mark's version of this portion of the feeding, one finds that its writer exaggerated Matthew's "grass" into "green grass" (in Mk 6:39, apparently another of his changes for the sake of change), while Luke, in its parallel account of the feeding of the five thousand, does not mention "grass" (Lk 9:14). The latter might be significant, because from comparison of the TJ with Luke elsewhere we know that Luke's writer had read the TJ and made limited use of it. Hence he may have been utilizing the TJ here in this minor matter, in overriding both Mark and Matthew. On the other hand, the writer of John (Jn 6:10), though also having had some access to the TJ, expands upon the theme of grass, indicating his dependence upon Mark and/or Matthew. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 14:21 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. TJ 16:26 26And there were about five thousand who had eaten. TJ 16:26 26Die aber gegessen hatten, waren bei fünftausend Menschen. THE PROBLEM. Here, Beare (p. 328) noted, in comparison with Mark, that the writer of Matthew enhanced the story by an indefinite number of women and children. Although I have attempted to avoid using a conclusion from Beare if it is based just upon a distinction between Matthew and Mark, I have included this one because the Matthean "besides women and children" does have the appearance of being an editorial addition. How could anyone quickly or easily estimate the number of men present when women and children were mixed in? And surely, no actual headcount was taken. In an after-the-fact estimate, it's the total number of people that enters into the eyewitness's recollection. SOLUTION. Beare was correct; the writer of Matthew did enhance the scale of the miracle from what his source text reported. However, this source text was the TJ, not Mark. PHoax ¯ 0.35. It is interesting to note that in Mark's version of the event (Mk 6:44), the number who ate were 5,000 men, with no mention of women or children. Why would the writer of Mark have scaled down the miracle relative to Matthew? Elsewhere in this web site, in Celestial Teachings and in The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins, I have pointed out how the many minor deviations of Mark relative to Matthew, aside from all its Matthean omissions, appear to be mostly changes for the sake of change. Many of these are in the form of dualisms or pleonasms-saying the same thing twice in somewhat different words. A plausible reason was noted for this editorial behavior on the part of the writer of Mark-to make his gospel look different in appearance from Matthew. This was necessary because he had to copy so much from Matthew, especially from Mt 12 on. The omission within Mark of "besides women and children" appears to be just such a "change for the sake of change." With so many persons already involved in the miracle (5,000 or more) it did not really matter whether or not women and children were included, so this was a place the writer of Mark could make a change. In so doing, however, he introduced the inconsistency that among that large a throng there must have been women and children present, and surely they must have eaten also. But Mark implies that only the men ate the loaves of bread! Mt 14:23 23And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up into the hills by himself to pray. When evening came he was there alone. TJ 16:28 28After he had sent the people away, he climbed up a small mountain alone in order to rest and regain his depleted strength. And so he was there alone in the evening. TJ 16:28 28Und da er das Volk von sich gelassen hatte, stieg er allein auf einen kleinen Berg, dass er sich erhole und seine erschöpfte Kraft neu sammle, und also war er am Abend allein daselbst. THE PROBLEM. How did anyone know that Jesus had done this, to write about it? These events occurred after he had dismissed his disciples. If the Gospel of Matthew had been written by the disciple Matthew, and if Jesus had told this disciple about this, then it could have been recorded. But if, as most scholars suspect, the Gospels were not written until much later by others than those to whom they are attributed, this remains as one of the "witness" problems. A minor point, commented upon by Beare (p. 331), is that there was no mountain close to the shore of Lake Galilee. Although the RSV translation uses the term "hills," the Greek text from which it derives uses the term "mountain." SOLUTION. The TJ indicates that it was written by Judas Iscariot, who could have been informed of these happenings soon afterwards by Jmmanuel. If by the time Judas wrote it, however, which was at least several years after the crucifixion, he had forgotten it, Jmmanuel himself could have refreshed Judas's memory on it and on many other events of his Palestinian ministry. (See elsewhere in this web site for explanation of the false rumor depicting Judas Iscariot, rather than Juda the Pharisee, as the betrayer of Jmmanuel who then committed suicide.) The TJ text does mention "small mountain" (kleinen Berg), indicating that the RSV interpretive translation correctly anticipated the source text here. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 14:29-31 29He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus; 30but when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord save me." 31Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "O man of little faith, why did you doubt?" TJ 16:39-44 39And Petrus stepped out of the boat, walked on the water and approached Jmmanuel. 40But when strong thunder ripped through the howling storm, he was startled and began to sink, screaming, "Jmmanuel, help me!" 41Jmmanuel quickly went to him, stretched out his hand and grabbed him, saying, "O you of little knowledge, why are you frightened, and why do you become doubtful in your fright? 42The power of your knowledge gives you the ability, as you have just witnessed. 43You trusted in my words before the thunder came, but then you were frightened and began to doubt, and so the power of knowledge left you and your ability disappeared. 44Never doubt the power of your consciousness, which is a part of Creation itself and therefore knows no limits of power." TJ 16:39-44 39Und Petrus trat aus dem Schiff und ging auf den Wassern und ging auf Jmmanuel zu. 40Als aber ein lauter Donner das Heulen des Sturmes zerriss, erschrak er und hub an zu sinken, schrie und sprach: «Jmmanuel, hilf mir!» 41Jmmanuel aber eilte zu ihm und reckte alsbald die Hand aus und ergriff ihn und sprach: «Oh du Kleinwissender, warum erschrickst du, und warum zweifelst du im Schreck? 42Die Kraft deines Wissens gibt dir das Können, so du eben gesehen hast. 43Meinen Worten hast du vertraut ehe der Donner kam, dann aber bist du erschrocken und hast gezweifelt, so dich also die Kraft des Wissens verliess und dein Künnen dahinschwand. 44Zweifle nie an der Kraft deines Bewusstseins, der doch ein Teil der Schöpfung selbst ist und daher keine Grenzen der Macht kennt.» THE PROBLEMS. First, a very minor problem. In this miracle of Jesus and Peter walking on water, the observer or narrator is presumably one of the disciples in the boat. From his viewpoint, Peter went toward Jesus; we should not expect the text to say, "came to Jesus," unless it is an edited version giving deference to Jesus as a figure of worship. The gusty wind had been blowing all along, judging from the rest of the passage, so that Peter would have felt the strong wind even before he stepped out onto the water, not just some time later. Thus it does not seem plausible that the wind, or a gust of wind, would have been the factor causing Peter to panic. When Peter panicked and started to sink, one should expect him to have instinctively cried out for help using Jesus' name, not a formal title of respect like "Lord." It is implausible that Peter would have walked the entire distance to Jesus before becoming scared and starting to sink in the water. The odds are high that the sinking incident would have happened at some intermediate distance from Jesus rather than at an arm's length away. Finally, it is unrealistic that Jesus would not have explained to the disciples something about how it was that he, and even Peter to some extent, too, could walk on water. SOLUTION. Because of the TJ's emphasis on power of the consciousness or spirit, we must take this episode seriously rather than dismissing it out of hand. Upon so doing, the above criticisms come to mind, though they were all prompted by a comparison of the Matthean and TJ texts. In the TJ version, Peter went towards Jmmanuel, he was startled during the storm by a loud clap of thunder, he instinctively cried out to Jmmanuel for help, he was some distance from Jmmanuel when he began to sink, and Jmmanuel then went some distance to Peter to rescue him. It may be noted that TJ 16:29 indicates that a storm (thunderstorm) had moved over the area, and this produced the strong winds. We speculate that the compiler of Matthew did not wish Peter's participation in the miracle to detract from Jesus' divinity, stature and authority, so he edited out the part about Jmmanuel obeying Peter's call to help him, and likewise reworded the beginning of the story so that Peter came to Jmmanuel. He further downgraded Peter's act by allowing the mere wind, not thunder, to startle him. The writer of Mark, upon copying from the Gospel of Matthew, omitted Peter's participation in this event, probably because he did not want the miraculousness of the event to be diluted by a mere disciple participating in it.[9] And one sees that the TJ account indicates that Jmmanuel did explain to his disciples the combination of knowledge and trust in one's spirit needed to be able to carry out such an apparently miraculous feat. It was out of the question, of course, for the writer of Matthew to have included that explanation. One might ask, why did the writer of Matthew omit the thunder? In those days thunder and lightning, and earthquakes and such were considered by most people to be actions of God, with thunder being akin to God's loud voice. When thunder is mentioned in the OT, it either represents God's voice speaking to some person(s), or else just represents his anger directed at them. But in this incident God did not enter into the picture. It was not an occasion when God had anything to say or when he should have been angry at Jesus. Quite likely for this reason his voice (the thunder) was edited out. The very fact that these several criticisms of Matthew come only from the hindsight of having the TJ on hand indicates the odds are very small that a literary hoaxer could have invented these historically more realistic points. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Interestingly, literature on the modern UFO abduction phenomenon abounds with reports that the aliens engaging in the abductions are quite capable of gliding or floating across the ground in a walking-type motion but at a short distance above the surface.[10] Often this occurs when the aliens usher the victim out of a bedroom or automobile into their UFO craft, in which case the victim may participate in the floating motion. The analogy with "walking on water" by the son of an alien is then evident. Mt 14:33 33And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God." TJ 16:48 48Those who were in the boat marveled and said, "You are indeed a master of the consciousness and someone who knows the laws of Creation." TJ 16:48 48Die aber in dem Schiffe waren, wunderten sich und sprachen: «Du bist wahrlich ein Meister des Bewusstseins und ein Wissender der Schöpfungsgesetze.» THE PROBLEM. The disciples here are making the confession of the church with the christological affirmation "Son of God."[11] This then is an anachronistic utterance placed upon their lips. However, one wonders why the Greek text, upon which the Bible translations depend, renders it as "Truly you are a Son of God." SOLUTION. The disciples instead speak in terms of what Jmmanuel had taught them about the human spirit and Creation. On the one hand we see that the writer of Matthew could not have left the TJ verse intact without making it theologically acceptable to him and the early church. In so doing, altering "a master of the spirit" into "a Son of God," it seems that he forgot to replace the indefinite article, a, with "the." Later Bible editors made the minor change so that the wording would agree with "what it just had to be." On the other hand we find that the TJ verse suffers from no such problem, while being consistent with its context. It is further doubtful that a literary hoaxer could have corrected the Matthean text so well. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Regarding Mark, it is consistent with many of its verses for its writer, when utilizing this verse from Matthew (in Mk 6:51), to have omitted the "Son of God" confession so that the Jewish disciples would not look so good in Christian terms. However, when Matthew's "son of God" phrase came from the lips of a centurion (Mt 27:54), the writer of Mark used the phrase (Mk 15:39). Upon accumulating the individual probabilities against the hoax hypothesis from the verse comparisons of Mt 14 versus TJ 16 we find the summary probability for hoax here to be but 4.1 x 10-5. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 15 REFERENCES 1. Kümmel, Werner Georg, Introduction to the New Testament, transl. A. J. Mattill, 14th ed. rev. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966), p. 76. 2. Carson, D. A., "Matthew," in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981), pp. 340-341. 3. Davies, W. D. and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992), p. 474. 4. Josephus, Antiquities 17.9.1-2,4. 5. See, for example, Fowler, Raymond E., Interplanetary Visitors (San Jose: Authors Choice Press, 1974), and Haines, Richard, CE-5 Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 1998). 6. Carson, "Matthew" in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, p. 341. 7. Bammel, E., "Jesus as a political agent in a version of the Josippon." In Jesus and the Politics of his Day, E. Bammel and C.F.D. Moule, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 227. 8. Gundry, Robert H., Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman's Publishing Co., 1982), p. 294. 9. See Parker, Pierson, "The posteriority of Mark," in New Synoptic Studies, W. R. Farmer, ed. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983), p. 85, for the alternative or additional view that the writer of Mark was especially unfavorably disposed towards Peter. 10. E.g., see Fowler, Raymond E., The Andreasson Affair (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979), pp. 174- 175. 11. Davies and Allison, A Critical Commentary, vol. 2, p. 510. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 15 Mt 15:1-4,10-11 1Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2"Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat." 3He answered them, "And why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4For God commanded, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and 'He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.'"... 10And he called the people to him and said to them, "Hear and understand: 11not what goes into the mouth defiles a man..." TJ 17:1-5 1Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem came to Jmmanuel, saying, 2"Why do your disciples disregard the guiding rules of the elders?" 3He answered, saying to them: "Why do you violate the laws of Creation by following your guiding rules? 4Moses said, according to the laws of mankind: 'You must honor your father and mother; but those who unjustly dishonor their father and mother shall die.' 5The teaching of the laws of Creation is this: You shall honor your father and mother, but whosoever does not honor their father and mother shall be expelled from the family and from the society of the righteous." TJ 17:1-5 1Da kamen zu Jmmanuel Pharisäer und Schriftgelehrte von Jerusalem und sprachen: 2«Warum missachten deine Jünger die Satzungen der Ältesten?» 3Er antwortete und sprach zu ihnen: «Warum übertretet denn ihr die Gesetze der Schöpfung um eurer Satzungen willen? 4Mose hat nach den Gesetzen der Menschen gesagt: ‹Du musst Vater und Mutter ehren; wer aber Vater und Mutter zu Unrecht unehrt, der soll des Todes sterben›. 5Die Lehre der Schöpfungsgesetze ist also die: Du sollst Vater und Mutter ehren; wer aber Vater und Mutter nicht ehrt, der soll ausgestossen sein aus der Familie und aus der Gesellschaft der Rechtschaffenen.» THE PROBLEMS. Jesus' reply here does not relate to cleanliness before eating, but rather only to the more general part of the question.[1] One must proceed nine verses further before his reply reverts to that topic, but then the reply is to the people (Mt 15:10), after he had called them to him, and not to the scribes and Pharisees who had asked the question (unless they stayed there the necessary length of time waiting for his reply). It is as if the writer of Matthew wished to divert the discussion to this cleanliness topic, and so inserted the clause, "for they do not wash their hands when they eat." Furthermore, there is considerable question whether or not hand-washing was a requirement for the Jewish people before about A.D. 100.[2] A minor question, commented upon by Beare (p. 336), is that the word order of "Pharisees and scribes" in Mt 15:1 occurs nowhere else in Matthew, being the reverse of the usual "scribes and Pharisees," which occurs many times. It might then be thought that this particular phrase was derived from the parallel verse of Mk 7:1, which mentions Pharisees and scribes in that order. SOLUTION. The writer of Matthew indeed wished to insert the topic of unwashed hands and defilement into this discussion within his source document, and so added the clause that tends to disrupt the flow of thought. The TJ does not deal with this particular aspect of "the law" at all. After Jmmanuel finishes his reply to the scribes and Pharisees, he calls the people to him and then warns them of the untruthfulness of the teachings of the scribes and Pharisees. Would a literary hoaxer have noticed that this Matthean disruption needed fixing? The insertion of Mt 15:2, along with 15:10-11, may constitute an instance of Matthean "fatigue." The writer of Matthew failed to realize that his return to the topic of his insertion, at Mt 15:10-11, should have occurred much closer to the insertion itself. Instead, he continued to follow TJ text for the next eight sentences, with minor alterations, before returning to the topic of his insertion with a substitution (Mt 15:11). From the TJ one sees that the writer of Matthew simply utilized its order of "Pharisees and scribes" when copying from the TJ verse. Although the author of the TJ preferred the order "scribes and Pharisees," whence the writer of Matthew did also, he did use the reverse order one other time, in the following verse: TJ 18:49 49"Truly, I say to you, the teachings of the chief priests, Pharisees and scribes are erroneous and false when they tell you that a mistake would be punished by El or by Creation, when the mistake serves the recognition and knowledge, and hence the progress, of the spirit/consciousness." TJ 18:49 49«Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Irrig und falsch sind die Lehren der Hohenpriester und Pharisäer und Schriftgelehrten, wenn sie euch sagen, ein Fehl werde durch Gott oder durch die Schöpfung bestraft, wenn das Fehl der Erkennung und dem Wissen und also dem Fortschritt des Geistes/Bewusstseins dient.» The writer of Matthew of course did not wish to reproduce this TJ verse, but if he had, in altered form, it would have been a second example wherein "scribes and Pharisees" appear in opposite order. In that case it would not be considered so unusual that he used the order "Pharisees and scribes" here in Mt 15:1. The writer of Mark then was merely following Matthew's unexpected order of "Pharisees and scribes." In verse 4a one sees that the TJ's "Moses" was altered to "God," contrary to the tendency of the writer of Matthew to introduce or extol Moses wherever possible. Here in the TJ, however, we see that Moses is spoken of as having promulgated a law that had been modified by mankind, in including the penalty of death to those who dishonored father and mother (Ex 21:17); in its next verse (TJ 17:5, included for clarity) we see that the TJ mentions a lesser penalty for such dishonoring according to the law of Creation. So to rectify this, the writer of Matthew ignored the TJ's lesser penalty and used "God" here instead of "Moses," which would then give agreement with his use of "God" in his previous verse, Mt 15:3, and lend greatest authority to the law as he knew it. If one examines Mark at its parallel point, Mk 7:10, one finds its writer used "Moses" here, instead of "God"! This can be attributed to change for the sake of change. It was a spot where he could safely make a little change, from "God" to Moses," while following Matthew, in order that his gospel not be a clone of Matthew. Concerning the literary hoax hypothesis, it seems considerably more probable that the reason Matthew suffers the problems and the TJ does not is due to the TJ being genuine rather than due to a TJ-hoaxer removing Matthew's anti-defilement theme. A New Age hoaxer would probably frown upon "negative energy,"[3] and likely decide, therefore, to retain Matthew's theme against defilement. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 15:11,18 11"not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.... 18But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man." TJ 17:12 12"The teachings of the scribes and Pharisees are false and untruthful, for they preach to you man-made guiding rules, which are not the laws of Creation." TJ 17:12 12«Die Lehren der Schriftgelehrten und Pharisäer sind falsch und verlogen, denn sie predigen euch Menschensatzungen, die keine Gesetze der Schöpfung sind.» THE PROBLEMS. Mt 15:11, finally, is the continuation of the response to the question (in Mt 15:2) of why the disciples are allowed to transgress the traditions of the elders as it relates to not washing their hands before eating. Beare (p. 338) noticed that the second half of this response was strained, because the point the evangelist was coming to was that evil thoughts and deeds are what defile a man, and these, according to Mt 15:19, come out of the heart, not the mouth. So the writer of Matthew had to strain to connect the mouth to the heart, which he tried to do in Mt 15:18, but in so doing he lost touch with his main focus on why the disciples did not obey one of the laws of cleanliness. Davies & Allison supply good reasons why 15:11 is not authentic. "If Jesus did in fact dispense with Scriptural food laws, the heated debates in the early church on that very issue just do not make sense.[Ref.] There is additionally the striking fact that while in the canonical gospels Jesus' opponents accuse him of much..., they do not accuse him of speaking against cultic purity or food laws. Yet if he did so, surely, given the importance of those laws for first-century Judaism,[Ref.] the inevitable violent outcry would have left some deposit in our sources."[4] SOLUTION. Mt 15:11 is totally different from TJ 17:12, which is presented to show the verse for which Mt 15:11 is a substitution; for the Matthean verse just before and just after it closely parallel the TJ verse just before and just after TJ 17:12. There is no TJ cognate to Mt 15:18; in fact, in the TJ, Jmmanuel doesn't say anything about the food laws, which is consistent with the reasoning presented by Davies & Allison. TJ 17:12 is a continuation of the response to the more general question of why the disciples disregard the statutes of the elders. It was the writer of Matthew who in his gospel slanted this question into one of defilement. The TJ verse answers its corresponding question without strain or alteration of subject, since the teachings of the scribes and Pharisees reflected the statutes of the elders. The chance of a literary hoax seems quite remote here, but is not addressed quantitatively because the relevant arguments are closely connected to those already expressed for neighboring verses. The TJ verse indicates as clearly as any others that Jmmanuel was in no way Judaistic in his basic beliefs. Later in the TJ (29:23) Jmmanuel mentions to Pilate that he had been to the land of India, where for many years he absorbed much knowledge from the spiritual masters. External evidence supporting this is discussed elsewhere in this website. Mt 15:12 12Then the disciples came and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?" TJ 17:13-14 13Thereupon his disciples came to him and said, "Are you aware that the scribes and Pharisees were offended by your words when they heard them? 14They went out to bear witness against you and to have you killed because of your teachings." TJ 17:13-14 13Da traten seine Jünger zu ihm und sprachen: «Weisst du auch, dass die Schriftgelehrten und Pharisäer an deinem Wort Ärgernis nahmen, als sie es hörten? 14Sie sind hingegangen, wider dich zu zeugen und dich deiner Lehre wegen töten zu lassen.» THE PROBLEM. Just before this point Jesus had been telling the Pharisees and scribes to their faces that they had made void the word of God; then he called them hypocrites. Yet they were not mentioned to have taken any offense at it. Instead, after the scribes and Pharisees had apparently gone off and Jesus had called some other people around him to tell them that it's what comes out of a man's mouth that defiles him, not what goes in, then when word of this reached the Pharisees they were offended, so his disciples told him. This makes no sense, because Jesus' more vitriolic statements had been the ones he spoke directly to the Pharisees. What goes into or comes out of a man's mouth (Mt 15:11) could be proper food and words, respectively, as well as not, and does not directly accuse Pharisees of anything. If, however, Mt 15:11 had been a substitute for a much more offensive saying to Pharisees, then their taking offense when they heard of it, and not on the prior occasion, would become plausible. By this time the disciples would have been well aware that whenever Jesus spoke to or about Pharisees, he did not have good things to say about them, but rather things that they could take offense at. And Jesus would have known it. So why would the disciples have bothered to report the Pharisees' displeasure to him this time? SOLUTION. As we saw in the preceding segment, what Jmmanuel told the people that caused the Pharisees to take offense had not been any general defilement statement, but the accusation that their teachings were false and untruthful. This indeed explains their having taken offense to the point of witnessing against Jmmanuel and urging his death, considering that their thoughts had previously run along similar lines (Mt 12:14). It was the fact that the Pharisees in question had translated their antagonism into initial action, then, that prompted the disciples to report this to Jmmanuel. A probable reason why the writer of Matthew omitted this information is that a couple sentences later, Jmmanuel is quoted as saying, "Let us go away, so that the henchmen ["Schergen"] remain without booty" (see TJ 17:17, below). Upon omitting this latter statement so as to avoid the appearance of Jesus being cowardly, the writer omitted also the news that the scribes and Pharisees were seeking to have him killed. Otherwise, he would have had to explain how Jesus had escaped from being killed. Also, the compiler of Matthew here, as elsewhere, is seen to have avoided mentioning that what Jesus or Jmmanuel taught stood in opposition to what the Pharisees taught from the Torah, since this writer himself apparently still believed strongly in most of the Torah. One notices also that Matthew does not contain the TJ's "and scribes" here. Rather than just being an oversight on the part of the writer of Matthew, it is likely he didn't wish to include scribes, which he himself quite likely was or had been, in with those who wished to kill Jmmanuel/Jesus. So, reading ahead a sentence, he omitted "and scribes" from Mt 15:12 and then decided not to include TJ 17:14 at all, which indicts the Pharisees as well of planning this most horrible deed. The Matthean account is not historically reasonable while the TJ account is; furthermore, it is plausible that the writer of Matthew would have omitted the relevant TJ verses that were objectionable and which caused the problem. It is implausible that a literary hoaxer would have recognized this hitherto unknown problem. PHoax ¯ 0.15. Mt 15:13-17 13He answered, "Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. 14Let them alone; they are the blind leading the blind. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit." 15But Peter said to him, "Explain the parable to us." 16And he said, "Are you still without understanding? 17Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach...?" TJ 17:15-25 15But he answered and spoke, "All plants that do not live according to the laws of Creation, will dry up and rot. 16Leave them be, they are blind leaders of the blind; but when a blind man leads another blind man, both will fall into the pit. 17But let us go away, so that the henchmen remain without booty." 18Then Petrus answered him saying, "Please interpret your speech about the plants and the blind men for us." 19But Jmmanuel reprimanded his disciples and said, "Are you, too, still without wisdom and therefore also ignorant and doubting in recognition, comprehension and understanding? 20You have been with me for a long time now, but you still lack the ability to think and recognize the truth. 21Truly, I say to you, you yourselves will do much towards falsifying my teachings in the future. 22In your knowledge you barely exceed the other people. 23Haven't you realized yet that all the parables and speeches have a consciousness-related meaning and are therefore about the consciousness-related life of human beings? 24O, you of little knowledge, does your understanding still not extend beyond the stupidity of the people? 25Beware, lest you see me in a false light and accuse me of an origin from which I could not have descended." TJ 17:15-25 15Aber er antwortete und sprach: «Alle Pflanzen, die nicht nach den Gesetzen der Schöpfung leben, werden verdorren und verfaulen. 16Lasset sie, sie sind blinde Blindenleiter; wenn aber ein Blinder einen andern Blinden leitet, so fallen sie beide in die Grube. 17Doch wollen wir aber von dannen gehn, so also die Schergen ohne Beute bleiben.» 18Da antwortete Petrus und sprach zu ihm: «Deute uns deine Rede von den Pflanzen und von den Blinden.» 19Da aber rügte Jmmanuel seine Jünger und sprach: «Seid denn auch ihr noch immer unverständig und so auch unwissend und zweifelnd im Erkennen, Erfassen und Verstehen? 20Lange Zeit seid ihr nun mit mir zusammen, doch es fehlt euch noch immer am Vermögen des Denkens und an der Erkennung der Wahrheit. 21Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Ihr selbst werdet viel dazutun, meine Lehre in der Zukunft zu verfälschen. 22Mit eurem Wissen nämlich gereicht ihr nur wenig über das der anderen Menschen hinaus. 23Merket ihr denn noch nicht, dass alle Gleichnisse und Reden einen bewusstseinsmässigen Sinn haben, und sie also das bewusstseinsmässige Leben des Menschen besprechen? 24Oh, ihr Kleinwissenden, reicht euer Verstand noch nicht über die Dummheit des Volkes hinaus? 25Hütet euch, so ihr sonst mich in falschem Lichte seht und mich einer Herkunft bezichtigt, der ich nicht entstammen kann.» THE PROBLEM. Peter's question for an explanation of the parable is seen to follow Jesus' parable about the plants being rooted up, which in turn was followed by the "blind guides" saying. One of these two is what Jesus' response would in reality have pertained to. Instead, however, his Matthean response surprisingly harks back four verses to the saying about defilement. However, that saying was not really a parable, which Davies & Allison have reminded us is defined as "a story whose features all stand for something extrinsic to the narrative."[5] In the defilement saying of what comes out of one's mouth (words) being able to defile you, the defilement consists of wrong words, which are an intrinsic part of the defilement. This incongruity suggests careless editorial action by the writer of Matthew relative to his source document. SOLUTION. From the TJ's verses one sees that Peter was asking for an explanation of the plants parable, and the blind-guides saying. This is of course consistent with the defilement theme having been an invented insertion by the compiler of Matthew, who failed to perceive that he should have omitted the TJ's parable of the plants and blind men as well. His retention of those is what caused the main problem. The saying about the plants is indeed a parable, because one must interpret what the plants stand for, which in the Matthean form of the parable is especially enigmatic. In assessing the probability of hoax here, debate is most likely to center around whether or not Mt 15:11 constitutes a parable. Though we have discussed that it is not, proponents of the hoax hypothesis may nevertheless claim it is. Thus, the odds may only slightly favor the TJ's genuineness here, except that a literary hoaxer is very unlikely to have invented the TJ verses shown above that are not in Matthew. The hypothetical hoaxer would not likely have realized that the defilement theme was not a parable, or would not have wondered about it one way or the other. The additional TJ verses, having to do with comprehension, knowledge, and spiritual understanding, plus a reprimanding of the disciples for lacking in these attributes, could not have been tolerated by the writer of Matthew. Further, the "plant" parable fits into the TJ context well, because Jmmanuel had immediately before been preaching against the scribes and Pharisees of Israel (see TJ 17:12 above, which verse the writer of Matthew chose not to copy). And Israel has sometimes been referred to as a plant that God established (see Ps 80:8-11). PHoax ¯ 0.3. It may be mentioned that this Matthean slip-up constitutes another instance of "fatigue" relative to the TJ. That is, the writer of Matthew inserted the out-of-the-mouth defilement theme, but then reverted back to the TJ text in mentioning the plants parable, the blind-guides saying, and Peter's question about "the parable." The latter then ends up referring to the plants parable and/or blind-guides saying, and not to the inserted defilement saying, which the writer of Matthew must have intended it to refer to. Mt 15:19-20a 19"For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20These are what defile a man..." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Here Beare (p. 339) observed that the writer of Matthew had created his own catalog of sins, seven in number. In the Greek text each of these is, moreover, given in the plural. It indeed seems very improbable that a spoken sentence would have turned out in this stylistic a fashion. SOLUTION. The TJ's lack of a cognate supports Beare, even though Beare thought the writer of Matthew had tried to improve upon the parallel verse in Mark. The TJ further lets us know that the neighboring verses in Matthew that continue the defilement theme are also redactions. Mt 15:21 21And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. TJ 18:1 1Jmmanuel departed and escaped to the area of Sidon and Tyre. TJ 18:1 1Jmmanuel aber ging von dannen und entwich in die Gegend von Sidon und Tyrus. THE PROBLEM. The word "withdrew" suggests a withdrawal to escape from undesired consequences. Its underlying Greek verb, αναχωρηω, indeed has a meaning of withdraw or retreat. Yet Matthew's immediately preceding verses give no reason for a withdrawal here; Jesus' listeners-Pharisees-had been offended, but are not reported as being provoked into any action against Jesus this time. They had been upset previously, at Mt 9:11 and 9:34, but those instances did not cause Jesus to withdraw. So why did he now need to withdraw; why doesn't Matthew supply a reason for it? SOLUTION. The TJ verse is scarcely different from that of the German Bible. However, we see from the original text-the TJ-that Jmmanuel did have need of retreating from where they had just been (at Gennesaret), since as we saw from TJ 17:14 the Pharisees had gone out to witness against him and have him killed. Sidon and Tyre were several days' travel to the northwest of Gennesaret, so this excursion was a substantial withdrawal. The main difference between the two verses themselves is that in Matthew the order of Sidon and Tyre has been switched. This was natural for the writer of Matthew to do, since the two cities, when mentioned together in the Scriptures, are always mentioned in the order: Tyre and Sidon, and he had used this order himself previously in verses of his own invention (Mt 11:21-22). Mt 15:22-28 22And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon." 23But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, "Send her away, for she is crying after us." 24He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 25But she came and knelt before him, saying "Lord, help me." 26And he answered, "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." 27She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. 28Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly. TJ [No cognates] THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 341) noted that the title "Lord, Son of David" does not belong on the lips of one of the Canaanites, a Semitic people conquered by Israel and largely absorbed by the Israelites. He pointed out that neither the monarchy of David nor any Israeli hopes for a Messiah related to a dynasty of David could have held any meaning for the Canaanite woman. Verse 24 merely repeats Mt 10:6, though in a form that more flagrantly denies discipleship to gentiles. The "lost sheep of the house of Israel" refers to the people of Israel, as in Jer 50:6. In the continuation of this healing story, Beare (pp. 342-343) stressed that verse 15:26 exhibits much chauvinism and insolence. The Jews are likened to "children" of God, while gentiles are likened to dogs. This appears to have been the special slant of the writer, who placed gentiles in the same category of persons as the detested tax collectors (Mt 5:46-47). Regarding Mt 15:27, Beare could not imagine that Jesus would actually wish to evoke from the woman her humble response and acceptance of his insult. And, one wonders, would the acceptance of a strong insult (Mt 15:27) be confused as having great faith? Further, in real life one would not know if the woman's daughter had been healed instantly or not. In the end, Beare rejected the whole story about the Canaanite woman (Mt 15:21-28), suggesting that this side trip of Jesus to Phoenicia (in a location now corresponding to southern Lebanon) was simply created as a framework within which to place the story. SOLUTION. The TJ's lack of cognates here generally supports Beare's overall conclusion. It appears that when the writer of Mark read this story, he could not accept it as it was but altered the woman from a Canaanite into a Greek. That writer's motive must have been to make it clear that the Christian ministry should be extended, as it already had been by the time of writing of the Gospels, to gentiles (Mk 7:25-30). In all probability he did not realize that "children" was an allusion to "children of Israel" (Israelites) and "dogs" to gentiles. Also, in his revision he deleted the reference to "Son of David" as having little meaning for the gentiles. Thus, Matthew's compiler appears to have invented this healing story in order to emphasize his theme that Jesus was a Messiah primarily for Israelites, while the writer of Mark retained but altered it in order to show Jesus as the Messiah for gentiles, too. It would appear that the small probability that this pericope of Matthew is genuine is about the same as the probability a literary hoaxer would make use of it. PHoax ¯ 0.5. One aspect of Beare's analysis that the TJ does not support is his assumption that the introductory verse to the passage, Mt 15:21, is non-genuine. The TJ indicates that the writer of Matthew looked ahead a little in the TJ to extract this verse (from TJ 18:1) and place it earlier in his own text to form the introduction to his pericope about the Canaanite woman. Mt 15:29-31 29And Jesus went on from there and passed along the Sea of Galilee. And he went up into the hills, and sat down there. 30And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the dumb, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them, 31 so that the throng wondered, when they saw the dumb speaking, the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel. TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 346) noted how strange it is that Jesus should first ascend a hill, causing great discomfort for all the disabled who had to climb up after him to seek his aid. In real life this would not likely have been the situation, but in an invented pericope this problem could easily have been overlooked in the desire to portray Jesus as having performed miraculous healings in a setting closer to heaven, to accompany a feeding miracle immediately afterwards. Verse 31 appears to be a redaction not only because it completes a pericope whose bulk has itself been found to be a redaction, but because "they glorified the God of Israel" is not at all realistic. In Jesus' other miraculous healings and nature miracles where the reaction of the onlookers was commented upon, they quite realistically were amazed by Jesus himself, or praised him, not God. It was his fame that spread throughout the districts, not that of the God of Israel. It was Jesus whom the Pharisees conspired to destroy, not Beelzebul. An exception is Mt 9:8 where God was given the glory, but that verse was found to be a redaction for a different reason. SOLUTION. As the TJ indicates, this was another of several Gospel miracle portrayals that never occurred. However, by the hoax hypothesis, a hoaxer might not have wished to include this pericope. Yet, since it contains healing miracles, such a hoaxer quite likely would overlook its non-genuine aspects and include it. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 15:32-39 32Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days, and have nothing to eat;".... 34and Jesus said to them, "How many loaves have you?" They said, "Seven, and a few small fish.".... 37And they all ate and were satisfied; and they took up seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over. 38Those who ate and were satisfied were four thousand men, besides women and children." 39And sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan. TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. In the feeding of the 5000, the crowd had only stayed into the evening before needing sustenance. Here in this feeding they, including women and children, are said to have stayed three days without food (and perhaps without drink either), before Jesus showed any concern. That is, it is quite improbable that they all had brought three days' supply of food and drink along, which then ran out, as Jesus' trip up into the hills had not been advertised as any three-day workshop! Hence the story is quite improbable, since parents would at least be concerned about feeding their own children if not themselves even before one full day had elapsed. As Beare (p. 347) noted, "It is obvious that we have before us a variant version of the story of the feeding of the five thousand." It is a more concise and perfected version. It takes place on a mountain, and is preceded by many healings. There are no towns nearby where the people could obtain food, so they must rely upon Jesus. They go much longer without food, so that it is much more imperative that Jesus' miraculous powers be able to work in this situation, and they do. The number of loaves initially available equals seven, the sacred number, as does the number of baskets of broken pieces left over. There is no mention of Jesus and the disciples climbing back down from the mountain or finding the boat to embark in. The place they supposedly go to next, Magadan, is unknown to scholars, though it is sometimes thought to be a variation of "Magdala," a village on the western shore that has been speculated as being the home of Mary Magdalene. SOLUTION. Again the TJ confirms Beare's deductions. This feeding never took place. Yet, allowing that a literary hoaxer might not have utilized the pericope, we do not assign PHoax less than 0.4. Upon accumulating the individual probabilities in favor of the hoax hypothesis from the verse comparisons of Mt 15 versus TJ 17, we find the summary probability to be 0.022. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 16 REFERENCES 1. Tuckett, C. M., The Revival of the Griesbach Hypothesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 106. 2. Montefiore, C. G., The Synoptic Gospels, vol. 1 (London: 1927), pp. 133-144. 3. Peters, Ted, "Discerning the spirits of the New Age." The Christian Century 105, No. 25 (Aug. 31-Sept. 7, 1988), p. 763. 4. Davies, W.D. and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), p. 528. 5. Davies & Allison, A Critical Commentary, vol. 2, p. 378. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 16 Mt 16:1 1And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. TJ 18:2 2And behold, the Sadducees and Pharisees approached him and demanded that he let them see a sign of his conscousness-related power. TJ 18:2 2Und siehe, da traten die Sadduzäer und Pharisäer zu ihm und forderten, dass er sie ein Zeichen der bewusstseinsmässigen Kraft sehen liesse. THE PROBLEM. Would the Pharisees and Sadducees not have asked more specifically for some sign from Jesus himself? It was his ability to produce a miracle that they were questioning, not his ability to point out some sign coming from God in heaven, such as a rainbow. SOLUTION. The TJ indicates that their request had been realistic and natural, since Jmmanuel had let it be known that his (wonderful) deeds had been accomplished through spiritual (or consciousness-related) power -his own spiritual power as sometimes augmented by that of a person being healed. Concerning the hoax hypothesis, there is little chance that a literary hoaxer would have discerned this minor, unknown problem. He could have let the verse stand as is, or he could have altered it in some other manner, or he could well have chosen to omit the Matthean verse and its following sign-of-Jonah pericope, since it occurred previously at Mt 12:38-40. On the other hand, the likelihood that the writer of Matthew would alter the TJ verse into something like what we have is strong indeed, since the idea that the human spirit possesses power was not anything the church preached. PHoax ¯ 0.35. The different order, "Sadducees and Pharisees," may be noticed in the TJ verse relative to Matthew. It is conjectured that to the writer of the TJ, the order he wrote them in did not much matter, but that placement of the Pharisees first was preferred by the writer of Matthew because he favored the Pharisees' respect for the Law (Torah) over the Sadducees, who denied both the coming of a Messiah and an afterlife. Mt 16:4 4"An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah." So he left them and departed. TJ 18:5 5"This wicked and unfaithful generation is seeking a sign; no sign shall be given to it except for the sign of Jonas (Jonah), who disappeared alive into the belly of the fish, dwelled alive in its belly and emerged alive again into the light." TJ 18:5 5«Dieses böse und abtrünnige Geschlecht sucht ein Zeichen; und es soll ihm aber kein Zeichen gegeben werden, denn das Zeichen des Jona, der lebend im Bauche des Fisches verschwand und lebend in seinem Bauche weilte und dann lebend wieder ans Licht kam.» THE PROBLEM. Matthew's lack of any explanation here about the sign of Jonah is not very plausible, unless the questioners were the very same ones as in Mt 12:38 when they supposedly asked the same question and did receive an answer. However, in that case it makes no sense that the same question would be asked by them once again. SOLUTION. In the TJ, the sign of Jonah is explained. The emphasis is upon Jonah staying alive, there being no mention of the three days and nights' duration. Indeed, the fact that Jonah survived his ordeal within the "big fish" is the most remarkable thing about it, the length of his ordeal being secondary. The TJ's prophecy of three days and nights in the tomb occurs in two places, one having a faint Matthean cognate (Mt 21:39). If a redactor after the time of Paul were to weed out heresy from TJ 18:5, by means of the safest route using deletions only, he would likely omit all after "Jonah," as in Mt 16:4. Obviously, the compiler of Matthew would not wish to imply that Jmmanuel alias Jesus prophesied he would survive his crucifixion, since this would nullify belief that Jesus had been resurrected. It may well not have occurred to a 20th-century literary hoaxer, on the other hand, that the sign of Jonah can point to survival of the crucifixion. PHoax ¯ 0.35. This saying in the TJ occurs while Jmmanuel was in the area of Sidon and Tyre. The compiler of Matthew had already borrowed the TJ's verse of narrative geography for that area and utilized it in Mt 15:21 for the setting of the first of his following three invented pericopes, in which he had Jesus then pass along the Sea of Galilee and thence go by boat to the unheard of region of Magadan. There is no TJ parallel to Matthew's earlier mention of the Jonah prophecy (Mt 12:38-40), which continues into an invented discussion of the men of Nineveh and the queen of the South. Mt (15:39...),16:4b-5 39And sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan... 4...So he left them [Pharisees and Sadducees] and departed. 5When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. TJ 18:1...,6-7 1Jmmanuel departed and escaped to the region of Sidon and Tyre... 6And he left them [Sadducees and Pharisees] and went away. 7When they sailed across the sea and arrived at the other shore, they had forgotten to take along some bread. TJ 18:1...,6-7 1Jmmanuel aber ging von dannen und entwich in die Gegend von Sidon und Tyrus....6Und er liess sie und ging davon. 7So sie über das Meer schifften und ans andere Ufer kamen, hatten sie vergessen, Brot mit sich zu nehmen. THE PROBLEM. As noted by Beare (p. 349), Mt 16:4-5 leaves the reader wondering greatly where Jesus and his disciples had departed to. They, or at least Jesus, had just previously, according to Matthew, been in the (unknown) place of Magadan. Then they (or just Jesus) departed from there. The next thing we read, they have reached the other side (Mt 16:5). Why is the account so incoherent in its geography? SOLUTION. From the TJ account we can see that the writer of Matthew had invented the "Magadan" region because he had already used up the TJ's mention of Tyre and Sidon as an introduction to his fictitious story about the Canaanite woman (Mt 15:21-28). Since Magadan was also fictitious, Jesus' departure from it had to be kept as vague as its geographical location. Therefore, the writer of Matthew failed to state how Jesus and the disciples found themselves at the Sea of Galilee again and in a boat, without any bread. The TJ account, though somewhat vague in its geography here, does let the reader know that they traveled back from Sidon and Tyre, where the request was made by the Pharisees for Jmmanuel to show them a sign, to Lake Galilee. Its clause "When they sailed across the sea," makes this much clear. This is another example of an objection or question too minor or obscure, in all probability, for any literary hoaxer to have foreseen. But if it had somehow been foreseen, a hoaxer would likely have remedied the problem by inventing a particular geographical setting for the point of departure on the Lake. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 16:10 10"Or [do you not remember] the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?" TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. The feeding of the four thousand (Mt 15:32-38) has earlier been deduced to be an invention of the compiler of Matthew. Hence logic dictates that this verse must be one also. SOLUTION. The TJ's lack of a cognate here supports this logic. The TJ does, however, contain parallels (only partially edited within Matthew) to the Matthean verses shortly before and after this point, since it contains the feeding of the five thousand. If a literary hoaxer had crafted the TJ, this is a spot where he could easily have slipped up by forgetting to remove all mention of the feeding of the four thousand. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 16:12 12Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. TJ 18:16 16Then they finally understood that he had not said for them to beware of the leaven of the bread, but of the erroneous and adulterated teachings of the scribes and Pharisees. TJ 18:16 16Da endlich verstanden sie, dass er nicht gesagt hatte, dass sie sich hüten sollten vor dem Sauerteig des Brotes, sondern vor den irren und verfälschten Lehren der Schriftgelehrten und Pharisäer. THE PROBLEMS. Isn't it strange that Jesus would tell them to beware of these teachings, but not say why? In Matthew, the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees should not have been lumped together, since they contain many differences. And here "teaching" (singular) is used, as if they taught or believed in the same things. (The Pharisees mostly believed in resurrection, while the Sadducees did not believe in any afterlife.) Benjamin Hubbard has objected in particular to the grouping of Sadducees and Pharisees together in this verse.[1] SOLUTION. Upon comparing the two verses, one suspects that the compiler of Matthew, a scribe or ex-scribe himself, did not wish to feel included in this admonition to Jesus' followers, and so made the substitution from scribes to Sadducees. And he apparently did not desire his readers to start wondering if teachings of the Scriptures or the church might be erroneous, so he omitted "erroneous and adulterated." We also notice that the TJ verse has "teachings" as plural, while in Matthew it somehow became altered to singular. These problems with Matthew are too obscure for a literary hoaxer to have perceived, in all likelihood, and thence to have fixed. PHoax ¯ 0.25. In a few other spots in the TJ, Pharisees and Sadducees do appear lumped together, as in Matthew, apparently because Jmmanuel felt that both groups had erroneous beliefs they were trying to impose upon other Jews. Moreover, the Sadducees, who wished to stay in the good graces of the Romans, could do so (before about A.D. 70) by generally supporting the Pharisees, whose teachings did not incite rebellion against the Romans as did those of the Zealots, another Jewish group of that day. Mt 16:13 13..."Who do men say that the Son of man is?" TJ 18:17 17..."Who do the people say that I am?" TJ 18:17 17... «Wer, sagen die Leute, dass ich sei?» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 352) noticed that Matthew's "Son of man" expression is especially peculiar here. If the disciples already understood Jesus to be the Son of man, but did not understand whether or not this title means the Messiah, then Beare asks, "What point is there in asking them who he is taken to be?" If the disciples did not understand Jesus to be the Son of man, then that expression is even more peculiar. Jesus never explains to his disciples what "Son of man" means, and never directly tells them that he is the Son of man. SOLUTION. The "Son of man" title is an editorial alteration if for no other reason than that the disciples or others never apply that title to him in Matthew's gospel. In the TJ, "Son of man" does not appear at all since Jmmanuel is said to be the son of Gabriel, whom we would regard as an ET (celestial son) and not an Earthling. The question then makes sense, of Jmmanuel asking who the people thought he was, or who he had been in a previous incarnation. [PHoax ¯ 0.4]. Mt 16:16 16Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." TJ 18:20 20Simon Peter answered, saying, "You are the prophesied Messiah and a son of the living El who is the consciousness-related ruler of the three human species." TJ 18:20 20Da antwortete Simon Petrus und sprach: «Du bist der prophezeite Messias und ein Sohn des lebendigen Gottes, des bewusstseinsmässigen Herrschers der drei Menschengeschlechter.» THE PROBLEM. Here Beare (pp. 352-353) reminded the reader that "Son of the living God" is a Christological term arising within the early church. Thus, if "God" here referred to the Christian God, the phrase could not have been uttered by Peter before the church existed. SOLUTION. Judging from the TJ, Peter used the words "living El" because Jmmanuel had previously told the disciples that El was a living, human being-leader of a race of space-faring (or "heavens"-faring) people far evolved in spirit, and that his father (Gabriel) was one of them but was not their leader (not El or "El"). However, in the discussion following the next Matthean verse the reader will find that Jmmanuel needed to explain his true male parentage to the confused Peter once again. Beare's criticism is thus seen to be correct in the sense that the compiler had the Christian God in mind, but incorrect in that the same phrase had existed within Matthew's source-the compiler did not need to alter the "son of the living El" phrase. The term "living God"must have been very familiar to the writer of Matthew, since it occurs within eight different Old Testament books. The phrase "consciousness-related ruler" is an awkward change made by the editor, Meier, for greater accuracy in meaning, in place of "spiritual" in earlier TJ editions. The "three human species" are the peoples of the Mideast, to the north, and to the east as far as India, which Jmmanuel had earlier explained to his disciples as having been procreated through El's will. The previous edition of the TJ referred to "lineages," not "species," and I prefer the former terminology since by most definitions members of different species are too different to be able to procreate viable offspring among each other. If a literary hoaxer had been astute enough to realize that "the Christ" is also a christological term that would not have been spoken before early Christianity evolved, he is more likely to have omitted it altogether than to realize that the phrase "the prophesied Messiah" would realistically have been spoken. And such a hoaxer would be quite unlikely to have added something about "three human species." More properly now, we would speak of three human sub-species. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 16:17 17And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon, Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." TJ 18:21 21Jmmanuel became angry and answered, saying to him, "O you unfortunate one, my teachings have not revealed this to you, for I instructed you in the truth." TJ 18:21 21Da ward Jmmanuel zornig und antwortete und sprach zu ihm: «Oh du Unglücklicher, meine Lehre hat dir das nicht offenbart, denn ich unterrichtete dich in der Wahrheit.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 355) reviewed the reasoning of scholars who have conjectured that the "flesh and blood" emphasis was a challenge directed against either a differing belief of Paul or of James of Jerusalem. In any case, Beare agreed that the phrase arose out of a leadership controversy within the Palestinian church, and was meant to justify the highest Christian position for Peter, backed by God himself, so that similar or higher status would not be accorded to any other Christian leader. Since the controversy arose only some time after the crucifixion, the objectionable "flesh and blood" sentence could not genuinely have been uttered earlier. SOLUTION. In the distant TJ cognate, the "flesh and blood" sentence does not occur. Jmmanuel was not pleased with Peter's reply, for thinking his father was El rather than Gabriel, and goes on to explain that he is not the son of El. If the hoax hypothesis is entertained here, we should note that a New Age literary hoaxer would want to make use of Matthew's positive response from Jesus,[2] which the TJ response, exhibiting Jmmanuel's anger, does not do. Instead, the TJ text here is consistent with its overall portrayal of Jmmanuel's emphasis upon truth and upon not falsifying his teachings. In Matthew the favorable light in which Peter is cast is also consistent with its writer's tendencies elsewhere, so that his reversal of the TJ meaning should not be unexpected. PHoax ¯ 0.25. It is interesting that the naming of Peter "son of Jona," or "Bar-Jona," is not present in the TJ version. Goulder has pointed out how apt it would be for the compiler of Matthew, if expanding upon Mark, to have added this embellishment to upgrade Simon Peter's hereditary background and worthiness to be the "rock" of the new church.[3] The name "Jonah" had become a symbol of the resurrection, and had acquired a great significance to Christians of Jewish background even though Jonah had not died inside the "great fish." Goulder's conclusion is just as valid whether the compiler of Matthew had been copying and editing from the TJ or from Mark's gospel. Mark's omission of the Bar-Jona phrase of Matthew is in keeping with the lack of interest in things Jewish that Mark's writer felt would be of no concern to gentiles. Mt 16:18 18"And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it." TJ 18:23 23"You are Petrus, and I cannot build my teachings on your rock. You will open the portals of misunderstanding, so that the people will be overcome by your mistaken interpretation of my teachings and will follow them and live according to falsified teachings." TJ 18:23 23«Du bist Petrus, und auf deinen Felsen kann ich meine Lehre nicht bauen, und du wirst die Pforten des Unverstandes öffnen, so die Menschen uberwältigt von deiner irren Auslegung meiner Lehre darin eingehen werden und einer verfälschten Lehre leben.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (pp. 353-354) found it highly questionable that this verse of Matthew could have come from Jesus, as have many other scholars, and speaks of the compiler of Matthew as having inserted it. His grounds for rejecting it were twofold: (1) It implies that Jesus personally set out to form a sect of his own, within but separated from Israel, which Beare regarded as an untenable position; and (2) In the early church, before the time that Matthew's gospel came out, the evidence suggests that Peter never received the respect that should have been due him had this statement been a genuine, known one. Further, a pun within a formal statement that establishes a church does not seem appropriate. And it is not very reasonable that Jesus would tell Peter that he was establishing his church around him, and then just five verses further voice his warning to him, "Get behind me, Satan!" At the least, if Matthew's version were correct, we would expect that after its verse 16:23 Jesus would have retracted his previous declaration about building a church around Peter. SOLUTION. Both verses imply that Jmmanuel and Peter well knew the double meaning of the name "Peter" and the word "rock." Beare (p. 355) noted that in Aramaic the two words are identical: Kepha. The TJ verse implies the double meaning, or pun, even more strongly, as it reads "on your rock." Comparing the TJ verse to that of Matthew, we see that it is not subject to Beare's objections, it suggests a reason for a pun in a serious situation, and no contradiction with subsequent text arises; at the same time it allows us to understand why Matthew's Jesus doesn't supply Peter with any instructions on how to go about setting up a church organization. It is extremely unlikely that, had a literary hoaxer desired to alter this text of Matthew, he could have avoided such serious problems with so few words. The compiler seems to have made the alteration after reading the TJ passage and realizing that with only minimal editing he could provide justification for the existence of the church. He must also have held Peter in high esteem, as signified by his inclusion two chapters earlier of the episode of Peter briefly being able to walk on water at Jesus' command. This and other TJ verses indicate that Jmmanuel had mixed feelings about Peter. He apparently liked him very much and evidently trusted him in things Peter understood, but could foresee his contribution towards future falsification of his teachings through misunderstandings. A pun here then seems appropriate, to somewhat soften the blow of what Jmmanuel had to tell his friend: Jmmanuel was not going to designate Peter or anyone else as the primary promulgator of his true teachings, save for designating Judas as his writer who would, in the future, set a record of his teachings and ministry onto papyrus for eventual dissemination. Proponents of the hoax hypothesis can point out here that the TJ verse reads like a long-range prophecy that a hoaxer who's an opponent of Christianity might have written. However, the verse is consistent with other TJ verses that do indicate Jmmanuel was a long-range prophet as well as a short-range prophet (TJ 12:20, 14:15-19, 15:75-81, 20:28,31-32, 21:31-33, 23:25,47, 24:44-53...). This, plus the fact that the TJ verse does not suffer from either Matthean problem, and the fact that it is easily understood why the writer of Matthew altered the TJ verse into the form we have it, favor genuineness of the TJ verse over Matthew. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 16:19 19"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." TJ 18:24 24"I cannot give you the key to the consciousness-related world, otherwise you would open false locks and wrong portals with it." TJ 18:24 24«Nicht kann ich dir den Schlüssel des bewusstseinsmässigen Reiches geben, sonst du damit irrige Schlösser und falsche Pforten öffnen würdest.» THE PROBLEM. The second part of Mt 16:19 has nothing to do with locks and keys, but as Beare (pp. 355-356) pointed out, it deals with rabbinic authority. Thus it is not a very logical or understandable sentence as a whole, but is something an early Christian with background as scribe, Pharisee and/or rabbi could have invented. SOLUTION. The TJ verse is self-consistent, as well as tying in better with its preceding verse. It is seen to have been the source of the Matthean verse, upon a simple reversal of meaning; thus Is 22:22 need not have been the source after all, as some scholars would postulate. However, an ominous aspect of TJ 18:24 is its implication that it is possible for consciousness-related (or spiritual) power to be exercised for unrighteous purposes. And a question it raises is: Is there any single key thought or understanding that could "open the door" to the spiritual world? Considering Mt 16:17-19 as a whole, Max Wilcox is one of many scholars who have had to face a great problem. "It is widely agreed that the section in question shows many signs of antiquity, notably its strong Aramaic cast."[4] Wilcox pointed out four examples of this, but also gave reasons why "the verses in question are 'church formulations' belonging to a time when the Church was already well and truly in business as an institution." The TJ shows precisely how this came about, by some but not all of Jmmanuel's original Aramaic words having been altered. Sometimes the alterations were only one- or two-word changes that left the Aramaic flavor intact, but which dramatically reversed the meaning into one the church would welcome. Although it is not particularly likely that a literary hoaxer would reverse the meaning of the Matthean verse instead of omitting it, it is still less likely that such a hoaxer would invent a specific comment to accompany it. Yet, this last half of the TJ verse fits right in with its preceding four verses and its following three verses. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 16:20 20Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. TJ 18:27 27Then he warned his disciples never to tell or wrongly assume such things, and that they were not allowed to spread Petrus' confused teachings. TJ 18:27 27Da bedrohte er seine Jünger, dass sie solches niemals sagen oder fälschlich annehmen sollten, und dass sie nicht verbreiten dürften die irre Lehre des Petrus. THE PROBLEM. That Jesus was the long awaited Messiah was a key part of the good news-the oral gospel. Earlier, Jesus had told his disciples, in Mt 10:27, 27"What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops." Then he went on from there to tell them not to be afraid of those who could kill them. But what he tells them here contradicts this-to keep the good news, which Peter proclaimed and Jesus acknowledged, secret. Would a great teacher of wisdom speak contradictorily like this? SOLUTION. We see from the TJ verse that what Jmmanuel warned his disciples about was not to spread false beliefs. In two previous verses in the TJ Jmmanuel explains the particulars of where Peter was very wrong. Thus there is no contradiction here between TJ 10:41, which the writer of Matthew reproduced faithfully in his 10:27, and TJ 18:27, which he is seen to have heavily edited. As usual the hoax hypothesis is in trouble here, as few if any scholars have made the above criticism. A literary hoaxer would simply not possess enough creative genius to perceive that there is a problem here and then eliminate it in such a straightforward manner, which involves the context of adjoining TJ verses. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 16:21-22 21From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you." TJ 18:28-30 28From that time onward, Jmmanuel began to tell his disciples that he would have to go to Jerusalem and suffer much from the elders, scribes and chief priests, because he could not help but bring his teachings to them. 29And Petrus took him aside and spoke to him angrily, "May El or Creation prevent that! 30This must not happen to you, because they will catch and torture and kill you." TJ 18:28-30 28Seit der Zeit fing Jmmanuel an und zeigte seinen Jüngern, wie er müsste hin nach Jerusalem gehen und viel leiden von den Ältesten und Schriftgelehrten und Hohenpriestern, da er nicht umhin komme, ihnen seine Lehre zu bringen. 29Und Petrus nahm ihn zu sich, fuhr ihn an und sprach: «Das verhüte Gott oder die Schöpfung! 30Das widerfahre dir nur nicht, denn sie werden dich fangen und foltern und töten.» THE PROBLEMS. Matthew gives no reason why Jesus would have to suffer many things in Jerusalem. According to that gospel, he had not yet been there, and so would not yet have done anything there to generate enemies. Although various chief priests, elders and scribes in Jerusalem must have heard of him by this time, he had not yet said or done anything directly to them there that would cause them to press for his death. Peter's rebuke contains a strange element (Beare, p. 358). In "God forbid, Lord! This..." his "This" refers back most directly to "and on the third day be raised." Obviously he should not have been objecting to a prediction that Jesus would be resurrected quickly. SOLUTION. The first TJ verse indicates why Jmmanuel would have to suffer-his teachings would again be offensive to the groups cited, plus Pharisees, causing them to conspire to arrest him. It is interesting that the order "elders, scribes and chief priests" in the TJ is altered in Matthew to "elders and chief priests and scribes." This again suggests that the writer of Matthew had once been a Jewish scribe before his conversion to early Christianity. Thus he either consciously or subconsciously minimized the scribes' involvement in events leading to the crucifixion by placing them last in the list. We see that Peter's awkward mention of "This," which refers more to the raising of Jesus than to his having to undergo suffering and be killed, was a consequence of the editorial action on the part of the writer of Matthew. One can try to interpret it away, as Beare did, by saying that Peter simply disregarded the assurance that Jesus would be raised, due to his focusing on his predicted suffering and death. However, this interpretation is not very convincing. Instead, it is as if Peter and the other disciples never heard Jesus utter "and on the third day be raised." The problem represents another instance of editorial "fatigue": the writer inserted "be killed, and on the third day be raised," but then continued on using TJ text with only minor modification. Although the TJ's "This" had properly referred to the suffering Jmmanuel would have to undergo, Matthew's "This" in the continuation then referred most strongly to being raised from the dead. In the TJ, it is some 32 sentences later that Jmmanuel tells the disciples of his detailed prediction of surviving a near death. We may notice also that the Matthean text says Peter began to rebuke Jesus, while the TJ text does not contain "began." This may have been the writer of Matthew's way of making Peter's rebuke seem less disrespectful-in contradicting his Lord, Peter was only beginning to be disrespectful. It is scarcely conceivable here, either, that a literary hoaxer could have generated this TJ text, which avoids the problems while continuing its own riveting story. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 16:24 24Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." TJ 18:36 36Then Jmmanuel said to his disciples, "Those who desire to follow my teachings should take upon themselves the burden of the search for truth, recognition and understanding," TJ 18:36 36Da sprach Jmmanuel zu seinen Jüngern: «Will jemand meine Lehre befolgen, der nehme die Last der Wahrheitssuche und der Erkennung und des Verstehens auf sich. THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 359) noted that here the figure "take up his cross" is an anachronism-it was assigned to an era earlier than is historically possible. The figure would not have its intended meaning until some years after the crucifixion when the cross became the emblem of Christianity and was no longer a symbol of shame, as it had been to the Jewish people, for whom "hanging" was a most ignominious death. The verse, moreover, is a doublet of Mt 10:38, which received criticism for the same reason. SOLUTION. The TJ cognate, in addition to not suffering from Beare's criticism, is a good example to show how Jmmanuel was transformed by the compiler from a teacher of wisdom into a figure for worship. The German word "Erkennung" could, in my opinion, have been better translated as perception or cognition rather than "recognition." Although the reason for rejecting the Matthean verse is the same as for Mt 10:38, here there is a TJ cognate that a hoaxer is not very likely to have invented, unless he himself were a teacher of truth and wisdom. However, such a teacher would not falsify another's document. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 16:25 25"For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." TJ 18:37 37"because those who live their lives in truth and knowledge will be victorious, but those who live their lives in untruth and ignorance will lose." TJ 18:37 37«Denn wer sein Leben in Wahrheit und Wissen lebt, der wird siegen; wer aber sein Leben in Unwahrheit und Unwissen lebt, der wird verlieren.» THE PROBLEM. This Matthean verse is a doublet of Mt 10:39, which received logical criticism that applies here also. The main difference-that in this verse "save" is used once in place of "find"-does not alter its illogic and dubious meaning. To his credit, Beare (p. 359) did mention here that "it" has to be interpreted not just as "life" but as "immortal soul" in order for the verse to hold meaning. Yet, that meaning is not at all convincing: should a Christian purposely starve to death, or allow himself to be murdered, or even commit suicide, in order that he not lose out on eternal life in heaven or on earth in a resurrected body? One may also notice that according to the interpretation: "He who saves his life will lose his afterlife," none of the disciples would make it to heaven, since they fled for their lives at Jesus' arrest (Mt 26:56), rather than losing their lives for Jesus' sake. This is even though Jesus had earlier blessed the disciples for being fortunate enough to experience his ministry firsthand (Mt 13:16-17). SOLUTION. The TJ verse is what prompted the Matthean verse. It had to be altered because it was not desired that Jesus be viewed as teaching people to discern the difference between truth and untruth; if Christians were to do that, the teachings of the early church would come under severe question by its very followers. One sees that after the writer of Matthew had removed all the unacceptable words: truth, knowledge, untruth and ignorance, he had little left to work with, and his verse turned out rather inane. But he seemed to have liked it, along with his preceding verse, so well that he went back and used them again in only slightly altered form, as Mt 10:38-39-doublets. The TJ contains exceedingly few doublets, in contrast to Matthew, except for Jmmanuel's favorite expressions, often repeated: "Truly I say to you," and "Those who have ears, let them hear!" In the TJ context "victorious" appears to mean being successful in living one's life as it was meant to be lived -learning truths. To "lose," on the other hand, means the opposite, implying a setback in one's spiritual evolution. Again, a literary hoaxer who recognized the Matthean verse as a non-genuine doublet would most likely just omit it from his falsified gospel rather than try to construct a comprehensive, TJ-consistent verse out of it. And to do this just starting with Matthew's words "life" and "lose" would be a rare accomplishment. Going the other direction-condensing the more comprehensive TJ verse into the Matthean verse-is a much more probable course of action for a falsifier. PHoax ¯ 0.2. The Markan parallel to this verse (Mk 8:35) gives indication of the additional editorial hand of its writer because of its inclusion of "and the gospel's [sake]." At the time that phrase was supposedly spoken, there was not yet an oral gospel (or "good news"), let alone a written one. If the writer of Matthew had been copying from Mark, on the other hand, he would have had no reason to omit "and the gospel's [sake]," since he used the word "gospel" five times himself. Mt 16:26 26"For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?" TJ 18:38-39 38"What would it profit them if they should gain the whole world, yet still damage their consciousness? 39Or, how can one help one's consciousness if unable to think?" TJ 18:38-39 38«Was hülfe es dem Menschen, wenn er die ganze Welt gewönne und nähme doch Schaden an seinem Bewusstsein? 39Oder was kann der Mensch helfen seinem Bewusstsein, wenn er des Denkens nicht mächtig ist?» THE PROBLEMS. Here there is a lack of any definite meaning. In order to make sense out of the first half of the Matthean verse, one needs to replace "life" with "soul," because obviously there would be no profit to gaining the greatest of material possessions if one were then to die right away. However, the underlying Greek text does permit the Greek ψυχη or "psyche" to be translated as "soul" here as an alternative to "life." But what then is the meaning of forfeiting one's soul? Matthew's Jesus didn't teach that one could lose one's soul, rather that one's soul could end up (apparently along with a resurrected body) in an eternal fiery hell, as in Mt 5:22. The possible exception is Mt 10:28, which speaks of taking heed to avoid someone who can kill your body and soul both. However, in the present verse the implication is that an excess of material riches, not a person who can kill souls, will cause one to lose one's soul (or life). The second half of the verse contains other problems. If "soul" is used there, what is the meaning of "in return" or "in exchange" for his soul? I.e., the man presumably already has a soul or he wouldn't be alive; thus he need take no action to have his soul "returned" or "exchanged." And if he were to "give" something in return for his life, whatever it might be, to whom would he give it? Ambiguities of this nature are much more likely to have arisen from an editor who altered his source text than from a wise teacher who was known as such by his disciples and by the people. SOLUTION. The writer of Matthew had to edit the TJ very heavily here, because the concept that one's consciousness is essential for learning truths for oneself and for evolving in spirit was unacceptable to him and to the church. The result of this editing was, once again, ambiguity or illogic. The editing was so heavy, relative to TJ 18:39, that its Matthean cognate is recognizable as being such only by virtue of its location with respect to preceding, parallel TJ text, and by its word "Or" and subject "man" or "one" ("Mensch" in German). Would a literary hoaxer have perceived any of the Matthean problems and then proceed to eliminate them without showing any signs of having done so for the sake of redaction? And would a New Age hoaxer raise the issue of consciousness and its importance in the process of learning? The answer is "unlikely" on both counts. PHoax ¯ 0.15. It may be mentioned that the German form of the TJ refers in these verses to the individual and his consciousness in the quest for truth and knowledge, which has been expressed in the more cumbersome, plural form in English to avoid the restriction of gender designation. Mt 16:27 27"For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. It is uncertain when this Son of man is going to come and do his judging, and so it is left ambiguous whether the judgment will be made upon those who are alive or those who are already dead or who will by then be dead. In either event, those who are consigned to Hades-and earlier text suggests they will be many-will not have been repaid in proportion to the extent and seriousness of their misdeeds, because hell is hell whether the offense responsible is one of having become angry at one's brother (Mt 5:22) just once or ten or a hundred times, or having spoken against the Holy Spirit (Mt 12:32) just once or ten or a hundred times, or having committed murder just once or twice or more. Instead, hell has only been described by Jesus as either a fiery place (Mt 5:22, 13:42,50) or as an outer darkness (Mt 8:12), irrespective of the degree and extent of one's misdeeds. Indeed, Mt 13:50 promotes the belief that at the Judgment people will be separated into just two groups-the evil and the righteous. This stands in contrast to those who are consigned to heaven, where there are evidently different levels of heavenly rewards to be meted out (Mt 5:12,19; Mt 19:28). However, Jesus by this point in the gospel has supplied no inkling of what these different levels might consist of. The above verse in question indicates that it is the Son of man who will be imposing the judgment, while Mt 13:50 indicates it will be the angels who do this. This is a very serious contradiction. It was noted by Beare (p. 360) that the topic of this verse, with its Son of man emphasis, is a noticeable shift from the topic of the preceding verses within the same discourse. Again this is consistent with an editor having inserted his own thoughts relative to his source document. However, what Beare had in mind as a source document is Mark, with its verse of mediation within its parallel verses being Mk 8:38. The latter is more easily seen, however, as being an improvement made by the writer of Mark upon Matthew's lack of a transition verse between Mt 16:26 and Mt 16:27. SOLUTION. The TJ's lack of a cognate here speaks for itself. The pieces of illogic, or discrepancies, in the Matthean verse again are accounted for if they stem from a writer of the gospel who was no teacher of wisdom. Since the objections to Matthew here are not at all well known, there is a good chance that our hypothetical literary hoaxer would have made use of the verse in one form or another. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 16:28 28"Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." TJ 18:40 40"Truly, I say to you, there are several here who will not taste the power of conscousness-related knowledge in this life, and so they will learn in the next life." TJ 18:40 40«Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Es stehen etliche hier, die nicht schmecken werden die Kraft des Geisteswissens in diesem Leben, dass sie lernen werden im nächsten Leben.» THE PROBLEM. Clearly, with hindsight we can all agree that the Son of man in Matthew's verse was not seen to come again, and that this statement, like the prediction of Mt 10:23, is wrong. Beare (p. 360) agreed that the verse does anticipate that the Second Coming would take place during the lifetime of people living at that time. Again we find it much more probable that such a failed verse would derive from a scribal redactor than from a teacher of wisdom. Most modern biblical scholars, along with Beare, tend to dismiss the verses that imply an early Second Coming as anything Jesus himself said.[5] Their way out of its illogic is to posit that they are total creations of the church. But what would have caused the writer of Matthew to generate such an illogical verse? SOLUTION. In the TJ account Jmmanuel is telling his disciples that some of them, who at that time had no inkling of the power of their own consciousness or spirit, would gain some understanding of it in their next incarnation. Of course this demanded heavy revision by the writer of Matthew, since power of this sort was to be reserved for God or for the church, and reincarnation was a no-no. This appears to be another instance in which the original verse, because of its heresy or alien character, was altered but not totally deleted, with the end result being illogic. Both the TJ and the Matthean verses deal with things to come. The futuristic subject matter of the TJ verse then probably prompted the compiler to substitute something futuristic that seems to have been very much on his mind-an early Second Coming, which he had already edited into Mt 10:23. In omitting from the TJ what he felt to be heresy, the writer of Matthew was concentrating on how much more acceptable to the church of his day his own gospel would be than what he read in the Talmud of Jmmanuel. How logical or illogical the new verse might seem from the viewpoint of a scribe or scholar of the distant future was thereby totally overlooked. A hoaxer here would need to have been unduly creative to have constructed this TJ verse out of the Matthean verse, whereas it is seen that when the writer of Matthew constructed his verse out of the TJ verse it did not turn out to be sensible. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Upon accumulating the estimated degrees of uncertainty that the TJ is a hoax from just the TJ 18-Mt 16 verse comparisons above, one finds a cumulative probability of PHoax = 3.0 x 10-7. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 17 REFERENCES 1. Hubbard, Benjamin J., Review of The Vision of Matthew, in JBL 100 (1981), p. 122. 2. Peters, Ted, "Discerning the spirits of the New Age," The Christian Century 105, No. 25 (Aug. 31-Sept. 7, 1988), p. 765. 3. Goulder, Michael D., Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974), p. 387. 4. Wilcox, Max, "Peter and the rock: A fresh look at Matthew xvi. 17-19," NTS 22 (1975), pp. 73-88; see p. 73. 5. Borg, Marcus, Jesus: A New Vision (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), pp. 14, 25. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 17 Mt 17:1-9 1And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart. 2And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun... 9And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, "Tell no one the vision, until the son of man is raised from the dead." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Beare (pp. 361-365) supplied several reasons why this mountain-top scene, where Moses and Elijah appear and speak to a transfigured Jesus, must be an invention of the evangelist. Many other scholars concur. Here is a summary of some of Beare's objections: (a) The scene takes place at an unnamed mountain; in a real event of this importance the mountain-a high mountain-would have been named. Although the traditional site for this is Mt. Tabor, it is much too far away from the area of Caesarea Philippi, where Matthew last places Jesus, to be viable. (b) The phrase "after six days" in its introductory verse has no definite point of reference. It is very likely that it was utilized as an analogy to the Exodus account of Moses having spent six days on Mount Sinai before the LORD spoke to him from out of a mountain-capping cloud (Ex 24:16). (c) Similarly, the description that Jesus' "face shone like the sun" echoes Ex 34:29, in which the skin of Moses's face shone. (d) Peter's offer to construct three booths: for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, was nonsensical, considering that the transfigured personages would not need any such shelter, or that it would have required too much time, or that suitable branches may not have been available. Beare pointed out that such shelters were built for the Jewish annual feast of Booths in which worshipers were to reside. In this story the idea of a booth seems to have been drawn from the "tent of meeting" of Ex 40. (e) In Mt 17:5 it is stated, "a bright cloud overshadowed them." This also lacks sense because to produce a dark shadow, a cloud needs a dark underside; a bright cloud instead reflects additional light and so does not "overshadow" anything. Beare pointed out that the description here reflects the language of Ex 40:34-35 in which the cloud exuding God's glory covered the tent of meeting. (f) The voice that speaks out of the cloud merely repeats what the similar voice said at the baptism (Mt 3:17). The purpose of this doublet was evidently to reinforce what was written just 16 verses earlier, that Jesus was the "Son of the living God." Furthermore, this voice failed to let Peter, James and John know to whom "This is my beloved son" referred to-to Moses, to Elijah or to Jesus-as Jesus was not known as the Son of God until after Paul wrote of him in this manner a decade or more after the crucifixion. (g) In Mt 17:6 the three disciples are said to have fallen prostrate with fear upon hearing the voice speaking out of the cloud. However, their fear would surely have evinced itself a few minutes earlier when Jesus was transfigured and when Moses and Elijah suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The latter two are somehow immediately recognized by Peter, James and John even though they had been dead for many centuries and Jesus does not introduce them. SOLUTION. Neither this passage nor any of Matthew's chapter 17 is contained within the TJ. From its perspective we surmise that the compiler invented and inserted the transfiguration story, for one reason, to leave no doubt that Jesus was to be considered an even greater religious figure than Moses or Elijah, his two favorite Old Testament personages. This he would have done for the purpose of convincing Jews to accept Jesus as worthy of being the long awaited Messiah. For another reason, it would indicate that Elijah, who had been "translated into heaven" long before, was still around, so that "he is Elijah who is to come" of Mt 11:14 would refer to this event and not to any possible reincarnation. The third reason, already mentioned, was so that Jesus would be confirmed as "the Son of the living God." The attention of the writer of Matthew was evidently so focused upon implementing these three goals that he overlooked the non-credible aspects of his invented story, whose elements were extracted from Exodus. With regard to the hoax hypothesis, a literary hoaxer is not as likely to find this pericope to be valueless (and so to omit it from his construction) as scholars like Beare are to find it to be non-genuine. The mystical aspect of the pericope might well appeal to a New Age hoaxer almost as much as it appealed to the imagination of the writer of Matthew. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 17:10-13 10And the disciples asked him, "Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?" 11He replied, "Elijah does come, and he is to restore all things; 12but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of man will suffer at their hands." 13Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist. TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. It has been pointed out by Frank Zimmermann that this passage states an obvious contradiction. If Elijah was yet to come, then he cannot already have come, and vice versa.[1] Here "does come" does imply a future coming, since the Greek from which it is derived is most properly rendered "is coming." If Elijah was considered to have already come in the form of John the Baptist, that then constituted his "coming." He could hardly come yet again since John's head (Elijah's head) had been cut off. In Mt 17:10 "Then" is forced, since the question does not easily or logically flow out of Jesus' preceding admonition that the disciples tell no one of their vision. It appears the writer of Matthew wished to speak of Elijah here, and unsuccessfully tried to tie his coming discussion in with his preceding verse. Another indication of redaction is that only after Jesus tells them that he, too (the Son of man), would have to suffer are they said to understand that he had been speaking of John the Baptist. If they had been that confused, his sudden switch from speaking about Elijah to speaking about himself would have left them even more confused, since bringing up the topic of his own forthcoming suffering would lead their thoughts away from Elijah or John the Baptist. SOLUTION. Zimmermann's criticism does apply, since there is no reincarnation context present here, unlike the implication of Mt 11:14. However, it would seem that the compiler did have the "translation" hypothesis in mind here, wherein Elijah had not died but was carried up to heaven and so would return again in the same body. If so, however, the "translation" hypothesis would need to be amended to include the automatic restoration of truncated body parts, e.g., the head of John the Baptist. What Elijah would supposedly do upon his return was known at the time from rabinnic writings.[2] So it is not surprising that the thought "first Elijah must come" was included by the writer of Matthew, especially if he had once been a Pharisee and quite possibly a scribe. [PHoax ¯ 0.45.] Mt 17:14 14And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and kneeling before him said... TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Thus begins the episode of the healing of the epileptic. Here, Beare (p. 368) felt that the presence of a crowd in the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi is quite inexplicable, as Jesus with Peter, James and John had supposedly just been to a "high mountain apart." SOLUTION. The reason for the presence of this crowd is indeed unexplained, except as being an oversight of the redactor. The crowds mentioned in other more genuine Matthean text having TJ cognates developed because of Jmmanuel's prior presence. [PHoax ¯ 0.4.] Mt 17:17-18 17And Jesus answered, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me." 18And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 369) noted that in verse 17 Jesus' words do not form a reply to the father who had just asked his mercy upon his son, the epileptic. Instead, Jesus' reply is addressed to the whole generation. Beare then wondered if we are to think of Jesus as being impatient with all of humanity. SOLUTION. The illogic Beare detected here seems typical of what can occur when an editor who is often somewhat careless inserts a large amount of his own material. In contrast, the many healing stories in Matthew that the TJ supports as being basically genuine received a minimum of redaction from the compiler. Therefore they have appeared more genuine to scholars and have received less criticism from them, and hence receive little mention in this analysis of scholars' criticisms. The problem noted by Beare is not at all well known, and may not have been anticipated by a literary hoaxer, who, on the other hand, would quite likely have been happy to include another healing miracle to Jmmanuel's credit. Hence the absence of this healing pericope in the TJ counts against the hoax hypothesis. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 17:21 21"But this kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This verse seems to refer to a demon that the disciples could not cast out. It is omitted from most Bibles, as it does not appear in the more trusted Matthean papyri and manuscripts of the 3rd and 4th centuries, and so is relegated to a biblical footnote. However it is attested to by some rather impressive manuscripts, and therefore long ago gained a verse number within Matthew. Coming just after 17:20, which gives an explanation as to why the disciples could not cast out the demon, 17:21 gives an entirely different reason, which text thus doesn't seem to belong there. Beare (p. 367) affirmed that the verse does not belong where it is, but assumed it was a mistake by a later scribe (scribal assimilation), who is assumed to have picked the verse up from Mark and added it to Matthew. SOLUTION. Since the entire pericope about the healing of the epileptic was a Matthean invention, verse 17:21 could not have appeared in the TJ. From the solution that the TJ permits us to deduce to the Synoptic Problem, a plausible explanation for this vagrant verse emerges. First, since Mark followed after Matthew and contains this verse, while not containing its alternative, Mt 17:20, we perceive that 17:21 had indeed been present in Matthew at the time Mark was written, while 17:20 had not. At that time Matthew was still in its Hebraic form. After Mark and Luke had been written, the Hebraic Matthew was translated into Greek. At this time, several improvements were made, one of them being the insertion of 17:20 to substitute for 17:21. In making this improvement, however, either the translator of Matthew or an assisting transcriber failed to remove 17:21. Hence both verses were left there together within a number of transcribed copies of Greek Matthew, before the error was later noticed and corrected by removing 17:21. Textual critics who would not be interested in the TJ might nevertheless consider giving more weight to those early manuscripts that contained 17:21. Beare's assumption of scribal assimilation from Mark is quite implausible. What scribe or transcriptionist would have the audacity or ineptitude to add a verse from another gospel to the gospel he was working on and place it in a location where it makes no sense? The absence of this verse from the TJ carries no weight one way or the other with respect to the hoax hypothesis. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 17:22-23 22As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them [the disciples], "The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, 23and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day." And they were greatly distressed. TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Here, Beare (pp. 369-370) pointed out that there had been no mention in previous verses of any scattering of the disciples, which would need to precede a gathering of the disciples; there has been no mention of a return from the north, no purpose for meeting in Galilee. So why then were they said to be gathering in Galilee? He also noted that this second prediction of the Passion was less definite than the first one in Mt 16:21; the lack of new information then suggests this passage is an insertion. And regarding the second of the two verses, he noted that the disciples showed grief at the thought of Jesus' coming death, but strangely this was not followed by relief or joy at the assurance of his resurrection. SOLUTION. These problems with the Matthean text again demonstrate what may be expected within a chapter made up somewhat hastily by a redactor to substitute for a long, heretical section of his source document. This section of the TJ contains teachings about the human spirit, its evolution and its relationship to Creation, which follows naturally in the heels of Jmmanuel's censuring of Peter. A more comprehensive assessment of the chance that the TJ could be a literary hoax would need to take into account the odds that a hoaxer could construct many informative and inspiring verses that the writer of Matthew would omit. Without doing this here, since it is mainly just those sections of the TJ possessing Matthean parallels that are being displayed, we assign PHoax ¯ 0.5 in this instance. That is, a hoaxer would not probably wish to once more repeat this prediction of the Passion. Mt 17:24-27 24When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the half-shekel tax went up to Peter... 25...And when he [Peter] came home, Jesus spoke to him first... 27"However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel; take that and give it to them for me and for yourself." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 371-372) called this passage about paying the temple tax a "curious little story." He noted that the situation pictured in its first verse is artificial, while its prophecy of where to find the shekel must be regarded as folklore. Jesus was not present at the supposed event, yet when Peter reached "home" where Jesus was, Jesus started quizzing Peter about it before Peter could say a word. SOLUTION. The TJ again agrees with Beare's conclusion. Beare discussed why the writer of Matthew had constructed this story: although gentiles would not need to pay the temple tax, Christians who were converted from Judaism would be uncertain. The pericope suggests that the writer recommended they pay it, if only to prevent giving offense to other Jews who were obligated to pay it. The writer of Matthew may have thought of this theme for his story from the fairy tale known centuries earlier that Herodotus wrote (in Herodotus' Histories, book 3), involving Polycrates' ring. King Polycrates had tossed his valuable gold ring into the sea, and several days later it was recovered in the maw of a fish by a fisherman, who returned it to the king. Again, a hoaxer would likely realize that this pericope was an invention of the compiler of Matthew, and hence not reproduce it. PHoax ¯ 0.5. The overall probability favoring the TJ being a hoax from the accumulation of the above sub-probabilities within Mt 17 is 0.3. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 18 REFERENCES 1. Zimmermann, Frank, The Aramaic Origins of the Four Gospels (New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1979), p. 72. 2. Lowe, Malcolm and Flusser, David, "Evidence corroborating a modified Proto-Matthean Synoptic theory," NTS 29 (1983), pp. 25-47; see p. 35 and F.N. 58. The rabinnic passages occur in Eduyyot 8:7 and towards the end of Tosephta Eduyyot. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 18 Mt 18:1 1At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" TJ 19:1 1It came to pass that the disciples stepped up to Jmmanuel and asked, "Who is the greatest in consciousness?" TJ 19:1 1Es begab sich, dass die Jünger zu Jmmanuel traten und sprachen: «Wer ist der Grösste im Bewusstsein?» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 374) commented that the phrase "At that time" cannot be taken literally. The disciples could not have asked Jesus about this at the very moment he was discussing the temple tax with Peter. (The Greek text scholars rely upon reads similarly: "In that hour.") Besides, the disciples were, at that very hour, already with Jesus, judging from Mt 17:25, and did not need to come to Jesus. SOLUTION. This is a minor problem, but it is of interest that the TJ does not suffer from it. Its "It came to pass" or, alternatively, "It happened" allows an indefinite amount of time to have elapsed. It is pointed out here as yet another example of the problem faced by the TJ-hoax hypothesis, in imagining that any literary hoaxer intent upon overturning the fundamentals of Christianity would have noticed and acted upon this tiny a discrepancy. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 18:3-4 3and [Jesus] said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." TJ 19:3-4 3and [Jmmanuel] spoke, "Truly, I say to you, unless you change and become like the children, you will not be great in consciousness. 4Those who search, seek and gather cognitions and thirst for knowledge like this child will be great in consciousness." TJ 19:3-4 3Und er sprach: «Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Wenn ihr nicht umkehret und werdet wie die Kinder, so werdet ihr im Bewusstsein nicht gross sein. 4Wer forschet und suchet, und wer Erkenntnisse häuft und nach dem Wissen dürstet wie dieses Kind, der wird im Bewusstsein gross sein.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 375-376) observed that children are not usually considered humble. Instead, we all know that they are free of pretense and full of curiosity. As expressed by James Van Praagh, A child is one of life's greatest teachers. Children's points of view are honest and free. Their minds have not become imprisoned and conditioned by fears and insecurities that grip adults. A child understands simplicity and views life as a playful adventure. There is no judgment or motive behind the words of a child. They know who they are and what they want and will tell you so without your even asking.[1] If some children seem humble in the presence of adults, it is only because they are shy, or have been disciplined to remain quiet then, or taught to be wary of strangers. But this represents inexperience or obedience, not humility. SOLUTION. By not being subject to this problem, while at the same time being meaningful and inspiring, the TJ passage can be seen to have been the source of the Matthean verses. Jmmanuel's emphasis on seeking knowledge and wisdom as the purpose of life for all people was considered by the compiler of Matthew to be heretical or threatening to the clergy and/or church. This compiler had earlier in his gospel promoted humility as a Christian virtue, and in repeating the theme here, he evidently failed to realize that fallaciousness crept in during his editing. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 18:5 5"Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me." TJ 19:5 5"Those who search, seek and find like such a child will always reach their fullest potential within themselves." TJ 19:5 5«Und wer forschet und suchet und findet wie ein solches Kind, der wird in sich selbst immer der Grösste sein.» THE PROBLEM. As Sanders has pointed out, phrases like "in your name" cannot have been genuine utterances during the time of Jesus' ministry.[2] They are instead phrases of worship used by the early church. "In my name" as used in the present context falls into the same category. SOLUTION. The TJ verse was altered so much when the Matthean verse was formed from it that the two can be seen to be cognates only by virtue of their common subject of "child," by comparison of the verses' relative locations, and because "Those who" is equivalent to "Whoever." The thrust of the TJ verse is seen to have been unacceptable, since it involves taking responsibility for oneself rather than depending upon Jesus. This TJ verse is another meaningful, uplifting statement, which very competently enlarges upon its previous verse. A literary hoaxer would scarcely be capable of creating a verse of such significance, but would more likely follow Matthew's direction here and let this verse start a new topic. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 18:6 6"but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin [or stumble], it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." TJ 19:6 6"But whosoever does not heed this truth and embraces erroneous teachings, and neither searches nor finds, would be better off with a millstone hung around the neck and drowned in the deepest part of the sea." TJ 19:6 6«Wer aber dieser Wahrheit nicht achtet und irren Lehren frönt und weder suchet noch findet, dem wäre besser, dass ein Mühlestein an seinen Hals gehängt und er ersäufet würde im Meer, wo es am tiefsten ist.» THE PROBLEMS. Consider: "these little ones who believe in me." "These little ones" must stand for children, for that is what the preceding four verses were talking about: "child...children...child...child." However, it is unlikely that little children (or adults either) would have developed a belief or faith in Jesus years before the first church formed, and before any belief in a risen Christ was even possible. Instead, "who believe in me" is an anachronistic clause placed upon the lips of Jesus. This is in agreement with Davies & Allison.[3] In addition, very often the person who causes a little child to sin, with "sin" properly defined, is another child. And this child could be as much a "believer" in Jesus as the sinning child. Thus the saying fails to cover the frequent case of a sinning, "believing" child causing another child to sin. Another case it fails to cover is if an adult causes a "believing" child to become an "unbelieving" child; for then the drowning punishment might or might not apply, as the child involved is no longer a "believer." SOLUTION. The TJ verse is not subject to such problems, but is fully consistent with previous TJ text stressing the importance of seeking and finding-learning. Preventing others from seeking truth, as through imposing false teachings or quenching the will to seek and learn, is then considered a deplorable act, since it retards spiritual evolution. Again, the TJ verse is meaningful, is not subject to Matthew's problems, and continues along the same general thought in a natural manner consistent with what a true teacher of wisdom would have voiced. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 18:8 8"And if your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire." TJ 19:11 11"Don't be concerned if your hand or foot troubles you and falls off. It is better to lose a limb and grow great in conscousness than to have two hands and two feet and a consciousness that remains small, or even wastes away." TJ 19:11 11«Wenn aber deine Hand oder dein Fuss dir Ärgernis schafft und dir verloren geht, so achte dessen nicht, denn es ist dir besser, dass du ein Glied verlierest und aber im Bewusstsein gross werdest, als dass du zwei Hände und zwei Füsse habest und aber im Bewusstsein klein bleibest oder gar verkümmerst.» THE PROBLEM. Even if one strains hard, the Matthean verse does not make sense. In order that you use your hand or foot when committing some sin, you would have to be many months, if not years, old. Your sin would occur at least that long after you entered life, i.e., after birth. Thus you could not at that later point in time "enter life," whether in a maimed condition or not (within the Christian framework, which denies reincarnation). If the meaning is taken to be: "It would have been better for you if you had been born maimed or lame," then what is to prevent that maimed person from sinning? In Mt 9:2 a paralytic is told that his sins are forgiven, indicating that even within Matthew's framework a seriously handicapped person can sin. If "enter life" is assumed to mean to start out on the proper (Christian) path, is it OK to have chopped off your hand or foot in order to have gained this new beginning? If you wished someone else to maim you- maim your sinning member -then is it OK for you to do the same to someone else you see sinning, according to the Golden Rule? Actually, the pericope on the danger of riches (Mt 19:16-22f) equates entering life with entering heaven. If that is its meaning here, one wonders if it implies that a crippled person remains crippled in the Matthean concept of heaven. The threat of the eternal fire of hell shows up again as one of the favorite themes of the writer of Matthew. SOLUTION. In order to avoid the TJ's use of "spirit" and "consciousness," the writer of Matthew made some alterations and brought in "entering life" and the threat of hell. The result was a verse that does not make good sense. The TJ verse emphasizes the great importance of spiritual development, without suggesting that it's OK to maim yourself. This Matthean problem seems to be unknown within New Testament scholasticism. Had a literary hoaxer written the TJ verse, therefore, he is unlikely to have perceived the problem and avoid it. However, the evidence is strong that the writer of Matthew altered the TJ verse. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 18:9-10 9"And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. 10"See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven." TJ 19:12-13 12"Don't be concerned if an eye troubles you and becomes blind. It is better for you to see the laws of Creation in the power of your spirit and consciousness than to have two eyes and yet be blind in consciousness. 13See to it that you are not one of those who is sound in body but sick and lacking in consciousness." TJ 19:12-13 12«Und wenn dir ein Auge Ärgernis schafft und der Blindheit verfällt, so achte dessen nicht, denn es ist dir besser, dass du die Gesetze der Schöpfung in der Kraft deines Geistes und Bewusstseins sehest, als dass du zwei Augen habest und doch im Bewusstsein blind bist. 13Sehet zu, dass ihr nicht zu denen gehöret, die am Leibe gesund sind, die aber im Bewusstsein krank und mangelnd sind.» THE PROBLEMS. Mt 18:6 speaks about the "little ones" (children), then verses 7-9 switch to a discussion of temptations within the world, then verse 10 switches back to a discussion of the little ones. B. C. Butler noticed how incongruous this is, and believed that editorial alterations caused it.[4] The break from verse 9 to 10 is the more pronounced, so it is displayed here with a new paragraph, just as Bibles present it. With respect to Mt 18:10, Beare (p. 377) has noted how striking or strange it is that Jesus would speak of angels as being capable of seeing God, and that angels have a special charge over children. Nothing in the Jewish literature suggests this. This becomes a problem, then, because Jesus does not explain any of it to his disciples. It is also a problem that Jesus would admonish one to pluck out one's eye(s) upon sinning after seeing something or someone that helped prompt the sin. In that case, if the advice were followed, most people, being sinners, would become blind. And of what use would it be for Jesus to go around curing all the blind, if their regained eyesight would again cause them to sin all over again? SOLUTION. The TJ is seen to have a cognate for the Matthean passage about the blind (Mt 18:9). Following that passage and starting with "See to it," the TJ verses continue on with the same theme, contrasting physical and spiritual blindness, and do not change the subject to children. (The German word for "consciousness" that appears here can also mean "awareness," and seems to refer to awareness of both the physical and spiritual realms.) So Butler's criticism does not apply to the TJ verses. The compiler of Matthew evidently was able to make use of TJ 19:12 upon inventing extensive substitutions in words and meaning, but could think of no good way to utilize TJ 19:13, except for its very beginning portion. He then reverted to his earlier theme involving children, in substituting for the rest of TJ 19:13. In the TJ verse there is no suggestion of plucking out one's eye, but instead an emphasis upon what is even more important than one's eyesight. The consequent discussion of spirituality then needed to be replaced by a Christian topic-sinning and punishment-favorite themes of the compiler of Matthew. TJ 19:11-12 should not be taken to mean one should not take care of one's body, since, contrary to Matthew, the TJ does urge one to have concern for the body (TJ 6:36-37). Instead, if a physical ailment persists despite attempted treatments or cures, the TJ advice is not to let the problem deter you from continued personal growth in consciousness and spirituality. Since the Matthean verse can scarcely be genuine or come from a wisdom teacher, while the TJ verse effortlessly avoids all three Matthean problems in presenting its unified teaching, I estimate that, at most, PHoax ¯ 0.2 here. Mt 18:11 11"For the Son of man came to save the lost." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This verse, like Mt 17:21, is totally out of place here (Beare, p. 374). That is, it does not fit in with the context of adjacent verses. SOLUTION. Bibles print it only as a footnote, and only because it does appear in the main text of many old Bible manuscripts, though not in those considered most reliable. It appears to be a later scribal interpolation. Obviously the TJ would not contain it. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 18:12 12"What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go in search of the one that went astray?" TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. In leaving the 99 other sheep, the shepherd who is trying to save his one sheep is implied to leave them all untended for a while. Experts on Palestinian life all agree, according to Jeremias,[5] that a shepherd there cannot possibly leave his flock to itself. SOLUTION. At the least, in failing to mention that the shepherd must first ask a friend to tend the flock while he goes out searching for the one lost sheep, this verse is illogical and supports the TJ's absence of the verse. A contemporary teacher of wisdom would not likely have preached thus, yet a literary hoaxer may well have included it because of its compassionate appeal. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 18:13-14 13"And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. 14So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. One cannot expect these last two verses of the story to be genuine when the first three were found not to be. Further, regarding verse 13, the shepherd who adheres to certain teachings of Jesus up to this point would not have gone out searching for the one sheep that went astray, and would not then have cause to rejoice. He would instead reason that since "He who finds his life will lose it" (Mt 10:39), why should he hunt to try to save the life of one sheep, since a sheep is of so much less value than a man (Mt 12:12)? Or, why should he be anxious over one sheep, or anxious over tomorrow if tomorrow the one sheep is still lost (Mt 6:25,34)? Or, why should he try to maintain all his precious sheep-his treasures on earth-when he should be laying up treasures for himself in heaven (Mt 6:20)? Verse 14 attempts to provide a conclusion to this section, reverting back to the little ones of verse 10, which itself referred back to verse 6. However, in discussing that one of the little ones should not perish it jumps off of the theme that a little one should not be despised or caused to sin. A teacher of wisdom is not expected to be this irrational. SOLUTION. The TJ verses in this location of the text that were unacceptable to the writer of Matthew, and for which he substituted the story of the lost sheep, are these: TJ 19:14-15 14"Search for the meaning and truth in my teachings. Since I am human like you, I, too, have had to search and recognize. 15Since I am human like you and have gathered my knowledge, you are also capable of learning, searching, recognizing and knowing; in so doing you may grasp and observe the laws of Creation." TJ 19:14-15 14«Forschet den Sinn und die Wahrheit meiner Lehre, denn so ich Mensch bin wie ihr, musste auch ich forschen und erkennen. 15So ich aber Mensch bin wie ihr und mein Wissen sammelte, also seid ihr fähig zu lernen und zu forschen und zu erkennen und zu wissen, so ihr dadurch die Gesetze der Schöpfung erfassen und befolgen könnt.» These TJ sentences were unacceptable because Jesus, being the Son of God, was already essentially all knowing and did not need to search and perceive. Others were to follow what the church teaches rather than search and perceive for themselves. [PHoax ¯ 0.4.] Mt 18:16-17 16"But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector." TJ 19:18 18"If your neighbor does not listen and continues to be enslaved by a lack of understanding, leave that person be, for he is not worthy of your teaching, once you have done everything possible." TJ 19:18 18«Hört er dich nicht und frönt weiter seinem Unverstande, so lasse von ihm, denn er ist deiner Lehre nicht wert, wenn du dein Möglichstes gegeben hast.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare noticed (p. 379), as have many others, that Mt 18:16 concerning the obtaining of justice is really just a citation from Deuteronomy that is not very relevant here, where the point is to try to get the sinner to repent rather than to convict him. This Old Testament reference reads: Dt 19:15 A single witness shall not prevail against a man for any crime... only on the evidence of two witnesses, or of three witnesses, shall a charge be sustained. Mt 18:17 refers to your friend who commits an offense but will not heed the advice from you or from other witnesses. Beare (p. 380), along with practically all other scholars, could state with certainty that its words represented the belief of a Jewish-Christian group who still regarded gentiles as unholy or unclean. The use of the word "church" (ekklhsia), some years before the first church formed, further gives it away as an inauthentic saying of Jesus. Sanders has also noted its inauthenticity on the basis of tax collectors not actually having been distasteful to Jesus, as in Mt 9:10-11, unlike what is said in Mt 18:17.[6] And in the words of G. A. Wells, "It is obvious that the evangelist is here writing in the belief that practices of the Christians of his own day were ordained by Jesus."[7] SOLUTION. Relative to the TJ's absence of any cognates to Mt 18:16, the Matthean verse with its unattributed citation looms as an insert. Regarding Mt 18:17, one can easily surmise that it reads the way the compiler had wished the parallel TJ verse had read, with his distaste for tax collectors overflowing to include gentiles as well. In the TJ, Jmmanuel's harsh language is directed primarily towards scribes, Pharisees and chief priests, not gentiles or tax collectors. It may be noted that the Gospel of Mark does not retain any of this Matthean language. Its compiler was writing for gentiles and so did not wish to copy or retain these and similar verses from Matthew. It is easily seen how and why the writer of Matthew altered the TJ verse-for him the advice Jesus doled out needed to echo what was in the Scriptures. On the other hand, it is difficult to conceive of a literary hoaxer producing such sound practical advice. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 18:18 18"Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 380) assumed that binding and loosing refer to the retaining and forgiving of sins; he thus concluded that it was "the risen Christ" who was speaking here, indicating the verse to be inauthentic. Richard Hiers has supplied several other possible reasons why the compiler of Matthew, representing the early church, was inserting verses. This insertion, for example, would authorize the church "to resolve whatever problems or issues arose."[8] SOLUTION. If it were "the risen Christ" speaking here, the verse as given in Matthew would definitely not be genuine words of Jesus spoken during his ministry. Beare's criticism would agree with the absence of any TJ text dealing with the forgiveness of sins, though in the TJ Jmmanuel does urge repentance of having followed false teachings (TJ 4:53). Matthew's words here also seem suspect because of their literal repetition of the second part of Mt 16:19. A redactor who feels he must edit out large amounts of unacceptable material from his source, and who wishes to replace much of it with material he deems acceptable, risks running out of replacement material and repeating himself. A literary hoaxer is unlikely to have wished to reproduce or alter this Matthean verse. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 18:19 19"Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. John P. Brown here deduces that "Matthew has introduced the 'two' of Mt 18:16 into 18:19."[9] If Mt 18:16 is non-genuine, as we have already deduced, then the present verse is by implication also non-genuine. And we see that Jesus starts out by continuing to speak directly to his disciples as "you," but then switches to the use of "them" and "they," as could be caused by a careless redactor inventing a story. SOLUTION. Brown's deduction receives additional support from the fact that it and the following Matthean verse form a set, and this latter verse has received strong criticism also, as is presented next. The Matthean verse is quite clearly a redaction, but would a literary hoaxer know this for sure? There is a good chance that a New Age hoaxer would make some use of this verse, turning it into a teaching on spiritual power. No such thing happened. Hence I would set PHoax ¯ 0.45, if not less. Mt 18:20 20"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Of this, Beare (p. 26) observed that no literature or text exists that would indicate that little groups ever met in Jesus' name while he was alive. If more than one group had met at a time, however, Beare stimulated the reader to wonder how Jesus could have been with all groups simultaneously. Yet Beare did feel that such power could later belong to the risen Christ. In addition, we see that the phrase "in my name" again occurs in an anachronistic context, as discussed already under Mt 18:5. SOLUTION. This verse, and the previous three, occur in place of TJ material advising Jmmanuel's disciples in effect not to spend excessive time trying to teach reason to an unreasonable person under the influence of false teachings. This material could not have been utilized by the compiler of Matthew because it brings individual reasoning into play, and because it runs counter to the church's view, or to the compiler's view, of never giving up in trying to gain a convert. Mt 18:21-22, with its moral of endlessly forgiving a person his sins against you, exemplifies this latter disposition. [PHoax ¯ 0.45.] Mt 18:21-22 21Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" 22Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. This advice is really inconsistent with verses 15-17, in which you are advised to confront your brother who sinned against you and tell him his fault. Then if the sinner refuses to listen to you, or to two or three witnesses, or to the church, you are to treat him as a gentile or tax collector. This would mean that from that point on, whether or not you forgave him once, you are either to treat him disrespectfully or have nothing more to do with him. This is incompatible with an attitude of unlimited forgiveness. Even if verses 16-17 are considered to be the non-genuine culprits that cause the inconsistency, verses 21-22 are hardly compatible with Mt 18:15, since it would be totally impractical to go confront your brother as many as seventy times or more, in response to his multiple sins against you. Presumably it would be for the same or similar sin each time, and there would be nothing new to say to your brother that you had not already said the other 69 times. Instead, verses 21-22 seem geared, in practice, toward a silent forgiveness of your sinning brother. However, that would conflict with Mt 18:15, which, on the other hand, contains a good deal of substance and thus appears to be the genuine verse. That is, if the forgiveness is considered to be just a silent forgiveness "in the heart," the sinner doesn't know that he has been forgiven, and this doesn't constitute forgiveness in the sense of the word used in the Scriptures. For if God forgives a Christian for some sin, but the sinner is not aware of it, he will not feel or know that he was forgiven. A minor problem, by comparison, is that Peter is said to have approached Jesus to ask his question about forgiveness. However, the disciples were said (Mt 18:1) to have already approached Jesus at the beginning of this series of teachings. They had not backed away in the meantime, and Peter's simple questions would have been heard by Jesus from wherever he was standing among the Twelve. SOLUTION. The seriousness of the first inconsistency, as augmented by the others, again indicates that these verses had been fed in by the writer of Matthew rather than by a teacher of wisdom. To about the same degree, a literary hoaxer would be unlikely to make use of this passage. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 18:23-35 23"Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24When he began the reckoning, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents; 25and as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold... 34And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt. 35So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. This is the parable of the king and his slave's debt, regarding unlimited forgiveness. Beare (p. 381) understandably called the slave's refusal to forgive a fellow slave a "horrible example." He felt that this portrayal, with the final order to hand the unforgiving slave over to the torturers, cannot be part of any valid conception of God, or of "Father in heaven," for Christians or Jews. Beare further noted that a debt of ten thousand talents would have been an incredibly large amount for a servant to owe. He found it incongruous that as punishment the servant would be sold, simply to become the slave of another. He noticed how unrealistic it would be for such a servant to plea for time in which to repay his debt, when no amount of time could suffice for that. He found the final verse-a threat that God would exact retribution like thrusting a man into jail for failure to forgive-an "incongruous" statement for the compiler to have made. One may also note the lack of Golden Rule logic if Jesus or God were to demand forgiveness of one man by another 70 times or more, while the master in the parable, and the heavenly Father, refuse to forgive even one time. With all these criticisms of particular verses within the parable indicating they are redactions, the entire parable must be a redactive insert. SOLUTION. The whole parable indeed does appear to be non-genuine, and the absence of TJ cognates supports Beare's analysis. In the TJ, Jmmanuel's parables dealing with the kingdom (of the spirit, not of heaven) never deal with kings. However, many of the compiler's do, probably because he visualized a personified God in heaven ruling like a king, or visualized Jesus as being a king of the Jews. The apparent lack of genuineness of this pericope can be matched only by the refusal of our hypothetical literary hoaxer to make use of it. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Upon accumulating the estimated probabilities that the TJ is a hoax from just the TJ 19-Mt 18 verse comparisons above, one finds a cumulative probability of PHoax = 0.00010. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 19 REFERENCES 1. Praagh, James Van, in Return from Heaven by Carol Bowman (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), p. xii. 2. Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 284. 3. Davies, W. D., and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), p. 761. 4. Butler, B. C., "M. Vaganay and the 'Community Discourse,'" NTS 1 (1955), pp. 283-290; see p. 287. 5. Jeremias, Joachim, The Parables of Jesus, S. H. Hooke, transl. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963), p. 133. 6. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, p. 229. 7. Wells, G.A., Did Jesus Exist? (London: Pemberton, 1986), p. 74. 8. Hiers, Richard H., "'Binding' and 'loosing': the Matthean authorizations," JBL 104 (1985), pp. 233-250; see p. 250. 9. Brown, John Pairman, "Mark as witness to an edited form of Q," JBL 80 (1961), pp. 29-44; see p. 38. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 19 Mt 19:3-5 3And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?" 4He answered, "Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, 5and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one'?" TJ 20:3-5 3The Pharisees approached him and tempted him by asking, "Is it right for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds?" 4He answered, saying, "Truly, I say to you, stars would sooner fall from the sky than for divorce to be permissible. 5Truly, a person will leave father and mother for the sake of marriage and will cling to their spouse, so as to become one flesh and blood." TJ 20:3-5 3Da traten zu ihm die Pharisäer und versuchten ihn und sprachen: «Ist es auch recht, dass sich ein Mann scheide von seiner Frau um irgend einer Ursache willen?» 4Er aber antwortete und sprach: «Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Eher werden die Sterne vom Himmel fallen, als eine Scheidung erlaubt sei. 5Wahrlich, denn um der Ehe willen wird ein Mensch Vater und Mutter verlassen und an seinem Ehegespan hangen, so sie beide werden ein Fleisch und ein Blut sein.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 388) noted that Mt 19:4 stems from the creation story, namely Gn 1:27, while Mt 19:5 stems from Gn 2:24. He didn't think that Jesus would have drawn upon a myth (Gn 1:27) to validate the institution of marriage, though allowing that it was not impossible. The Gn 2:24 verse, though introduced by "therefore," otherwise stands by itself and need not be considered to follow from the preceding mythical verses. SOLUTION. Beare's intuition was correct; the writer of Matthew drew upon the creation myth. A little further in the TJ, Jmmanuel qualifies his advice against divorce, as then did the writer of Matthew. The verse of TJ 20:5, closely paralleled in Matthew, does seem to have been spoken with knowledge of Gn 2:24, however, which could then have suggested to the writer of Matthew to borrow more from Genesis, namely Gn 1:27. Since the TJ does not borrow from Scripture that is definitely mythical, it comes out slightly ahead with respect to the hoax hypothesis. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 19:6 6"So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder." TJ 20:6-8 6"So they are now no longer two, but one flesh and blood, which is uniquely theirs. 7From one flesh and blood they bring forth offspring, who again are of the same flesh and blood as their father and mother. 8What has been joined together in this way, man shall not part, because it is against the laws of nature." TJ 20:6-8 6«So sind sie nun nicht mehr zwei, sondern ein Fleisch und ein Blut, und das ist ihr eigen. 7Aus einem Fleisch und einem Blut zeugen sie Nachkommen, die abermals ein Fleisch und ein Blut sind von Vater und Mutter. 8Was so zusammengefügt ist, das soll der Mensch nicht scheiden, denn es ist wider die Gesetze der Natur.» THE PROBLEM. As noted in the previous discussion, the thought that the two become one apparently stems from Gen 2:24. However, where did Mt 19:6b come from? It would not, at least in this form, seem to have derived from a wisdom teacher, because the choice to get married is that of the man and woman involved, or in some cases, the choice of a parent. To say God has joined them together is no different than to say that everything that happens is due to God, which then lacks any substance. However, we are so used to accepting this marriage-vow sentence in a sacred sense that we scarcely stop to think about it or question its significance. SOLUTION. We see from the TJ verses that the writer of Matthew utilized enough from them as to produce a very memorable verse of his own. However, Jmmanuel evoked the laws of nature here, which I would interpret as follows. Most paired creatures of opposite sex, throughout the animal kingdom, will if necessary defend their status as mates, so that, if violence is to be avoided, others should not interfere with the pairing up. Thus there is substance here that Matthew's verse lacks. Of course, the TJ verse does additionally mention that out of marriage comes genetically related offspring. It is interesting to speculate that the writer of Matthew omitted copying this verse, TJ 20:7, because his was a patriarchal outlook in which the mother is not to be given a status as a bloodline parent equal to that of the father. The greater substance of the TJ verse suggests a greater probability of its genuineness than that of the Matthean verse. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 19:7-9 7They said to him, "Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?" 8He said to them, "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery." TJ 20:9-11 9Then they asked, "Why did Moses command that a decree of annulment be issued in case of divorce?" 10He spoke to them, "Moses gave you permission to divorce because of the hardness of your hearts and his dominion over you. But such has not been the case from the beginning of human species, for Moses has broken a law in this instance. 11But I say to you, whoever divorces, except for fornication or the other stipulated transgressions, and marries someone else, commits adultery." TJ 20:9-11 9Da sprachen sie: «Warum hat denn Mose geboten, einen Scheidebrief zu geben, wenn man sich scheidet?» 10Er aber sprach zu ihnen: «Mose hat euch erlaubt euch zu scheiden, um eurer Herzen Härtigkeit willen und um die Herrschaft über euch; von Anbeginn der Menschengeschlechter ist es aber nicht so gewesen, denn hierin hat Mose ein Gesetz gebrochen. 11Ich aber sage euch: Wer sich scheidet, es sei denn um der Hurerei willen oder der anderen festgelegten Fehl willen, und freit anderweitig, der bricht die Ehe.» DISCUSSION. These verses are presented only to show what I see are the three main differences here between the TJ and Matthew. The first is the TJ's "and his dominion over you." It implies that Jmmanuel was of the opinion Moses allowed divorce in order to stay on good terms with his followers, and that before that time divorce had not been allowed at all. The second difference is the TJ's mention of "other stipulated transgressions" in TJ 20:11; these presumably are offenses he had discussed earlier (in TJ 12). They include committing violence against the other person's body, life or mental state. The third is that Jmmanuel's mandate applies also to the case when the transgression is the fault of the man rather than the woman, as it is written in a gender-neutral sense. With these three differences, Jmmanuel seems to indicate that the divorce law in Dt 24:1 (divorce permitted if a man finds "some indecency" in his wife), stemming from Moses, was too incomplete. It then makes good sense that Jmmanuel would commence his own escape clause in TJ 20:11 (which agrees with TJ 5:32 and essentially with Mt 5:32) by starting it with "But I say to you," because he was generalizing the Deuteronomy teaching to apply to both sexes equally. In Matthew, however, there is no reason to think Jesus was stating anything new or different, and thus it may seem surprising that Mt 19:9 also starts out with "But I say to you." (In the RSV Bible this is given as "And I say to you," which is at variance with the Greek text the RSV is based upon, which uses "But.") However, if the writer of Matthew had been following along the TJ's text, this can be seen as a minor slip-up he made in not altering the TJ's "but" into "and," as the RSV Bible editors did-an instance of "editorial fatigue." It is understandable that the writer of Matthew would omit the TJ's references to Moses that are unfavorable to his memory, and would alter the TJ's gender-neutral text into the male-dominant frame in which the Pharisees had phrased their question. Thus the TJ can explain why the third verse starts out with "But" while Matthew cannot. Although this may give the TJ the edge with regards to the hoax hypothesis, those who support this hypothesis could argue that the alleged literary hoaxer did not view Moses or Judaism with favor. However, it is fully consistent with the rest of the TJ that Jmmanuel did not view much of Judaism with favor, and this is also consistent with Mt 16:11-12, where he warned his disciples against the teachings of the Pharisees. Nevertheless PHoax ¯ 0.5 is assigned here. Mt 19:12 12"For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it." TJ 20:14-15 14"Some do not enter marriage because from the time of their birth they are incapable of it; some do not enter marriage because other people have made them unsuited for it, and still others do not enter marriage because they renounce it for the sake of consciousness- related strength. 15Those who can grasp this, let them grasp it." TJ 20:14-15 14«Etliche enthalten sich der Ehe, weil sie von Geburt an zur Ehe unfähig sind; etliche enthalten sich der Ehe, weil sie von den Menschen dazu untauglich gemacht sind; und etliche enthalten sich, weil sie um der bewusstseinsmässigen Kraft willen auf die Ehe verzichten. 15Wer es fassen kann, der fasse es.» THE PROBLEM. In discussing this Matthean verse, Beare (p. 391) did not view it as at all godly, especially the implied self-emasculation. He found it very difficult to believe that self-castration could ever serve the purposes of the kingdom of heaven; so why would Jesus have recommended it? SOLUTION. Jmmanuel is seen not to have recommend self-emasculation, but only the forgoing of marriage for some persons who were so inclined spiritually. The second clause in the TJ verse might refer to eunuchs, though not necessarily, while the last one certainly does not. But all three refer to who it is that may choose not to enter into marriage, and so the passage connects more smoothly with the two verses preceding it, involving marriage, than does the Matthean verse. Interestingly, Beare's criticism, which does not apply to the TJ, does not apply to the German Bible's version either. It is unclear how that Bible version came to differ so significantly on this verse from the favored Greek Bible reconstruction, which utilizes "eunuchs." However, the TJ's wording is sufficiently close to that of the German Bible here, on the first two clauses, as to suggest (a) that the TJ translator, Isa Rashid the ex-priest, used this Bible text as a guide (since he was translating the Aramaic into German), and (b) that its text happens to be closer to the original than that of the Greek text (Nestle-Aland, 27th edition) in present scholarly use. It is clear that a translator, even if he were a priest or ex-priest already fully familiar with some modern version of the Bible, would be prudent enough to use some particular Bible text as a guide. Otherwise, whenever the text he was translating exhibited about the same meaning as what he already had memorized from years of being a priest, out would come the words in about the same form as in his favorite Bible version anyway. Thus this verse does not lend credence to or against the hoax hypothesis, though a teacher of wisdom is not likely to have uttered the Matthean version: PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 19:13-15 13Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people; 14but Jesus said, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." 15And he laid his hands on them and went away. TJ 20:16-18,26 16Then children were brought to him, so that he would lay his hands on them and bless them, but the disciples rebuked them. 17However, Jmmanuel spoke, "Let the children be and do not hinder them from coming to me, because they are my most attentive listeners, and theirs is the realm of wisdom." 18And he laid his hands upon them and said, "Learn knowledge and wisdom to become perfect in consciousness, and true followers of the law " 26And he laid his hands upon them and departed from there. TJ 20:16-18,26 16Da wurden die Kinder zu ihm gebracht, dass er die Hände auf sie legte und sie segnete, aber die Jünger fuhren sie an. 17Jmmanuel aber sprach: «Lasset die Kinder und wehret ihnen nicht zu mir zu kommen; denn sie sind meine aufmerksamsten Zuhörer, und solcher ist das Reich der Weisheit.» 18Und er legte die Hände auf sie und sprach: «Lernet das Wissen und die Weisheit, so ihr werdet bewusstseinsmässig vollkommen und treue Befolger der Gesetze » 26Und er legte die Hände auf sie und zog von dannen. THE PROBLEM. It is odd that the children would be brought to Jesus so that he would pray over them, and then that he would depart without praying after all, and without even talking to them. A further, apparent problem is that Jesus admonished the disciples not to hinder the children from coming to him. He didn't admonish the disciples for hindering the parents (the people) in bringing their children to him. SOLUTION. One sees from the TJ account that the idea of praying at this point was inserted by the writer of Matthew in substitution for blessing. (Here the blessing comes from the German word "segnen" rather than from "taufen" which was similarly translated in TJ 3 although it is usually rendered as "baptize.") Likely the writer did this because, as mentioned by Davies & Allison, prayer and laying on of hands traditionally went together, as in Acts 6:6 and 13:3.[1] By the end of the little story, however, he had apparently forgotten that a prayer was needed in order to fulfill his insertion. After omitting some TJ sentences, he copied the TJ's concluding sentence intact, which had Jmmanuel departing without having said any prayer. This amounts to another instance of "editorial fatigue" by the writer of Matthew relative to the TJ. The TJ verses not shown in the above passage, on the other hand, contain one more sentence that Jmmanuel speaks to the children, which acts as a blessing, and then six more with which he explains to, and admonishes, his disciples. These, plus TJ 20:18, contain material that would have been unacceptable to the early church and the writer of Matthew because of their reference to spirituality (or consciousness), knowledge and wisdom, and may have been the distraction that caused him to forget to have Jesus pray. After this, Jmmanuel laid his hands on the children again and left with his disciples, which sentence the writer of Matthew could copy without alteration in Mt 19:15. If one reads the parallel account in Mark (Mk 10:13-16), one sees that its writer fixed up Matthew's little mistake by omitting any mention of prayer. And he apparently realized that Jesus' laying on of hands constituted a blessing, and so he added explicit mention of blessing, since he wished his gospel, which had to rely so heavily upon Matthew, to appear different from Matthew rather than being merely a Greek translation and abbreviation of it. Regarding the second possible problem, from the TJ text we see that it was the children, who were crowding in as close as possible to Jmmanuel, whom the disciples had rebuked, and not the people around them. And so he admonished his disciples not to hinder the children. Indeed, in the Greek texts on which the RSV and other Bible versions are based, the wording is that "the disciples rebuked them," referring to the children. We see, then, that in this instance it was not the writer of Matthew but more modern Bible translators who were responsible for this alteration. They evidently did not wish to portray the disciples as having acted in an unseemly manner toward children, and therefore redirected the disciples' rebuke to the people or to those who had brought the children. The problem regarding prayer seems to have gone unnoticed or uncriticized within the annals of scholarly exegesis, and is therefore very unlikely to have been foreseen by a literary hoaxer. Because of this and the unlikelihood that such a hoaxer would risk adding still more text, I estimate PHoax ¯ 0.3 in this instance. A smaller probability could be offered, except that in the omitted verses Jmmanuel mentions that his name means "the one with godly knowledge," which was one of the corrections the editor, Billy Meier, made in 1992, as discussed under the Mt 1:23 heading. Mt 19:16-17 16And behold, one came up to him, saying, "Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?" 17And he said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This was in response to a man's question to Jesus about what good thing he should do to gain eternal life. Beare (p. 394) noted that in 19:17 Jesus' response seems quite artificial, as it first focuses on the meaning of "the good" or on who or what is "the good," rather than on the deed. (The more original Greek reads "the good" in both these spots, and doesn't have the who). Lamar Cope has given persuasive arguments indicating that "One there is who is the good" refers to the Torah,[2] which contains the laws and commandments that were all important to Judaism and to the compiler of Matthew as well. SOLUTION. These two verses are the first of 11 consecutive Matthean verses for which there is no TJ parallel (Mt 19:16-26). In a parallel passage of Mark (Mk 10:17-18) Jesus says, "no one is good but God alone." Beare, because he favors the theory of Markan priority, assumed that Matthew's statement "One there is who is good" was ambiguous because the compiler had experienced trouble editing this statement of Mark. However, it is at least as plausible, even without using TJ hindsight, that the writer of Mark, being a gentile in Rome, did not understand that when the compiler of Matthew referred to "the good" here he was referring to the Torah. And so he attempted to improve upon the compiler's confusing statement, but succeeded only in arousing the undesired interpretation that Jesus did not claim to be good. For the last portion, "If you would enter life, keep the commandments," the writer of Matthew may have drawn upon Prv 4:4, in which the father instructs his sons, "keep my commandments, and live." He would probably have been aware of this portion of Proverbs, in which a father's commandments could be likened to God's commandments. Mt 19:17 is one of the Matthean verses for which it can probably be argued with equal force that since it is non-genuine a literary hoaxer would not have utilized it. Since following verses in the pericope are also found to be non-genuine, the entire pericope, including Mt 19:16 above, must be also. Mt 19:18-20 18He said to him, "Which?" And Jesus said, "You shall not kill,... 19...You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 20The young man said to him, "All these things I have observed, what do I still lack?" TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 395) commented upon the "love your neighbor" commandment having been included by the writer of Matthew as part of his emphasis upon love. However, Beare may not have spoken in terms of this being a redaction had this commandment been present in the Markan parallel, and similarly, Davis & Allison.[3] Beare's comment may be expanded upon, however. The fact that only the second half of the Ten Commandments is listed, while "Love your neighbor as yourself" is added in, makes it seem as if the question "Which?" was posed just as an excuse for the writer of Matthew to spell out a listing of what he considered to be the most important commandments. The artificiality of the entire pericope is suggested more strongly by the manner in which its main character in v. 16 starts out as being "one," who then becomes "he" in v. 18 and escalates into a "young man" in v. 20. It appears that the specificity was invented and added by the writer as he proceeded into his story. In retelling an actual story, the specificity usually comes first, as in the "man with the withered hand," who is referred to a little later as "the man;" or the Sadducees in Mt 22:23 who become "them" in 22:29; or "Caiphas the high priest" in 26:57 who is simply called "the high priest" later. It is only natural that the noun or identifying words come first, followed upon second mention by the pronoun or abbreviated identity, within a genuine pericope of two or more verses. SOLUTION. This was indeed an invented pericope, which can explain why it had not been present in the TJ. Since Matthew exhibits several signs of being non-genuine, while a literary hoaxer might or might not have utilized this pericope, the hoax hypothesis has to favor the TJ here. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 19:21-22 21Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." 22When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions. TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. One problem lies in the phrase "If you would be perfect," which Beare (pp. 395-396) and many others have noted leads to the idea of two different classes of Christians: the perfect and the imperfect. The clergy might then consider that they alone are candidates for the perfect. Also, Beare noticed that the summons to go sell all of one's possessions cannot be generally valid, since the persons to whom they are sold would then possess them and could not then be perfect until after they had sold them, and so on ad infinitum. This is a piece of inanity that no wisdom teacher would espouse. The illogic here is so strong that society could not function at all if most people set out to "be perfect" in this way. Further, Jesus' invitation to "come, follow me," fails to ring true, since "come" means to "come right now," as when he was gathering his twelve disciples, whereas it would have required many days or weeks for the man to sell all his possessions. The reward for being perfect here was to have treasure in heaven. However, sinning Christians would also receive the same reward. For example, disciples who were persecuted for Jesus' sake would receive a great reward in heaven (Mt 5:11-12), regardless of their sinning status. Persons who humble themselves like children are to be greatest in heaven (Mt 18:4), and therefore presumably receive the greatest rewards in heaven, no matter how perfect or imperfect they are. How could a teacher of wisdom teach such inconsistency? In the last verse we learn that the young man had great possessions. This would have made him an important person; either his name would have been known, or his entrance on the scene would have been described from the beginning in a more appropriate manner than as "one came." Thus the entire pericope seems bogus. SOLUTION. The above deductions are correct; the pericope was invented. [PHoax ¯ 0.5.] Mt 19:24-26 24"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." 25When the disciples heard this they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" 26But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. The camel and needle hyperbole is so familiar as to seem almost beyond reproach. Beare (p. 396) noted only that in some of the many different early manuscripts of Matthew "camel" is replaced by "rope," "cable" or "hawser," thereby making the figure more harmonious. However, in one instance Matthew's gospel itself violates this saying in all of its forms. Joseph of Arimathea is described in Mt 27:57 as being rich and yet a disciple of Jesus. And a disciple of Jesus was a person who would presumably gain entry into the kingdom of God unless he sinned as badly as Judas Iscariot. The amazement expressed by the disciples, and their question, "Who then can be saved?" were found by Beare (p. 397) not to make sense. They imply that if not even the rich can be saved, who can be? Jesus never taught that possession of great riches gives their owner access to the kingdom of God, so where would the disciples have gained that impression? Finally, Beare (p. 397) pinpointed why Jesus' response should seem strange. His reply here does not fit the question, since it implies that the salvation of poor people might be achieved through men, or through the church, while the redemption of a rich man is particularly difficult and requires God for its achievement. DISCUSSION. All three of these points involve illogic, and so the verses are presumed more likely to be a redaction of the compiler than any authentic saying of Jesus. Little impetus was needed for verse 25, since the concept of salvation was central to the new religion, ever since Paul emphasized it, and was very common within the Scriptures. For example, we have earlier seen the likelihood that the writer of Matthew drew from Lamentations 3, and in Lam 3:26 one reads: 26It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. As impetus for verse 19:26, the compiler likely drew upon Genesis: Gn 18:14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? Due to the great familiarity and popularity of the saying of Mt 19:24, there's a rather good probability that a literary hoaxer would have made use of it. Yet, it's not in the TJ, as we have seen it should not be, since a teacher of wisdom would not have uttered it. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 19:28 28Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. TJ 20:28 28But Jmmanuel replied to them, "Truly, I say to you: Some of you who have followed me will embrace the wisdom of my teachings, so in reincarnations to come, you will be great in consciousness. But some of you will not recognize the wisdom of my teachings and will disseminate erroneous teachings about me. Those ones will have difficulty finding the truth in future incarnations." TJ 20:28 28Jmmanuel aber sprach zu ihnen: «Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Ihr, die ihr mir seid nachgefolget, etliche unter euch werden die Weisheit meiner Lehre aufnehmen, so ihr bewusstseinsmässig gross sein werdet in den kommenden Wiederleben; etliche aber unter euch werden die Weisheit meiner Lehren nicht erkennen und irrige Lehren über mich verbreiten; sie aber werden in den kommenden Wiederleben Mühe haben, die Wahrheit zu finden.» THE PROBLEMS. Matthew's verse was discussed thoroughly by Beare (pp. 398-400), who concluded that Jesus could never have spoken these words. Instead, they seem to derive, he felt, from an editor who was a Palestinian Christian, and who used traditional Jewish rhetorical images in describing the post-apocalyptic world (after the Second Coming). Another problem is that if Jesus was able to prophesy his own arrest and crucifixion, and presumably Judas's role in it (see Mt 26:25), he would not have considered Judas qualified to sit on one of those twelve thrones. Yet this verse indicates that Judas would be included among the twelve who judge the twelve tribes. SOLUTION. Reincarnation and subsequent topics of the TJ verse had demanded heavy editing, which brought about the problems indicated. The writer of Matthew might have realized the problem he introduced implying that Judas Iscariot would be one of the twelve judges, but perhaps decided to ignore it because the twelve Jewish tribes demanded twelve disciples to judge over them. The TJ verse is presented as the cognate to Matthew here because the verse preceding it and the second verse after it are definitely cognates. While the Matthean verse is non-genuine, the TJ verse seems too substantive and too prophetic to have been created by a literary hoaxer. If Jmmanuel is allowed to have been a long-range prophet, the probability of this verse being a hoax is exceedingly slim. If he is not, then the opposite claim might be made. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 19:29 29"And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Again, as discussed under Mt 7:21-22, the phrase "for my name's sake" indicates that this is a voice of the early church speaking, not Jesus during his ministry.[4] And it is totally unclear just what will be received hundredfold: the inheritance of eternal life would seem to represent the spiritual reward, so the hundredfold return must refer to material goods. If so, the verse implies that this hundredfold bonus must be declined (over and over again) if eternal life is to be gained. Yet it seems to be listed as an incentive for true discipleship. Incentives are meant to be welcomed, not refused. SOLUTION AND DISCUSSION. Again the solution is that this verse is a redaction, so there is no TJ cognate to it. However, a literary hoaxer would quite likely avoid using it for the same reason. PHoax ¯ 0.5. If one examines the parallel verses in Mark (Mk 10:29-30), one sees that its writer eliminated Matthew's ambiguity and clearly interpreted the reward to be material possessions, and in fact to be a hundred times as many houses, lands and even brothers, sisters and mothers as were left behind! He added a phrase that indicates all this would be received "in this time," leaving no doubt that he was thinking of receiving it in the present life, not in an after life. Mt 19:30 30"But many that are first will be last, and the last first." TJ 20:33 33"Many will be first among the human species because they will think as human beings in their deluded teachings, but they will be last in spiritual knowledge and small in their wisdom." TJ 20:33 33«Viele werden so vor den Menschengeschlechtern die Ersten sein, weil sie menschlich denken in ihren irren Lehren, aber also werden sie die Letzten sein im geistigen Wissen und klein in ihrer Weisheit.» THE PROBLEM. Even within the context of its preceding verses, this statement of Matthew lacks normal logic, since once the first becomes last, it says he would be first again, and vice versa, in an endless cycle of flip- flops. To make sense of it, one must interpret the switch from first to last, or from last to first, to take place only once per person, at most. In that case, the switch is usually assumed to take place between one's death and one's supposed future resurrected state. However, many Christians, including some theologians, using mainly the Gospel of John, have construed any such future state to be the present. This they summarize as "Eternity is now."[5] In that case, not even the first interpretation is satisfactory. Davies & Allison refer to this as a "reversal aphorism," and note that such was common within near eastern wisdom literature, such as in "the serf becomes an owner of serfs."[6] However, the saying of Mt 19:30 is a generalization that contains a double reversal. If the "serf" example were extended in this manner, it would read, "serfs become owners of serfs, and owners of serfs become serfs." This would render its meaning valueless, as there were many more serfs than owners of serfs, just as there are many more who are of lowly estate than are rich; neither aphorism could be considered a piece of wisdom literature. Yet, since the writer of Matthew used the same expression again (at Mt 20:16), he must have held some interpretation for his redaction that he liked, such as, "The rich/proud will be last in heaven, and the poor/humble will be first," whatever his view had been of different levels of rank within heaven. SOLUTION. In contrast, the TJ statement, from which the compiler seems to have drawn, is self-explanatory. In stripping away its unacceptable portions, the compiler left only nonsense behind, requiring heavy interpretation to make any sense. It is quite easy for an editor to work in this direction of condensing a verse, though illogic sometimes results, as in this instance. It is much more difficult for a literary hoaxer to work in the opposite direction and end up with meaningful text. Hence open-minded scholars might find this TJ verse impressive evidence against the hoax hypothesis for that reason. PHoax ¯ 0.1. The TJ does not seem to be teaching that humanism, or secular humanism, is wrong per se, only that it is an incomplete philosophy due to its ignorance of the spiritual world. As a redaction, the theme of Mt 19:30 may have gained much favor within the clergy because it discourages those having little authority within the church or state (those who are "last") from challenging those who are in authority (those who are "first"). It encourages the humble to remain humble. Upon accumulating the estimated probabilities that the TJ is a hoax from just the TJ 20-Mt 19 verse comparisons above, one finds a cumulative probability of PHoax = 0.014. It should perhaps be reiterated that this represents the cumulative probability derived from this chapter's individual probability estimates, based upon the hypothesis that either the writer of Matthew utilized the TJ or a literary hoaxer wrote the TJ based upon Matthew. The situation is taken to be one or the other, since that is what not refers to in the question: Is the TJ a hoax or not? If the reader's mind should happen to be fixed upon the assumption that Matthew depends upon some other textual document(s), namely the Gospel of Mark and/or"Q," then his mind obviously would not be open to the possibility that the TJ could be anything but a hoax. Such readers are directed to summaries showing the dependence of Mark upon Matthew. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 20 REFERENCES 1. Davies, W. D., and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 3 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), p. 33. 2. Cope, Lamar, Matthew: A Scribe Trained for the Kingdom of Heaven (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1976), pp. 111-114. 3. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 3, p. 44. 4. Sanders, E.P., Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 229. 5. Keysar, Robert, John the Maverick Gospel (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1970), chap. 4. 6. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 3, p. 60. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 20 Mt 20:1-16 1"For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard... 5Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour he did the same... 8And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.' 9And when those hired... came, each of them received a denarius... 16So the last will be first, and the first last." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. The point of this parable is really not clear, and no explanation is later provided. One possible point is that one should not question God or authorities, who may do what they wish with the resources at their disposal. Another, which I prefer, is that it was invented to support and illustrate the "last will be first" thesis, assuming the actual teaching underlying this verse had been altered as discussed under our critique of Mt 19:30. Beare's (p. 404) main interpretation is that Matthew's compiler was trying to educate the complainers who were shocked at Jesus' readiness to welcome the outcast. Another possibility he mentions is to demonstrate that God's rewards are not handed out according to any logical scheme that we can recognize. And the final "first is last" verse of the parable is also non-genuine, as it merely repeats the same words as in Mt 19:30, which itself was found to be a redaction. Robert Gundry is one scholar who finds the whole parable to be a redaction.[1] SOLUTION. If it is assumed that Jesus' original parables were or should have been clear and logical, at least after some thought and reflection, then this lack of clarity and logic in Matthew casts grave doubt upon the pericope's genuineness. The fact that it is not in the TJ then again adds support to the TJ's genuineness. Although supporters of the hoax hypothesis can claim that a hoaxer would therefore have omitted this pericope, such is not at all certain. The fact remains that Matthew's genuineness is called into very serious question here, while that of the TJ, through not containing this pericope, is not. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 20:17-19 17And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, 18"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, 19and deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. One must suspect that this passage is an editorial invention, for one reason because this is the third time in Matthew that Jesus' death and resurrection is foretold, when once or twice would have sufficed before the theme became a Christian formula. A second reason is that, being on the road to Jerusalem already at the time, Jesus would have no need to tell his disciples that they are on the road to Jerusalem! A third reason is that the disciples show no reaction to the dire fate of their lord that he spelled out for them. A fourth reason is the prophecy is perhaps too specific to have been real, since it even predicts that he would be mocked and scourged. Further, the use of "Son of man" here to refer to Jesus also detracts from the possibility that the passage could be genuine. SOLUTION. The TJ's lack of any cognate here supports the above analysis. In the TJ, its last prophecy of Jmmanuel's coming ordeal occurs during the last supper. The writer of Matthew could not utilize it, however, because it indicated he would survive the ordeal, and because he wished to substitute his Judas-as-betrayer verses into the last supper conversation. And so he invented a third prophecy and placed it on the road to Jerusalem, although from Mt 20:29 it would appear that he should have placed it on the road to Jericho. Again, if either Matthew is a hoax based upon the TJ, or vice versa, one must give the advantage to the TJ. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 20:20-28 20Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him, with her sons [the disciples James and John], and... 21...said to him, "Command that these two sons of mine may sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom."... 25But Jesus... said, "....26...whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; 28even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. On this, Beare (pp. 406-407) raised the question of why the two sons of Zebedee were specifically named here. One possibility is that James and John had actually been eager for a superior position within Jesus' kingdom, and that the other 10 disciples had no such personal ambitions. But this did not seem as likely to him as that there was a jockeying for a position of leadership within the early church. Beare went on to give reasons why Mt 20:20-28 may then be a redaction designed to resolve the rivalry in leadership during the time of formation of Matthew. Verses 26-27a are not true or realistic, since Jesus was of great stature among the disciples and was their teacher and lord or master, not their servant or slave. Instead, the verses of Mt 10:24 tell it like it was: "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master." Verses 26b-27 contradict this. Regarding the last verse, Beare (p. 409) mentioned that the word "ransom" is not found anywhere else in Matthew's gospel. Hence, some explanation was owed the disciples by Jesus of what he meant by this ransom statement. Illogically, none was given. Since ransoms are always paid to someone, a question that should have risen is to whom the "Son of man" was to give his life as a ransom. Beare did not feel this question to be appropriate, but preferred God rather than the devil as an answer. DISCUSSION. In his analysis, Beare's key criticisms were against statements in Matthew that have no parallels in Mark's version of the same story, due to his belief in Markan priority over Matthew. As usual, this practice ignores the fact that the arguments leading to supposed Markan priority are legitimately reversible. E.g., in this instance the mother of the two sons was very likely omitted in Mark (Mk 10:35) so as to portray the disciples themselves as impertinent and disrespectful towards Jesus-a continuation of the not-so-subtle theme in Mark that gentiles would make as good, or better, disciples than Jews. However, Beare (p. 409) implies that the incident as placed in Mark is non-genuine also. The idea of ransom expressed by the last verse was doubtless not the original idea of the compiler of Matthew himself. It was instead known centuries earlier from Old Testament times, as explained by James Frazer, an early 20th-century social anthropologist and fellow of Cambridge University.[2] The ransom tradition appears in the Old Testament as follows: 2 Kgs 3:26-27 When the king of Moab saw that the battle was going against him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through, opposite the king of Edom, but they could not. Then he took his eldest son who was to reign in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. [As a result, this king's opponents-the Israelites- withdrew.] Clearly the compiler of Matthew would have been aware of this tradition. Whether or not he was responsible for its introduction into Christianity is uncertain, however, as that might have been due to Paul. There is one mention of ransom in the Epistles, in 1 Tim 2:6; however this is one of the pastoral letters believed by many scholars to have been written well after Paul's time. The TJ does not contain either the ransom or salvation concept. Hence there is little chance that this pericope could be genuine either, but by the same token little chance that a literary hoaxer would have made use of it. Yet it is Matthew that shows these signs of non-genuineness, not the TJ. P ¯ 0.45. Hoax Mt 20:30-34 30And behold, two blind men sitting by the roadside, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, "Have mercy on us, Son of David!" 31The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out the more, "Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!" 32And Jesus stopped and called them, saying, "What do you want me to do for you?" 33"They said to him, "Lord, let our eyes be opened." 34And Jesus in pity touched their eyes, and immediately they received their sight and followed him." TJ 21:2-9 2And behold, two blind persons sat by the wayside, and when they heard Jmmanuel going by, they cried out, saying, "O lord, son of a celestial son, have mercy on us!" 3The people threatened them to be quiet, but they screamed even louder, saying, "O lord, son of a celestial son, have mercy on us!" 4And Jmmanuel stood still and called out to them, asking, "What do you want me to do for you?" 5They said to him, "Lord, open our eyes so we can glimpse the splendor of the world." 6And he had pity on them and asked, "Whose power, do you suppose, is it that can make you see?" 7They replied, "The power of Creation, which is in the laws." 8Jmmanuel was astonished and said, "Truly, so far I have never found such faith and knowledge among these people. Be it done to you as you expect." 9And he touched their eyes and immediately they could see; and they followed him. TJ 21:2-9 2Und siehe, zwei Blinde sassen am Wege; und da sie hörten, dass Jmmanuel vorüberging, schrien sie und sprachen: «Ach Herr, du Sohn eines Himmelssohnes, erbarme dich unser!» 3Aber das Volk bedrohte sie, dass sie schweigen sollten, doch sie schrien noch viel mehr und sprachen: «Ach Herr, du Sohn eines Himmelssohnes, erbarme dich unser!» 4Jmmanuel aber stand still und rief sie und sprach: «Was wollt ihr, dass ich euch tun soll?» 5Sie sprachen zu ihm: «Herr, dass unsere Augen aufgetan werden und wir die Pracht der Welt blicken mögen.» 6Und es jammerte ihn und er sprach: «Was nehmet ihr an, wessen die Kraft ist, die euch sehend machen kann?» 7Sie aber sprachen: «Die Kraft der Schöpfung, die in den Gesetzen liegt.» 8Und Jmmanuel wunderte sich und sprach: «Wahrlich, solches Vertrauen und solches Wissen habe ich bis anhin unter diesem Volke noch nicht gefunden; euch geschehe, wie ihr annehmet.» 9Und er berührte ihre Augen; und alsbald waren sie sehend und folgten ihm nach. DISCUSSION. This passage does not seem to provide any compelling evidence as to whether the Matthean version or the TJ version is the more genuine. It is presented nevertheless to show that Jmmanuel not infrequently asked a question of those who besought his help to test their spiritual knowledge or to add to it. It is evident why the writer of Matthew would edit out Jmmanuel's question, so that the healing could be attributed solely to Jesus. A question was similarly asked in the healing of TJ 9:2-7, which the writer of Matthew at Mt 9:2-7 could include with minor editing to make it acceptable. With hindsight we see that in the TJ the phrase "son of a celestial son" required the writer of Matthew either to edit it out or make a change. The change that came to mind was "Son of David" since the writer always had in mind that Immanuel (who had been known as "Jesus" for a few decades) was the Messiah prophesied by Isaiah. The accumulation of the individual probability estimates from comparison of Mt 20 against the TJ above gives a summary probability for hoax here of 0.35. This chapter in Matthew illustrates the risk that an editor/redactor/literary-hoaxer takes when he invents large blocks of text to insert into his edited source document. If he does a perfect job at generating the text, that still doesn't say anything one way or another about whether his fraudulent text would be considered more or less genuine than his source document (if the latter were to survive to be compared against). But if he does a poor job, later readers would be able to decide that his edited text is indeed fraudulent (if, once again, the original source were to survive). Hence, one doesn't expect a literary hoaxer to invent lots of text to insert, unless he knows that his source document is unique and will either be destroyed or kept out of circulation after his literary hoax is completed, transcribed and circulated. The writer of Matthew was in this position (which a 20th-century literary hoaxer would certainly not be). He would have known that the Talmud of Jmmanuel in his possession would be kept well guarded and at some stage probably destroyed, but would not have known that there were original Talmud of Jmmanuel rolls, of which he held a transcription, and that these originals had been secreted away. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 21 REFERENCES 1. Gundry, Robert H., Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), pp. 395-398. 2. Frazer, James George, The New Golden Bough, T. H. Gaster, ed. (Great Meadows, New Jersey: S. G. Phillips, 1965), pp. 245-246. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 21 Mt 21:1-3 1And when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find an ass tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord has need of them,' and he will send them immediately." TJ 22:1-3 1As they approached Jerusalem at Bethphage near the Mount of Olives, Jmmanuel sent forth two disciples and said to them, 2"Go into the village that lies ahead, and forthwith you will find a female donkey tied to a post and a foal with her; untie her and bring her to me, because she is a present to me and is only temporarily being kept there at the stable. 3And if anyone questions you, say, 'Jmmanuel of Nazareth needs her'; and right away he will let you have her." TJ 22:1-3 1Und da sie nun nahe an Jerusalem kamen, nach Bethphage an den Ölberg, sandte Jmmanuel zwei seiner Jünger aus und sprach zu ihnen: 2«Gehet hin in den Ort, der vor euch liegt, und alsbald werdet ihr eine Eselin finden angebunden und ein Füllen bei ihr; bindet sie los und führet sie zu mir, denn sie ist mir geschenkt und lagert nur zu Stalle dort. 3Und wenn euch jemand etwas wird fragen, sprecht: ‹Jmmanuel, der Nazarener, bedarf ihrer›, und alsbald wird er sie euch lassen.» THE PROBLEM. In Mt 21:3 the response the two disciples are told to give, if accosted, was either not realistic or could not have been satisfying to the animals' caretaker, depending upon one's interpretation of "the Lord." If it is considered to mean "Jesus," then the usage is clearly anachronistic and out of place; elsewhere in Matthew, "the Lord" refers to the Old Testament God, as in Matthew's 1st and 2nd chapters. That's what the Israelites of that day and region would automatically assume. Only later, due to Paul's preachings and epistles, did "the Lord" come to refer also to Jesus within Christian circles. On the other hand, if "the Lord" is supposed to have meant "God," then anyone bent on stealing anything could have spoken as much and have gotten away with it; clearly this would not have worked and so the disciples would not have been so advised. If the phrase had been "our lord" it would have been more sensible, except even that leaves unspecified to whom "our lord" would have referred. SOLUTION. The TJ verse indicates that the persons at the stable knew whom the donkey belonged to, and since the two disciples would mention Immanuel's name, the problem with the Matthean verse does not exist with the TJ verse. The TJ text thus indicates that the choice by the writer of Matthew to alter "Jmmanuel of Nazareth" into "the Lord" rather than into "Jesus of Nazareth" generated the problem. He evidently wished to make a reverential upgrade here. Interestingly, in the TJ account Jmmanuel reasonably asks only for the female donkey, but the two disciples apparently decided to bring the foal along, too. The writer of Matthew then made another alteration such as to have Jesus ask for them-the donkey and her foal-apparently in order to help fulfill the prophecy quoted in Mt 21:5 (discussed next) in full. It is also interesting that the TJ verse strongly suggests Jmmanuel had been to Jerusalem before, within the previous year. This will be confirmed in the discussions following Mt 26:17-18 and Mt 26:36-48. Since an earlier trip to the Jerusalem area is not specifically mentioned in the TJ, and hence not in the synoptic Gospels either, it most likely occurred when Jmmanuel was not accompanied by his disciples; thus his disciple-writer need not have written about it. It might have occurred during the period just after Jesus/Jmmanuel sent out his disciples (see Mt 10:5 or TJ 10:5 and Mt 11:1 or TJ 11:1). The above criticism of Matthew was prompted by the TJ text itself; only years later did I notice in an online commentary that the criticism seems to have been anticipated-the assumption is made that the owner of the ass and colt was a follower of Jesus who would understand what "the Lord" meant. In that case, however, Jesus would much more likely have told the two disciples the name of the owner so they would know whom to contact, since it would be all too probable that if they were accosted it would be by someone other than the owner himself. The fact that the phrase "the Lord" is not used previously in Matthew to designate Jesus, combined with Jesus only at that time having come to Jerusalem, further lets us know how unlikely it would be that persons in the vicinity of the ass and colt would know who "the Lord" referred to, if other than the God of Israel. Since this problem is not at all well known, it is unlikely that a hypothesized literary hoaxer would have thought of it. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 21:4-5 4This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5"Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. This refers to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, which apparently proceeded in a manner rather closely following that of the quoted verse from Zec 9:9. Beare (p. 412) concluded these introductory verses were fed in by the compiler of Matthew, however, partly because its first portion (Tell the daughter of Zion) stems from Is 62:11 and is merged into the second part from Zechariah. Also, verse 4 is of the nature of a "Matthean" formula, and repeats, in the same order, 11 of the same 14 Greek words as are in the formula of Mt 1:22. For this reason, Davies & Allison have deduced it to be a Matthean redaction.[1] Beare, and most other scholars, further deduce that verse 5 was the compiler's handiwork because a little later (see below) Matthew has the disciples bring the ass and the colt and put their garments on them, and has Jesus sit on them. This reads just as strangely as the Zechariah verse in that the king comes mounted on an ass and on the colt. Hence the usual deduction is that the writer of Matthew altered his source text such that Jesus would be sitting on both the ass and the colt, in agreement with the prophet's words. This in turn strongly suggests that the prophets' words of Mt 21:4-5 were fed in editorially. SOLUTION. The absence of a TJ cognate supports one or both pieces of this reasoning. Although a literary hoaxer might omit it for any of these reasons, then again he might not, while logic weighs strongly against the genuineness of the verse. On balance, these considerations weigh against the hoax hypothesis. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 21:7 7They [the two disciples] brought the ass and the colt, and put their garments on them, and he [Jesus] sat thereon. TJ 22:5 5They brought the female donkey and the foal, and they laid their clothes on the old animal, and he mounted it. TJ 22:5 5Sie brachten die Eselin und das Füllen und legten ihre Kleider auf das Alttier, und er setzte sich darauf. THE PROBLEM. This meaning of the Matthean verse has been questioned for ages-how could Jesus have sat on both the ass and the colt at once?[2] Its verse was taken mainly from Zechariah, where the same peculiarity is expressed: Zec 9:9-10 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass. The suspicion is strong, then, that if the compiler did not invent the verse, he altered a similar verse in his source document to force it to coincide with the Zechariah verse. SOLUTION. This TJ verse does not suffer from this problem. However, if one examines the 1978 version of TJ 22:5, one finds that it does suffer the same problem. This appears to have been an instance in which either the translator, Isa Rashid, or Eduard Meier's typist, using the German bible as a general guide for similar passages, slipped up in their work and extracted too much from that bible. So at the prompting of his ET contactor in 1989 or 1990, Meier corrected the 1978 TJ verse. This explanation cannot satisfy a negative skeptic, however, who could easily claim, though without any proof, that Meier or a collaborative hoaxer had decided to improve the TJ in this spot on his own initiative. This could give the hoax hypothesis some credibility, provided it could be shown that Eduard Meier, without benefit of any secondary education himself, could have earlier cajoled some New Testament scholar possessing uncanny intellectual brilliance and creativity into having constructed the whole TJ as well. However, a knowledgeable scholar may argue that Mt 21:7 can be interpreted as saying that Jesus sat upon the garments atop either the colt or the ass, with "thereon" referring to the garments and not to the animals. The wording of the Greek text scholars use leaves this uncertain. In that case, a knowledgeable scholar- hoaxer would not necessarily have made a change here. PHoax ¯ 0.6. Whether or not Jmmanuel was aware of the Zechariah verse and had it in mind when utilizing the female ass is uncertain. Probably not, since he did not ask the two disciples to fetch the foal also. But if he did have it in mind, the TJ indicates that the kind of king or messiah he regarded himself as was a king of wisdom regarding the human spirit. The parallel text of Mark has only a colt (but one never before ridden) upon which garments were placed that Jesus sat upon (Mk 11:7). From the present viewpoint this constitutes a Markan improvement of the ambiguous or absurd Matthean text, with Jesus being treated more royally-riding a colt not an ass too, and a colt which no one else had besmirched. The same trend occurs elsewhere in Mark; e.g., at Mk 4:38 a cushion (not present in Mt 8:25) is provided for Jesus to sleep on; at Mk 14:15 a large furnished upper room is provided for the Passover, not present in Mt 26:19. Mt 21:9 9And the crowds that went before him and that followed him shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the Highest!" TJ 22:7 7And the people who walked ahead of him and those who followed him shouted and said, "Hail to the descendant of David. Praise be to him who comes to proclaim anew the teachings of truth." TJ 22:7 7Das Volk aber, das ihm voranging und nachfolgte, schrie und sprach: «Heil dem Nachfahren Davids - gelobt sei, der da kommt und neu die Lehre der Wahrheit kündet.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 414) pointed out that the "Blessed" quote can be identified as coming from Psalms 118: Ps 118:26 Blessed be he who enters in the name of the LORD!.... Further, "Hosanna" has the Hebrew meaning of "Save (us), we pray." Since Jesus was not considered a savior figure until some years after the crucifixion and presumed resurrection, this also indicates editorial activity on the part of the compiler of Matthew. SOLUTION. It is interesting to notice that TJ 22:7 uses the phrase "descendant of David" whereas in Matthew it is instead "Son of David." One finds no use of the phrase "Son of David" in any of Paul’s writings or even in Ignatius's epistles in the early 2nd century. Instead, Paul, when wishing to emphasize Jesus' lineage from David, used the phrase "descended from David," and Ignatius used "seed of David." Thus it is very unlikely that crowds of people at that time would have shouted out "Son of David." It may even be that "Son of David" as applied to Jesus did not become a well-known phrase until after the Gospel of Matthew came out. Since it is not very likely that a literary hoaxer would have done enough homework to be able to come to the above conclusions, while the non-genuineness of Matthew here speaks against the TJ-hoax hypothesis, for this verse I would assign PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 21:11 11And the crowds said, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee." TJ 22:9 9The people replied, "It is Jmmanuel, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee, who brings anew the teachings of truth." TJ 22:9 9Das Volk aber sprach: «Das ist Jmmanuel, der Prophet aus Nazareth in Galiläa, der da bringt neu die Lehre der Wahrheit.» THE PROBLEM. This is the response received by the people inside Jerusalem who had asked others what was going on. Beare (p. 414) commented on the incongruity of Mt 21:11 in comparison to Mt 21:9 where Jesus was referred to solely as the Son of David: Why would they acclaim him using one description outside the gates of Jerusalem and use quite another description inside the gates? SOLUTION. In the TJ verse, we see that the description of Jmmanuel as one who brings "the teachings of truth" is common to both TJ 22:9 and its antecedent, TJ 22:7 (see above). Thus, the TJ's description has changed only in part, and Beare's criticism or question, which is obscure and generally unknown, would not apply to it. That is, the part of the description that changed did so because those inside the city didn't know who it was and needed a more precise description: "the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee." This is another example of a solution to a criticism far too minor for a literary hoaxer to have been aware of or concerned with. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 21:12-13 12And Jesus entered the temple of God and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you make it a den of robbers." TJ 22:10-12 10Jmmanuel went into the temple in Jerusalem and became furious when he saw that traders, vendors, dove merchants and money changers had established themselves there. 11Jmmanuel was very upset and said to them, "It is written: 'The temple is to be a place of teaching and a place of contemplation.' But you make it into a den of thieves." 12In his anger he overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of the dove merchants; and he drove them all out with a donkey driver's whip. TJ 22:10-12 10Und Jmmanuel ging in den Tempel hinein in Jerusalem, und ward zornig als er sah, dass sich die Händler und Verkäufer und Taubenkrämer und Wechsler daselbst niedergelassen hatten. 11Jmmanuel erregte sich und sprach zu ihnen: «Es stehet geschrieben: ‹Der Tempel soll ein Ort der Lehre sein und ein Ort der Nachdacht›, ihr aber macht eine Räuberhöhle daraus.» 12Im Zorn stiess er um der Wechsler Tische und der Taubenkrämer Stühle; und er trieb sie alle hinaus mit der Peitsche eines Eseltreibers. THE PROBLEM. In Matthew, Jesus apparently drives out all in the temple who are selling and buying. Beare (p. 416) found it utterly incredible that all the attendants of the numerous oxen, sheep, goats and pigeons could be driven out by just one person. SOLUTION. In the TJ version, it is implied that Jmmanuel drove out only the money changers and dove dealers, not everyone else. Moreover, that he could do this much appears to have been due to his use of a whip, as the TJ indicates; Matthew mentions no whip or other implement. As the people in the vicinity of Jmmanuel and his cracking whip ran toward the exits, so also would those farther away in the temple to escape the commotion. FURTHER DISCUSSION. The writer of Matthew omitted mention of the whip probably so as to reduce the degree of inconsistency or tension between the image of Jesus as a humble peacemaker versus a man of action as this scene indicates. For the same reason he also omitted any mention of Jmmanuel's anger. The writer of Mark, having access to Matthew but not to the TJ, consequently also mentions no whip, and alleviates the incredibility of the scene Beare referred to by saying only that Jesus "began to drive out those who sold" (Mk 11:15). The writer of Luke, though he had had some access to the TJ, follows Mark on this (Lk 19:45). The writer of John, however, also having had some access to the TJ, does mention use of a whip (Jn 2:15), and allows "all" to have been driven out of the temple. It is interesting also that Jmmanuel stated the temple should be a place of "teaching and contemplation," while the writer of Matthew altered this into "prayer," probably in keeping with a verse in Isaiah: Is 56:7 for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Although prayer has always been an important function of a synagogue, it has also been called a "place of instruction" or "place of sanctuary."[3] Hence, "teaching and contemplation" lie within the diversity of functions served by the synagogue. It is quite implausible that a literary hoaxer could have constructed the TJ verses above, which give more detail than Matthew, and at the same time eliminate the Matthean problem without generating even worse problems of his own. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 21:15 15But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant. TJ 22:14 14But when the chief priests and scribes saw the great deeds he was performing, and the people as they shouted in the temple, saying, "Hail to the descendant of David," they became indignant. TJ 22:14 14Da aber die Hohenpriester und Schriftgelehrten sahen die grossen Taten, die er tat, und das Volk, das im Tempel schrie und sagte: «Heil dem Nachfahren Davids!», da wurden sie entrüstet. THE PROBLEMS. Here Beare (p. 417) noted that the indignation of the chief priests and scribes was aroused not so much by the healing miracles as by the acclamations of the children. He found it entirely inappropriate that they would be upset over the behavior of mere children while seemingly not even noticing the violent actions Jesus had taken, referring to his driving the money changers and other buyers and sellers out of the temple. We furthermore again see that the inclusion of "Hosanna" brings in the theology of the compiler and of the church (since its meaning is "save us, we pray"). SOLUTION. TJ 22:14 is seen not to suffer from Beare's criticism. The attitude of strong praise towards Jmmanuel inside the temple on the part of a large number of adults, not children, could indeed have been more threatening to the chief priests and scribes than Jmmanuel's angry actions had been. The reason why the compiler altered "people" into children must have been to maintain consistency with his alteration of TJ 22:15 into Mt 21:16, wherein he introduced "babes and sucklings," to be discussed next. In addition, we see that Jmmanuel did not drive out the traders and money changers, as did Matthew's Jesus, when a lot of children were portrayed as being present to be in harm's way. In the TJ, "Hosanna" again does not appear, as is to be expected if it is genuine. And though in the TJ Jmmanuel is called the "descendant of David" again-several times overall, it is only by virtue of the Jewish custom of tracing the lineage through a step father (Joseph) that this descent is applicable. Mt 21:16 16and they [chief priests and scribes] said to him, "Do you hear what these [children] are saying?" And Jesus said to them, "Yes; have you never read 'Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast brought perfect praise'?" TJ 22:15 15When they asked him, "Do you hear what these people are saying?" Jmmanuel said to them, "Are you so afraid of the truth that it angers you?" TJ 22:15 15Alsdann sprachen sie zu ihm: «Hörst du auch, was diese Leute sagen?», da aber sprach Jmmanuel zu ihnen: «Fürchtet ihr die Wahrheit, da ihr euch darüber so erregt?» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 418) noted the irrationality of expecting praise to God to come from the mouths of infants or sucklings. The citation derives from the following psalm: Ps 8:1-2 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth! Thou whose glory above the heavens is chanted by the mouth of babes and infants.... The writer of Matthew's penchant for inserting Old Testament verses to give an air of authority has here produced a nonsensical result. SOLUTION. In the TJ verse, the chief priests and scribes are upset because Jmmanuel did not deny the implication that he was the messiah whose coming the prophets had foretold. As already discussed, many scholars have conjectured that the compiler of Matthew had been a scribe, converted from Judaism to Christianity. Given this, Jmmanuel's reply in the TJ would likely have incensed this compiler greatly. The implication that a fellow scribe would not face up to the truth would demand editing. It is interesting to note that, except for the word "Amen," the writer of Matthew did not retain any mention of "truth" in his gospel, except once in a question spoken insincerely by Pharisees (Mt 22:16). However, "truth" is mentioned some 130 times by Jmmanuel in the TJ. Could it be that the writer of Matthew avoided the word because he was engaged in a great act of untruth? Or because for him the only meaning of "truth" would be in reference to what was written in the Scriptures? Upon treating this and the previous verse as a unit in regard to the hoax hypothesis, I find it beyond reasonable credibility to believe that a hoaxer could remain so consistent within his own set of values and logic while exhibiting the "creativity" shown by TJ 22:15b, all the while eliminating the problems raised by the Matthean text. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 21:18-23 18In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he was hungry. 19And seeing a fig tree by the wayside he went to it, and found nothing on it but leaves only. And he said to it, "May no fruit ever come from you again!" And the fig tree withered at once. 20When the disciples saw it they marveled, saying, "How did the fig tree wither at once?" 21And Jesus answered them, "Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and never doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it will be done. 22And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith." 23And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" TJ 21:11-14 11"Truly, truly, I say to you, if you are knowledgeable and comprehending and embrace wisdom, and if you practice love truthfully and do not doubt, not only will you do such things with blind eyes, but when you say to the fig tree: 'Dry up' it will dry up. Or when you say to a mountain: 'Lift yourself up and throw yourself into the sea,' it will come to pass. 12Be knowledgeable in truth and wisdom, so that your spirit and your consciousness will become powerful. 13And when you are knowledgeable and live in the truth of wisdom, your spirit and your consciousness will be filled with infinite power. 14Then everything you command or ask for in prayer, you will receive if you trust in it." TJ 21:11-14 11«Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch: Wenn ihr wissend seid und verstehend und der Weisheit huldigt, und wenn ihr in Wahrheit Liebe übt und nicht zweifelt, so werdet ihr nicht nur solches mit blinden Augen tun, sondern, wenn ihr sagt zum Feigenbaum er solle verdorren, dann wird er verdorren, oder wenn ihr werdet sagen zu einem Berge: Hebe dich auf und wirf dich ins Meer, so wird’s geschehen. 12Denn seid wissend in Wahrheit und Weisheit, so euer Geist und euer Bewusstsein mächtig werden. 13Und so ihr wissend seid und in Wahrheit der Weisheit lebt, so also sind euer Geist und euer Bewusstsein mit unendlicher Kraft erfüllt. 14Alles, was ihr dann befehlet oder bittet im Gebet, wenn ihr darauf vertraut, werdet ihr’s empfangen.» TJ 22:17 17And when Jmmanuel returned again to the temple and taught, the chief priests, scribes, and the elders of the people came to him and asked, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you the authority?" TJ 22:17 17Und als Jmmanuel abermals in den Tempel kam und lehrte, traten zu ihm die Hohenpriester und Schriftgelehrten und die Ältesten im Volk und sprachen: «Aus welcher Vollmacht tust du das, und wer hat dir die Vollmacht gegeben?» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 419) found the cursing of the fig tree in Matthew to be very much out of keeping with Jesus' image, and so did not believe this miracle to be based on fact. He strongly suggested that the compiler of Matthew in hindsight must have been comparing the fig tree to Israel, and its drying up to the devastation of Israel and its temple in the war of 66-70 A.D. Other scholars have found other reasons not to believe this miracle.[4] SOLUTION. The TJ fig-tree metaphor finds its Matthean cognate only in Mt 21:21-22. The TJ has no cognate to Jesus' cursing of the fig tree, and its only reference to a fig tree drying up is in the verse presented, TJ 21:11. Apparently, then, the TJ's mention of the potential to cause a fig tree to dry up is what prompted the compiler to invent the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree. He wished to show that Jesus could actually wield this power. This is one of the relatively few instances where the writer of Matthew utilized a piece from the TJ in the wrong order-here he moved back a ways (one chapter) within the TJ rolls to extract and edit TJ 21:11-14, which he had previously omitted. We see from TJ 22:17, which follows immediately after Jmmanuel's overnight stay in Bethany (TJ 22:16 and Mt 21:17), that the tree-cursing episode was a Matthean insert. In the TJ the capability of causing a fig tree to dry up or a mountain to move are more easily seen as being figurative examples of how great the power of the knowledgeable spirit is, than as literal examples of how that power, if knowledgeable, might be applied. From TJ 22:17 we see that scribes had been present among those who accosted Jmmanuel this time, and that once again the writer of Matthew omitted them. Such omission is again plausible if this writer had once been a scribe, while their insertion by a literary hoaxer is less plausible, since direct motivation for that would be missing. This, combined with the implausibility that Jesus/Jmmanuel caused the fig tree to wither, together suggest PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 21:28-32 28"What do you think? A man had two sons, and he went to the first son and said, 'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' 29 And he answered, 'I will not'; but afterward he repented and went. 30 And he went to the second son and said the same; and he answered, 'I go, sir,' but did not go. 31Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. 32For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the harlots believed him; and even when you saw it, you did not afterward repent and believe him." TJ 22:24-30 24“But what do you think? A man had two sons and went to the first one and said, 'My son, go and work today in the vineyard.' 25He answered, saying, 'Yes father, I will go.' Yet he did not go. 26So he went to the other son and said, 'My son, go and work today in the vineyard.' 27 But he answered and said, 'I don't want to do it and therefore I will not go.' However, he soon felt remorse and went. 28Now I ask you, which of the two did the will of the father?” And they said, “The latter, of course.” 29But Jmmanuel spoke to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the publicans and prostitutes will recognize the wisdom of knowledge before you do. 30Johannes and the prophets came to you and taught you the right way, and you did not trust them; but the publicans and prostitutes did trust them. And although you recognized it, you nevertheless did not do penance and change your mind, so that you would trust them from that time on." TJ 22:24-30 24«Was dünkt euch aber?: Ein Mann hatte zwei Söhne und ging zum ersten und sprach: ‹Mein Sohn, gehe hin und arbeite heute im Weinberge›. 25Er aber antwortete und sprach: ‹Ja, Vater, ich gehe hin›; und er ging doch nicht hin. 26Also ging er zum anderen und sprach: ‹Mein Sohn, gehe hin und arbeite heute im Weinberge›. 27Der aber antwortete und sprach: ‹Ich will’s nicht tun und so gehe ich nicht hin›, doch bald aber reute es ihn und er ging hin. 28So frage ich euch: Welcher unter den zweien hat des Vaters Willen getan?» und sie sprachen: «Selbstredend der Letzte.» 29Jmmanuel aber sprach zu ihnen: «Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch: Die Zöllner und Huren mögen wohl eher die Weisheit des Wissens erkennen als ihr. 30Johannes und die Propheten kamen zu euch und lehrten euch den rechten Weg und ihr vertrautet ihnen nicht; aber die Zöllner und Huren vertrauten ihnen; und obwohl ihr’s sahet, tatet ihr dennoch nicht Busse und habt nicht geändert euren Sinn, dass ihr ihnen danach auch vertraut hättet.» THE PROBLEMS. Jesus' reply doesn't hold any definite meaning, because it is quite unclear what is meant for one person to "go into the kingdom of God before" another person. It hasn't been explained previously, nor is it explained subsequently. Does it mean that persons who "go into the kingdom" later first have to suffer some time period in hell or in limbo, while those who enter the kingdom earliest do not experience any such waiting period? Does it mean that the bones of those who will enter the kingdom later than others will not collect themselves together into resurrected bodies until some later period of time? Does it mean that the tax collectors and harlots will die before the chief priests and elders do, and thus go to heaven first? Or does it mean that the chief priests and elders will never get to heaven at all? In the only other places within Matthew where tax collectors (or publicans) are mentioned, they are spoken of in the most derogatory of terms (Mt 5:46, 18:17). Yet here they are mentioned with approval. This sudden turn-about suggests that one of the two sets of verses is the more original and the other is the work of the writer of Matthew.[5] SOLUTION. The TJ verses derive from a teacher of wisdom, the Matthean verses do not. The writer of Matthew had to alter the TJ verses into something compatible with early Christian faith, which the TJ's stress on "the wisdom of knowledge" was not. The publicans' and harlots' willingness to repent and trust in John and the prophets meant that they were beginning to recognize some wisdom. And just what does it mean to possess "the wisdom of knowledge?" It can only mean having the capability of making correct decisions and judgments on how and when to take proper actions or not take them, based upon knowledge of the facts. The publicans and prostitutes would come to recognize the value of this before the chief priests, scribes and elders would, in future lives if not in their present lives. We may see from the TJ or discussion of Mt 18:17 that the earlier verses excoriating the tax collectors were the ones wholly inserted by the writer of Matthew, while here he goes along more closely with the TJ verses. Either he simply overlooked the fact that this would produce an inconsistency, or he went along with the TJ's approval of tax collectors because they were mentioned in association with harlots. If the former possibility applies, it would be an instance of "Matthean fatigue"-the writer of Matthew making alterations at Mt 18:17 and earlier, then later forgetting to make a change here that would make his text consistent with his earlier alterations. DISCUSSION. It is interesting to note that the TJ verses refer to John and the prophets, while in Matthew it is just John. This suggests that the writer of Matthew did not wish to go so far as to accuse chief priests and elders of not trusting the prophets. Presumably Jmmanuel was referring here to prophets who had come before himself and John, and among whose teachings were things that neither the priests and other religious authorities of that day nor of his present day trusted. It is also interesting to notice the different order in which the two sons are addressed in the TJ account versus the Matthean account. NT scholars have long been aware of both versions of the story within different Gospel manuscripts, and the evidence supporting each version is of comparable weight. Either version can be supported by logical arguments, although I find the TJ version to be slightly more logical because the father would not likely ask the second son to go out and work if the first son had actually gone out into the field. The presence of a meaningless concept within the Matthean pericope in place of a meaningful one in the TJ's pericope, favors the TJ's genuiness over Matthew here. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 21:42 42Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the scriptures: 'The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner; this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes'?" TJ 22:42-43 42Jmmanuel spoke to them, "You have recognized the meaning, and you have also read it in the scriptures: 'The stone that the builders threw away became the cornerstone.' 43Therefore I tell you, I am like the son of the administrator of the vineyard, and you are like the vine-dressers that leased the vineyard." TJ 22:42-43 42Jmmanuel sprach zu ihnen: «Ihr habt’s erkannt, und so habt ihr’s auch gelesen in der Schrift, da geschrieben steht: ‹Der Stein, den die Bauleute verworfen haben, der ist zum Eckstein geworden›. 43Darum sage ich euch: So wie der Sohn des Weinbergverwalters bin ich, und so wie die Weinbergpachter seid ihr.» THE PROBLEM. This Matthean verse comes right after the parable of the wicked tenant-farmers, and its citation is from Ps 118:22. Beare (p. 430) noted some discrepancies here. The citing of this verse seems to have caused an unexplained jump from the image of a vineyard to the image of a building. Also, there is no particular reason why Jesus should have expected his listeners to liken the murdered son in the parable to a rejected stone that is later given the key position, since he had not yet been crucified and Christianity had not yet developed. SOLUTION. The TJ verses were the originals, and Beare's objections do not apply to them. In the two succeeding verses in the TJ, not present in Matthew, Jmmanuel warns the chief priests, scribes and elders that they should not disregard or falsify his teachings, as they had of earlier prophets. Hence, the Psalms citation with its message of rejection is applicable, and we may notice that it, unlike most of the compiler's Old Testament insertions, is mentioned as being a citation of scripture. Since Jmmanuel's listeners would not have understood the relevance of the scriptural verse, he provided it, through his prophetic foresight. But why did the compiler of Matthew not include this second TJ verse, TJ 22:43, which explains the parable? It was likely because in the TJ's parable of the wicked tenant-farmers, the son of the administrator does not die, but survives within the tomb in which he is placed, and after three days and nights flees. The writer of Matthew likely detested this thought so much that he hastily omitted TJ 22:43, which refers back to the administrator's son's survival (TJ 22:39), rather than alter it. This was an unthinkable thought-that Jesus would survive the crucifixion-and the writer did not want to have anything to do with it. It is to be pointed out that TJ 22:43, along with TJ 22:39, was the occasion at which the chief priests, scribes and elders learned that Jmmanuel prophesied he would survive a state of near-death for three days and three nights, as did the son of the administrator in his parable of the wicked vineyard tenants. (See Mt 27:63 and TJ 30:67-68.) However, Matthew does not present any such occasion; its passion prophecy of Mt 12:39-40 of course does not say anything about Jesus surviving three days of being buried. It was furthermore couched in terms of the Son of man, and has been objected to as being non-genuine. The passion prophecy of Mt 16:4 mentioned only the sign of Jonah without further amplification, and that of Mt 16:21 was spoken just to the disciples. Once again the Matthean verse provides strong indications that it is not genuine, while the two TJ verses escape the Matthean criticism by text that a literary hoaxer would not likely be creative enough to invent. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 21:43 43"Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it." TJ 22:46 46"Therefore I say to you, peace and joy shall be taken from you and your people for all eternity, and all shall be given to a people who bring forth their fruits." TJ 22:46 46«Darum sage ich euch: Der Friede und das Glück sollen von euch genommen werden und also von eurem Volke in alle Zukunft, und alles soll einem Volke gegeben werden, das seine Früchte bringen wird.» THE PROBLEMS. This verse is supposed to apply the lesson taught by the preceding parable of the wicked vineyard farmers, summarized by its following cited psalm: "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone," to the contemporary situation of Jesus' listeners. A key problem Beare (p. 431) reported is that the kingdom of God is prophesied to be taken away from just his listeners ("you"), who were a small group of chief priests, elders and Pharisees, whereas in the parable all the tenants were guilty of brutalizing and finally killing the householder's son. The parable's tenants and the psalm's "builders" then should represent the men of Judah, Beare reasoned. If the kingdom of God were to be taken away and given to some other nation, this meant that it was to be taken away from all of Israel, not just from a small group of religious leaders. Beare further noted (p. 430) that the fate that the wicked tenant farmers would suffer was to be a "miserable death," while in Mt 21:43 the fate is much milder, as if in the parable the tenants had been threatened only with cancellation of their lease on the vineyard. SOLUTION. As seen by the parallel TJ verse, the thing that would be taken away was "peace and joy," and it would be taken away from not only Jmmanuel's listeners but from their people also; i.e., from the people of Israel. Thus Beare's reasoning here seems to have been valid. Moreover, a fate of having peace and joy taken away for an indefinite future time is a sufficiently dreadful threat as to escape from Beare's second criticism above. This TJ verse is adjacent to three others not present in Matthew, which warn that if Jmmanuel's teachings were to be disdained or falsified, then dire consequences would ensue. It must be mentioned that when modern scholars read a prophecy like this, which seems to have been fulfilled the past 2,000 years, they will immediately assume it is the work of a literary hoaxer using hindsight. Without any conception of a mechanism, spiritual or otherwise, by which a valid long-range prophecy could be made, they must assume that there can never have been anyone with such a capability of long-range precognition. However, research of the past thirty years that scholasticism overlooks suggests that this assumption may not be warranted.[6] Given that many people have been able to recall (verified) incidents from their past lives, and some have been hypno-regressed into unverified future lives, a true prophet, or highly evolved soul, may be able to accurately foresee a future life of his and thereby prophesy as to what he "knew" from that future life. If anyone on Earth had that capability, it was Jmmanuel alias Jesus. Given also that the Matthean verse discloses errors in logic that could stem from redaction, the hoax hypothesis is not supported here. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 21:44 44"And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but when it falls on any one, it will crush him." TJ 22:48 48"The burden of the Israelite people will be like a heavy stone of the seven Great Ages. Whosoever falls upon this stone will be smashed to pieces, and whosoever it falls upon will be crushed." TJ 22:48 48«Die Last des israelitischen Volkes wird sein wie ein schwerer Stein der sieben grossen Zeitalter, und wer auf diesen Stein fällt, der wird zerschellen; auf wen aber er fällt, den wird er zermalmen.» THE PROBLEM. This Matthean verse is left out of the main text of many Bibles, although the textual evidence supporting it is overwhelming.[7] Yet Beare (p. 425) and others note that it is seemingly misplaced in Matthew, since if it had come a verse earlier it could more easily be connected with the "cornerstone" from the citation of Psalms 118, as occurs in Lk 20:18. Even then, however, Beare observed that a cornerstone is expected to be solidly in place within a building, and not lying loose where someone could trip over it or where it could fall on someone. Because the verse seems misplaced, the Greek text that scholars favor has relegated the verse to a footnote (or to the critical apparatus). SOLUTION. This TJ verse follows another one, not paralleled in Matthew, warning the chief priests, scribes and elders of the penalties to accrue both to them and to the Israelites if they disregard the true laws of El. There was nothing that the compiler of Matthew could do with such a verse but omit it, since it speaks of God as being an overseer of certain human populations. By the omission also of the unacceptable first half of TJ 22:48, but with the retention of the rest of it, the "stone" verse (Mt 21:44) didn't make sense. Thus, the TJ verse and context give a karmic explanation to this harsh verse, and the reference is to a different stone than a cornerstone-a "heavy stone of the seven Great Ages." These seven Great Ages are given a context and meaning in the TJ's 32nd chapter. The TJ verse is especially strong confirmation of the TJ's genuineness. Not only does it form a part of Jmmanuel's theme of the karmic burden the Jewish people would have to face, but it is an almost impossibly brilliant solution to this "stone" problem for any hoaxer to have created. This solution to the problem is not to be found in any previous literature, yet is a solution fully consistent with the TJ's teachings. PHoax ¯ 0.1. Regarding the appearance of Mt 21:44 in Luke, there are at least two possibilities. First, the writer of Luke noticed that it was out of place in Matthew, but that it could make some sort of sense if he placed it right after his "cornerstone" verse. The second, less likely possibility is that the writer of Matthew had omitted it, but the writer of Luke utilized it at the time he had access to the TJ; later, a scribe assimilated it into Matthew from Luke, but misplaced it by one verse. Upon accumulating the individual probabilities for hoax listed above for this chapter (Mt 21 and TJ 22), we obtain a probability for hoax of only 0.00011. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 22 REFERENCES 1. Davies, W. D., and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, Scotland: T. & T. Clark Ltd., 1988), p. 211. 2. See, for example, Sandmel, Samuel, Anti-Semitism in the New Testament? (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 59. 3. Levine, Lee I., "The nature and origin of the Palestinian synagogue reconsidered," JBL 115 (1996), pp. 425- 448; see p. 430. 4. See, e.g., Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 3, p. 149. 5. Tuckett, C. M., The Revival of the Griesbach Hypothesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 149-150. 6. See, e.g., Goldberg, Bruce, Past Lives, Future Lives (New York: Ballantine Books, 1982, 1988). 7. The verse is present in Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph), Codex Vaticanus (B), and many other major manuscripts -ones scholars value highly. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 22 Mt 22:1-14 1And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 2"The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast for his son, 3and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the marriage feast; but they would not come. 4Again he sent other servants... 11But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment... 13Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness. There men will weep and gnash their teeth.' 14For many are called, but few are chosen." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. This is the parable of the rejected invitation to the marriage feast, or "Great Supper." Beare (p. 432) found it to be full of incongruities, implying that Jesus would never have so presented it. He reasoned that when the dinner was ready, the king would not have bothered to send out his servants to so inform the guests, and especially not a second time. Also, Beare noted, it becomes ludicrous to think of the king gaining revenge on the murderers of his servants by killing them and then burning down their city, which, it may be deduced, was the king's own city! The authors of Antioch and Rome also wondered why the writer of Matthew went to the trouble of inserting the "Great Supper" narrative into a parable in which it does not fit.[1] They note that the supper was delayed the entire time that the troops were sent for, went out, and set the town on fire; this would have taken most of a day, if not more. It's final verse looks like the point that the parable was supposed to make. However, as noted by Beare (p. 437), it is an inappropriate tag line. "The king's slaves have brought in everyone they could find, but only one is cast out." That is, many were chosen, not just a few. It is further seen that this parable interrupts what would seem to have been a realistic course of events. At the beginning of the parable Jesus had left the chief priests and Pharisees angry and disturbed (Mt 21:46), because they perceived that his immediately preceding talk had been directed against them. Then comes this incongruous parable of the Great Supper, which evidently aroused no reaction worth mentioning from the chief priests and Pharisees. Then (in Mt 22:15) the Pharisees pondered how to trap him in his talk. This would flow logically if the parable of the Great Supper did not intervene. Perhaps the least of its problems occurs in 22:1 with the plural word "parables." At this point, Jesus speaks only the one parable. He doesn't speak another parable until another chapter and a half. SOLUTION. From the TJ viewpoint, this is a lengthy insertion made by the compiler to put across his viewpoint that God is good but is very demanding and will punish even minor offenders without mercy. The insertion interrupts Matthean verses having TJ parallels describing how Pharisees were plotting to arrest the man. Concerning the hoax hypothesis, the evidence is not as strong one way or another when the TJ has no cognate. Obviously, if the whole TJ had no parallels to any of Matthew, then the absence of any one of Matthew's pericopes would be of no significance whatever (and one would not postulate a dependence between the two documents). However, since the TJ has evident parallels or cognates to approximately 682 of Matthew's 1071 verses, the instances in which it has no parallels do provide evidence of some significance bearing upon which document is primary and which is secondary. Here we have seen much evidence that the Matthean pericope is non-genuine, and so if the TJ had contained it, this would count heavily against the TJ's genuineness, too. The fact that the TJ does not contain it, however, points more towards its genuineness than not, since a hoaxer might have found reason to include a few of the pericope's 14 verses in one form or another: PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 22:15-16 15Then the Pharisees went and took counsel how to entangle him in their talk. 16 And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying..." TJ 23:1 1When the Pharisees held counsel on how they could snare Jmmanuel in his speech, they sent their followers to him, including some of Herodes' people. TJ 23:1 1Als die Pharisäer Rat hielten, wie sie Jmmanuel fingen in seiner Rede, sandten sie zu ihm ihre Jünger samt des Herodes Leuten. THE PROBLEM. It is a bit peculiar for the term "Herodians" to have been used here without any previous introduction of who they were, as they are referred to as the Herodians in the Greek also. As Beare (p. 438) has noted, "nothing is known about the term apart from its use here" along with its similar use in Mark. The term would more plausibly have been used if its original meaning were already familiar to the writer, as from a source text. SOLUTION. This peculiarity may have been introduced by the writer of Matthew because the term's meaning as expressed in the TJ was clear to him and had become familiar. This solution is somewhat more probable than that it would have occurred to a literary hoaxer to make his text in this manner read more like the earliest writing. PHoax ¯ 0.45. The rest of the pericope in Matthew, about whether or not to pay taxes to Caesar, parallels the TJ text quite well. However, the TJ's pericope mentions Creation as well as El and Caesar, and stresses the omnipotence of Creation, to which highest praise is to be given. Mt 22:29-30 29But Jesus answered them, "You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. 30For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven." TJ 23:18-21 18Jmmanuel, however, answered, saying, "You are mistaken and do not know the unadulterated scriptures of the elders, nor do you know the laws of Creation. 19Truly, I say to you, Moses never gave this commandment; but he gave the commandment that a brother should take his brother's wife to himself in honor, so if one died the other would take care of the widow of his brother. 20How is it possible for a brother to beget descendants for his brother, since everyone's seed is different! 21In the next incarnation they all will be strangers because they will not recognize each other; therefore, no law says the wife then belongs to this one or that one." TJ 23:18-21 18Jmmanuel aber antwortete und sprach: «Ihr irret und kennet nicht die unverfälschten Schriften der Alten, noch kennet ihr die Gesetze der Schöpfung. 19Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Nie hat Mose gegeben dieses Gebot, so aber das Gebot, dass ein Bruder seines Bruders Weib zu sich nehme in Ehre, so der eine gestorben ist, also er für die Witwe seines Bruders sorge. 20Wie käme es aber, dass ein Bruder seinem Bruder Nachkommen zeugen könnte, da doch der Same eines jeden mit Unterschied ist! 21Im Wiederleben werden sie sich alle fremd sein, so sie einander nicht kennen, also auch kein Gesetz besagt, das Weib gehöre nun dem oder dem.» THE PROBLEMS. Jesus' response was in answer to a trick question about the afterlife in relation to the Mosaic law for the case of a widow without children becoming married to one of her former husband's six brothers, if they had dwelled together. In the situation posed, each surviving brother successively marries the widow after the previous brother who married her dies, until all are dead; the question then is: Which brother gets the widow as his wife in the afterlife? One problem is that we don't find anywhere in the Scriptures what one's existence as a resurrected entity is like, or what it is not like. The problem Beare (p. 441) mentioned is that, with Jesus' answer involving angels, it is quite uncertain what ideas Jesus may have had about angels. Since Jesus didn't explain his ideas about them, his questioners could not have been any better informed after his answer than before. SOLUTION. In the TJ, the question posed to Jmmanuel by the Sadducees was the same as in Matthew. But here, in the TJ verses, we see that Jmmanuel's answer was severalfold, to cover the several misunderstandings built into the question. The unadulterated Scriptures, which Jmmanuel had been given access to, probably during his 40 days and nights' tutoring by his contacting ETs, evidently did explain things; a brother cannot begat descendants for anyone else; and during their souls' next lifetimes they all will be like strangers (since memories of one's previous lives are normally suppressed). This latter answer is especially informative. Although it may presuppose that persons within a family tend to reincarnate into next-life situations where some of the same souls meet and interact, there is a very strong tendency for this very thing actually to occur, as found by many past-life therapists and researchers.[2] It is easy to see how the writer of Matthew altered these TJ verses into ones that were compatible with his own beliefs. It is more difficult to visualize a literary hoaxer taking it the other way, with a response that directly answers the question (which in the TJ had been about reincarnation, not resurrection). And since the Matthean verse has no evidence whatsoever to back it up whereas the TJ verse does, and could therefore have been spoken by a wisdom teacher who had learned all about reincarnation during many years spent in India, it is much to be preferred as the original. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 22:31-33 31"And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not God of the dead, but of the living." 33And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. TJ 23:22-30 22"In each new life the person determines for himself whom he wishes to marry; thus he can marry whoever is not spoken for. 23Take heed of the laws of Creation, which teach that in a new life people do not remember their former lives. Thus your question is superfluous. 24At this point it is only the prophets who remember former lives, since they follow the laws of Creation and therefore live in wisdom. 25But since you and the Israelite people will continue to live in piercing darkness for an extended period, cognition and wisdom of the spirit and of the consciousness will remain hidden from you for a long time..." 30When the people heard that, they were aghast and afraid. TJ 23:22-30 22«In jedem Wiederleben bestimmet der Mensch selbst, wen er freien will, so er freien kann, wer nicht vorbestimmt ist. 23Achtet der Gesetze der Schöpfung, die da lehren, dass der Mensch in einem Wiederleben keine Erinnerung hat an das frühere Leben, so eure Frage dahinfällt also. 24Noch sind es nur die Propheten, die Erinnerung an frühere Leben haben, da sie die Gesetze der Schöpfung befolgen und also in Weisheit leben. 25So ihr und das israelitische Volk aber über lange Zeit werdet in gellender Finsternis leben, soll euch lange verschlossen bleiben die Erkenntnis und die Weisheit des Geistes und des Bewusstseins....» 30Und da solches das Volk hörte, entsetzte es sich und fürchtete sich. THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 441) noted that the words of verse 32 do not treat resurrection in general. At the most, they could be taken to imply some kind of immortality for just the great Jewish patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The inconsistency is that a God concerned with all of humanity ought to have after-life plans for all of humanity, not for just a select few. In fact, what Jesus spoke was very skimpy in content and ambiguous. This could hardly have elicited the noted astonishment. Instead, they could only have wondered what this statement from Ex 3:6 has to do with resurrection of the dead, and why he implied that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were not dead. The crowd would be left shaking their heads in bewilderment, not buzzing with astonishment. Moreover, Jesus had been speaking to Sadducees, not to a crowd. Where, Beare wondered (p. 442), had the crowds come from? (In the Greek text, the phrase is "the crowds", not "the crowd.") SOLUTION. The first two Matthean verses substitute for the TJ verses shown plus four more, following TJ 23:25, which discuss the spiritual poverty within Israel-heretical topics to believers in resurrection. They contain harsh news for those living under the influence of false teachings. Hence, the people, when they heard that, were aghast. The compiler could do little with this material but make a substitution for it. In so doing, he replaced the TJ's "the people" (German: das Volk) with "the crowds" as was his custom. In this case this particular substitution did not work out well, because "the crowds" implies a large group of people, as gathered together to listen to a speaker, whereas "the people" can imply the common folk scattered around who are informed later through hearsay. Hence in the TJ verse, its use of "when" with "the people" was appropriate, since the people learned of what was said subsequently through word of mouth. The writer of Matthew carelessly carried the TJ's "when" over into his gospel in which he had introduced crowds of listeners along with the Sadducees. In the TJ, Jmmanuel was evidently speaking in generalities rather than trying to cover various exceptions. That is, a small fraction of very young children, up to the ages of 6 or 7, do at times remember past-life events, this being more likely for children whose most recent past-lives had ended early, often through accident. Also, many adults, who are capable of being brought into a light trance by a hypno-therapist and are interested in recalling some of their past lives, do so. Again the TJ verse holds meaning and truth that's been validated since the 1970s and could therefore have been original and spoken by a wisdom teacher who knew a lot about reincarnation, past lives and spiritual evolution. On the other hand, one or both of the Matthean problems would not likely have been foreseen by a literary hoaxer. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 22:34-35 34But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. 35And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, to test him. TJ 23:31-32a 31But when the Pharisees heard that Jmmanuel had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered and deliberated. 32And one among them, a scribe, tested him by asking,... TJ 23:31-32a 31Da aber die Pharisäer hörten, dass Jmmanuel den Sadduzäern das Maul gestopft hatte, versammelten sie sich und hielten einen Rat. 32Und einer unter ihnen, ein Schriftgelehrter, versuchte ihn und fragte: THE PROBLEM. Among some scholars it is a problem that Matthew mentions a lawyer as being the one who tested Jesus, as does also Luke, whereas in Mark (Mk 12:28) it is a scribe who does so. If the writer of Matthew was copying from Mark, why did he not then use "scribe" rather than "lawyer"? Further, this is the only time the word "lawyer" is used in Matthew. SOLUTION. The TJ allows us to see this as another spot where the writer of Matthew refrained from using "scribe" in a situation that would be embarrassing to a former Pharisaic scribe who had converted to early Christianity. That is, the question involved the great importance of the laws from the Torah, and was asked for the diabolic purpose of trying to trip up Jmmanuel. As a former scribe himself, the writer of Matthew could avoid casting this aspersion on one of his own by altering the scribe into a lawyer. This comparison is included here as one more indication that the TJ is no hoax, as a hoaxer basing his work upon Matthew would not have had any motivation for altering Matthew's "lawyer" into a scribe. PHoax ¯ 0.4. We also see that the writer of Mark, in making small changes for the sake of change, altered Matthew's lawyer into a scribe, thereby accidentally agreeing with the TJ. Among many hundreds of alterations made by the writer of Mark relative to Matthew, it is not surprising to find that a very few of them accidentally yield a minor agreement with the TJ. Mt 22:36-40 36"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" 37And he said to them, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets." TJ 23:32-41 32And one among them, a scribe, tested him by asking, "Jmmanuel, which is the foremost commandment in the law?" 33Jmmanuel asked in return, "Whose law are you thinking of, the law of the emperor, or are you thinking of the law of El, or are you thinking of the law of Creation?" 34The scribe said, "I am thinking of the laws of all three." 35But Jmmanuel said, "The highest directive in the law of Creation is this: Achieve the wisdom of knowledge, so that you may wisely follow the laws of Creation. 36But the highest commandment of the law of El is this: You shall honor El as the ruler of the three human species and obey his laws, for he is the king of wisdom of the three human species and a good and just counselor. 37And the highest command of the laws of the emperor is this: You shall be obedient to the emperor, follow his laws and give to him the tithe, because he is the ruler over the people and their guardian and protector. 38These are the foremost and greatest commandments in the laws of the three, as applied to their categories. 39But the other directive, equal to the first, is this: You shall consider only Creation as almighty, for it alone is constant in all things and therein is timeless. 40El and the emperor are transitory, but Creation is eternal. 41Upon these two directives depend the entire law and the prophets." TJ 23:32-41 32Und einer unter ihnen, ein Schriftgelehrter, versuchte ihn und fragte: «Jmmanuel, welches ist denn das vornehmste Gebot im Gesetz?» 33Er aber sprach und fragte: «An wessen Gesetz denkst du, an das des Kaisers, oder denkst du an das Gesetz Gottes, oder denkst du an das Gesetz der Schöpfung?» 34Der Schriftgelehrte aber sprach: «Ich denke an die Gesetze der drei.» 35Jmmanuel aber sprach: «Das höchste Gebot im Gesetz der Schöpfung ist das: Erringe die Weisheit des Wissens, so du weise die Gesetze der Schöpfung befolgen mögest. 36Das höchste Gebot des Gesetzes Gottes aber ist das: Du sollst Gott als den Herrscher der drei Menschengeschlechter achten und seine Gesetze befolgen, denn er ist der Weisheitskönig der drei Menschengeschlechter und ein guter und gerechter Ratgeber. 37Das höchste Gebot des Kaisers Gesetzes aber ist das: Du sollst dem Kaiser gehorsam sein und seine Gesetze befolgen und ihm den Zehnten geben, denn er ist der Herrscher über das Volk und dessen Hüter und Beschützer. 38Dies sind die vornehmsten und grössten Gebote der Gesetze der drei, bestimmet nach ihrer Art. 39Das andere aber ist das und dem ersten gleich: Du sollst als Allmacht nur die Schöpfung nennen, denn sie allein ist beständig in allen Dingen und darin also zeitlos. 40Gott und der Kaiser sind vergänglich, die Schöpfung aber ist unvergänglich. 41In diesen zwei Geboten hängt das ganze Gesetz und die Propheten.» THE PROBLEMS. Earlier, at Mt 19:17-19, Jesus is already on record for having told a young man what commandments he had to obey to have eternal life. He listed six of them, but this "great" commandment, which derives from Dt 6:4-5, is not among them. Now, here it is suddenly mentioned as being the "great and first" commandment. Something is seriously wrong here. The second of Matthew's two great commandments derives from Lv 19:18. However, here in Matthew "neighbor" is not defined, which means that the commandment itself is not well posed. Just who is your neighbor whom you must love? The Leviticus verse implies that only "the sons of your own people" are your neighbor. This is apparently the sense in which the writer of Matthew himself interpreted it, since several of his own verses indicate that he held no love for gentiles, whom he despised. (However, the writer of Luke fixed this up by including the Parable of the Good Samaritan, in Lk 10:29-37.) DISCUSSION. Here in the TJ Jmmanuel spells out the highest commandments or directives of the three different categories, and then gives a second directive equal in importance to the first one, referring back to achieving "the wisdom of knowledge." In the end, his two directives then are to gain the wisdom to follow Creation's laws and to regard Creation as omnipotent. Ideally, El's laws and the emperor's laws would stem from Creation's laws, and thus be consistent with them. When comparing Matthew against the TJ, we see that it would have been quite feasible for the compiler to remove the heresies from the TJ passage and simplify it, while substituting within it the best of Old Testament wisdom. However, it would require unique motivation and exceptional imagination of a literary hoaxer to start with the first and last verses of Matthew's version and expand or conflate it into the above TJ passage. PHoax ¯ 0.15. In the first Matthean verse, instead of "greatest," "great" is used, which analysts agree is indicative of it having derived from an Aramaic source. In the first TJ verse, however, the corresponding adjective is in the superlative. This, then, is one of many instances in which the TJ's translator opted for correctness in meaning over literalness of translation. As a result, the TJ fails to exhibit the Aramaism. In TJ 23:39, the word "constant" comes from the German "beständig," the translation of which could also be given by "enduring" or "perpetual." Mt 22:42 [Jesus asked the Pharisees a question] 42saying, "What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." TJ 23:50-51 50Since the Pharisees were together, Jmmanuel asked them, "What do you think about me, whose son am I?" 51They said, "The son of David." TJ 23:50-51 50Da nun die Pharisäer beieinander waren, fragte sie Jmmanuel und sprach: «Was denkt ihr von mir, wessen Sohn ich sei?» 51Sie sprachen: «Davids Sohn.» THE PROBLEM. It makes no sense that Jesus would have expected the Pharisees to identify him as the Christ or Messiah. He should know that they, especially, in wishing to kill him, did not view him as such. And according to Mt 16:20 the disciples were to tell no one that he was the Christ. Most important, with the name "Jesus" he would not be identified by the Pharisees as the messianic figure of Isaiah 7, since his name would have had to be Immanuel before he could qualify for that. Further reason for treating "the Christ" here as an anachronism is discussed under Mt 23:10. SOLUTION. This was another instance wherein the writer of Matthew inserted "the Christ" or "the Messiah" into his extraction from the TJ, in accordance with Christian belief. Doing this, along with having altered his name from Immanuel to Jesus throughout, caused the problem. It is interesting that the Pharisees utilized the "son of David" phrase in answering Jmmanuel's question. This supports what the TJ indicated in its chapter 2, repeated in Luke, that Joseph with Mary had gone to Bethlehem because he was of the house of David, and that Jmmanuel was indeed born there. And as noted, it is consistent with his name having been Immanuel, not "Jesus" or "Yeshua." In calling him by the abbreviated title "son of David," standing for "descendant of David," the Pharisees were apparently using the language of those schooled in the Scriptures where, for example, we see "sons of Levi" referring to descendants of Levi. Jmmanuel evidently did not mind reproving the Pharisees (see below) for calling him the son of David, since he had asked whose "son" was he, not whose "descendant." Nowhere else in the TJ was he called the son of David, and so Jmmanuel had no need to correct any others on this point. Since the TJ does not suffer from the problem, which is one that would be caused by a Christian redactor's touch, the edge must go to the TJ here. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 22:43-46 43He [Jesus] said to them, "How is it then that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, 44'The LORD said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, till I put thy enemies under thy feet'? 45If David thus calls him Lord, how is he his son?" 46And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. TJ 23:52-56 52But he spoke to them, "How can I be the son of David, when he has been dead for a long time and I was begotten by Gabriel, the guardian angel? 53And haven't you read that David called me lord when he said, 54'The LORD said to my lord, "Sit down at my right side, until I can place your enemies beneath your feet, because you are my foster son and my successor."' 55Since David calls me lord, how can I be his son?" 56And no one could give him an answer, but secretly they said, "He blasphemes God and the prophets. Let's try to catch and kill him, because he endangers our position in that we will no longer be respected by the people." TJ 23:52-56 52Er aber sprach zu ihnen: «Wie kann ich Davids Sohn sein, wenn er schon lange Zeit tot ist und ich gezeuget bin vom Wächterengel Gabriel? 53Und habt ihr denn nicht gelesen, dass mich David einen Herrn nannte, als er sagte: 54‹Der Herr hat gesagt zu meinem Herrn: ‘Setze dich zu meiner Rechten, bis dass ich lege deine Feinde unter deine Füsse, denn du bist mein Ziehsohn und mein Nachfolger’›. 55So nun David mich seinen Herrn nennt, wie bin ich denn sein Sohn?» 56Und niemand konnte ihm ein Wort antworten, so sie heimlich aber sprachen: «Er lästert Gott und die Propheten; trachten wir, ihn zu fangen und zu töten, denn er bringt auch unsern Stand in Gefahr, so wir vor dem Volk nichts mehr gelten werden.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (pp. 444-445) found problems with both Mt 22:43 and 22:46. With the first of these, he pointed out that "inspired by the spirit" or "in the spirit" (which is the translation he preferred from the Greek) is a Christian phrase. So it would not likely have been uttered by Jesus years before Christianity had commenced as a religion. With Mt 22:46 the objection is more obvious. It is well known that the last clause, about not any one daring to ask Jesus another question from then on, is not true. The disciples come and question him in Mt 24:3; they question him again in 26:8; in Mt 26:25 we read that Judas asks Jesus "Is it I, Master?" In Mt 26:62 the high priest asks him two questions; in 27:11 Pilate asks him if he is the King of the Jews, plus a further question. This "not any one" should have been qualified to refer only to Pharisees. SOLUTION. The TJ verses, to which neither of Beare's objections applies, were the source of the Matthean verses. The first TJ verse (TJ 23:52) is easily understandable: Jmmanuel was showing how absurd it was to think he was the son of David-with "son" interpreted in its usual straight-forward meaning. Presumably the Pharisees knew that Immanuel was a descendant of the House of David, but they apparently did not wish to treat him as if he were the Wonderful Counselor of Isaiah 9 or as the "son of man" and "anointed one" of Daniel 7 and 9. However, the remainder of the TJ passage may seem as enigmatic as Matthew's version. Although a Christian may assume that in Psalm 110 David was writing about God speaking to the Messiah (Jesus), this is not at all convincing since God was speaking in the present tense, whereas Jesus would not be incarnated for many centuries to come. The interpretation I presently favor starts out a bit like the Christian interpretation, but soon diverges: in the TJ's citation from David, "my lord" referred not only to Immanuel, but also to Immanuel's spiritual lineage going back to Henoch (Enoch) and before, with "the LORD" referring to El the ET. But how could David know about this spiritual lineage and the incarnation of Immanuel to come in his distant future? The most evident solution to this is that he knew it from the teachings and writings of Enoch which, after all, did survive seven and more centuries after David's time to make it into the book now called 1 Enoch. There, much is written about "the Elect One," or "the Righteous One," to come in the far away future. This one was Immanuel, whose spirit form was the same as that of Enoch, Isaiah, Elijah and Jeremiah according to what Meier learned from his ET contactors and from material in the OM, Kanon 20. The assumption is that David knew of this ancient teaching from Henoch, preserved from the OM in oral tradition if not in writing, though not contained in 1 Enoch, which is a pale abbreviation of the OM. In that manner Jmmanuel could say, "David called me lord," with "me" referring to the residing spirit of that line of great prophets as well as to himself, and David could speak of that spirit-form as "his lord" in the present tense. Then, "foster-son" represents this spirit-form whenever incarnated as one of the prophets, whom the long- lived El treated rather like a son, during each of their various incarnations, in their life's missions. Finally, I would translate "successor" in TJ 23:54 as meaning that after the UFO coverup has become unraveled and the Pleiadians/Plejarens (and El) no longer are needed as spiritual watchers and caretakers, a future incarnation of Jmmanuel would take over from the Pleiadians in providing spiritual information to help guide Earthlings. But this is more conjecture. This TJ verse is another example of Jmmanuel seemingly having been informed on what the Scripture writers originally wrote or taught, which differed significantly in places from the present biblical version that has been preserved. We notice that Mt 22:46b appears in substitution for TJ 23:56b. This appears to be the spot where the writer of Matthew first starting omitting the Pharisees from all involvement in the plot to arrest Jmmanuel and have him be killed. Those who favor the hoax hypothesis may be able to point to almost as many problems with interpreting the TJ in this passage as there are with the Matthean verses. PHoax ¯ 0.5. However, upon accumulating the individual probabilities against the hoax hypothesis from the verse comparisons of all of Mt 22 versus TJ 23 we find the summary probability for hoax here to be 0.0053. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 23 REFERENCES 1. R. E. Brown and J. P. Meier, Antioch and Rome (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), p. 16, footnote 4. 2. E.g., see Woolger, Roger J., Other Lives, Other Selves (New York: Bantam Books, 1988) pp. 220-227; Rieder, Marge, Mission to Millboro (Nevada City, CA: Blue Dolphin Publishing Co., 1993); Newton, Michael, Destiny of Souls (St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 2000); Bowman, Carol, Return from Heaven (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 23 Mt 23:1-2 1Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, 2"The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat." TJ 24:1 1And Jmmanuel spoke to the people and the disciples, saying, "The scribes and Pharisees sit on the chairs of the prophets." TJ 24:1 1Und Jmmanuel redete zu dem Volke und den Jüngern und sprach: «Auf der Propheten Stühle sitzen die Schriftgelehrten und Pharisäer.» THE PROBLEM. Sitting on "Moses' seat" refers to adopting a post of teaching authority (Beare, p. 448), as would be expected of the term. However, the scribes were supposed to be interpreting and teaching the Judaism as compiled from all the prophets, not just from Moses. This can be seen from Mt 2:4-6, 17:10 and 23:29. The "law and the prophets" were both considered of high value and thus sometimes lumped together, as in Mt 22:40. Why then are the prophets left out here? SOLUTION. Again, the writer shows his special fondness for Moses by equating all "the law and the prophets" to Moses. The likelihood that the writer of Matthew made the above change from the TJ is consistent with his great reverence for Moses, whereas there would be little if any motivation for a literary hoaxer to substitute "the prophets" for Moses. PHoax ¯ 0.45. It may be mentioned that the scholars' preferred Greek text has "the scribes and the Pharisees" here, whereas the TJ does not have the second "the." Mt 23:3 3"so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice." TJ 24:2-3 2"Refrain, however, from doing and accepting anything they tell you, and also don't act in accordance with their works. 3They teach you erroneous teachings, which they and their forefathers have falsified for their own selfish interests." TJ 24:2-3 2«Alles nun, was sie euch sagen, das tuet und haltet nicht, aber auch nach ihren Werken sollt ihr nicht tun. 3Sie lehren euch irre Lehren, die sie und ihre Vorfahren verfälschet haben, so sie daraus die Geniesser seien.» THE PROBLEM. Here, Beare (p. 448) noticed that the command to obey the instructions of the scribes and Pharisees is inconsistent with Jesus' teaching in Matthew's chapter 15: that the oral laws of purity no longer held. Since the Mt 15 discussions are more extensive and detailed than this single verse, the implication is that the "practice and observe" command of this verse involves the key redaction. This conclusion is supported by the fact that Mt 16:6,12, in which Jesus admonishes his disciples to beware of the leaven/teachings of the scribes and Pharisees, also contradicts Mt 23:3. The former verses are unlikely to have been the source of the contradiction, because their meaning is irreversible, due to their extensive context. Hence 23:3 is the cause of the contradiction. The latter conclusion is supported by an apparent contradiction between this verse and Mt 7:29, which said the scribes didn't teach with authority. Why act upon what the scribes say if they didn't have the authority to teach? The advice of Mt 23:3 is nothing that a wisdom teacher would dispense, for which of us fully trusts a person's instructions if that person himself does not adhere to them? Jesus expected his own disciples to do good works and let them be seen by men (Mt 5:16), and to preach also (Mt 10:7). Thus he expected good deeds to be appreciated and accompanying words to be heeded; and in all probability the converse-the words accompanying wrongful deeds should not be heeded. SOLUTION. The first TJ verse gives consistent advice, and in so doing indicates that Mt 23:3 indeed contains a redaction. We may speculate that the compiler of Matthew, having a background as a scribe and Pharisee, was naturally incensed at this TJ passage, especially its second verse. He still wished the "law" which the Pharisees preached to be followed closely, for the most part, and so desired that what they preached be followed. But the ensuing "Woes" he would incorporate into his gospel, with which he must generally have concurred, were in opposition to the Pharisees' practices. So he retained the TJ's opposition to their practices while contradicting the TJ's advice regarding their teachings. This led to the "Do as I say but not as I do" adage. The second TJ verse is consistent with other portions of the TJ. An example is TJ 13:19-20, with its parallels at Mt 12:11-12, which speak against the teaching of not doing any work of any sort on the sabbath, including pulling a sheep out of a pit. The Matthean verse would not have been spoken by a wisdom teacher, but the TJ verses are consistent with just that, for a teacher who placed highest value upon the truth. A literary hoaxer would not likely consider this problem, since the "Do as I say but not as I do" adage is so well known; such a hoaxer would be less likely still to include a reason consistent with Jmmanuel's teachings for not heeding the Pharisees' words. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 23:7-10 7"and [the scribes and Pharisees love] salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men. 8But you [the crowds and the disciples] are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. 9And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. 10Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ." TJ 24:8-10 8"And they [the scribes and Pharisees] like to be greeted in the marketplace and to be called master by the people. 9But don't let anyone call you [the people and the disciples] master until you have become cognizant of the wisdom of knowledge. 10And don't let anyone call you teacher until you follow the laws of Creation yourselves," TJ 24:8-10 8«Und sie haben es gerne, dass sie gegrüsst werden auf dem Markt und dass sie von den Menschen Meister genannt werden. 9Aber ihr sollt euch nicht Meister nennen lassen, ehe ihr nicht die Weisheit des Wissens erkennet habt. 10Und ihr sollt euch nicht Lehrer nennen lassen, ehe ihr nicht die Gesetze der Schöpfung befolgt.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 450) pointed out that at the time of Jesus, "rabbi" was scarcely yet a title and would not have been applied to Pharisees in general. (The word itself, meaning "teacher," was known earlier, however.) There was no chance that the disciples would be addressed by this title. Hence Mt 23:7-8 must have been written many years later than when the words were supposedly spoken. By this later time the title of rabbi was applied to great teachers. Also with respect to Mt 23:8, Davies & Allison discuss how the use of "rabbi" indicates "it is a Christian reaction to a late first-century development in Judaism."[1] Furthermore, there is no logic underlying the instruction in this verse, for whether or not one or more of the disciples was worthy of being called "rabbi" or "great one" has no bearing on whether they had been taught by one teacher, two teachers or no teacher, or whether the disciples remained a brotherly group. If anything, their having been taught by just one teacher, Jesus himself, should have been the highest qualification to be called "rabbi" among Jewish followers of Jesus. The illogic thus strongly suggests that a wisdom teacher would not have spoken these words, while a text editor could well have written them in the process of rather carelessly substituting for unacceptable text within his source. Regarding Mt 23:9, a similar problem of illogic exists, if a disciple is not to be allowed to speak of his biological father as "father." Even if, however, the meaning of "father" here is supposed to refer to a title for a synagogue leader, this would scarcely apply to the disciples; would they need to be instructed not to go into a synagogue and call its leader "father?" If the word is supposed to refer to a title for an early Christian church leader, this even more quickly discloses it is a redaction.[2] The verse moreover breaks the train of thought of the verses on each side, as to what the disciples are not to let others call them, by abruptly speaking on what the disciples are not to call someone else. Concerning Mt 23:10, if a disciple had been called "master," this would not have infringed upon the exaltation of Jesus himself, who could be called by his own name or by a title such as "great teacher," "seed of David," or "great prophet," etc. And would the humble Jesus have cared if his disciples might someday be addressed by a title that should have been reserved for him? The writer of Matthew, however, seems to have had this concern in mind. Regarding the title "the Christ" as used here, J. P. Brown is one scholar who has deduced that it was a later title inserted into the mouth of Jesus by the writer of Matthew.[3] When the writer of Matthew, as narrator, speaks of "the Christ," he can be excused. But when he puts that later title on the lips of Jesus or someone else, before the crucifixion and its aftermath, the anachronism becomes evident. SOLUTION. The parallel TJ verses, which do not suffer from these criticisms, seem self-explanatory as to why the compiler of Matthew had to edit out what he did, thus giving rise to problems when he substituted for parts of TJ text. During this editing, he took the sentence of TJ 24:10, regarding being called "teacher," somewhat out of order, due apparently to his mention of "rabbi" in the verse just before. The TJ does not mention the word "rabbi," which the underlying Greek of Matthew does. The TJ's "wisdom of knowledge" phrase must refer to the fact that knowledge itself is not enough; one must understand how this knowledge fits into a broad context of related experiential knowledge in order to be able to apply it in any given situation to produce optimal consequences. Then it becomes wisdom. That the parallel TJ passage could avoid all of the four or five above Matthean criticisms speaks strongly in its favor as being genuine and Matthew being dependent upon the TJ. If we consider four of these criticisms to be independent and each disfavoring the hoax hypothesis by a probability of 0.4, say (or 0.393), their accumulation produces PHoax ¯ 0.15. Mt 23:11-12 11"He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; 12whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." TJ 24:11-12 11"because those who allow themselves to be called master and teacher but do not possess the wisdom of knowledge will be denounced as liars. 12For those who unjustly exalt themselves will be abased, and those who unjustly abase themselves will be disdained." TJ 24:11-12 11«Denn wer sich Meister und Lehrer nennen lässt und besitzet die Weisheit des Wissens nicht, der wird der Lüge angeklagt werden. 12Denn wer sich selbst zu unrecht erhöht, der wird erniedrigt; und wer sich selbst zu unrecht erniedrigt, der wird missachtet.» THE PROBLEM. The first of these two Matthean verses is but a repeat of Mt 20:26b, which was found to be a redaction. The second verse, on how to view oneself, is an example of the first-is-last type of illogicality already discussed under Mt 19:30. That is, if the exalted become humbled, then after being humbled the verse indicates they will become exalted again, and so on. A verse in Job 22 could well have suggested it to the redactor: 29For God abases the proud, but he saves the lowly. SOLUTION. The first of the two TJ verses, which is not a cognate, needed to be replaced because of its stress upon the wisdom of knowledge. So the writer of Matthew replaced it with a saying he had used previously. The second is a fresh statement well worth contemplation, after which the reader may agree it generally accords with experience. However, it needed redaction because it did not accord with the writer of Matthew's philosophy of promoting humbleness; in so doing, the verse of Job 22:29, which contained some of the same elements as the TJ verse (in its sentence structure and "abasement"), likely came to his mind. Since the TJ verses read like wisdom teachings while the Matthean ones do not, and since it is a good deal more difficult to construct wisdom teachings out of foolishness than to do the reverse, one must here assign PHoax ¯ 0.2, if not less. Mt 23:13 13"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in." TJ 24:15-16 15"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you deceivers, hypocrites and swindlers who block the development of people's spirits and consciousness with your lies and false teachings. 16You will not achieve advancement easily, and through your erroneous teachings you deprive those who wish to advance from doing so." TJ 24:15-16 15«Wehe euch, Schriftgelehrte und Pharisäer, ihr Betrüger, Heuchler und Schwindler, die ihr den Menschen den geistigen und bewusstseinsmässigen Fortschritt verschliesset mit euren Lügen und Falschlehren. 16Ihr werdet den Fortschritt so leicht nicht erringen, und die ihn erringen wollen, haltet ihr durch eure irren Lehren davon ab.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 452-453), like most other Christian scholars, did not appreciate this and the other "Woes," considering them to be vituperation best blamed on the compiler of Matthew. But here he objected to this one's difficulty of interpretation. No clues are given as to the means by which scribes and Pharisees "shut" the kingdom of heaven from others; this would have bewildered Jesus' listeners. This may be contrasted with other Woes in which the meaning is apparent, such as Mt 23:23, where "mint and dill and cummin," and "justice and mercy and faith" are spelled out. SOLUTION. The TJ verse, however, makes instant sense if the scribes and Pharisees were guilty of false teachings as charged by Jmmanuel. Teachings of resurrection, for example, can block out interest in the evolution of one's spirit. It may certainly be questioned, from the TJ viewpoint of much first-round editing by the compiler of Matthew who was of Jewish background, why he left any of the Woe passages in. Doubtless he had been a Pharisee himself some decades earlier, but after converting to Messianic Judaism (i.e., early Christianity) no longer felt much sympathy towards the Pharisees, and so left most of the verses in, while softening their harshest aspects. At the time of the compilation of Matthew the church is usually believed to have still been undergoing the split away from Judaism. The compiler seems to have been trying to delete or replace the minimum amount of TJ text necessary to remove heresy and offensive statements, as discussed earlier (see under the Mt 10:23 segment), and so allowed unpleasantries to remain in if they did not seriously oppose Jewish teachings that he felt Christianity could retain. However, two of the 10 TJ Woes do not appear in Matthew, and a third appears in a considerably different form as Mt 23:14, a verse usually displayed only as a footnote.[4] Of the two omitted TJ Woe passages, one deals with scribes and Pharisees being blind leaders of a hoard of blind. The other, which immediately follows the Woe about hypocrites building tombs for the prophets, concerns the folly of their calling upon the dead for advice. It is practically out of the question that a literary hoaxer could have foreseen Francis Beare's (1981) objection here and then construct the TJ's explanation as to how the scribes and Pharisees "shut the kingdom... against men." PHoax ¯ 0.1. Mt 23:14 14"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you devour widows' houses and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive the greater condemnation." TJ 24:17 17"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you deceivers, hypocrites and swindlers, who devour the homes of widows and engage in long prayers for the sake of appearance; therefore, you shall live in piercing darkness all the longer." TJ 24:17 17«Wehe euch, Schriftgelehrte und Pharisüer, ihr Betrüger, Heuchler und Schwindler, die ihr der Witwen Häuser fresset und verrichtet zum Schein lange Gebete, ihr werdet dafür desto länger in gellender Finsternis leben.» THE PROBLEM. This verse is usually relegated to a footnote and not considered part of Matthew proper, because it is absent from the manuscripts that text critics value most highly. However, because of its condemnatory nature, it was quite conceivably omitted early in the manuscript transmission process by a theologically committed scribe, and need not represent a Matthean acquisition from Mark. It seems that most Christian adherents have had problems with the Woe passages and wish that they had not been written. The logical problem with this one is that "the greater condemnation" lacks meaning, since the question immediately arises "greater than what?" or perhaps "the greatest among which?" If the writer of Matthew had adapted this from Mk 12:40, which has the same phrasing and raises the same question, he should be expected to have improved upon Mark's ambiguousness. SOLUTION. This TJ verse is what the writer of Matthew utilized. He altered its last part, in which "deep darkness" represents ignorance and lack of enlightenment, because of its karmic aspect; i.e., the scribes and Pharisees would live in deep darkness in one or more future lives also, due to their not having learned how to behave better in their present lives. In trying to retain an equivalent to "all the longer," the writer substituted "greater," which caused the problem. The writer of Mark then copied/translated Matthew here relatively literally, and the verse stayed in his gospel, as he incorporated only a relatively few of Matthew's Woes to the scribes and Pharisees. The verse is deduced to have been removed from key early Matthean texts, as noted above, because "devouring widows' houses" is a devastatingly severe criticism-perhaps the harshest of the Woes, of which Matthew already contained far too many as far as a Christian was concerned. The TJ contains 10 "Woe" verses as opposed to Matthew's seven (or eight if this one is included). At least one NT scholar has contended that the seven Matthean "Woe" verses correspond to the nine "Blessed are" verses in the Sermon on the Mount, of which only seven are considered to to be present within "Q" and original. A one-to-one correspondence between the two pairs of seven is then posited. However, with the TJ's 10 "Woe" verses and 9 "Blessed are" verses, we find that there was no connection between them or between subsets of them. Since the Matthean verse need not have originated in Mark, since the TJ verse does not suffer from the Matthean problem, since the manner in which it avoids this problem would involve undue creativity on the part of a literary hoaxer to construct, and since the reason is evident as to which parts of the TJ verse needed redaction to make it acceptable for early Christianity, we assign the relatively low value of PHoax ¯ 0.2 here. Mt 23:17-19 17"You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? 18And you say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.' 19You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?" TJ 24:20-22 20"You fools and blind people, you are the offspring of evil; why do you let people swear, knowing that an oath is not binding and is a worthless act? 21Or you say, 'If one swears by the altar it is not valid; but if a person swears by the sacrificial offering it is binding.' 22You blind and mistaken teachers, who gave you the right to demand or take an oath since the laws of Creation state that oaths should not be taken?" TJ 24:20-22 20«Ihr Narren und Blinden, die ihr seid eine Ausgeburt des Büsen; was lasset ihr schwören, wenn ihr doch wisset, dass ein Schwur keine Bindung hat und wertloses Tun ist! 21Oder ihr sagt: ‹Wenn einer schwört bei dem Altar, das gilt nicht; wenn aber einer schwört bei dem Opfer, das bindet›. 22Ihr blinden und irren Lehrer: Wessen ist euer Recht, einen Schwur zu fordern oder einen Schwur zu leisten, so die Gesetze der Schöpfung doch sagen, dass kein Schwur getan werden soll.» THE PROBLEMS. These verses immediately follow Woes that deplore the scribes and Pharisees who say that swearing by the temple or altar is of no worth, but who hold that swearing by the gold inside the temple, or gift on the altar, validates an oath. The present verses then counter this, and imply that swearing by the temple or by the altar is what validates the oath. This also contradicts the total ban against swearing of Mt 5:34. Beare noted (p. 454) that these matters about the temple and its gold adornments are today only of antiquarian interest, and found it surprising that they could have been of interest to the contemporaries of the writer of Matthew. Also one may note that, by calling certain scribes and Pharisees "fools" here, Jesus is sentencing himself to the hell of fire, if Mt 5:22b is believed. SOLUTION. Thus, according to Matthew Jesus speaks contradictorily, while the TJ does not experience this problem. The first and third of these TJ verses are identified as cognates to the respective Matthean verses only by their location and denunciation. Interestingly, the compiler of Matthew apparently agreed with the TJ's quote that the altar is more sacred than the gift upon it. And so he copied TJ 24:21 intact into Mt 23:18. Jmmanuel's use of "fools" in describing the scribes and Pharisees of his day would likely have incensed the compiler, who himself was apparently once a scribe, and may have been what caused him to insert Mt 5:22b concerning the seriousness of calling anyone a fool-being then "liable to the hell of fire." Certainly Matthew's Jesus was not supposed to be liable to the hell of fire. This constitutes more "editorial fatigue;" the writer inserted Mt 5:22b, but then apparently failed to notice this problem when copying the TJ's "You fools and blind people!" without significantly altering it. In the TJ verse one may puzzle over how to substantiate the Creational law that oaths should not be taken. Elsewhere in the TJ (36:3-4) Jmmanuel mentions how change (evolution) is always occurring within the cosmos. From this he may have deduced that an oath, which commits one to a certain future action even though conditions may by then have changed, such as to render that action misguided, is inconsistent with Creation's will. Or he may have been taught this by his ET mentors during his forty-day stay with them. Besides not being party to the inconsistencies of the Matthean verse, the TJ verse shows angry emotions even more intense than in Matthew. It is likely that these would be toned down by the writer of Matthew, but somewhat less likely that a hoaxer who wished his product to be accepted would generate them. Mt 23:20-22 20"So he who swears by the altar, swears by it and everything on it; 21and he who swears by the temple, swears by it and by him who dwells in it; 22and he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it." TJ 24:24-25 24"Therefore, those who swear by anything on Earth or in the universe swear by something fleeting, which is without permanence. 25Hence, an oath is also without permanence." TJ 24:24-25 24«Darum: Wer da schwört bei irgend etwas auf der Erde oder dem Universum, der schwört bei etwas Vergänglichem, das keinen Bestand hat. 25Also hat auch ein Schwur keinen Bestand.» THE PROBLEM. Here, Beare (p. 454) did make note of the contradiction in Matthew of implying at this point that it is appropriate to swear, while stating the opposite in Mt 5:34. SOLUTION. Again the TJ is consistent on the futility of swearing on anything. It is understandable that an editor of a lengthy text who makes huge numbers of alterations in his source text may occasionally make an alteration at one point that contradicts an earlier sentence he failed to alter sufficiently. Lumping these two verses and the previous three together, we estimate PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 23:23 23"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others." TJ 24:28 28"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites who tithe mint, meramie, dill and caraway seeds but neglect the most important things in the law, namely, justice, freedom of knowledge, and the truth of Creation. Thus you ignore the law of love and the laws of logic and justice." TJ 24:28 28«Wehe euch, Schriftgelehrte und Pharisäer, ihr Heuchler, die ihr verzehntet Minze, Meramie, Dill und Kümmel und lasset dahinten das Wichtigste im Gesetz, nämlich das Recht, die Freiheit des Wissens und die Wahrheit der Schöpfung; und das Gesetz der Liebe und das Gesetz der Logik und der Gerechtigkeit lasset ihr unbeachtet also.» THE PROBLEM. According to Marcus Borg, most scholars refuse to credit these words of Matthew to Jesus.[5] The last clause, at least, appears to have been tacked on, as "done" awkwardly has to mean "not neglected." SOLUTION. One sees that the writer of Matthew modified the TJ's first sentence slightly so as to omit mention of Creation, while modifying its second sentence more, so as to avoid mention of laws that were not known to be laws per se from the Torah, and avoid mention of logic. In so doing, the final clause of Mt 23:23 turned out awkward. Whether "these" refers to the weightier matters or to the tithes, we see that the writer of Matthew wished to emphasize that tithing not be neglected. In the TJ verse, the word "meramie" perplexed me for many years, as I could find no reference to it within the botanical and herbal literature. Finally, a Brazilian researcher, Jose Barreto Silva, became interested in the problem and queried personnel of the Israel Plant Information Center, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. A staff member's reply was that Meramie is the German transliteration for "Maramiyya," the Arabic word for the shrub whose species name in Latin is "salvia fruticosa," known in English as the "three-lobed sage" and as "Greek sage." It is a common type of sage shrub in the eastern Mediterranean area, with a sunny habitat of dry, rocky hillsides. It has long been used as a medicine or medicinal tea. Its leaves, or the oil therefrom, is used internally for the treatment of digestive and respiratory complaints, menstrual and infertility problems, high blood pressure, depression and nervousness. The connection between "meramie" and "salvia fruticosa" is also pinned down on the web. The "mara" root of the word means "bitter" in Hebrew, and the name of the plant in Hebrew is "Marva." "Maramiyya" is a bitter astringent, strongly suggesting that the meaning 'bitter" lies at the root of the word. At some point in the early Christian era a tradition grew that the "Maram" part of the word referred to the "Virgin" Mary, or Miriam. It seems likely that when Isa Rashid translated the word he gave it the name it is still known by in the Palestinian region: "Maramiyya," or "Meramie" in German. I would speculate that the writer of Matthew omitted mention of this plant because it was known to be of important medicinal value. Thus it would likely have grated against his Scriptural, leave-it-to-God theology concerning one's health: Let God take care of you; don't take matters into your own hands or rely on therapeutic herbs. This would be consistent with alterations he made regarding TJ 6:26 (omitting its fasting for the sake of health) and TJ 6:36-39 (see under Mt 6:24b-25). Regarding the phrase "freedom of knowledge," it may seem unusual or modern. I am not aware that it occurs in the Torah or "the law." However, it seems consistent with the teachings or proverbs of Solomon, which emphasize the value of possessing knowledge. In particular, Prv 11:9 ("...by knowledge the righteous are delivered") tends to connect knowledge with righteousness, and if one is free to seek righteousness, one should be free to seek knowledge. It is not a phrase that leaders of the early church would condone, since it implies the freedom to seek knowledge for oneself rather than only accepting statements from the Scriptures, the church and its clergy, and scribes as being valid as knowledge. The TJ verse is the one with most meaning and thus most likely to have been spoken by a teacher of wisdom. It seems more plausible that the writer of Matthew omitted the meramie seeds, because use of therapeutic herbs went against his theology, than that a New Age hoaxer knew of this medicinal sage and thought of inserting it here. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 23:26 26"You blind Pharisee! first cleanse the inside of the cup and of the plate, that the outside also may be clean." TJ 24:33 33"You blind ones, you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites and distorters of the truth, first clean what is inside the cup so that the outside may become pure and light up with its brilliance." TJ 24:33 33«Ihr Blinden, ihr Schriftgelehrten und Pharisäer, ihr Heuchler und Verdreher der Wahrheit, reinigt zuerst, was inwendig im Becher ist, auf dass auch das Auswendige rein werde und in seinem Glanze erstrahle.» THE PROBLEM. Beare noted (p. 456) that cleaning the inside of a cup doesn't necessarily make the outside clean. The connection there to scribes and Pharisees looking good on the outside but being full of extortion and rapacity on the inside (Mt 23:25,27) thus breaks down, since elimination of these inner vices would not of itself cause their appearance and clothing to look nice. In addition, awkwardness exists in that this Woe is strangely addressed to a Pharisee (singular), rather than to Pharisees (plural) as are the other Woes. Additional awkwardness would occur with inclusion of the plate in the simile, since it may be too flat to speak of its inside versus outside. However, the preferred Greek text (Nestle-Aland, 27th ed.) omits the plate, although it is included within the two most trusted old manuscripts and hence occurs in the above verse from the RSV bible. SOLUTION. The TJ verse contains a final clause that had been omitted by the writer of Matthew. With it included, one may see that the analogy to humans was already in mind here, with the "lighting up" being reminiscent of "Let your light so shine before men..." of Mt 5:16 (=TJ 5:16). It is also reminiscent of: "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" of Mt 7:7 (=TJ 7:6). Then it is clearer that Jmmanuel had in mind here that a person cannot truly shine outwardly before others if inwardly he is full of extortion and rapacity, or rapacity and greed. Presumably this outward "shining," though perhaps to be seen within a person's eyes (the lamp of the body), is evidenced mostly through his attitude and actions. It would appear that the writer of Matthew took offense here to the TJ's "distorters of the truth," especially as applied to scribes, and so omitted both it and the mention of scribes. As to why the writer omitted the TJ's reference to lighting up in brilliance, it is conjectured to be because the verse implies that ordinary people have the capability of "shining" in this manner, whereas he would reserve this for Jesus, as in the transfiguration (Mt 17:2) where his face supposedly shone like the sun. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 23:31 31"Thus you witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets." TJ 24:41 41"Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who killed the prophets and falsified their teachings." TJ 24:41 41«So gebet ihr euch selbst Zeugnis, dass ihr Kinder seid derer, die die Propheten getötet haben und die ihre Lehre verfälschten.» THE PROBLEM. As Beare pointed out (pp. 457-458), it doesn't follow that the admitted descendants of murderers would themselves necessarily behave or think in similar manner. SOLUTION. According to the TJ, these descendants who are scribes and Pharisees are guilty of false teachings. In this one chapter alone, Jmmanuel charges them with this offense five times prior to this point, with all of these particular accusations having been edited out by the writer of Matthew. Consistent with this conviction, then, Jmmanuel identifies the current scribes and Pharisees with those who opposed the earlier prophets and falsified their teachings. By omitting "and falsified their teachings," the writer of Matthew cut out the key part of the argument that gives it a reasonable meaning. That is, though the scribes and Pharisees being addressed may not have been murderers, they were considered to be guilty of falsifying the true teachings of the prophets, as had their forefathers. This meaning is broadened if one accepts the TJ's implications that Jmmanuel could remember his past lives of having been a prophet; this could include Jeremiah and Isaiah, for example. Then he would have retained his own past knowledge of original prophetic teachings having been falsified and some of the prophets having been killed. Alternatively, he may have acquired some or all of this information during the forty days of instruction given him by his contacting ETs (see earlier discussion under Mt 4:1-11). This argument is strengthened by the likelihood that the scribes and Pharisees in Jerusalem who wished to have the prophet of that day, Jmmanuel, be arrested and put to death (e.g., Mt 21:45-46) were among those he had in mind during his vituperative discourse of TJ 24 and Mt 23. This vituperation was retained for the most part by the writer of Matthew evidently because the Pharisees of his day had not accepted Jesus as messiah and savior, as he had. But he was careful to edit out the TJ's accusations of false teachings, present and past, since he still believed strongly in the validity of the "law" as set forth in the Hebrew Scriptures, with perhaps a few minor modifications. Mt 23:32 32"Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers [their murderous crimes]." TJ 24:42 42"Well then, fill up the measure of your forefathers and fathers; thus you will end your lives without understanding and will have difficulty learning until the distant future." TJ 24:42 42«Wohlan, erfüllet auch ihr das Mass eurer Vorväter und Väter, so ihr mit Unverstand sollt beenden euer Leben, und Mühe haben zu lernen, bis inferne Zukunft.» THE PROBLEM. The Matthean verse is rather obscure, even after interpreting it in the light of the meanings of adjacent verses. For example, the Cambridge theologian, Douglas Hare, thought it means that final judgment won't fall upon Israel until its apostasy reaches full measure,[6] whereas Beare (p. 458) thought it means that judgment will be delayed until the amount of blood shed by martyrs is complete. SOLUTION. The compiler's editing of this TJ verse had to be extensive in removing unacceptable thoughts, and this led to ambiguity. The TJ does not suffer from such uncertainty, however. It has a quite different meaning and contains a prophecy. Its text states that the scribes and Pharisees being denounced, like their fathers and forefathers before them, have not learned enough of value in their present lives to be able to do much better in their next lives. Thus they are predicted to continue committing evil in their future lives like their forefathers are said to have committed in the past. This evil is stated to include killing the prophets and falsifying their teachings (TJ 24:41). Whether or not this is meant to imply that most of them had past lives among their own Jewish ancestors is uncertain. The studies of Ian Stevenson do suggest, however, that a human spirit tends to reincarnate within the same society of its most recent past life much more often than due to chance.[7] He would not have been able to determine and catalog nearly so many past-life identifications if many or most past lives had not tended to occur in the same culture as the present lives. Within the TJ context, this and the preceding verse are understandable, while within the Matthean context its verse and the preceding one are not. Hence the former are more likely to have stemmed from a wisdom teacher and to be historical. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 23:33 33"You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?" TJ 24:43 43"You brood of snakes and vipers, how can you aspire to be great in spirit and in consciousness when you don't possess any understanding yet?" TJ 24:43 43«Ihr Schlangen und Otterngezücht, wie wollt ihr denn gross sein im Geiste und im Bewusstsein, wenn ihr doch keinen Verstand besitzt?» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 457) commented that verse 23:33 is essentially the same saying as that of John the Baptist in Mt 3:7. He suggested therefore that it is a (redactive) supplement-a repetitive statement fed in by the compiler of Matthew. The Matthean reference to hell also raises strong skepticism, as a large percentage of, if not all, the other Matthean references to hell appear non-genuine for their own reasons. SOLUTION. The phrase "you brood of vipers" was apparently in the vocabulary of Jmmanuel as well as of John. Jmmanuel uses it in six spots not reproduced by the writer of Matthew. Except for the "brood of snakes" phrase, however, this TJ verse is totally different from Mt 3:7 or its TJ cognate, and so Beare's criticism does not apply to it. Obviously its subject matter on the desirability of being "great in spirit" required the compiler to substitute something else for it, and his earlier verse came to mind. "You brood of snakes and vipers" in the TJ verse is what most likely brought the compiler's earlier verse to his mind. The TJ verse gives every indication of being the source for Matthew's verse, being consistent with its own themes, giving a clear meaning, and not suffering from Matthew's redactions. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 23:34-36 34"Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36Truly, I say to you, all this will come upon this generation." TJ 24:44-53 44"All the righteous blood that was shed by your doing on Earth will befall you, beginning with the first prophet your fathers and forefathers murdered, to the blood of Zacharias, the son of Barachias, whom you killed between the temple and the altar, as well as all the blood that will be shed in the future because of your guilt... 53Truly, truly, I say to you, all this shall be fulfilled and come upon you and upon your people long into the future, as I have told you." TJ 24:44-53 44«All das gerechte Blut aber kommet auf euch, das vergossen ist durch euch auf Erden vom ersten Propheten an, den eure Väter und Urväter mordeten, bis auf das Blut des Zacharias, des Sohnes Barachjas, welchen ihr getötet habt zwischen Tempel und Altar, und also all das Blut der Zukunft, das in eurer Schuld vergossen wird 53 Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch: Dass solches sich alles erfüllet, und also wird alles über euch kommen und über euer Geschlecht und in lange Zukunft wie ich gesagt habe.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (pp. 162, 458-459) recognized Mt 23:34 to have been written for the church by the redactor. Jesus never sent prophets, wise men or scribes anywhere, according to any of the Gospels. And Beare found it strange that scribes and Pharisees should be castigated for the blood spilled by their ancestors. The last verse, containing "this generation," appears to be another failed prophecy, since much Jewish blood, as well as the blood of others, has been shed in subsequent generations. It does not make sense to most scholars unless it was the compiler of Matthew who wrote it and had in mind the capture of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 (Beare, p. 460). A further objection is that there is no evidence that Pharisees ever employed crucifixion. Hare believes the compiler of Matthew should have known this fact.[8] He certainly should have, one would think. It appears he had Jesus in mind, and so used "crucifixion" in the future tense. Still another is the mention here of Abel, who was killed by Cain. In Mt 23:29-31, which this verse continues to build upon, the concern is over who killed the prophets. However, there is no indication that Abel had been any prophet. SOLUTION. The absence of a TJ cognate to the lengthy first half of the first verse lends support to its authenticity relative to Matthew. In the TJ the reasoning is again clear why Jmmanuel was blaming the Pharisees for the past spilled blood of prophets. He was inferring these to be some of the same souls, through reincarnation, who had wrongfully shed the blood of prophets in generations past. Hence he was distraught that they had not learned better. Also, the TJ doesn't contain the inappropriate mention of Abel. From the TJ, we see that the last Matthean verse does not refer to any apocalypse or war, but to harsh learning experiences (or karma) that scribes and Pharisees would have to undergo in future lives. It was clear to Jmmanuel that having falsified El's teachings transmitted by prophets before him, these scribes and Pharisees still had much to learn. Considering this, we may speculate that "this generation" in the latter Matthean verse was a redaction designed to put the prophecy of future Jewish bloodshed into the past where it would no longer be of concern and where considerations of reincarnation would not enter in. On the other hand, it may be worth noting that the Greek γενεα, from which the translation "generation" came, can also mean a "race" or a "people." In that case, the possibility presents itself that Mt 23:36 was not so different from its corresponding TJ verse after all, except that the redactor omitted "long into the future." The TJ's verses 24:45-52 are among the additions to the 1978 version that were omitted by oversight, according to Eduard Meier, who received these verses after his ET contacts with Ptaah recommenced in 1989. They prophesy further karmic consequences for the Jews along with the possibility for peace-prophecies that appear to be in the process of being fulfilled. It will be easy to claim that these verses were then fed in by Meier with hindsight. The alternative is that Jmmanuel was unique in his ability to foretell aspects of the distant future.[9] Nevertheless, supporters of the hoax hypothesis may be able to argue that the TJ's long-range prophecies within this section counterbalance Matthew's evidences of non-genuineness. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 23:37 37"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. As Beare (p. 460) implies, it is a strange notion that Jerusalem was a preferred place for prophets to be killed. The Old Testament does not indicate this. Second, according to Matthew, Jesus had not been to Jerusalem on any previous occasion. The "How often" phrase here implies differently. SOLUTION. In its various verses, the TJ gives no hint that Jerusalem (or any other particular city) was a preferred place where prophets were killed. Instead, we see that Mt 23:37, and as noted below, its following two verses, are purely the invention of the writer of Matthew. The omitted TJ verses, mentioned in the foregoing segment, evidently prompted the writer of Matthew to substitute something in their place. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 23:38-39 38"Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate. 39For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Verse 38 is likely a redaction, due to its ambiguity. Scholars have been divided over whether "your house" refers to the temple, to Jerusalem, or to all the scattered tribes of Israel.[10] And scholars such as Barry Crawford note that verse 39 "is widely regarded as a product of the Christian community,"[11] partly because the "Blessed" phrase seems to be an unattributed citation from Psalms 118: Ps 118:26 Blessed be he who enters in the name of the LORD! Matthew also leaves it unclear whom Jesus is addressing. If it is Jerusalem or its people, the verse would not make sense unless it were placed two chapters earlier preceding his entry into Jerusalem. If it is his last stated audience-the crowds or his disciples-there is no indication that any of them ever intoned the "Blessed be he" phrase; yet his disciples and others certainly did see Jesus again after that point. Once more, such an ambiguity is the hallmark of a redaction. SOLUTION. Again, the conclusion we draw from the scholars is consistent with the TJ not possessing any parallel to the verses. PHoax ¯ 0.45. The accumulation of individual probabilities within the above comparisons yields an overall probability for hoax in this chapter of 1 x 10-6. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 24 REFERENCES 1. Davies, W. D., and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 3 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), p. 275. 2. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 3, pp. 276-277. 3. Brown, John Pairman, "Mark as witness to an edited form of Q," JBL 80 (1961), pp. 29-44; see p. 41. 4. It is only consistent that the TJ would contain the parallel to Mt 23:14, since it is contained in Mark and Luke, and the TJ implies that the Gospel of Matthew appeared before Mark and Luke did. 5. Borg, Marcus, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1984), p. 101. 6. Hare, Douglas R. A., The Theme of Jewish Persecution of Christians according to the Gospel of St Matthew (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 88. 7. Stevenson, Ian, Cases of the Reincarnation Type, 4 volumes (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1975-1983). 8. Hare, Theme of Jewish Persecution, pp. 80-89. 9. A possible psychic mechanism for this is that Jmmanuel could recall not only his past lives but could "recall" his future lives up to a point as well, based upon the concept of time in the spiritual world being quite different from our linear concept. If so, and if one of his future lives is being lived in our present era, his knowledge would have included ours and allowed accurate prophecies, provided, ironically, that his prophecies were not heeded in such a way as would negate them. 10. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 3, p. 322. 11. Crawford, Barry S., "Near expectation in the sayings of Jesus," JBL 101 (1982), pp. 225-244; see p. 234. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 24 Mt 24:3-4 3As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?" 4And Jesus answered them, "Take heed that no one leads you astray." TJ 25:6-7 6And when he sat on the Mount of Olives his disciples came up to him and said, "Tell us, when will this take place, and what will be the sign?" 7And Jmmanuel answered, saying, "Two thousand and more years will pass, but meanwhile Israel will never find peace because wars and many calamities will threaten the unlawful occupants of this land; but see to it that nobody leads you astray. 8That is,..." TJ 25:6-7 6Und als er auf dem Oelberge sass, traten zu ihm seine Jünger und sprachen: «Sage uns, wann wird das geschehen, und welches wird das Zeichen sein dafür?» 7Jmmanuel aber antwortete und sprach: «Zwei Jahrtausende werden vergehen und einige Zeit dazu, doch auch dazwischen wird Israel niemals Ruhe finden, so also weil Kriege und viele Übel drohen für die unrechtmässigen Besetzer dieses Landes, doch sehet zu, dass euch nicht jemand verführe.» THE PROBLEMS. At this point, Jesus had just told the disciples that not one of the temple's stones would be left intact, but the disciples had not yet heard that Jesus would come again (the Parousia). Beare (p. 464) notes that they could not have anticipated this Second Coming since they could not even comprehend that Jesus was supposed to become resurrected. Yet here they are portrayed as asking for the sign that would signal his Parousia. Only later in the chapter does Jesus tell his disciples about his future return. And it is peculiar that when the disciples ask Jesus when this destruction would occur, his reply skips over the question entirely. This suggests the possibility that it was the writer of Matthew who omitted a portion of the response given in his source document. SOLUTION. The TJ indicates that the writer of Matthew had indeed gotten ahead of himself here and betrayed the later time of his writing, in which "Parousia" was a common theme of the apostolic church. In the TJ, the disciples simply ask Jmmanuel what the sign will be for the occurrence of what he had just told them-of the destruction of the temple and trauma for Israelites, this trauma to involve similar actions against them as they had inflicted upon the rightful owners of the land. In the Gospel of Mark (Mk 13:4) we find that this error in Matthew was corrected, with "these things" having been substituted for "Parousia." And the TJ indicates that Jmmanuel did reply to the "when" question-the destruction is to occur some time within our own present-day era. However, the immensity of time involved was apparently much too great for the writer of Matthew to either contemplate or wish to transcribe. This writer wished for the Second Coming to occur very soon, as in Mt 10:23 and 16:28. This second Matthean problem constitutes "editorial fatigue": The writer substituted "[sign] of your coming and of the close of the age" for the bulk of TJ 25:7. But then, he resumed by following the TJ where it mentions to avoid being led astray. Thus, he failed to edit back in something that would directly answer the question of when the Parousia would be. His substitition had eliminated it. One may wonder to whom the TJ's "but see to it that nobody leads you astray" was spoken or intended. It seems not to have been meant solely for the disciples to hear, but for future readers of the TJ as well, since the next 39 verses pertain mostly to this future time. Presumably it was some years after the crucifixion that Jmmanuel began to dictate his recollections of what he had told the disciples to his disciple-writer, Judas. At that time he may have primarily addressed it to those who would be living some 2,000 years into his future who he could prophesy would have access to his true teachings, and for whom the "don't be led astray" admonition would be just as germane. Many of today's biblical scholars believe that the prophecy of the Temple's destruction refers to the destruction of the Temple during the Roman-Jewish war that ended in A.D. 70. And since they do not believe that prophecies in general can be successful, they assume that it means this was not a successful prophecy but an a posteriori statement of fact; hence they assume the Gospels were written after A.D. 70. Now, the first half or so of the TJ is presumed to have been written before A.D. 70, with only the first quarter of the entire, later TJ surviving as a translation. So, it might be assumed that its prophecy was also an a posteriori prophecy except that it mentions an era some two thousand years into the future. In this regard, we must take notice of the fact that what is believed to be the Western Wall of the Temple, the Wailing Wall, is still standing, suggesting that the prophecy "Not one stone here will remain upon the other without being broken," has not literally been fulfilled. Hence we cannot yet say that the prophecy, as posed in the TJ, has not been fulfilled if its fulfillment may yet be in the years to come. Concerning Jmmanuel's ability to make viable long-range prophecies, we have some glimmer of what is involved, thanks to studies of some hypno-therapists who not only have regressed patients or subjects of theirs into past lives, but into future lives as well.[1] In the trance state, they can prophesy about what they see around them in one or more of their own future lives, though with questionable accuracy. With a highly evolved spirit, namely Jmmanuel, the accuracy may be quite high, however. Concerning the hoax hypothesis, it is quite unlikely that a literary hoaxer would be able to foresee Beare's little known objection here. Not even the critical commentary of Davies and Allison mentions it.[2] Thus the evidence of redaction within the Matthean verse is too strong to neglect, along with the indications that the TJ was the redactor's source. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 24:5 5"For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray." TJ 25:8 8"That is, many deceivers and false prophets will come in my name and say, 'I am Jmmanuel, and I am the sign of the time,' and they will mislead many." TJ 25:8 8«Es werden nämlich viele Betrüger und falsche Propheten kommen in meinem Namen und sagen: ‹Ich bin Jmmanuel, und ich bin das Zeichen der Zeit›, so sie werden viele verführen.» THE PROBLEM. The Matthean prophecy makes sense only if the imposters would claim to be reincarnations of Jesus, as implied by Beare (p. 464). This then would have been understandable to the disciples if Jesus had taught them about reincarnation. He does not do that in any of the Gospels, so that the Christian reader would instead think in terms of resurrection. However in order for an imposter to claim to be Jesus in resurrected form, he not only would need to display physical markings that would identify him as Jesus (crucifixion scars in hindsight), but also prove that he, the imposter, had appeared suddenly on earth as an adult of about the same age as Jesus during his Palestinian ministry, without having had a modern-day childhood. If a friend or relative were to be located who knew the claimant had grown up from childhood, this would immediately disprove his resurrection claim. He would not then be able to lead any rational person astray. SOLUTION. In reality Jmmanuel had taught his disciples about reincarnation, or rebirth. Thus his statement in TJ 25:8 would have made perfectly good sense to the disciples, who would think in terms of reincarnation. Anyone in their distant future, male or female, could say they were the reincarnation of Jmmanuel, whom they would call "Jesus," and it would be impossible to disprove the claim (or to prove it, either). The fact that the name "Jmmanuel" appears in TJ 25:8 rather than "Jesus" (or "Joshua") is understandable, since Jmmanuel was speaking to his disciples who knew him only as Jmmanuel, even though he could prophesy that he would in the future be known as "Jesus." The above objection to Matthew seems unknown within NT scholasticism, and even Beare did not go into it despite having suggested it by using the "reincarnation" word. Thus a hoaxer is unlikely to have thought of it to rectify the verse. However, it might be argued that it was rectified only accidentally, due to the TJ already possessing a theme of evolution of the spirit, and reincarnation. Yet the fact that the Matthean verse does not make good sense within its Christian context cannot be ignored. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Concerning the "false prophets" in the TJ verse, most of us could name figures such as the Rev. Jim Jones of the Jonestown massacre of 1978, David Koresh of the Branch Davidians who claimed to be the messianic Lamb of Rv 5, and Rev. Moon of the Unification Church who claimed to be the Lord of the 2nd Advent. There are of course lesser known ones, such as Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, who claims to be Jesus Christ returned. Mt 24:9 9"Then they will deliver you [the disciples] up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake." TJ 25:12-13 12"Soon the knowledgeable people will be consigned to misery and will be killed. 13They will be hated on account of the truth of the teachings and the wisdom." TJ 25:12-13 12«Alsbald werden überantwortet die wissenden Menschen in Trübsal und werden getötet. 13Sie werden gehasst werden um der Wahrheit der Lehre und der Weisheit willen.» THE PROBLEMS. Once again "in my name's sake" appears in an anachronistic sense.[3] The phrase "in his name" or "for his name's sake," as previously noted under Mt 7:21-22, came into use only after Paul initiated it (e.g., Rom 10:13) and the early churches were developing. Here the same phrase is used with the first- person voice replacing the third person. Before this delivering up of the disciples occurs, there is supposed to be wars and rumors of wars, nations rising up against nations, famines and earthquakes (Mt 24:6-8). There would not be nearly enough time for all this to take place while the disciples were still alive. SOLUTION. The TJ verses indicate that Jmmanuel was referring to people in the distant future and not to the disciples. Hence there would be ample time in which the prophesied calamities could take place. In altering this into statements applicable to his own time, however, the evangelizer slipped up using language ("for my name's sake") that did not yet hold meaning for the disciples. We also see that the writer of Matthew inserted another anti-gentile dig here, as "nations" or "ethnos" refers to gentiles-nations other than the people of Israel. The "Soon" in TJ 25:12 still refers to the distant future time of Jmmanuel's prophecy. Hatred for the knowledgeable persons will lead to their misery and death.Here "knowledgeable persons" must mean those with definitive knowledge of some part of what Jmmanuel himself knew through his experiences with the "celestial sons," his prophecies of the future, including that of his crucifixion and its survival, and awareness of the reality of the human spirit and reincarnation. Estimation of PHoax here will be reserved until discussion of Mt 24:13. Mt 24:11 11"And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This verse is but an echo of Mt 24:5 (see above), which says that false Christs, which includes false prophets, "will lead many astray." It adds nothing new. Thus it is highly suspect of being a redaction. SOLUTION. The TJ's lack of cognate does point to this verse being a redaction. However, a hoaxer might not have noticed the indications of its non-genuineness and have replicated it in one form or another. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 24:13 13"But he who endures to the end will be saved." 18 TJ 25:18 "but those who persist in the truth will survive." TJ 25:18 18«Wer aber beharret in Wahrheit, der wird überstehen.» THE PROBLEMS. This Matthean verse says nothing of substance. One interpretation is that those who do not die until the end has come will have survived to the end-an insipid statement. If it should instead mean that only those who endure to the end will go to heaven or be resurrected, then that would contradict other verses, such as Mt 7:21, 18:4 and 19:21, which speak of how to attain heaven irrespective of enduring "to the end." If, furthermore, Mt 24:40-41 is interpreted to mean that some people will be "taken" up in a "Rapture" and thus avoid the end, then Mt 24:13 contradicts that also. That is, those taken up in a Rapture would not have endured on earth to see the very end come; alternatively, those not taken up by such a Rapture would have endured just as long but not have been saved. The verse is also suspect because it is a repeat of the last part of Mt 10:22. These problems are indicative of editing. SOLUTION. By editing out the TJ's mention of persisting in the truth, which just left "persisting" or "enduring" in his verse, the writer of Matthew made pointless what had been a meaningful statement. The writer of Matthew once again did not wish to encourage Christian followers to seek truth for themselves. The TJ verse could be a valid prophecy, since it holds a definite meaning: those who persist in the truth of Jmmanuel's teachings will survive. However, does TJ 25:12 contradict this? Presumably the knowledgeable persons will be those who persist in the truth, but TJ 25:12 says they will be killed. I believe this means that those knowledgeable ones who aren't killed, and who persist in the truth, will survive. In other words, in making his points, Jmmanuel often generalized without mentioning the exceptions. For example, some cases where this occurred previously, where Matthew shows very similar parallels, are as follows: TJ 8:25//Mt 8:20. Jmmanuel said he had no place to lay his head. But on occasion he must have had a house available to sleep in, as when he visited Peter's house and cured his mother-in-law. TJ 10:40//Mt 10:26. He said there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. But there probably are so many things that have been kept secret, some rather unimportant, that people of the future will not uncover them all. TJ 10:45//Mt 10:35. Here Jmmanuel said he would provoke son against father, daughter against mother, etc. Evidently he meant that this would happen, but certainly not in every single household. TJ 18:5//Mt 16:4. He spoke of "a wicked and unfaithful generation" (or "evil and adulterous generation") seeking a sign. Clearly, he did not mean that every man, woman and child of Israel was evil and adulterous. TJ 22:30//Mt 21:32. Here he said that the tax collectors and harlots believed in John the Baptist. However, it is very likely that some of them did not. Jmmanuel was speaking like we all do at times, omitting the qualifications that would make his statement absolutely true for the sake of getting his points across. TJ 24:41//Mt 23:31. In speaking to the scribes and Pharisees, Jmmanuel called them the children of those who killed the prophets (and falsified their teachings according to the TJ). Surely he was not accusing all scribes and Pharisees of this. With this common-sense interpretation, the TJ verse, along with TJ 25:12-13, still qualify as prophesies that a wisdom teacher might make, with the Matthean verses exhibiting too many problems that could result from editing. PHoax ¯ 0.3 for this verse along with TJ 25:12-13. Mt 24:14 14"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." TJ 25:19 19"These teachings will be preached in the new age throughout the world as a testimony for all peoples, and then the end will come." TJ 25:19 19«Und es wird gepredigt werden diese Lehre in der Neuzeit auf der ganzen Welt zum Zeugnis für alle Völker, und dann wird das Ende kommen.» THE PROBLEMS. First, "this gospel" can only refer to the Gospel of Matthew; it certainly cannot refer to any oral gospel, where "gospel" would have its meaning of "good news," since the preceding verses have told of anything but good news. But of course the Gospel of Matthew had not yet been written at the time Mt 24:14 was supposedly spoken. Second, the Gospels and New Testament have been preached throughout the world, for over a century now, and yet the end has not come. SOLUTION. The changes that the compiler of Matthew made to the TJ verse are relatively minor, yet the problems do not exist for the TJ. Its text, including the prophecy of catastropic events to come, has not yet been preached throughout the world. The Matthean version contains too many alterations and omissions to be said to constitute the same thing as the TJ's much longer prophecy. As a sidelight, we see that in this instance the writer of Matthew allowed the TJ's "to all peoples" or "to all nations" to stand as is, rather than to restrict his attempts at evangelizing just to the Jews, as he had done previously more than once. This is not surprising, inasmuch as he would feel that a preaching of the end of the world should not be restricted just to the Jews, but should include the hated gentiles! The fact that there are severe problems against the authenticity of Matthew here, which do not apply to the TJ, has to count strongly in favor of the TJ over Matthew. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 24:15-16 15"So when you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), 16then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains;" TJ 25:20-21 20"When the people see the horror of destruction in Jerusalem, of which the prophets have spoken, the end will come. 21Whoever is in the land seized by the Israelites should flee to the mountains at that time." TJ 25:20-21 20«Wenn die Menschen sehen werden die Greuel der Verwüstung stehen an der Stätte von Jerusalem, von dem es schon so gesagt ist durch diePropheten, alsdann wird das Ende kommen. 21Wer zu jener Zeit im von den Israeliten geraubten Lande ist, der möge auf die Berge fliehen.» THE PROBLEM. Here, the parenthetical part, "let the reader understand," was obviously not part of anything Jesus said, but was an aside fed in by the writer of Matthew, to indicate there was a definite meaning behind the Semitic phrase, which in English was rendered as "desolating sacrilege" (see Beare, p. 467). Since the meaning of the reference to Daniel required some sort of explanation in order to be understood, except perhaps to a learned Pharisee, it would not have been spoken thus by Jesus to his disciples, devoid of explanation; and his words to his disciples certainly would not have been directed to "the reader," who would also be kept in the dark as to the meaning. (There was no punctuation in the ancient manuscripts, and certainly no parentheses. All punctuation is added at the decision of the modern translator/editor.) The relevant verses in Daniel are rather obscure (Dn 8:13, 12:11), as they might refer to a vision of the pagan altar established in the temple in 167 BC;[4] yet in Dn 8:17 the vision is instead said to refer to the end times. Thus Davies & Allison give the latter as another possibility of what the desolating sacrilege is, but mention a third possibility-the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70. SOLUTION. Evidently, the verses in Daniel about a desolating sacrilege came to the redactor's mind when editing the TJ at this point. He was ever alert, when editing away heresies and unacceptable material within the TJ, to take the opportunity to make substitutions for them that would involve scriptural references or allusions. From the TJ, we see that the reference had been to Jerusalem itself, in Jmmanuel's far future- probably our own era, but not to the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 (see also under Mt 24:3-4). The fact that the lowermost portion of the "Wailing Wall", or Western Wall, contains original, intact Herodian stones may signify that Jmmanuel's prophecy of "not one stone here will remain upon the other without being broken" (from TJ 25:2) has not yet been fulfilled. The Matthean verses exhibit too much of the redactor's handiwork, as opposed to the TJ verses' realism, to offer a supporter of the hoax hypothesis any comfort. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 24:20 20"Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. The "in winter" phrase is perhaps understandable, but "or on a sabbath" is not, considering that earlier, in Mt 12:3-12, the writer of Matthew had allowed that "it is lawful to do good on the sabbath." It ought to be "good" to try to escape the prophesied destruction even if it occurred on a sabbath. However, a cool winter day would be a better time to flee outdoors than on a scorching hot summer day, so even the first portion of the verse may not be apropos. SOLUTION. It has been pointed out by E. L. Abel that there is a Jewish regulation not to walk over 2000 paces during a sabbath.[5] Thus the writer of Matthew likely included the "not on a sabbath" phrase for that reason, without giving thought to its possible contradiction with a previous verse. The writer of Mark, in his copying and alteration of Matthew, is then seen as having omitted the phrase "or on a sabbath" (Mk 13:18) to correct Matthew's inconsistency or remove a phrase that would not have meaning for a gentile audience. The absence of any TJ cognate therefore has to count in its favor. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 24:27 27"For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man." TJ 25:42 42"For as lightning flashes and illuminates from rising to setting, so will be my coming in the future, when I will bring the teachings anew and announce the legions of the celestial sons. At that time I will have a renewed life and will again be accused of deception and blasphemy across the entire world, until the teachings of truth will bring about cognition and change in the people." TJ 25:42 42«Denn wie der Blitz ausgeht und leuchtet vom Aufgang bis zum Niedergang, so wird auch sein mein Kommen in der Zukunft, wenn ich neu die Lehre bringe und von den Heerscharen der Himmelssöhne künde, wenn ich zu der Zeit ein Wiederleben habe und in der Weite der Welt neuerlich des Betruges und der Lästerung beschimpft werde, ehe die Lehre der Wahrheit im Menschen Erkennung bringet und Wandel.» THE PROBLEM. It was pointed out by Beare (p. 470) that Matthew is wrong. Lightning "does not in fact spread from east to west," not as a rule, anyway. And what would it mean if Jesus, in a second coming, were to appear in the East-this might mean in Asia or India; would his influence only secondarily reach out to the West? Perhaps more important, why is the verse so terse and ambiguous? It is not explained by subsequent verses. SOLUTION. The east-west interpretation is probably an inappropriate translation, as both the Greek text of Matthew, its German text and the TJ can be rendered "from rising until setting" more easily. The fact that rising is often likened to the east and setting to the west, as for the sun, can explain the mistranslation. From the TJ verse we see that in Jmmanuel's future life under discussion here he will not generally be recognized for who he is. But have we not all heard it said that if Jesus were to return today, nobody would recognize him? It is not inconsistent then that what he would say or demonstrate would be misbelieved by most, leading to accusations of deception and blasphemy. The connection to lightning, then, could be as follows. What Jmmanuel would say at various times in this future life, which would give rise to accusations of deception and blasphemy, would strike out like flashes of lightning into the darkness of ignorance and deception. The coming of the celestial sons would seem to refer to the Pleiadians who contacted Eduard Meier, and perhaps also to other aliens who have been engaging in what we call the UFO phenomenon. The obvious possibility this suggests, then, is that Meier is the future life of Jmmanuel referred to in the prophecy. From within the TJ framework, all of this is quite possible; someone on Earth would be this future incarnation of Jmmanuel, and whoever that is would obviously be the butt of ridicule. But within Matthew's context, whether interpreted within a Christian framework or not, the verse doesn't impart anything meaningful or understandable. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 24:28 28"Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together." TJ 25:43 43"People of all times, beware: where the carcass is, there the vultures gather; so watch out for them." TJ 25:43 43«Der Mensch aller Zeiten achte darauf: Wo das Aas ist, da sammeln sich die Geier; also er sich vor ihnen hüte.» THE PROBLEM. This Matthean verse comes soon after four others in which Jesus predicts that various people will come forth proclaiming that they are the Messiah, and it comes immediately after one more predicting how noticeable his own coming will be. In that context, the verse makes little or no sense. Beare (p. 470) thought it means that the Second Coming would be as evident as a flock of vultures circling over a corpse. But that interpretation would represent a great letdown, if the preceding verse is considered to liken the signaling of the Second Coming to the radiance of lightning. Moreover, the eagles or vultures would be expected to be gathered together on the ground around the carcass and not be visible from afar; nothing is said about their being in the air, circling, as they would for an animal not yet dead. Some different meaning is thus suggested, which the writer of Matthew left obscure. Davies and Allison mention seven other possible explanations that have been put forward.[6] N. T. Wright thinks it refers to a gathering of Roman forces, since the eagle was the Roman standard or emblem.[7] SOLUTION. The portions of the TJ cognate that were omitted tell us that this saying did not pertain to the appearance of Jmmanuel's coming. Instead, four of the preceding six TJ verses concern deceivers. This motivates us to connect this verse with their theme. The metaphorical interpretation then is that the carcass represents a false proclaimer or false prophet, and the vultures represent people who, feeding off of his words and false claims, are taken in by them and do his bidding. The last five words of the TJ verse, plus the preceding word "beware," all absent in Matthew, make this interpretation almost mandatory. Thus, the verse is an inclusio (conclusion) to the sub-theme of not to be led astray. This explanation is not even among the nine possibilities presented by Davies and Allison, plus that of Wright, and thus highly unlikely to have been conceived of by a literary hoaxer. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 24:30 30"then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory;" TJ 25:46 46"And then signs will appear in the sky, and all Earth humans will wail and come to see the signs in the clouds of the sky that bear witness to great power and severe judgment against irrationality." TJ 25:46 46«Alsdann aber werden erscheinen Zeichen am Himmel, und es werden heulen alle Geschlechter auf Erden und werden kommen, um zu sehen die Zeichen in den Wolken des Himmels, die von grosser Kraft und strengem Gericht wider die Unvernunft zeugen.» THE PROBLEMS. One problem here with Matthew is that, if "Son of man" means Jesus as usual, the only sign he referred to was the sign of Jonah-in the belly of the fish three days and nights. It makes little sense that that sign could appear in the sky-would there be a cloud shaped like a giant fish loitering in the sky for three days above every city and town in the world? Also, it seems contradictory that, since people are supposed to see the sign, it is to be seen in "heaven," the place usually thought of as unseen. Moreover, why would there be mourning when the "Son of man" comes? This should be a time of rejoicing, at least for Christians. For such reasons, it was noted by scholar A.J.B. Higgins, that "the editorial construction of this verse is obvious."[8] The appearance of "Son of man" caused Beare (p. 471) to reason similarly-Matthew's compiler borrowed from the Old Testament book of Daniel for this imagery. SOLUTION. The TJ does not suffer from the particular criticisms listed, thus supporting the conclusion of Higgins and Beare. The wailing would signify fear over what it all means and what would happen next; the signs (plural in the TJ, not singular) are most easily interpreted as being UFOs piloted by extraterrestrials. The compiler's alterations can be understood as creating a central role for the Son of man (alias Jesus) in the Second Coming, in contrast to the secondary future role indicated in the TJ for Jmmanuel reincarnated, relative to the role of the UFO aliens. The TJ further suggests that the picture it presented to the compiler caused him to recall the following verse from Daniel: Dn 7:13 I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man.... and from it to use "the clouds of heaven" and once again use "Son of man" in his edited verse. The judgment against irrationality in the TJ verse is consistent with Jmmanuel's teachings on using logic, including the logic of following the laws of nature and of Creation. The strongly redactive nature of the Matthean verse contrasts with the realism of the TJ verse as could have been spoken by a true prophet and wisdom teacher. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 24:31 31"And he [Son of man] will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." TJ 25:49 49"In days to come, he [El-leader of the ETs involved] will send forth his guardian angels who will sound their trumpets and call together his trusted followers from the four directions, from one end of the Earth to the other." TJ 25:49 49«So wird er dereinst senden seine Wächterengel mit hellen Posaunen, und diese werden dann sammeln seine ihm Getreuen von den vier Winden, von einem Ende der Erde bis zum andern.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 471-472) presumed that Mt 24:31 was drawn from the imagery of Daniel, where the son-of-man scene unfolds in heaven. However the "elect" are to be gathered from the world, not from heaven. This discrepancy was noticed by Beare. SOLUTION. The TJ verse instead appears to have been what prompted the verse in Matthew. Substitution of "heaven" for "earth" by the compiler was then likely made to strengthen the correspondence with a verse in Zechariah, which reads: Zec 2:6 ...for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heavens, says the LORD; If Jmmanuel's prediction in the TJ of catastrophic destruction some two millennia into his future, followed by a gathering of El's followers, is treated seriously and not dismissed as the work of a literary hoaxer, then that in conjunction with this and other TJ verses is suggested here as being what spawned the doctrine of the Millennium. It is only plausible that before the TJ fell into the hands of the writer of Matthew, a few others, some with Gnostic tendencies, had a chance to read it and notice its mention of events some 2000 years into their future (see TJ 25:7, above, in particular). We know that the writer of the Gospel of John at some point read the TJ, and he may have been the author of Revelations, which sets forth its millennialism at Rv 20:1-7. And if bishop Papias learned about some of the contents of the TJ, referring to it as the Logia, then his brand of millennialism likely also stemmed from the TJ. Thus the TJ's mention of "two thousand years" here may have been responsible for millennialism's thousand-year period, upon distortion and embellishment. The explanatory power of the TJ verse as opposed to the secondary characteristics of the Matthean verse again point towards TJ genuineness. However, the TJ does not go on to explain just how El's "guardian angels" will call together his trusted followers, and does not clarify if these will be humans or alien collaborators. In either event, the TJ does not present any Rapture theme, either here or in subsequent verses. PHoax ¯ 0.35. If the "trusted followers" refer to humans, it may be mentioned that numerous present-day UFO contactees, or alleged contactees, as well as some abductees, have received a similar message, often telepathically. They are made to feel selected, and are told where to go to escape destruction, or what to prepare for in order to survive and help others survive in the days after the destruction they are warned is coming. However, the different messages are usually contradictory in some aspects, or contain seemingly silly science, discouraging investigators from treating them seriously, and leading to the contactees being branded as hoaxers or crazy if they persist in talking about their perceived messages.[9] Mt 24:33 33"So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates." TJ 25:51 51"So will it also be for the people of that time; when they see all this transpire they may know that these events are upon them." TJ 25:51 51«So wird es auch sein für die Menschen jener Zeit: Wenn sie das alles sehen, so mögen sie wissen, dass es nahe vor der Tür ist.» THE PROBLEM. The description of when the Son of man is going to arrive has become unduly discontinuous. He may have arrived as early as Mt 24:27, which likens his coming to lightning, but definitely by Mt 24:30 (see a preceding verse). Now in this still later verse the prophecy continues on to say that he is near but has not yet quite arrived. Something is wrong here, which could reflect editorial activity on the part of the writer of Matthew. SOLUTION. One can see from TJ 25:42 (several segments above) that Jmmanuel prophesies he will be living a future life during this time period, with aspects of that life and renewed teachings reaching out like lightning. That verse is the parallel of Mt 24:27. Then, unlike Mt 24:30, the TJ's parallel verse (TJ 25:46) doesn't prophesy once again that he is coming, but rather that "signs in the clouds" (UFOs) will arrive. Now the present TJ verse is again consistent in implying not that he is not yet here, but that "the end" is not yet here though it is close at hand. The writer of Matthew altered "the end" into "he [Son of man]." Thus, once again his emphasis upon the Son of man and the Second Coming led him into making alterations from which the inconsistencies of his editorial activity can be discerned. On the other hand, it is unreasonable to suppose that a literary hoaxer could so simply and realistically solve these rather obscure Matthean problems without himself producing problems indicative of redaction. PHoax ¯ 0.2. One gathers from the prophecies in the TJ that "the end" means the premature end of life for a large fraction of the population, due to mankind-inflicted warlike destruction. That there will be survivors is ascribed to the appearance in force of the "celestial sons" (ETs), who put an end to the destruction (foreshorten its days), but only after colossal damage has occurred. Mt 24:34 34"Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place." TJ 25:52-53 52"Truly, truly, I say to you, this is how it will be. 53And that generation will not pass away until all of this has happened." TJ 25:52-53 52«Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch: So wird es sein. 53Und dies Geschlecht wird nicht vergehen, bis alles so geschehe.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 472-473) recognized that this Matthean verse, along with accompanying ones, is a failed prophecy that cannot be explained away as referring to the destruction at Jerusalem in A.D. 70. SOLUTION. The TJ's German text also has "this generation," thus explaining its appearance in Matthew. However, within the TJ context, there is little doubt that "this generation" refers to the generation being spoken of in Jmmanuel's far future to which his lengthy prophecy applied. Hence it is translated in the English of the above 3rd-edition TJ as "that generation." Even without benefit of the TJ, this possibility has previously been suggested.[10] The writer of Matthew, on the other hand, wished the end time and Second Coming to be as soon as possible, and so utilized the same verse with "this generation" also in Mt 23:36 (see under Mt 23:34-36). Thus the TJ does not suffer from Beare's criticism, since its prophecy has not yet been tested. However, it contains an uncertainty or discrepancy of its own, since "pass away" here could imply that the whole human race will be killed off in the prophesied apocalypse, while elsewhere (TJ 25:34) Jmmanuel prophesies that some portion of humanity will survive the apocalypse. However, it more probably means that all that he prophesied in this section would come about within a single human generation of the distant future (i.e., within a period of 30 years or so), in which case TJ 25:53 is not discrepant, at least not yet. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Those who believe the prophecy that an apocalypse is impending can point to the UFO phenomenon as possible verification. One reason UFO aliens have been visiting us in much greater numbers since 1947, while still refusing to shock society as a whole by letting their presence be definitely known, may be in order to observe us while we still exist intact; another reason may be to help some to prepare for surviving the apocalypse; and another may be in hopes of elevating enough people's consciousness, without forcing anyone to believe what they cannot accept, so as to somehow invalidate or ameliorate the dire prophecy. Mt 24:35 35"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." TJ 25:54 54"At some future time the skies and the Earth will pass away, and so will the universe; but my words will not pass away because they are the words of truth within the laws of Creation." TJ 25:54 54«Himmel und Erde werden dereinst vergehen und so also das Universum; aber meine Worte werden nicht vergehen, denn sie sind die Worte der Wahrheit in den Gesetzen der Schöpfung.» THE PROBLEM. Earlier Matthean verses (19:16-21, 19:29) tell of the heavenly afterlife being eternal. But here we are told that heaven itself will pass away some day; and thus along with it all heavenly afterlives must pass away. SOLUTION. In the TJ verse, its "skies" stems from the German word "Himmel," whose meanings include the heavens, sky and heaven. However, "heaven" would not apply, because it was not a concept espoused by Jmmanuel in the TJ. Its "skies" refer to all material things outside of the Earth. Hence, the TJ does not suffer from this contradiction. It does not prophesy that the spiritual world and Creation will ever pass away. To the writer of Matthew, heaven (along with hell) and Earth encompassed everything there was. He could not know that the "heavenly" afterlife occurred within the realm of the spirit. Heaven and "the heavens" were the same to him, located up in the sky. The stars were part of heaven, where the angels dwelled. Jmmanuel's contactors, on the other hand, came from "the skies," or outer space, and could inform Jmmanuel that the physical universe would someday pass away (very many billions of years into the future), but that the spiritual world and Creation would still exist. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 24:37-41 37"As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man... 41Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 474) noticed that the comparison between the trauma of the great flood and the prophesied parousia is not consistent in at least two respects. During the flood, no one outside of Noah's extended family was spared from the catastrophe, while here in Matthew some people here and there are to be spared or "raptured up." Also, in the Noah story the extreme wickedness of mankind is stressed; here in verses 38-39 it is not. The implication is that Jesus' thinking would not have been this inconsistent, so the verses represent an insertion of the compiler. SOLUTION. This implication from Beare's analysis is correct, and the verses are a Matthean insertion. The theme "one is taken and one is left" is not present in the TJ, unless its prophecy that some portion of humanity will survive is construed as such. The Matthean verses occur at the beginning of a lengthy substitution for omitted TJ material that starts out discussing El and Creation, and their laws, and thus could not have been retained by the compiler. A New Age hoaxer, on the other hand, could well desire to retain this Matthean verse with only minor modification, as it could be his view of how the "Rapture" would take place during "beam-ups" into alien spacecraft. However, the imagined hoaxer did not do so. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 24:42-44 42"Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into. 44Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. The coming of the Lord was supposed to be an event to look forward to, as suggested in the parable of the next chapter when the delayed bridegroom was eagerly awaited. But here in the slave- supervisor parable his coming is likened to the entry of a thief. This is such an incompetent analogy as to invite the conviction that it was invented by a gospel compiler who was in no way any teacher of wisdom. It may be mentioned that if you are told that someone is coming to visit you but at a completely unknown time, which could be a year or ten years of fifty years in the future, you lose no sleep night after night watching out for him to arrive. In this parable Jesus' coming is indicated to be sudden and abrupt, while in the previous text of Mt 24:5-33 his coming, to the contrary, is to be preceded by various signs over some period of time. SOLUTION. The TJ's lack of cognate is consistent with these problems having been incurred through the editing of the writer of Matthew. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 24:45-50 45"Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time?... 48But if that wicked servant says to himself, 'My master is delayed,' 49and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with the drunken, 50the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. These verses comprise most of the parable of the servant-supervisor. In it, Beare (p. 478) sees the master as being likened to Jesus, and the servants to church leaders. He observed that the verses suggest that some church leaders had been taking advantage of their status and behaving improperly. Also, its phrase, "My master is delayed," was noted by Beare to indicate the vanishing hopes of early Christians that the Second Coming of Jesus would be in their near future. An aspect of incoherence, also indicative of redaction, is that the servant, who was described in the first three verses as being faithful and wise, then turns out to be wicked. The last verse above demonstrates further inconsistency, in that only if the wicked servant misbehaves will the master return at an unexpected time, which implies that if he doesn't misbehave the master would return at some known time; but that contradicts preceding verses indicating that the time of return is unknown to all. Thus, Beare attributed these verses to later authorship. Davies & Allison have noted that "give them their food at the proper time" (which in the more original Greek text is "to give them the food in season") harkens back to Pss 104:27 and 145:15, which speak of "...to give them their food in due season" and "...givest them their food in due season," respectively. Hence they conclude that Mt 24:45 contains this allusion to the Scriptures,[11] and is therefore a redaction by the writer of Matthew. SOLUTION. The TJ agrees with these analyses. The Matthean insertion is part of a longer one that follows TJ descriptions of the end days culminated by the arrival of the "guardian angels." Considering the TJ-hoax hypothesis, the lack of Matthean genuineness in this pericope then points towards the TJ's genuineness. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 24:51 51"and [the master] will punish him, and put him with the hypocrites; there men will weep and gnash their teeth." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This verse concludes the parable of the servant-supervisor, and the returning master refers to Christ, who is to punish the wicked servant. From a logical viewpoint, it may merely be noted that the master in the parable is violating Jesus' admonition not to resist one who is evil (Mt 5:39) as well as violating the Golden Rule (Mt 7:12). Beare (p. 479) noted that the more faithful biblical renditions read "cut him in pieces" in place of "punish him." Bible editors evidently found this punishment to be so savage that they just knew it could not be right, and so they mollified the language. Considering that the other verses in this pericope are found to be redactions, this verse must be, also. Its last clause indicates as much, being a theme that the writer of Matthew liked to repeat (it is also found in Mt 13:42, 13:50, 22:13 and 25:30) as a fate of those cast into hell or into the outer darkness. SOLUTION. Again, the TJ's lack of cognates supports the deduction that this verse also is a Matthean redaction. The TJ indicates, in fact, that all of Mt 24:37-on is a Matthean substitution. Regarding the hoax hypothesis as applied to this 24th chapter of Matthew as a whole, and the TJ's corresponding chapter 25, upon accumulation of the individual probabilities above we find the chance that the TJ is a hoax to be only 1.0 x 10-5. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 25 REFERENCES 1. See Weiss, Brian, Same Soul -- Many Bodies (Simon & Schuster, New York: 2004); Goldberg, Bruce, Past Lives, Future Lives Revealed (Hawthorne, NJ: Career Pr Inc, 2004). 2. Davies, W. D., and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 3 (Edinburg, T&T Clark, 1997), pp. 333-338. 3. Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 229. 4. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 3, p. 345. 5. Abel, Ernest L., "Who wrote Matthew?" NTS 17 (1971), pp. 138-152; see p. 144. 6. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 3, p. 356. 7. Wright, N. T., response to letter in Bible Review (BR), 17 (Dec. 2001), p. 4. 8. Higgins, A.J.B., "The sign of the Son of man (Matt. xxiv.30)," NTS 9 (1963), pp. 380-382. 9. If the UFO aliens are indeed intelligent and have a strategy for handling us, it would not be at all surprising if that strategy included doling out significant amounts of disinformation. In that manner they could help prevent science from prematurely catching on to the reality of their presence, and so continue to maintain the UFO coverup until they decide we are better prepared to face up to the fact of their presence and evolutionary head start over us. By this strategy they could also deter us from treating them as gods/goddesses once again, which might occur if scientists and others were to find their every word to be truthful or informative and thus come to depend upon them for intellectual and moral advancement. Yet such a strategy would still permit them to put across the reality of their existence to those who are curious and of the proper frame of mind to accept it. 10. Carson, D. A., "Matthew," in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981), pp. 494, 507. 11. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 3, pp. 387-388. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 25 PRELIMINARY NOTE. In this chapter of Matthew there are no TJ cognates. Hence this implies that the entire chapter was the handiwork of the writer of Matthew. Below are the "valid" objections found by Francis Beare and other scholars to this chapter. The criteria for scholarly assumptions not considered valid are listed in the Introduction to the Mt-TJ verse comparisons. Mt 25:1-13 1"Then the kingdom of heaven shall be compared to ten maidens who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom...." THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 480) found several reasons why this parable of the ten maidens does not hold together well: (1) This is a story about a marriage, but the bride is never anywhere around; (2) The ten maidens should have carried torches on their nocturnal trek to meet the groom, as small oil lamps would not be suitable; (3) The reason for the bridegroom's great delay, until midnight, in arriving at the unspecified meeting place is not supplied; and (4) It is odd that the five wise maidens would tell the other five to go to the village to buy oil for their lamps, since it would be silly to think that the shops would be open after midnight. In the end, Beare agreed with another scholar, Thomas Manson, that "this parable is a curiously involved mixture of ideas drawn from various sources."[1] Mt 25:14-30 14"For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; 15to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability... 24He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man.... 25so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' 26But his master answered him, 'You wicked and slothful servant.... 28So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to every one who has will more be given... 29...but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.'" THE PROBLEMS. This is the parable of the talents given to the three servants to invest. Beare (p. 487) believed it all to be an embellishment of some earlier parable, and that even before the compiler got hold of it, it may already have been embellished. He thus did not think it likely to be a genuine saying of Jesus. In its verse 25:15 there is the phrase "to each according to his ability" that Beare specifically suggested is a Matthean addition. And he noted that the saying of 25:28-29, which is akin to "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," doesn't really fit the basis of the parable in which all the servants were initially poor. Instead, it is a repeat, or doublet, of Mt 13:12. Moreover, the phrase "there men will weep and gnash their teeth" occurs in Matthew three times before this: in 8:12 where there was no strong reason for rejecting its genuineness, and in 22:13 and 24:51 where there were good reasons. Such redundancy lends further grounds for believing this parable to be an invention of the compiler, who wished to explain "For to him who has will more be given" of Mt 13:12. It is of special interest to notice that in the Lukan parallel to this parable, in which its writer altered Matthew's three servants into ten and altered talents into pounds, among other things (Lk 19:12-26), its writer betrayed his plagiarism of Matthew. This occurred by speaking of how the first servant fared with the pound given to him, how the second servant similarly fared, and then how the other fared (Lk 19:20). He had forgotten that he had allowed for seven other servants to receive a pound each, and instead followed Matthew's story, with its three servants, too closely here.[2] This alone is strong evidence that the writer of Luke both made use of Matthew while writing his own gospel, and in so doing didn't mind heavily altering Matthew's story. (One may notice that the editors/translators of the RSV Bible obscured this problem by using "another" here rather than using a correct translation of the Greek "the other.") Mt 25:31-34 31"When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. 34Then the King will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'" THE PROBLEMS. This beginning section of the "parable" of the sheep and the goats is Matthew's vision of the Final Judgment. Its reader will notice that it starts out by talking about the Son of man, which refers to the resurrected Christ, but then suddenly talks about "the King" without identifying him. The reader must wonder whom this refers to before deciding it must mean Christ again. However, nowhere else is "King" alone used to refer to Jesus or Christ. Scholar J.A.T. Robinson finds this to be suspicious,[3] and J. P. Brown finds Mt 25:31 itself to be a "secondary editing of sayings."[4] Moreover, this passage is distinctly Matthean thinking, with its emphasis on the Final Judgment and its simple delineation between those to be blessed (sheep) and those to be eternally cursed (goats), including whole nations to be placed in either one category or the other. The compiler's inspiration here for the Son of man's glory likely came from the Old Testament book of 1 Kings: 1 Kgs 22:19 I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left. Matthew's sheep-and-goats pericope might be thought to imply that the compiler was now treating gentiles favorably, in contrast to his various anti-gentile statements. However, he apparently expected the God of Israel to be the God over all other nations, too, and so he included "all nations" here even if he did not wish discipleship extended to the gentiles of these other nations.[5] It is quite likely he anticipated that most gentile nations would fall into the left-hand category of "goats." Mt 25:35-43 35"'for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' 37Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink'... 40And the King will answer them, 'as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.' 41Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, 42for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,...'" THE PROBLEMS. As noted by A. Powell Davies, it is almost a certainty that Mt 25:35-36 is based upon a passage from the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Joseph i, 5-6).[6] That passage is: I was sold into slavery and the LORD of all made me free; I was taken into captivity, and his strong hand succored me. I was beset with hunger, and the LORD Himself nourished me. I was alone and God comforted me; I was sick and the LORD visited me; I was in prison, and my LORD showed favor to me. Of course, Mt 25:37-39,42-44 repetitiously involves the same verses and is therefore also a part of the writer's editorial insertion. These Testaments are believed to have been written by Pharisees at the height of the Maccabean dynasty, around 109-106 B.C. Thus they were available for an early Christian scribe of Jewish background to utilize in substituting for heretical material in his source document. We also see the handiwork of the compiler in splitting people into two camps-either absolutely righteous or absolutely unrighteous, in Mt 25:37-46. And Beare had no difficulty spotting Mt 25:41, involving the "eternal fire," as a construct of the writer of Matthew, while refusing to speculate on just what the writer's ideas may have been regarding the devil, his angels and their relationship to the punishment of eternal fire. Mt 25:44-45 44"Then they will also answer, 'Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?' 45Then he will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.'" THE PROBLEM. These verses are clearly part of the same pericope, and thus are redactions along with the rest of the pericope. They mimic the wording in verses 39-40. Mt 25:46 46"And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 496) doubted that Jesus could have said this, allowing only a slim possibility that Jesus shared this conception of the fate of the wicked, a concept that remained popular for centuries. Again, the compiler's problem was illogically thinking of people as either wholly righteous or wholly unrighteous, and connecting this to the false concept of hell. DISCUSSION OF MT 25. J. M. Court has concluded that the entire parable of the sheep and the goats, terminated by the above verse, is a "substantial Matthean redaction."[7] E. P. Sanders finds all of Mt 25 to be inauthentic.[8] The TJ's lack of cognates to Matthew's chapter 25 supports these conclusions. With respect to the hoax hypothesis, though we see very strong evidence that the two parables and the last- judgment pericope could not have been uttered by a wisdom teacher, a hoaxer could well have rewritten these in order for them to make sense to him. For example, in the first parable he might have invented a bride, or have the maidens carry torches instead of small oil lamps, and/or invented a reason for the bridegroom's delay, or have altered all the foolish maidens into wise maidens, or have changed the punch line. And similarly for the other parable and the pericope. Thus the probability that a hoaxer would have done such is at least as great as that he would have omitted all of chapter 25 from his fraudulent product. Upon allowing a hoax probability of 0.45 to each of the three pericopes, one finds that all three together, upon accumulating them, yield PHoax ¯ 0.35. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 26 REFERENCES 1. Manson, Thomas Walter, The Sayings of Jesus (London: SCM Press, 1949), p. 242. 2. Jeremias, J., The Parables of Jesus, 6th ed. (ET, London: SCM, 1963), p. 61. 3. Robinson, J.A.T., "The parable of the sheep and the goats," NTS 2 (1956), pp. 225-237. 4. Brown, John Pairman, "Mark as witness to an edited form of Q," JBL 80 (1961), pp. 29-44; see p. 38. 5. Recall that Mt 15:24 states, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 6. Davies, A. Powell, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: New American Library, 1956), p. 104. 7. Court, J. M., "Right and left: the implications for Matthew 25:31-46," NTS 31 (1985), pp. 223-233; see p. 230. 8. Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 222. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 26 Mt 26:1-2 1When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, 2"You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of man will be delivered up to be crucified." TJ 26:46-47; 27:1 46Once Saulus had departed, Jmmanuel called together his disciples and said to them, "You know that Passover comes after two days, when I shall be turned over to the courts to be crucified, as it is destined, so that I will continue to learn. 47My betrayer will be Juda Iharioth, the son of Simeon the Pharisee,"...27:1After Jmmanuel had finished speaking, the disciples became agitated and said, "Why don't we capture Juda Iharioth and stone him, so he can't betray you?" TJ 26:46-47; 27:1 46Da aber Saulus von dannen gewichen war, rief Jmmanuel seine Jünger zusammen und redete zu ihnen und sprach: «Ihr wisset, dass nach zwei Tagen das Passahfest sein wird und ich überantwortet werden soll den Gerichten, so ich gekreuzigt werde, wie es bestimmet ist, so ich daraus lerne. 47Mein Verräter aber wird sein Juda Iharioth, des Pharisäers Simeon Sohn; 27:1Da aber Jmmanuel diese Reden beendet hatte, erregten sich die Jünger und sprachen: «Warum fangen wir nicht Juda Iharioth und steinigen ihn, so er dich nicht verraten kann?» THE PROBLEMS. In discussing the previous Matthew-TJ comparisons, we noted that the entire Matthean chapter, 25, was made up of redactions. It is one large insert. Hence Mt 26:1 above contains the additional redaction: "When Jesus had finished all these sayings." That is, Jesus could not have spoken the Mt-25 sayings because scholars have logically determined that the writer of Matthew composed them. Moreover, the wording here of the first clause of 26:1 is essentially the same as that used after four of the most lengthy, previous discourses (at Mt 7:28, 11:1, 13:53, and 19:1). Numerous scholars have remarked on the artificiality of this literary structure, verse 26:1 included.[1] It is often supposed that the endings of the five preceding discourses were then so labeled by the writer so as to show an analogy between these five discourses and the five books of the Torah. The artificial nature is furthered in the present instance with the interruption of speech caused by 26:1. Jesus had already been speaking to his disciples, and only to his disciples, on the Mount of Olives (Mt 24:3). At that point the writer of Matthew, after he had finished writing his lengthy insertion of chapter 25, felt obliged to break in as narrator even though Jesus was supposedly continuing to speak to his disciples without interruption. A fictitious aspect of 26:2 is that its ominous and sinister message evoked no reaction from the disciples even though the time of fulfillment of the dire prophecy was by then almost upon them. SOLUTION. TJ 26:46 above contains the parallel found in Mt 26:2. It follows after 16 verses describing an encounter Jmmanuel had with Saul. Such an encounter may seem surprising, in that neither the Gospels nor Paul's epistles mention it. In retrospect, however, it makes very good sense, since Saul could scarcely have become the arch-persecutor of Jmmanuel/Jesus that he did become without ever having heard him teach and without ever becoming incensed with his teachings and words of wisdom. This encounter was sufficiently embarrassing and shameful for Paul that one would not expect him to have mentioned it in any of his epistles, nor expect a later Gospel writer with access to the TJ to have mentioned it either. The TJ's statement: "After Jmmanuel had finished speaking, the disciples became agitated and said..." is a normal manner of narrating a real event. The TJ narrator broke in at this point to say who was speaking next (the disciples), and the fact that they became very agitated is evident. However, in Mt 26:1 the very same initial words are used that were used in Mt 7:28, 11:1, 13:53 and 19:1, namely: "And when Jesus had finished...," as noted above. This is shown below, along with the TJ cognates: TJ 7:32 It happened that after Jmmanuel had finished his talk, the people were shocked... Mt 7:28 And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished... TJ 11:1 It happened that after Jmmanuel had finished giving such commandments to his twelve disciples, he continued on from there... Mt 11:1 And when Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there... TJ 15:66 It happened that after Jmmanuel had finished these parables, he went away from there. Mt 13:53 And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there... TJ 20:1 It happened that after Jmmanuel had concluded these talks, he departed from Galilee... Mt 19:1 Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee... TJ 27:1 After Jmmanuel had finished speaking, the disciples became agitated and said, ... Mt 26:1 When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, ... These initial portions of the Matthean verses, including 26:1, become identical in appearance to each other in their Greek text, which all have the same first six Greek words and in the same order. Similarly, in the first four of these five instances the German TJ text uses the same six introductory words, followed by two more: "Und es begab sich, da Jmmanuel... vollendet hatte" ("And it happened, that after Jmmanuel had finished..."; in the English an "and" at the beginning of a sentence is often omitted), which cannot be considered surprising, since "es begab sich" is used quite frequently (10 other times in its 36 chapters). This suggests that the underlying Aramaic text had also used its own same several words in these four instances. In this case, it is only the fifth instance, Mt 26:1, in which the writer of Matthew, or its translator into Greek, altered his text somewhat to make it conform to the pattern utilized in the other four instances. That he did so seems apparent, since he added the word "all." Although this suggests he did so for the reason that scholars have surmised, their surmise seems less certain than before, since he may not have had to go back and alter his wording of the first four instances to make them all conform. It would appear that the similarity of the TJ's initial wording in the four instances shown above prompted the writer of Matthew to construct an identical fifth one in Mt 26:1a, so as to suggest to the reader that here we have five great discourses that would match the five books of the Pentateuch in eminence. This thought would not likely have occurred to him had the TJ not already exhibited the four instances of identical initial wording shown above. To produce a fifth concluding clause, then, the writer of Matthew had to break in as narrator when there had been no other reason to break in. In none of these instances does the TJ refer to "sayings." The TJ text prophesying Jmmanuel's coming arrest, which the writer of Matthew could only summarize by his verse 26:2, starts with TJ 26:46b above, and prophesies the role of Juda Iharioth in considerable detail. Hence the disciples displayed agitation and offered to do away with Juda. Ironically, if they had been encouraged to do so, Jmmanuel's prophecy would have failed. Considering Matthew's apparent problems, the risk it would be for a literary hoaxer to construct 17 additional verses which appear to have been spoken by a wisdom teacher plus 16 more verses concerning a realistic encounter with Saul, and the uniqueness of the Juda-as-betrayer solution, the TJ has a strong edge here with respect to the hoax hypothesis. Upon including here the compelling evidence from Mt 26:35b (see below) we assign PHoax ¯ 0.1. Mt 26:3-4 3Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiphas, 4and took counsel together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. The initial word, "Then," of this pericope (Mt 26:3-5) is quite inappropriate to the context. The chief priests and elders did not consciously wait until Jesus was finished with his sayings and then hold their meeting, because Jesus had been speaking privately to his disciples, on the Mount of Olives. The chief priests and elders could not have known he had been speaking his prophecies and parables to them there, nor could they have known when he was finished speaking to them about those things or when he then finished speaking to them about the approaching Passover and being delivered up to be crucified. Hence, the reported action of Mt 26:3-4 was quite independent of what Jesus had been telling his disciples, and did not necessarily sequentially follow it in time. In other places in Matthew where "then" is used at the beginning of a pericope (as in Mt 16:24, 19:13), it properly initiates an action that could not have taken place before a preceding action was completed. (An exception is the first word, "Then," in Mt 25; however, that whole chapter was found to be one large editorial insert. The other exception indicating redaction, Mt 26:14, is discussed below.) The strong implication is that the above pericope was invented, for even if this meeting of chief priests and elders had taken place, the writer of Matthew could not have known when it occurred relative to Jesus' series of long talks to his disciples. SOLUTION. The writer of Matthew indeed used a favorite word of his, "then" (translated into "tote" in the Greek), to introduce his pericope in a seemingly smooth manner. The finding below, that the final verse of the pericope, Mt 26:5, is a redaction, supports this solution, as, of course, does the TJ's lack of a cognate. The fact that neither Pharisees nor scribes are involved in this meeting further supports this solution. The writer of Matthew did not wish to implicate them if he did not have to, because, as we have seen previously, he appears to have once been a Pharisee himself and still favored most of their teachings. It is not at all clear that a literary hoaxer would have known enough to omit this passage. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 26:5 5But they [chief priests and elders] said, "Not during the feast, lest there be a tumult among the people." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This refers to their plotting to arrest Jesus. It turns out, according to the apparent timing of the crucifixion events given in Matthew, that Jesus' arrest occurred soon after the Passover feast while the ceremony was still in progress. This contradicts the above verse. Beare (p. 503) mentioned this problem. SOLUTION. This kind of error is suggestive of a falsified account due to editorial alteration of the facts, and is less likely to occur when a real life situation is honestly reported. However, had a literary hoaxer been aware of this problem, he would likely have corrected the verse in some manner, such as by saying, "Let's arrest him during the feast, while the people are all inside"-but the TJ says no such thing. PHoax ¯ 0.45. In speculating on why the writer of Matthew made this mistake, it may have been motivated by the desire to bolster the image of Jesus' popularity among the people and ensure he was no less popular than had been John the Baptist, whose popularity had instilled fear into Herod Antipas (Mt 14:5). As he continued his editing of the TJ to form his gospel, however, the writer of Matthew decided to delay the timing of the meal by one day so that this would be a Passover meal; the TJ mentions in passing that it was not a Passover meal (in TJ 31:32, which is omitted from Matthew). So the writer of Matthew inserted the phrases "eat the passover" and "keep the passover" into his text so that potential Jewish converts would find that Jesus had been an observant Jew, and perhaps so that early Christians would give to the Last Supper an importance equal to that of the Seder within Judaism. On this, G. A. Wells states, "The early Christians were Jews who did not drop the Passover (any more than they did the OT [Old Testament]), but understood it in their own way and in time (as they moved further away from Jewish ideas) refashioned it."[2] Thus the writer of Matthew made a few small alterations of the TJ text in order to explicitly mention the Passover meal. In so doing, however, he apparently forgot that the present verse, Mt 26:5, was discordant. This seems like one viable explanation. The other problem this redaction would cause is to shorten Jesus' period of entombment by one day-from three to two, thus causing the prophecy on this to be flawed. Mt 26:6-13 6Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, 7a woman came up to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head.... 12"In pouring this ointment on my body she has done it to prepare me for burial. 13Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her." TJ 27:17-25 17And Jmmanuel finished his talk and departed for Bethany and the house of Simon, the leper. 18Behold, a woman came up to him with a glass of precious water, which she poured on his head as he sat at the table. 19When his disciples saw that, they became angry and indignant and said, "What is the benefit of this waste? 20This water could have been sold at a high price and the proceeds used for the poor." 21But when Jmmanuel heard this, he scolded his disciples and said, "Why are you upsetting the woman? 22She has done me a good deed because she trusts in my teachings. In this way she shows her gratitude, and nothing is too expensive for her. 23This woman has become wise and lives according to the laws of Creation. Therefore she thanks me with the precious water. 24Her gratitude will be lasting, and from now on her deed shall be known throughout the world. 25Truly, I say to you, wherever my teachings will be preached in all the world, whether falsified or true, the people will remember what she has done." TJ 27:17-25 17Und Jmmanuel beendete seine Rede und machte sich auf nach Bethanien zum Hause Simons, des Aussätzigen. 18Siehe, da trat zu ihm eine Frau, die hatte ein Glas mit köstlichem Wasser und goss es auf sein Haupt, als er zu Tische sass. 19So das aber seine Jünger sahen, wurden sie zornig und unwillig und sprachen: «Wozu soll sie gut sein, diese Vergeudung? 20Dieses Wasser hätte können teuer verkauft werden, so der Erlös den Armen diene.» 21Da dies aber Jmmanuel hörte, fuhr er seine Jünger unwillig an und sprach: «Was bekümmert ihr die Frau? 22An mir hat sie getan ein gutes Werk, denn sie vertraut meiner Lehre und zeuget so ihren Dank, so ihr nichts ist zu teuer. 23Diese Frau ist weise geworden und lebet nach den Gesetzen der Schöpfung, daher danket sie es mir mit dem köstlichen Wasser. 24Ihr Dank aber wird von Dauer sein, und ihre Tat soll fortan genennet sein in aller Welt. 25Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Wo meine Lehre gepredigt wird in aller Welt, ob sie verfälschet sei oder wahr, da wird man auch sagen zu ihrem Gedächtnis, was sie getan hat.» THE PROBLEMS. (a) First there is a minor problem of how Jesus and disciples found themselves in Bethany. They had last been placed on the Mount of Olives. (b) This woman, whose name the writer of the gospel's source apparently did not remember, would not have been aware of Jesus' coming crucifixion; only his disciples had been told of that. Thus, as Beare (p. 506) mentioned, she would not have poured the ointment on him for the reason later placed upon Jesus' lips-as a preparation for burial. Hence this is another anachronism. (c) It must be questioned if the word "gospel" would have been used by the original writer, since its Gothic derivation ("god spell" or "good spell") is a translation of the Greek "eu-aggelion," or "good news," which was first expressed in Paul's Greek writings of his epistles, referring to an oral gospel. During his own ministry, Jesus did not refer to his own teachings as good news, and in the present Matthean context it could scarcely be called "good news" that Jesus was being prepared for burial. Hence "gospel," as used here, was inauthentic-another anachronism. (d) The pericope of the Bethany event is very awkwardly sandwiched between the plotting of the chief priests and elders in the temple in Jerusalem to arrest Jesus, and the skullduggery of Judas Iscariot with the chief priests. This then is strongly suggestive of being a consequence of editorial action. SOLUTION. (a) The parallel TJ text does picture Jesus and disciples going to Bethany; (b) the woman poured the ointment for a logical reason, to which Beare's criticism does not apply; (c) in the TJ this objection against use of the word "gospel" does not exist, as the word "teachings" occurs there; and (d) no such sandwiching occurs in the TJ text. There, the pericope is preceded by Jmmanuel's long talk before they left for Bethany, and is followed by Jmmanuel continuing to talk to his disciples (for another seven verses). The problems resulted from the editorial alterations to the TJ text made by the writer of Matthew. A partial exception is to be made regarding (c), however. The Semitic Gospel of Matthew presumably had the Semitic equivalent of "good news" in place of "gospel," and it was the later translator who utilized the Greek word for "gospel." The odds are not good indeed that a literary hoaxer could have foreseen at least three of these Matthean problems. Instead, in each instance the odds strongly favor the TJ being genuine (with a probability of hoax certainly no greater than 0.30 to 0.35) and the writer of Matthew having edited it. Accumulating three probabilities each of this value gives PHoax ¯ 0.1 for this passage. As noted in the Introduction, this evaluation allows that Jmmanuel could have been, or was, a true prophet in the sense of long-range prophecies, not just short range. Those who cannot accept this, e.g., Beare, (p. 506), regard it as a saying of unknown origin. Mt 26:14-16 14Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15and said, "What will you give me if I deliver him to you?" And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. 16And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him. TJ 27:27-33 27"While we are here together, Juda Iharioth, the son of the Pharisee in Jerusalem, is hatching an evil plot against me so he can betray me to the chief priests. 28At this very moment as we are gathered here, he is asking the chief priests for the blood money they are offering for my capture. 29Thirty pieces of silver are being offered to him if they capture me through his help. 30While they are forging this plan, they are also designing a plot against one among you, since they want to present a culprit to the people. 31As Juda Iharioth, the son of the Pharisee, will turn me over to the henchmen, my disciple Judas Iscarioth will be considered the traitor, 32so that the message to the people will be, 'Behold, these fools are divided among themselves, so that one betrays the other. How, then, can the teachings of Jmmanuel contain any truth?' 33But since Juda Iharioth, the son of the Pharisee, and my disciple, Judas Iscarioth, have almost identical names, the lie of the chief priests will be accepted from the beginning." TJ 27:27-33 27«Allso wir hier zusammen sind, schmiedet der Pharisäersohn Juda Iharioth in Jerusalem böse Ränke wider mich, so er mich den Hohenpriestern verrate. 28Zur selbigen Zeit wir hier versammelt sind, fragt er die Hohenpriester nach dem Blutgeld, das sie für mich bieten. 29Und dreissig Silberlinge werden ihm geboten, so sie mich durch ihn fangen werden. 30So sie gerade dieses Komplott schmieden, hegen sie auch Ränke wider einen unter euch, so sie einen Schuldigen vor dem Volke haben. 31Allso der Pharisäersohn Juda Iharioth mich den Schergen ausliefern wird, soll mein Jünger Judas Ischarioth als Verräter gelten. 32Dies darum, so es vor dem Volke heissen soll: ‹Siehe, diese Irren sind uneins unter sich selbst, daher der eine den andern verrät; wie kann da die Lehre Jmmanuels eine Wahrheit sein›? 33Da aber der Pharisäersohn Juda Iharioth und mein Jünger Judas Ischarioth fast gleichen Namens sind, so gelingt die Lüge den Hohenpriestern von Anfang also.» THE PROBLEMS. The writer of Matthew either placed this story slightly too early in his text, or else failed to introduce it properly, because he starts out with "Then...." At that time, however, Jesus and the disciples were in Bethany, not Jerusalem where the chief priests were. Bethany is a mostly uphill walk of some 20 miles from Jerusalem. Either way, the error is suggestive of an editorial hand being involved. It has been pointed out by C. Guignebert [3] and others that it doesn't really make sense that Judas would have betrayed Jesus for a paltry 30 pieces of silver since, as treasurer for the Twelve, he could have pilfered more than this on various occasions. (For the information that he was treasurer, one must make use of Jn 12:6 and 13:29.) It is most improbable that the chief priests would simply hand over 30 pieces of silver to one of the twelve disciples of Jesus without first hearing from the disciple as to why he was disgruntled with his lord. They would obviously first wish to judge whether he was seemingly sincere in his willingness to betray his teacher. It is also improbable that a disciple would ask for an audience of chief priests to ask them for money without any prior announcement by them that a "blood-money" award was being offered, and equally improbable that an associate of Jesus would even be granted an audience alone with the chief priests.[4] And how would the writer of Matthew learn the words that Judas spoke to the chief priests, and that it was from that moment on he sought to betray Jesus? The writer was no prophet and mind reader like Jesus was, and Judas would not have shared his betrayal plans with any of the other disciples. He committed suicide, supposedly, too soon afterwards to have divulged this information to any other who might have contacted the writer of Matthew. And it isn't realistic to suppose that the writer of Matthew, or the disciple Matthew, went to the chief priests afterwards and quizzed them about the matter, since the disciples scattered after Jesus' arrest. Furthermore, what Judas asks the chief priests lies within a quotation, as if it were (a translation of) his direct words. However, it is unlikely that he would have said "if I deliver him to you." More likely he would have named Jesus here or first let the chief priests know whom he was talking about. Hence, this does not read like it derived from real speech. SOLUTION. The first three quoted sentences from the TJ account are the cognates to the first two Matthean verses; the following ones are included for clarity. We see from the TJ account that Jmmanuel used his powers of foreknowledge or "remote-viewing" to become informed about the plot in progress against him. Although such an ability or power of the spirit may seem incredible, is it any more so than his ability to restore a blind man's sight, cure a leper, to know from a distance that the daughter (of Jairus) was not dead after all but was asleep (Mt 9:24), or to read the thoughts of others (Mt 9:4 and TJ 9:4)? Hence in the TJ account Jmmanuel's prescience on this did take place while he and the disciples were still in Bethany, which explains why the writer of Matthew mistakenly placed his altered version at about the same time. With the betrayer being a young Pharisee (Juda)-a familiar acquaintance of Jmmanuel-the moral dilemma posed by Judas Iscariot being the betrayer vanishes. As noted in previous discussions, comparison of the TJ with the Gospel of John indicates that John's writer did have some knowledge of the TJ, and the fact that Judas was treasurer for the Twelve (TJ 14:3) was one of the items from the TJ that he made use of. TJ 27:28-29 indicates that the chief priests had made known, at least among certain circles, that they were offering money for help in having Jesus be arrested. They would be much more quickly convinced that a Pharisee, or son of a prominent Pharisee, would indeed be sincere in offering to help them capture Jmmanuel than if a disciple had made the offer. And as seen in both the Matthean and TJ verses, the chief priests were quickly convinced that the would-be betrayer would perform his task. This problem qualifies as one of "Matthean fatigue," since the writer first alters the Pharisee Juda into the disciple Judas, but then returns to an abbreviated form of the TJ account, forgetting that he should also have altered the latter account so as to have the chief priests quiz Judas thoroughly as to his sincerity and reasons for wishing to betray Jesus. Verse 27:30 of the TJ, involving "a plot against one among you," seems likely to have been the words suggesting to the writer of Matthew in Mt 26:21 to state that "one of you" would be the betrayer, thus keeping the matter uncertain so that the other disciples would not prevent Judas from going out to do his supposed deed. The additional TJ verses also explain how it was that the near coincidence in names allowed the chief priests' rumor to stick, of the betrayer being Judas Iscariot rather than the Pharisee's son, Juda Iharioth. It may be noted that it was quite possible for a false rumor to be promulgated in those days; during the reign of the Seleucid Antiochus IV, in the 2nd century B.C., a false rumor spread throughout Jerusalem that he had been killed, which led to much public celebration [4.1]. The TJ solves so many Matthean problems here in such realistic and novel ways that the hoax hypothesis can scarcely even be entertained. PHoax ¯ 0.05. Mt 26:17-18 17Now on the first day of [the feast of] Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the passover?" 18He said, "Go into the city to such a one, and say to him, 'The Teacher says, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.'" TJ 27:34 34On the first day of the Unleavened Bread, Jmmanuel spoke to his disciples, "Go forth into the city to a good friend of mine named Aaron and tell him, 'Jmmanuel says to you: I want to have a last meal with my disciples at your house, for behold, the Feast of the Passover is near.'" TJ 27:34 34Es geschah aber am ersten Tage der ungesäuerten Brote, dass Jmmanuel sprach zu seinen Jüngern: «Gehet hin in die Stadt zu einem mir guten Freund namens Aaron und sprecht zu ihm: ‹Jmmanuel lässt dir sagen: Ich will bei dir ein letztes Mahl halten mit meinen Jüngern, denn siehe, das Passahfest ist nahe.›» THE PROBLEMS. Just who is this "such a one?" Does the phrase actually mean that the person's name was forgotten by the original writer of Matthew or of its source? More important, if the disciples did not say who had sent them, except for calling Jesus "the Teacher," this would not likely be a sufficient clue for the person to know whom they were talking about. Further, it is quite unlikely that the disciples would be told to disclose the private information related to "My time is near," because this person, even more so than the disciples, would not know what they were talking about. SOLUTION. In the TJ text the disciples were told whom to ask for in passing along Jmmanuel's request; further, they were to state who had made the request. Although one may question how Jmmanuel could be so sure that Aaron could allow them to use his house on such short notice, the fact that he was a good friend of Jmmanuel makes the request less surprising, or less of an imposition, than in the Matthean account. But if the name "Aaron" had indeed been remembered for use within the TJ source text, why would the writer of Matthew not have utilized it in his gospel? Considering that writer's fondness for Moses, the reason could well be that, in contrast, he held Moses's brother, Aaron, in contempt for his great sin of having made the golden, molten calf along with an altar so that the people of Israel could worship it and sacrifice to it while Moses was delayed in coming down from Mount Sinai (Ex 32:1-8). Moreover, at Ex 32:33 the LORD tells Moses that he will blot out of his book the name of whoever sinned against him, and the sin in mind was Aaron's great sin. So if God would do that, the writer of Matthew could do no less-omit Aaron's name. This hypothesis is consistent with his similar treatment of genealogical names of the "fallen angels" (see under Mt 1:2-3,5-6), of omitting Nazareth at one point (see under Mt 13:54, Mt 14:1) and "the other Mary" in Mt 28:1, to be discussed under that verse heading. The Gospel of Matthew makes no mention anywhere of Moses's brother Aaron, or of the Levites, whereas Luke, for example, does. The above objections are too unknown to expect a literary hoaxer to have invented them. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 26:22 22And they [the disciples] were very sorrowful, and began to say to him one after another, "Is it I, Lord?" TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Here we have moved on ahead to the Lord's Supper. Beare (p. 508) noticed how remarkable it would have been if each disciple wondered whether he would be capable of betraying his lord. That is, not just one disciple, but all of them are supposed to have thought this lowly of themselves. SOLUTION. The disciples did not think thus of themselves. In his invention of text for the Last Supper for the purpose of replacing unacceptable TJ text, the writer of Matthew ended up with this most improbable scenario. Mt 26:23 23He answered, "He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Here Jesus goes too far towards identifying who this betrayer would be. Just two verses previously he had already let the disciples know that it would be one of them. Now he is letting them know more precisely: it could only be a disciple who was sitting within arm's reach of Jesus, and who reached into the dish the same time Jesus did. This would have eliminated most of the twelve disciples from contention. Those who had not dipped in the dish at the same time Jesus did, or had not even partaken of that dish yet, would know that each other was innocent. They should have evinced strong objections and emotions at that time against the potential betrayer, if the story were genuine. However, they do not. Essentially the same objection applies two verses later also. It cannot be claimed that the disciples were too timid or too reverential in front of Jesus to voice their consternation or ask for an explanation, as Peter did just that at Mt 15:15, 16:22, 19:27. And the sons of Zebedee did not mind their mother asking that they enjoy favored positions in the coming kingdom (Mt 20:22). Of course, if there were any realism to this story, the eleven disciples who already knew that they were not in any way going to betray their Lord would have spoken out, demanding that Jesus tell them immediately who the betrayer would be (not who he was). SOLUTION. The story suffers from the objection because it was only an invented story. Mt 26:24 24"The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Even if the disciples knew they were to equate this Son of man with Jesus, they would still not begin to understand what possible connection this had to the coming ordeal that Jesus had prophesied. For the son of man in Daniel was given dominion, glory and kingdom, with no mention of having to undergo a crucifixion. Further, Jesus could not have expected his disciples to know what Scriptural reference he had in mind, which some scholars, however, might assume was Psalm 41: 9Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted his heel against me. However, this was David speaking this psalm, and this line was not part of a prophecy involving anyone else. SOLUTION. Evidently, the writer of Matthew continued to have Daniel's vision of the "son of man" in mind, in equating it to Jesus, and perhaps the psalm also. Although the Matthean verse would have made no sense to the disciples, it could make sense decades later to the ex-Pharisee Christian convert who wrote Matthew, and who could overlook the inconsistencies involved in his eagerness to impress the messianic appellation upon Jesus. Mt 26:25 25Judas, who betrayed him, said, "Is it I, Master?" He said to him, "You have said so." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Some who see this verse as Jesus' affirmation that Judas was the betrayer have criticized it for not having provoked any consternation or action among the other eleven disciples. Would they have continued to eat calmly on? This criticism is usually circumvented by assuming this conversation between Judas and Jesus was whispered (Beare, p. 508). If so, however, how did a non-Judas author ever learn about these whispered words to later write about it? Either way, then, this verse presents a logical problem, reflecting an exchange that did not take place. And the exchange is inconclusive, since the question "Is it I?" is quite different from the statement "It is I," which Judas would need to have spoken if he had actually admitted his intent as Jesus indicated. However, it is quite fanciful as well, since in reality Judas would in all likelihood have avoided asking the question. Actually, he would have needed to exit from the supper quite early in order to have enough time to carry out his supposed role in the betrayal, and round up a large party of chief priests and enforcers armed with clubs. Yet there is no mention that he left the meal before it was over. In fact, Mt 26:35 indicates that all the disciples were at the Mount of Olives following their meal together. Another indication of unreality of the conversation, assuming it took place almost as written, is that the disciples would have asked, "will it be me (or I)?" not "Is it I?" It was the writer of Matthew who had Judas in his mind as the betrayer ever since verse Mt 10:4b, and for years or decades beforehand. But Judas could not become a betrayer until after having committed an act of betrayal. This then is an anachronism indicated by the use of the wrong verb tense. (Both Aramaic and Greek of course possessed the future tense as an integral part of the language.) SOLUTION. The illogic arose from the writer having invented this and neighboring verses. The overemphasis on Judas as betrayer need not have been fed in here unless the compiler for some reason wished to make it redundantly clear that the betrayer was not someone else, but was Judas. The suspicion thus presents itself that the betrayer was not Judas Iscariot. This the TJ makes clear; Judas was the writer among the Twelve. The betrayer, who later committed suicide, was a young Pharisee by the name of Juda, as has been noted previously. Now, concerning the hypothesis that the TJ is a literary hoax: a hoaxer who omitted the previous three Matthean verses would need to omit this one also. However, each Matthean verse or sentence that receives valid criticisms indicating it is a redaction (and for which there is no TJ cognate), deserves a PHoax rating at least a little less than 0.5-the sentence being the minimum textual unit for which a probability judgment may be assessed. However, to be conservative here and consistent with the procedure elsewhere, as in Mt 25, we assign PHoax ¯ 0.45 for this entire block of four Matthean verses. The writer of Mark evidently found this verse of Matthew to be unnecessary or unrealistic, too. So he omitted it when writing his gospel. Hence many present-day New Testament scholars are content to conclude it is not genuine in Matthew simply because we don't find it in Mark. Mt 26:26 26Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is my body." TJ 27:40 40As they were eating, Jmmanuel took the bread, broke it and gave it to the disciples, saying, "Take it and eat; the body requires nourishment even in times of distress and grief." TJ 27:40 40Da sie aber assen, nahm Jmmanuel das Brot und brach’s und gab’s den Jüngern und sprach: «Nehmet und esset; der Leib bedarf der Nahrung in Not und Trauer also.» THE PROBLEM. Without going into the old dispute over transubstantiation, or how a piece of bread can be equated to a body, we may note Marcus Borg's conclusion: "As a sacrament of bread and wine presupposing the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is manifestly a post-Easter development," hence an anachronism.[5] This means a development occurring within the Christian church after it began to emerge and diverge from Judaism. Borg also notes, "It is difficult to make any historical judgment about the details of the 'last supper,' including the words actually spoken by Jesus, simply because the remembrance and celebration of it were so central in the worship of the early church."[6] Also, as discussed under Mt 14:19, the abbreviated form "and blessed" developed only after the Christian communion ritual had developed. SOLUTION. We see that the TJ contains the basis upon which simple redactions by the compiler could have altered it into the early church's developing communion practice. Such practice was perhaps built upon still earlier practices of the Essenes, of Mithraists, or even of early Judaism. As an example of the latter, an inscription concerning the ancient Semitic goddess Anat (the daughter of El and Asherah) reads, Anat devoured his [Baal's] flesh without a knife, she drank his blood without a cup. This caused one researcher of this inscription, A. W. Eaton, to comment that it "raises new questions about the origins of the religious ideal of the faithful eating the body and drinking the blood of their god."[7] Although in 1 Cor 11:23-26 Paul apparently wrote down the detailed wording of the Communion ceremony, this is almost certainly a later addition to his epistle.[8] In this passage it says Paul received the words from the Lord, yet at the time of his encounter with the bright light and the voice on the Road to Damascus-his only encounter with the risen "Jesus"-he would have been in a state of fear or amazement, wondering who/what it was, and in no mood to receive strange words of ritual. None of the accounts of this encounter in Acts say that any such words were spoken to Saul/Paul. Three verses before this point, at 1 Cor 11:20, where Paul was discussing dissension occurring among brethren of the church in Corinth when eating together, he made mention of eating a supper or dinner in a "lordly" manner, or a manner befitting their Lord (this is incorrectly translated as eating the Lord's supper in most Bibles). This very likely prompted a later interpolator to add the Communion passage to this epistle at this point, after the Gospels had come out. This solution explains why the words of the Eucharist within the Gospels differ so much from one another, and why some manuscripts of Luke give the Short Text version and others give the Long Text.[9] Only some time after the Gospels appeared did a consensus arise on how to word the Eucharist. According to W. R. Halliday, the early church fathers did notice the close similarity in many of their sacraments with those of Mithraism. These included the Communion ceremony with its bread and wine, the sealing of initiates, and the promise of resurrection.[10] However, they chose to call this a parody initiated by the devil rather than to wonder if their practices did not trace back to Mithraism and other pagan rites. Mithraism was a Persian religion involving the worship of Mithras, their god of light, and was brought into the Roman world during the first century B.C. A passage from the Mithraic communion reads: He who shall not eat of my body nor drink of my blood so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved.[11] The Essenes are reported to have engaged in rites very much like the Lord's Supper sacrament early in the first century, causing A. P. Davies to state, "there is no certainty that the accounts of the Lord's Supper in the New Testament have not been edited to accord with the practice (and doctrine) of a later time.[12] He also noted the possibility that the ritual could have derived from Mithraism or have been picked up from Mithraism by the Essenes. Thus the seeds of the Communion sacrament had already been planted, through early Judaism, Mithraism or the Essenes, so that the only other prompting needed by the early church in adapting the rite to Christianity was the knowledge that Jesus and his disciples had eaten a final meal together, including bread and wine, before the crucifixion. The lack of a Communion sacrament within the TJ is therefore consistent with its authenticity. The TJ verse may seem rather mundane in comparison with the Matthean verse. But this merely reflects the fact that the first few Matthean words start out like those of the TJ, which then departs from what is expected by the Christian from years of recital of the Communion creed. The radical nature of the latter (this bread is Jesus' body) is thus taken for granted by the Christian, who comes to think nothing of it, whereas the TJ's words may then seem bland or strange by comparison. However, they form a piece of wisdom teaching that a literary hoaxer would be very unlikely to invent because of their very simplicity. The non-genuineness of the Matthean verse then contrasts with the realism of the TJ verse to allow us to assign PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 26:27-28 27And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you; 28for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." TJ 27:41-43 41And he took the cup, gave it to them and said, "Drink from this cup, all of you; the throat becomes thirsty even on a rainy and cold day. 42Truly, I say to you, a wise person does not hunger and thirst because of things that must happen. 43But a fool hungers and thirsts on account of stupidity and dissent against things that must happen. TJ 27:41-43 41Und er nahm den Kelch, gab ihnen den und sprach: «Trinket alle daraus; die Kehle dürstet auch dann, so ein Tag voller Regen ist und kalt. 42Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Nicht hungert und dürstet ein Weiser wegen irgendwelcher Dinge, die geschehen müssen. 43Ein Narr aber hungert und dürstet durch Unvernunft und Hader wider Dinge, die geschehen müssen.» THE PROBLEM. In this passage from the Last Supper, Beare (p. 509) concluded that the writer of Matthew had inserted the "forgiveness of sins" phrase in order to put across the concept that sins are forgiven through Christ's shedding of blood on the cross. Although Beare's reasoning was prompted by comparison with the parallel passage in Mark, it appears valid in essence, since the original concept of "blood of the covenant" stems from Moses having promised the LORD to obey his ordinances in return for the LORD promising to terrorize the enemies of the Jewish people (Ex 23:27). This covenant was sealed through the dispersal of blood from sacrificed oxen, as described in Exodus: Ex 24:8 And Moses took the blood and threw it upon the people, and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words." Davies and Allison seem to admit to the institutional nature of the Last-Supper wording within Mt 26:26-29 when they agree it is "an aetiological cult narrative."[13] That is, it is an anachronistic discourse imposed by the writer of Matthew rather than being a faithful rendition of actual words spoken by Jesus. SOLUTION. Although the original blood of the covenant had nothing to do with forgiveness of sins, a later passage in Jeremiah (Jer 31:31-34) does connect the forgiveness of sins with a new covenant. This, then, along with his reverence for scripture involving Moses, may well have provided the writer of Matthew with the motivation and justification for including the phrase in this verse. The TJ's phrase, "the cup," suggests that there was only one cup available-a large one that was passed around. This contrasts with Matthew's "a cup," which could imply a smaller cup available for each disciple. Movies and paintings that portray the scene the TJ's way thus may indeed be more historical. TJ 27:41 is essentially the same as Mt 26:27 except for its last clause, not in Matthew. The TJ's following two verses, also not in Matthew, give a simple wisdom saying, or piece of philosophy, which forms an integral part of TJ 27:41b. The absence of Mt 26:28 from the TJ, along with the latter's unique wisdom saying, speak in favor of the TJ over Matthew here. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Considering Mt 26:20-28 as a whole, it may be noticed that this last supper episode in no way resembles a Passover dinner ceremony. There is no mention of the Paschal lamb, or of recitation of the Haggadah stories, or of having four cups of wine per person. In making alterations in the TJ designed to turn the supper into a Eucharist, the writer of Matthew exhibited "fatigue" in not following up on his earlier alterations indicating it was a Passover meal (Mt 26:17b-19). He forgot to add in the Passover rituals. Mark's version of the Last Supper does not contain the forgiveness phrase, it may be noted, suggesting that its writer felt gentiles would not understand a connection between shedding of blood and forgiveness of sins. Instead, Mark's main forgiveness verse occurs at the Jordan River baptism passage (Mk 1:4), perhaps because it was understood that baptism (washing or cleansing) was a time of repentance, and forgiveness of sins is more sensibly associated with repentance than with bleeding. Thus the Markan location of this forgiveness phrase appears to constitute another Markan improvement over Matthew. Mt 26:29 29"I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." TJ 27:38 38"Truly, I say to you, from now on I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vineyard nor eat the grain of the bread until the day I drink and eat again with you after my ordeal." TJ 27:38 38«Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Ich werde von nun an nicht mehr vom Gewächs des Weinstockes trinken und nicht vom Brotkorn essen bis an den Tag, da ich’s nach meiner Prüfung neu trinken und essen werde mit euch.» THE PROBLEM. This verse has been identified by B. S. Crawford as belonging with several others scattered throughout the Gospel that talk of Jesus' return being soon.[14] This is with the interpretation that his return would be at his Second Coming. The latter must have been soon, then, if his disciples would still be alive to drink wine with him. Hence the verse must be a redaction along with these others, since the Second Coming had not taken place even by the time of the writing of Matthew. Its ambiguity is also cause for suspicion of its genuineness, since the disciples were never informed what the Father's kingdom is. Here, "my Father's kingdom" seems to be the same as Earth, if grapes grow there on vines supported by soil, if wine is made out of them, and if people there enjoy the taste of wine and need to drink liquids. SOLUTION. This TJ verse needed editing by the writer of Matthew only in its last portion, but that was sufficient to have caused the problem. However, one may wonder why the writer omitted mention of "the grain of the bread" and only spoke of "the fruit of the vine." One possible reason is that speaking of drinking wine and eating bread both would sound too much like Jesus and disciples would be having a normal earthly meal, and the compiler was intent upon omitting anything that could imply that Jesus survived the crucifixion. At the same time, drinking wine would presumably be one of the pleasures of heaven, which he therefore included with alteration, whereas his picture of heaven may have been that one doesn't eat food there. Also, by placing this altered TJ verse just after the Last Supper's ritual wording, it would fit in well with the "blood of the covenant" of his previous verse, if it referred only to wine and not also to bread. In the TJ there is no mention of Jmmanuel eating or drinking again until his much later appearance to his disciples, which finds a parallel with Jn 21:1-13. Although this would verify the prophecy, it would be much too long a fast. One possible solution to this TJ problem is that Jmmanuel did eat and drink some with his disciples on their first meeting, on the evening of the day he departed from the tomb (TJ 31:32-40), but that detail went unreported. Another is that he had to abstain from grains and wine, with its blood-thinning effect, while subsisting on more easily digestible items until his internal healing was complete. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 26:30 30And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. This verse gives a glimpse of the Christian customs-singing a hymn-that had evolved by the time of Matthew's compilation, as noted by Beare (p. 510). Thus it is another anachronism. SOLUTION. The TJ does not have this verse, but instead contains verses (27:44-47) in which Jmmanuel deplores the disciples' continuing failure to comprehend how his coming ordeal would be culminated by his rising from near-death and leaving the tomb. It is thus understandable that the compiler of Matthew omitted them and substituted a verse all his own. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Jmmanuel and the disciples did not go to the Mount of Olives then, only to Gethsemane. Mt 26:31-33 31Then Jesus said to them [the disciples], "You will all fall away because of me this night; for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.' 32But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee." 33Peter declared to him, "Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away." TJ 27:44-48 44"And truly, I say to you, just as you do not understand my words now and are angry with me because of them, so will you be angry with me tonight, because your minds still have not been enlightened with cognition. 45But after I rise from near death and appear to have risen from the tomb, I shall walk in front of you to Galilee, so you may recognize the truthfulness of my words. 46I have taught you knowledge and truth, but yet you doubt and distrust me. 47O you who are fainthearted and of little confidence, how startled and confused you will be when I meet you again after my near death." 48But Petrus answered him, saying, "Even if they all were angry with you, I would never be angry." TJ 27:44-48 44«Und wahrlich, ich sage euch: So ihr jetzt meine Worte nicht verstehet und deswegen an mir Ärgernis nehmt, so werdet ihr in dieser Nacht an mir Ärgernis nehmen, weil euch euer Verstand noch immer nicht in Erkenntnis erleuchtet ist. 45Wenn ich aber aus dem Halbtode und also aus dem Grabe scheinbar auferstehe, will ich vor euch hingehen nach Galiläa, so ihr erkennen möget die Wahrheit meiner Worte. 46Wissen habe ich euch gelehret und die Wahrheit, doch aber seid ihr in Zweifel und vertraut mir nicht. 47Ihr Kleinmütigen und ihr Kleinvertrauenden; wie werdet ihr erschrecken und verwirret sein, so ich euch nach dem Halbtode wieder begegne.» 48Petrus aber antwortete und sprach zu ihm: «Wenn sie auch alle Ärgernis nähmen an dir, so würde ich dies doch nie tun.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare's common-sense criticism here (p. 510) was that Jesus would not be able to lead his disciples, or go ahead of them, to Galilee if they had already scattered and left the Jerusalem area. It seems that the compiler recalled a citation from Zechariah: Zec 13:7 "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me," says the LORD of hosts. "Strike the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered;...." and found it to be sufficiently apropos that he could not refrain from inserting a close version of it here. Another problem, however, is that in the preferred Greek reading, instead of "You will all fall away because of me" it translates as "You all will be offended at me." Thus, the "scattered sheep" simile is even less applicable, since being offended need not lead to desertion. But why would the disciples be offended? SOLUTION. Only TJ 27:45 & 48 have partial Matthean parallels. The TJ passage does not contain the Zechariah verse, nor any cognate to Mt 26:31, and so the inconsistency does not arise there. In TJ 27:45 Jmmanuel explains to his disciples that he will go before them to Galilee so that they can see for themselves (for the second time, it turns out) that he spoke the truth when prophesying he would not die at the crucifixion. Since this great heresy is what "truth" refers to here, the last clause of this TJ verse may have been omitted entirely by the compiler, not just altered, in order to remove this meaning utterly and totally. In TJ 27:44 we see that Jmmanuel had been telling the disciples that they would be angry or annoyed with him that night because they would not understand what he had told them, about his coming ordeal. This is what Peter responded to, in saying he would never be angry at him. It appears that the translators of the New Testament from the Greek chose a meaning ("fall away" rather than "offended") that went beyond the actual meaning of the Greek word in order that the Zechariah citation would seem more applicable. And here the German word "Halbtod," which could be translated as "half death" has been translated as "near death" as in the TJ's 3rd edition, while the 4th edition uses the term "apparent death." Could a literary hoaxer have invented the text of this TJ passage, make it fit the personality of Jmmanuel, and avoid the two Matthean problems, one of which is very serious and the other quite obscure? The evident answer is "No chance," to which we shall conservatively assign PHoax ¯ 0.05. Mt 26:35 35Peter said to him, "Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you." And so said all the disciples. 36Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane... TJ 27:50-51 50But Petrus contradicted him, saying, "This will never come to pass, and even if I were forced to die with you, I would never deny you." 51And thus spoke all of his disciples, and so they failed to trust Jmmanuel's words. TJ 27:50-51 50Und Petrus widersprach: «Nie wird es so sein; und wenn ich mit dir sterben müsste, so will ich dich nie verleugnen.» 51Und so sprachen sie alle seine Jünger, und also vertrauten sie nicht Jmmanuels Worten. THE PROBLEM. Judas would have had to leave the other disciples before this time, even before the last supper was over, in order to inform the chief priests that an opportunity had arisen to arrest Jesus, and in time to round up the many others ("a great crowd" according to Mt 26:47) who would capture him. And there would be very little time for this, since the non-genuineness of Mt 26:30 indicates that they did not first go to the Mount of Olives. The Gospel of John tries to get around this problem by having Judas leave in the midst of the meal (Jn 13:30). Yet here in Matthew it is indicated that all the disciples were present at this time, and that they then went to Gethsemane where, a while later, Judas is seen to approach with the chief priests and crowd. This problem has been pointed out by H. Maccoby.[15] Is the reader supposed to think that, starting from the time the disciples were all at the Mount of Olives, Judas is not to be thought of as a disciple and thus not counted among the twelve? This assumption would be quite unrealistic, as Judas could not be considered "the betrayer" until after he had committed the deed. SOLUTION. The writer of Matthew felt he could leave the meaning of these two TJ verses mostly intact, as they did not contain unacceptable or offensive material like so many others had. He would not, for example, eliminate Peter's denial, because then he would not be able to display Jesus' related prophecy and its fulfillment. But he overlooked the fact that Judas should not then still have been there, and copied the TJ's "all of his disciples" essentially intact. (Within the TJ's account, of course, Judas Iscariot was indeed there.) Later, at Mt 28:16, he indicated by "the eleven disciples" there that he could have stated it the same way at this earlier point if he had thought of it. This objection is not particularly well known by NT scholars. The TJ's straightforward narration of Juda Iharioth as the betrayer then explains Matthew's "all the disciples" at this point, as in the TJ text. This can also be called "Matthean fatigue," since the writer of Matthew had crafted Judas Iscariot to replace Juda Iharioth as betrayer, but then grew careless or "fatigued" toward the end of his alterations and inadvertently allowed this piece of TJ text, "all the disciples" ("alle seine Jünger" in the German), to survive unedited. This then contributes to the low estimate of probability of the hoax hypothesis listed under Mt 26:14-16. One sees that the writer of Mark pretty well avoided this error, either intentionally or by accident, by referring to the disciples as "they," "them" or "they all," but not as "all the disciples" (Mk 14:26,31-32). The writer of Luke avoided it similarly, though he did once refer to "the disciples" after Judas would have had to absent himself (Lk 22:39). Mt 26:36-46 36Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, "Sit here while I go yonder and pray."... 38Then he said to them [to Peter and the two sons of Zebedee], "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here and watch with me."... 40And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping... 42Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done." 43And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44So leaving them again.... 45Then he came to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand." TJ 28:1-19 1Upon leaving the house of Aaron and his wife in Jerusalem, Jmmanuel went with his disciples to a country estate called Gethsemane, which belonged to a man named Joshua, who thought well of Jmmanuel. 2In the large garden of the estate he spoke to his disciples, "Sit down here while I go over there and ponder my thoughts."... 4And he spoke to them [Peter and the two sons of Zebedee], "Behold, to be sure I am wise and have great knowledge, but I am afraid of events before me, both the known and the unknown. However, this is the nature of humans, even when they are knowing and wise. 5My mind is deathly grieved; remain here therefore and watch with me, so I will not feel so alone."... 11Returning to his disciples he found them sleeping... 13A second time he went away, prostrated himself and said, "If it is not possible for the cup to pass me by, then I shall drink it, so that I may be enlightened in this secret and capable of fulfilling my mission in faraway lands and throughout all future times." 14Upon returning, he found the disciples sleeping again, and only Judas Iscarioth remained awake with him...17And his entire body trembled, and fine droplets of blood-like sweat flowed all over him because he was so very fearful and terrified. 18With his face flushed, he returned to his disciples and said to them, "Do you want to sleep and rest now, or do you want to watch with me? Behold, the hour has come when I will be turned over to the hands of the henchmen. 19So arise and let us go, for behold, the henchmen are coming." TJ 28:1-19 1So sie dann verliessen das Haus Aarons und dessen Weib in Jerusalem, ging Jmmanuel mit seinen Jüngern zum Hofe Gethsemane; der gehörte einem Manne namens Joshua, der Jmmanuel wohl gesinnet war. 2Im weiten Garten des Hofes sprach er zu seinen Jüngern: «Setzet euch hierhin, bis dass ich dorthin gehe und mich meinen Gedanken hingebe.» ...4Und er sprach zu ihnen: «Sehet, wohl bin ich weise und besitze grosses Wissen, doch aber ängstige ich mich vor dem mir Bekannten und doch unbekannten Kommenden, denn so ist es dem Menschen eigen, auch wenn er wissend und weise ist. 5Mein Sinn ist betrübt bis an den Tod; daher bleibet bei mir und wachet mit mir, dass ich mich nicht so allein fühle.» ...11Und er kam zurück zu seinen Jüngern und fand sie schlafend, und also sprach er zu Petrus: «Könnet ihr denn nicht eine Stunde mit mir wachen, so ich in meiner schweren Stunde nicht alleine sei?»... 13Zum andern Mal ging er wieder hin, fiel auf sein Angesicht und sprach: «Ist’s nicht möglich, dass dieser Kelch an mir vorübergehe, so trinke ich ihn denn, so ich erleuchtet werde in diesem Geheimnis und meine Mission in fernem Lande und in alle Zukunft erfülle.» 14Und er kam und fand die Jünger abermals schlafend, und nur Judas Ischarioth wachte mit ihm 17Und er zitterte am ganzen Leibe, und feines Schweissblut ergoss sich über ihn, da er so sehr fürchtete und ängstigte. 18Rot im Angesicht kam er zurück zu seinen Jüngern und sprach zu ihnen: «Wollt ihr nun schlafen und ruhen, oder wollt ihr mit mir wachen, denn sehet, die Stunde ist da, dass ich in die Hände der Schergen überantwortet werde. 19Steht auf also und lasset uns gehen, denn sehet, die Schergen kommen.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 512) mentioned the seeming senselessness of Jesus asking three of his disciples to come with him a little way, only to tell them to stay where they were while he went apart by himself to pray. And he was suspicious that the words "My soul is very sorrowful" had not come from Jesus but were placed on his lips by the compiler in analogy to Psalms 42:5,6 or 11, where the theme "Why are you cast down, O my soul?" is repeated. The syntax or logic in Mt 26:42 is entangled. It says in essence that if the ordeal (cup) cannot be avoided except by confronting it (drinking of it), then let his Father's will be done. Jesus does confront it by allowing himself to be arrested, but obviously the ordeal of crucifixion is not thereby avoided. Beare (p. 512) also noted the witness problem: that none of the disciples could have overheard Jesus' prayer, since even the three who were closest to him had fallen asleep. Hence, there was no witness other than Jesus himself. So how did the writer of Matthew ever learn about it? Also, the standard Greek text, as well as earlier Bibles until the present century,[16] instead presented Jesus' final question to his disciples as the statement, "Sleep on now, and take your rest... Arise, let us be going." Beare (p. 515) realized how puzzling these words are. The disciples are already asleep-why then tell them to sleep? Then, immediately afterwards, why tell them to rise? One interpretation might be that Jesus was using irony or sarcasm in speaking this oxymoron to his disciples. However, the solemnity of the occasion renders this very improbable, and an abrupt transition from solemnity to irony and back to solemnity lacks realism. SOLUTION. In the TJ, Jmmanuel tells the three why he needed a few others there with him to share his trepidation and grief. And we see that he did not paraphrase any psalm here, in saying "My mind is deathly grieved." Only after speaking with them, for five verses, did he walk some distance away, prostrate himself (more literally, "fall on his face"), and voice the first of his three laments. And in the TJ a key difference is seen, after Jmmanuel's second lament, when Judas Iscariot mentions that he had stayed awake. He had actually joined the three earlier, before Jmmanuel's first lament. Thus, the witness problem does not exist here; either Jmmanuel later dictated the text to Judas to write down, or else, if Judas did not later remember what Jmmanuel's words had been, as seems likely, he could ask him for his recollection. The logical problem of Mt 26:42 may have arisen from too hasty an editing of the TJ sentence that implies he would survive the crucifixion. The writer of Matthew should have penned something like, "My Father, if it isn't possible for this cup to pass me by, I will drink it in accordance with your will." On the other hand, the problem might have arisen from a faulty translation during conversion of Semitic Matthew into Greek. Regarding the "Sleep on now and arise" text, the Greek version comes close to what is in the TJ, except that in the latter it is posed as a question with an alternative: "sleep and rest now ...or watch with me?" It is likely that the TJ's version was altered by the compiler from a question to a statement in order to make Jesus into more of an authority figure-giving commands rather than asking questions. This motivation for redaction is well known, and was kept in mind by Beare in questioning a subsequent verse, Mt 26:50, to be discussed below. Then, in modern times when it was felt that small alterations could be made to improve the understanding, the Greek Matthew's "sleep on" instruction was converted into its present question in today's Bibles, as in the above RSV bible verse. One may wonder why the writer of Matthew did not mention the name of the owner of the place in Gethsemane; such a detail tends to provide overall credibility to a fraudulent work. In this instance, however, the name had been "Joshua" (or "Yehoshua" in Hebrew), which is the same name as "Jesus." Thus it would have led to some confusion, or detracted from "Jesus the Christ," if he had included this information. Regarding TJ 28:17, one can easily surmise that the writer of Matthew would not have retained a verse that spoke so graphically of the fear and terror within Immanuel/Jesus. However, the writer of Luke did include it in abbreviated form (Lk 22:44). This rare condition of blood mixed with sweat, which can arise during great stress due to breakage of tiny capillaries in the sweat glands, is known within medical dictionaries as hematidrosis. There are at least three items within this passage, discussed above, which each point towards the TJ being genuine and Matthew being fraudulent. PHoax ¯ 0.15. Mt 26:47 47While he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people. TJ 28:20 20While he was still speaking, behold, there came Juda Iharioth, the son of the Pharisee, and with him a large group of chief priests and elders of the people, armed with swords and poles. TJ 28:20 20Und als er noch redete, siehe, da kam Juda Iharioth, des Pharisäers Sohn, und mit ihm eine grosse Schar von Hohenpriestern und den Ältesten des Volkes, bewaffnet mit Schwertern und mit Stangen. THE PROBLEM. Judas Iscariot has already been amply identified as the disciple who betrayed Jesus-in Mt 10:4, 26:14-16, & 25, and there was never any doubt that he was one of the twelve. Why then this mention here of the obvious-that he was "one of the twelve"? The very next verse further identifies him as the betrayer, so it should not have been necessary to re-identify him here, unless there was some question that the person involved might have been someone other than Judas the disciple. A minor problem, mentioned by Davies and Allison, is Matthew's use of "great crowd,"[17] as a great crowd could hardly have been assembled quickly from the chief priests and elders. SOLUTION. The writer of Matthew evidently inserted "one of the twelve" in order that the text in front of him -the TJ-be completely negated. In so doing, he needlessly overemphasized Judas the disciple as the betrayer. And he inflated the size of the arresting group here as he so often did with other groups of people, but relative to the TJ, not relative to Mark. At this point we may point out that this arrest took place during the evening of the Passover feast, in apparent contradiction to Mt 26:4-5. This then constitutes Matthean "fatigue," in that the writer had inserted Mt 26:3- 5 saying that the plotters would avoid arresting Jesus "during the feast," but here, thanks also to Mt 26:17- 19, we see that he continued with the TJ's sequence of events. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 26:49-50 49And he [Judas] came up to Jesus at once and said, "Hail Master!" And he kissed him. 50Jesus said to him, "Friend, why are you here?" Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. TJ 28:23-26 23He [Juda the Pharisee] then stepped up to Jmmanuel and said, "I greet you, Master. I will follow your teachings now, for you are allowing me to repent for what I did during my old life." 24Then he touched Jmmanuel and gave him the kiss of betrayal. 25But Jmmanuel said to him, "My friend, why have you come to lie to me when betrayal burns in your mind and in your actions?" 26The henchmen then came up to Jmmanuel, put their hands on him and seized him. TJ 28:23-26 23Und alsbald trat er zu Jmmanuel und sprach: «Gegrüsset seist du, Meister, der du mich das alte Leben reuig sein lässt, so ich nunmehr deine Lehre befolgen will.» 24Und alsdann berührte er Jmmanuel und tat den Verräterkuss. 25Jmmanuel aber sprach zu ihm: «Mein Freund, warum bist du gekommen mir in Lüge zu reden, denn in deinem Sinne und in deinem Tun brennet der Verrat.» 26Da traten sie hinzu, die Schergen, und legten die Hände an Jmmanuel und griffen ihn. THE PROBLEMS. Since Judas had just been with Jesus at the last supper, it is altogether inappropriate that just an hour or two later he would have used a kiss to point out Jesus to the arresting party that night. A greeting kiss in those days, as now in Mideast countries, was generally used only after persons had been separated for a day or more. Moreover, C. S. Mann informs us that according to existent custom, no disciple would come up and even greet his teacher, if acting normally, as that would imply equality of the disciple with his master.[18] Such kissing action on the part of the disciple Judas would thus have created suspicion in the mind of Jesus, not allay it, if he could not have foretold what was to come. Further, Mt 26:47 tries to let the reader know that Judas was supposed to have been away from Jesus and the other disciples following the last supper, since he then comes to Gethsemane with the arresting crowd. However, in Mt 26:35-36, Judas is instead placed at Gethsemane with the other disciples! And again, the preferred Greek text renders Mt 26:50 differently as, "Friend, do that for which you have come." Beare (p. 516) deduced that a "why" had still earlier been present in the text, but had been removed by the writer of Matthew (or by a later redactor) who failed to reconstitute the sentence properly. The motivation for this, he and others feel, was so that Jesus would be portrayed as being firmly in command of all the events, including the betrayal. SOLUTION. As noted earlier, in the TJ Juda is a Pharisee with whom Jmmanuel and the Twelve had been acquainted for some time, and on fairly friendly terms. A kiss of greeting would not have been out of place for him, since he probably had not talked with Jmmanuel or the disciples for many days or weeks (he is not mentioned as being in contact with Jmmanuel and the disciples since the TJ's chapter 14, just prior to when Jmmanuel spoke the many parables). However, Jmmanuel was able to sense his thoughts of betrayal. This problem qualifies as another example of Matthean "fatigue." The writer of Matthew, having earlier altered Juda into Judas, at this point followed the TJ text, failing to invent a more appropriate method for Judas to have signaled which man was Jesus. Beare would appear to have been correct that the "why" and its sense of question in Mt 26:50 had been removed from the Greek source texts, and for the reason he gave, but he could not, of course, have anticipated the large amount of further redaction indicated by the TJ. (The RSV Bible interpreted the Greek as allowing the "why" to be present, so for it this particular objection does not apply.) The realism within the TJ text contrasts with the Matthean text, whose problems indicate lack of authenticity. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 26:51-52 51And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear. 52Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword." TJ 28:27-29 27And behold, one of the henchmen from the group thought better, had a quick change of mind, and feeling remorseful, sided with Jmmanuel. 28He stretched out his hand, drew his sword, and struck a chief priest's servant, cutting off his ear. 29Then Jmmanuel said to the man, "Put back your sword into its sheath, because anyone taking a sword without being in danger will perish by the sword." TJ 28:27-29 27Und siehe, einer aus der Schar der Schergen besann sich, war schnell andern Sinnes und war mit Jmmanuel, so ihn gereute. 28Seine Hand reckte er aus, zog sein Schwert und schlug nach eines Hohenpriesters Knecht und hieb ihm ein Ohr ab. 29Da sprach Jmmanuel zu ihm: «Stecke dein Schwert an seinen Ort, denn wer das Schwert nimmt und ist nicht in Not, der soll durch das Schwert umkommen.» THE PROBLEMS. There is a strange bit of obscurity in the first verse, in "one of those who were with Jesus." Only the disciples were in the group that was with him (as opposed to those against him who had approached the group), so why did the writer not say "one of the disciples?" And in so doing, why would he not name which disciple it was? Secondly, it is clear that the second Matthean verse is not strictly true. Many who use weapons malevolently do not themselves perish through use of such, and even within Christianity the need to make use of weapons in time of war or civil defense is usually acknowledged. Moreover, as stated by Davies and Allison, "That a disciple of Jesus wears a sword is unexpected and unexplained."[19] Within the rather detailed set of instructions to the disciples of Mt 10:5-13 there is no mention of carrying a sword. Instead, in Mt 10 the disciples are sent out defenseless, as "sheep in the midst of wolves." SOLUTION. The TJ verse makes clear that it was not one of the disciples who drew a sword, but one within the arresting party who had a change in heart. This makes additional sense in that we have not previously been given any reason to believe that any of the disciples carried a sword, whereas some of those in the arresting crowd were armed with swords (Mt 26:47 or TJ 28:20). Moreover, it helps explain why the arresting party did not also decide to arrest any of the disciples on the spot-they did not pose any threat or offer any resistance that would have provoked their arrest. As to why the writer of Matthew made this alteration, it might have been because he held no love for the chief priests and elders, as may be inferred from Mt 16:21, 21:23 and 26:3 (the latter being a Matthean insertion having no parallel in the TJ). So he perhaps did not wish to credit a chief priest or elder or cohort with a favorable change of heart, while not wishing to attribute the action definitely to a disciple, who according to Mt 5:39, would not have resisted the evil arresting party ("Do not resist one who is evil"). His way out then was to be vague and attribute it to "one of those who were with Jesus." In the TJ cognate to Mt 26:52 a proper defensive need for using a weapon is acknowledged. There the future retribution for needless use of weapons refers, if not to the present life, to the individual's karma of future lifetimes. This interpretation, which allows Jmmanuel's statement to be logical and consistent, is not permitted within Matthew's context. In TJ 28:27 it is made clear that the swordsman was one in the arresting party who then changed his mind after hearing Jmmanuel speak, and sided with him; he was not Peter, as the Gospel of John would have it. Nevertheless, Jmmanuel still admonished him, causing him to run off. There appear to have been two reasons for this admonishment: the first is explained by the TJ verse; the second is Jmmanuel's prophetic insight that the time had arrived for his trial and crucifixion and that he should not encourage any extreme measure to avoid it. The fact that the TJ text does not experience these Matthean problems, and does not exhibit problems of its own, speaks strongly in its favor. PHoax ¯ 0.2. The writer of Luke apparently improved upon Matthew's sword problem in Lk 22:35-38, by making certain that the disciples were instructed to each buy a sword; but since they would not have time to do that before the arrest would come about an hour or so later, he had the disciples suddenly notice two swords that were lying around and take possession of them. Mt 26:53 53"Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?" TJ 28:30 30"Or do you think that I could not have fled before your group arrived?" TJ 28:30 30«Oder meinst du, dass ich nicht hätte können fliehen, ehe eure Schar gekommen ist?» THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 517-518) clearly felt that Jesus' reference in Mt 26:53 to the accessibility of "supernatural armies" is not a realistic statement, but a Matthean expansion, i.e., a redaction by the compiler of Matthew. SOLUTION. The alteration was a substitution made to enhance the claim of Messiahship and divinity for Jesus, while avoiding the image of weakness that fleeing raises. In the TJ it is clear that Jmmanuel sometimes considered fleeing to be the most prudent course of action, in which case it is nothing to be ashamed of. The direction of redaction is seen quite clearly here to point to the writer of Matthew as the culprit. A 20th- century hoaxer is no more likely to insert the possibility of Jmmanuel fleeing than was the writer of Matthew to retain this possibility. PHoax ¯ 0.25. Mt 26:54 54"But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?" TJ 28:31 31"But how could I fulfill my destiny had I done so?" TJ 28:31 31«Wie könnte ich aber meinen Weg gehen, wenn ich dem so getan hätte?» THE PROBLEM. It is not at all clear what scripture(s) Jesus had in mind. If it was to the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, it makes no mention of a crucifixion of a messiah figure or of a subsequent resurrection. SOLUTION. The close TJ cognate uses the word "destiny," not scriptures. Jmmanuel knew from his own prophetic ability, and was probably informed by his ET contactors during the forty days of instruction, that he would survive crucifixion, which would afterwards enable him to take his teachings to peoples in other lands. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 26:55-56 55At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, "Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. 56But all this has taken place, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." Then all the disciples forsook him and fled. TJ 28:32-44 32And the man turned away and wept, then fled and was never seen again. 33Thereupon Jmmanuel said to the henchmen, "You came here with swords and poles to capture me as though I were a murderer. 34How easy it would have been for you to capture me in the city as I sat there in the temple, teaching daily, yet you did not seize me. 35You hypocrites, you were no doubt afraid of the people; therefore you now come to me like thieves so you can throw me into prison in darkness, out of the sight of the people...." ...44After this happened, the disciples, fearful and discouraged, turned away from Jmmanuel and fled. TJ 28:32-44 32Und der eine wandte sich weg und weinte und floh von dannen und ward niemehr gesehen. 33Dann aber sprach Jmmanuel zu den Schergen: «Ihr seid ausgegangen wie zu einem Mörder, mit Schwertern und mit Stangen, mich zu fangen. 34Ein leichtes wäre es euch doch gewesen mich in der Stadt zu fangen; habe ich doch täglich im Tempel gesessen und habe gelehret, und ihr habt mich nicht gegriffen. 35Ihr Heuchler, wohl habt ihr euch gefürchtet vor dem Volke, daher ihr wie Diebe nun zu mir kommt, so ihr mich in der Dunkelheit und hinter den Augen des Volkes in den Kerker werfen wollt » ...44Da dies also geschah, wichen die Jünger furchtvoll und entmutigt von Jmmanuel und flüchteten. THE PROBLEMS. Why are we not told the disposition of the man who used his sword? Did the arresting party grab him and subdue him? This was an important omission. It was only upon conclusion of Mt 26:54 that Jesus was done speaking to this man. "At that hour," or "In that hour" as the Greek text has it, implies an elapse of time that seems not to have occurred, as no other event or discourse is reported. The phrase is an insertion by the narrator that need not have been made at all, as Jesus just continues to speak on to the arresting party and associated crowds. So why did he make the insertion? The fact that Matthew's "great crowd" of Mt 26:47 suddenly becomes "crowds," plural, seems like an unwarranted escalation in the number of onlookers, considering that this was at night supposedly soon after the Passover meal. Mt 26:56a is, moreover, a virtual repeat of what Jesus said two verses earlier. It is thus more likely a redactor's substitution of his own pet theme (the scriptures must be fulfilled) in place of undesirable text that he read in his source document. In Mt 26:56, "all the disciples forsook him and fled" does not make good sense in that the supposed betrayer, Judas Iscariot, then would have had no need to flee, as he had found favor with the chief priests and elders for having helped them capture Jesus. He would have been safer staying with them than fleeing along with the eleven other disciples who would be utterly upset and angry with him for his deed. Moreover, Matthew's Judas had already forsaken Jesus upon carrying out his deed of betrayal six verses earlier. SOLUTION. The TJ cognate commences at verse 33. Its verse 32 indicates that an event did occur, which the writer of Matthew omitted. Thus there was good reason for the TJ's narrator to interrupt the discourse, and then resume using a word like "then," namely "thereupon," which is appropriate, rather than a phrase like "in that hour." The TJ text continues on with nine more verses of discourse and narration, during which time another event took place: the actual betrayer's father, Simeon the Pharisee, struck Jmmanuel after hearing his words. Thus even more action occurred, which the writer of Matthew had to omit. It was only at this time, upon seeing this piece of violence inflicted upon Jmmanuel, that the disciples fled. But why did the writer of Matthew omit the information about the swordsman having broken down and fled? My conjecture is that since he had made this man into a loyal follower of Jesus, he did not then wish to portray him as being cowardly, or wish to portray Jesus as being so ungrateful for his support that he would severely reprimand him. So he omitted TJ 28:32. In the TJ there was no escalation in the size of the group of henchmen. And in its consistent narrative, it was appropriate that Judas Iscariot fled along with the other disciples, since he was not the betrayer in league with the chief priests. The writer of Matthew slipped up by following the TJ too closely at this point (a continuation of the Matthean "fatigue" mentioned under Mt 26:35) and including Judas along with the other eleven who fled. Instead, the writer should have said, "Then the disciples forsook him and all fled except Judas." Matthew's Judas would have had no cause to flee. PHoax ¯ 0.15. Mt 26:57 57Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. TJ 28:45 45Those who had seized Jmmanuel led him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes, Pharisees, and elders of the people had gathered to pass judgment on him. TJ 28:45 45Die aber Jmmanuel gegriffen hatten, führten ihn zu dem Hohenpriester Kaiphas, wo die Schriftgelehrten und Pharisäer und die Ältesten des Volkes sich versammelt hatten, so sie über ihn richten wollten. THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 519) noted the implausibility of the Pharisees being left out of this Matthean verse, since surely some of the members of the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish council, must have been Pharisees. SOLUTION. The TJ indeed does mention the presence of Pharisees. Whether or not the compiler of Matthew had himself once been a Pharisee, his exclusion of the Pharisees here may have been a redaction designed to remove the most serious guilt from them of playing a direct role in Jesus' condemnation before the Sanhedrin. That is, as a convert from Judaism to its new, Messianic form (Christianity), the compiler of the TJ into Matthew is seen here to have found many faults with the Pharisees, but to be unwilling to ascribe this most serious of offenses to them. This position of compromise was likely dictated partly by his once having been a Pharisee himself, and partly by his desire to win over as many Pharisees as possible to Christianity, which would be especially difficult to do if the Pharisees were to be accused of the greatest sin conceivable to Christianity. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 26:58 58But Peter followed him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end. TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. Peter's actions here do not ring true and are psychologically implausible. He was among those who had run away from the arresting party, and so he would not have sat with the guards where, if anyone pointed him out as being one of the disciples, he could promptly be arrested. And it is unlikely that the Roman guards would have allowed an outsider to sit in their midst. Further, if Peter had gone only as far as the courtyard, this suggests he did not enter in. The verse seems intended primarily to serve the purpose of providing a witness to the events who would relay the information to the writer of the gospel. Just after the judgment of the Sanhedrin had been given, Peter is said to be sitting outside in the courtyard, not inside (Mt 26:69a). This then tends to contradict the present verse, further suggesting that 26:58 is the primary redaction. SOLUTION. We do not know how much of the proceedings Peter was able to observe, judging from the later TJ verse (TJ 28:68) that mentions he had been outside mingling with the crowd that was peering in through doors and windows. The TJ's writer, Judas Iscariot, had ample opportunity to later learn the details of what had transpired within the Sanhedrin from Jmmanuel himself. Matthew's lack of realism here does not favor the 20th-century hoax hypothesis. If a hoaxer had been involved, he could well have retained the verse but have attempted to improve it, for example by omitting "with the guards." PHoax ¯ 0.4. The writer of Luke appears to have noticed this problem, and just had Peter sit in the courtyard with persons in the arresting party (Lk 22:54). Mt 26:59 59Now the chief priests and the whole council sought false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death. TJ 28:46 46The chief priests, however, and the high councilors sought false testimony against Jmmanuel so they might put him to death. TJ 28:46 46Die Hohenpriester aber und die Hohen Räte suchten falsches Zeugnis wider Jmmanuel, auf dass sie ihn töteten. THE PROBLEM. It seemed unimaginable to Beare (p. 520) that the entire Sanhedrin (all the councilors) would have conspired to bribe false witnesses into testifying against Jesus. Surely some of them would not have stooped to that. SOLUTION. The TJ does not necessarily indicate that all the councilors (whole council) were in on the search for, or bribery of, false witnesses. This is a minor problem that a literary hoaxer would not likely notice or bother with. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 26:61-62 [At last two came forward] 61and said, "This fellow said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.'" 62And the high priest stood up and said, "Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?" TJ 28:48-50 48Finally, two stepped forward and said, "He has said that El is not Creation, but simply a man like you and me. 49He also said that he was begotten by a guardian angel of El, by the name of Gabriel." 50Caiaphas, the high priest, arose and said to Jmmanuel, "Will you not reply to what these two bear witness against you?" TJ 28:48-50 48Zuletzt traten zwei herzu und sprachen: «Er hat gesagt, dass Gott nicht die Schöpfung sei, sondern ein Mensch wie du und ich. 49Er sagte auch, dass er gezeuget sei von einem Wächterengel Gottes; von einem mit dem Namen Gabriel.» 50Und der Hohepriester Kaiphas stand auf und sprach zu Jmmanuel: «Antwortest du nicht zu dem, was diese beiden wider dich zeugen?» THE PROBLEM. Of Mt 26:61, concerning a response to the council's seeking of testimony against Jesus, Beare (p. 521) indicated it was a reshaping of an original saying under the influence of the early church. He inferred the destruction of the temple to be a veiled reference to Jesus' death on the cross and the rebuilding of it to be a reference to his resurrection, stated in terms familiar to the early church. Thus Beare makes a strong case that Mt 26:61 is an anachronism. If, on the other hand, the destruction of the temple referred to Jesus' prophecy that the Temple would be destroyed (Mt 24:2), that prophecy had only been made a few days earlier, and only to his disciples. No one attending the council meeting besides Peter, who looked on from the outside, would have known about it. Although Mt 26:62b makes it seem as if the high priest did not understand what the two councilors had said, and needed Jesus to rephrase it, the Greek text upon which it is based reads more like: "And standing up, the high priest said to Jesus, 'Have you no reply to make to the evidence these men are giving against you?'" SOLUTION. The TJ is seen to support Beare's reasoning, though he could not have imagined that heretical verses like TJ 28:48-49 were what caused the compiler to insert his own theology at this point. Here, as elsewhere, we suspect that the Aramaic word used for "God" was El; a different word, "Briya," was used for Creation, and "Bare" for Creator. Monotheistic Judaism regarded El and "Bare" to be equivalent to their one God. This verse contains the real blasphemy that Jmmanuel was accused of, as opposed to the utterances of Jesus that are portrayed in Matthew as being blasphemous, but which could not have been understood at the time, and which would seem ridiculous: Could one man destroy the massive Temple? Could he build another one, and in only three days? Verse 26:61 actually constitutes a case of "editorial fatigue" on the part of the writer of Matthew. First he replaced two truly blasphemous statements in the TJ with an anachronistic and/or ridiculous substitution that was non-blasphemous. Then he resumed following the TJ's story of Caiphas being outraged at the blasphemy. It is quite possible that the writer of Matthew, when he read TJ 28:48, realized that if it were to become known and accepted, it would mark the end for early Christianity and Judaism both. This, along with the earlier prophesied destruction of the temple, may be what caused him to think of its destruction as a suitable metaphor with which to begin his substitution for the TJ's heresies here. The Sanhedrin members who had heard that Jmmanuel was born the son of Gabriel, the angel, heard this from Jmmanuel at TJ 23:52, when he was speaking to Pharisees in Jerusalem. We see that the TJ's text, which is true to what it states in its chapters 1-4 and 18, does not suffer from the Matthean problem, which is quite severe. Now it might be thought that in TJ 28:48 the word for "Creator" should have been used, not "Creation," since the quotation was spoken by a couple of councilmen, for whom "Creator" must have been a much more familiar word for their God than "Creation." Yet, they were stating what they had heard Jmmanuel say, and he always used the title "Creation." However, in speaking to Caiaphas, would they expect him to know the difference between "Creator" (Yahweh) and "Creation?" There is evidence that the distinction was known to some. In the Dead Sea scroll called the Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20), we read: I went to all my old campsites until I reached Bethel, the place where I once built an altar, and then I built another one and offered up burnt offerings and a cereal offering to the God Of Most High, and invoked the name of the Lord of the Universe there. Here, "God of Most High" was Yahweh or El, to whom sacrifices were rendered. The "Lord of the Universe" is clearly something different - something clearly superior to "God" that we may equate to Creation. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 26:63 63But Jesus was silent. And the high priest said to him, "I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." TJ 28:51 51But Jmmanuel remained silent and smiled benignly; therefore the high priest spoke to him, "I adjure you by the living God to tell us if you were begotten by the angel Gabriel, who is an angel of God, as the scriptures attest." TJ 28:51 51Aber Jmmanuel schwieg stille und lächelte sanft, und so also der Hohepriester sprach zu ihm: «Ich beschwöre dich bei dem lebendigen Gott, dass du uns sagest, ob du seiest gezeuget vom Engel Gabriel, der ist ein Engel Gottes, wie die Schriften überliefern!» THE PROBLEM. Beare (pp. 521-522) could definitely say that the language in Matthew here came from the Christology of the church, and thus from a redactor feeding in another anachronism, and did not stem from any reference to the Messiah concept of the Hebrews. A high priest of Judaism would certainly not have spoken of the "Son of God" as if it were some established concept. SOLUTION. The TJ verse contains the truth of Jmmanuel's paternity, which required editing out by the compiler of Matthew, since the early church had decided that Jesus had been conceived by the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:20; Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians, chap. 18). At the same time, the TJ of course does not contain the "Son of God" phrase to which Beare objected. Regarding Gabriel, the scriptures refer to him in Dn 8 and 9. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 26:64 64Jesus said to him, "You have said so. But I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." TJ 28:52 52And Jmmanuel replied, "As you say. But I also say to you that El is not Creation; instead he is lord over the three human species that were begotten on Earth through his will." TJ 28:52 52Jmmanuel sprach zu ihm: «Du sagst es, aber ich sage dir auch, dass nicht Gott die Schöpfung ist, sondern er ist der Herr über die drei Menschengeschlechter,die durch seinen Willen gezeuget wurden auf Erden.» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 522) noted that the first four words of Jesus' reply are of doubtful meaning. They could either mean that Jesus confirmed the possible origins for him suggested by the high priest's statement, or that Jesus only accepted the high priest's statement as being an opinion. Such ambiguity would have served no clear purpose. Also, Beare (p. 522) objected strongly to the "Son of man" phrase, concluding that it was very unlikely that Jesus would have resorted to this terminology here. The high priest would not have known that "Son of man" was supposed to mean Jesus himself. Finally, the verse contains another failed prophecy. Upon assuming that "Son of man" referred to Jesus, we see that he was not afterwards observed to come on the clouds of heaven, seated at the right hand of Power. SOLUTION. In the TJ verse, "As you say" refers to the high priest's statement about Jmmanuel being the son of an angel (Gabriel) of El, which Jmmanuel qualifies as being correct if El ("God") is given the correct interpretation. And, of course, the TJ does not suffer from the "Son of man" objection. And though Jmmanuel makes many prophecies in the TJ, he did not make one at this point. The TJ's effortless escape from these three Matthean problems suggests PHoax ¯ 0.25, at most. Regarding the TJ's reference to three human lineages, these apparently included the Semites and Hebrews, the inhabitants of India, and the Aryans or those then living in Europe.[20] Jmmanuel's mission was to attempt to bring the celestial teachings to all three populations, which required him to survive the crucifixion and then move on. Perhaps the best supportive evidence for this lies in the fact that the ancient mythologies of these lands espouse or incorporate the belief in reincarnation. The Old Testament frequently mentions the human spirit, and in a few places implies its continued existence after death or preexistence before birth, as in Jer 1:4-5 "Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, Before I formed you in the womb I knew you..." and in Prv 8:22-23, "The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth." And a tradition of belief in reincarnation carried over into the Jewish Kabala. In ancient Egypt there was belief in reincarnation, not just resurrection.[21] The scarab beetle was the symbol of reincarnation, and the "ka", which contains the person's intellectual and spiritual power, lives on after death. Among the Greeks there was a belief in reincarnation, evidenced in the writings of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The Celts held a belief in reincarnation, especially their Druids, and north into Norway one finds the reincarnation belief interwoven into their ancient sagas and Eddas.[22] Eastward, one finds that the Hindu belief in reincarnation goes back millennia B.C. in India, and in a somewhat altered form within Buddhism. When Buddhism expanded eastwards further, into China and Japan, the belief in reincarnation went along with it. That the gods involved would believe in reincarnation and espouse it is of course consistent with the TJ's teachings. The TJ thus could be correct in asserting that these lands are where certain Pleiadian/Plejaren leaders initiated some of the human populations long, long ago and watched over their development for centuries. Mt 26:65 65Then the high priest tore his robes, and said, "He has uttered blasphemy. Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard his blasphemy." TJ: 28:63 63Thereupon Caiaphas, the high priest, rent his clothes and spoke with rage, "He has blasphemed God, the Creator. Why should we need further testimony against him? Behold, now you have heard his blasphemy for yourselves." TJ: 28:63 63Da zerriss der Hohepriester Kaiphas seine Kleider und sprach im Zorn: «Er hat Gott gelästert, den Schöpfer; was bedürfen wir weiter Zeugnis wider ihn? denn sehet, jetzt habt ihr eigens gehört seine Gotteslästerung.» THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 522) pointed out that what had been presented in Matthew was really not enough to have induced the high priest to speak and react this excitedly. Even claiming to be the Messiah would not constitute blasphemy, according to Beare, and certainly not a prophecy regarding the coming of a "Son of man." Sanders independently agrees that "It goes too far, however, to say that Jesus, in claiming to speak for God, was guilty of blasphemy."[23] Similarly, the idea that the blasphemy consisted of Jesus calling himself the Son of God also does not stand up. It has been noted that "in the synoptic gospels, Jesus never actually calls himself the 'Son of God.' Yet the accusation against him [in Mt 26:63-65] appears to be precisely this. If these accusations are false, it is surprising that neither Jesus nor the evangelists repudiate the charge."[24] SOLUTION. Such scholars' surprise at this fact does not apply to the TJ where the heresies of Jmmanuel's teachings-that El was essentially human in physical makeup and not to be equated to the immeasurable and ineffable "Creation"-are obvious to any Christian or Jew. In the TJ, Jmmanuel responds with 11 further sentences before this point that include mention of other gods (celestial sons and guardian angels) whom we would call ETs, which adds to the blasphemy of TJ 28:48. These add to the genuineness of the TJ, which does not suffer from Matthew's problem. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 26:67-68 67Then they spat in his face, and struck him; and some slapped him, 68saying, "Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?" TJ 28:66-67 66Then they beat him with their fists and spat in his face. 67And some of them struck him from behind and said, "Prophesy, you great king of wisdom and son of a celestial son, who is it that's beating you?" TJ 28:66-67 66Da schlugen sie ihn mit Fäusten und spien ihn an in sein Angesicht. 67Und etliche schlugen ihn von hinten und sprachen: «Weissage uns, du grosser Weisheitskönig und du Sohn eines Himmelssohnes, wer ist’s, der dich schlägt?» THE PROBLEMS. What is missing here, Beare (p. 523) along weith many others have noted, is a phrase like "They also blindfolded him" as in Mark and Luke. It is needed to prepare for the demand that he should demonstrate his powers as a prophet; otherwise, Jesus could have seen who had struck him. Beare also found it incongruous that members of the highest court in the land would resort to striking their prisoner. SOLUTION. The TJ is seen to avoid both of Beare's criticisms, but not by the expected route. The TJ's second verse appears to have been redacted in part to eliminate this most degrading aspect of the brutal treatment on the part of councilors and Pharisees, of hitting someone from behind. So in omitting that, the reader doesn't know that these particular assailants weren't right in front of Jesus in plain sight. The writer of Mark,[25] then, while copying from Matthew, added the cover for Jesus' face to eliminate the illogic in Matthew that remains to this day for New Testament scholars to ponder over. The TJ's solution has been anticipated by Goulder,[26] who suggested in 2003 that some of those who were beating Jesus were standing behind him. The compiler of Matthew had his hands full deleting heresies; we cannot expect him to have provided a fully logical account too, since inattentive redaction begets illogic. If Matthew had come after Mark, on the other hand, we would not expect the writer of Matthew to have omitted Mark's blindfold and purposely generate this illogic. The writer of Luke improved the verse by moving the incident forward in time and not having it be the members of the Sanhedrin who beat Jesus, and by including Mark's blindfold while retaining Matthew's question following the command to prophesy. With the TJ version, the unbecoming behavior of the councilors is less surprising, due to the 11 blasphemous utterances Jmmanuel spoke to the Sanhedrin just before the high priest rent his robes. The TJ verses solve both of these serious Matthean problems by text evincing too much originality to relegate to a literary hoaxer. PHoax ¯ 0.15. Mt 26:69-70 69Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a maid came up to him, and said, "You also were with Jesus the Galilean." 70But he denied it before them all, saying, "I do not know what you mean." TJ 28:68-71 68Petrus had followed Jmmanuel and the group, and hid among the people looking through the doors and windows. Thus, he saw what was being done to Jmmanuel. 69Then a maid approached him and said, "Aren't you one of the disciples of this Jmmanuel from Galilee?" 70When Petrus was asked by the maid, he denied it and said, "What kind of nonsense do you accuse me of? I don't know what you're talking about!" 71But because of the maid's question, he was afraid and wanted to escape from the place, for he feared for his life. TJ 28:68-71 68Petrus aber war Jmmanuel und der Schar nachgefolget und versteckte sich unter den Leuten, die da durch die Tore und Fenster sahen, so er also sah, was Jmmanuel widerfuhr. 69Da aber trat eine Magd zu ihm und sprach: «Bist du nicht einer unter ihnen, die da sind die Jünger dieses Jmmanuel aus Galiläa?» 70Da Petrus gefraget war von der Magd, leugnete er aber und sprach: «Wessen Unvernunft beschuldigst du mich, denn ich weiss nicht, was du sagst!» 71So er aber durch die Frage der Magd geängstigt war, wollte er der Stätte entfliehn, denn er fürchtete für sein Leben. THE PROBLEM. The maid came up to Peter and asked him a question. Most of the other people around would not have heard what she said, since she spoke just to Peter. Yet according to Matthew, Peter replied to "all." This doesn't make sense, because most of these "all" would not have known what he was talking about, being out of earshot. Since his denial must have been based in fear, moreover, he would have wished to attract as little attention as possible in replying to the maid, and thus would not have replied to all. SOLUTION. This was a minor alteration made by the writer of Matthew, probably so that the fact of all three of Peter's denials would seem well attested and Jesus' prophecy regarding it would be amply verified. In the TJ Peter's last two denials were indeed overheard by others, so that the writer of Matthew did not need to alter them in this respect. The criticism seems too obscure for a literary hoaxer to have noticed, as I have been unable to locate it in any literature. Yet it is a very telling criticism. PHoax ¯ 0.3. The omission of TJ 28:71 by the writer of Matthew is consistent with his favorable portrayal of Peter elsewhere. Mt 26:74 74Then he [Peter] began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, "I do not know the man." And immediately the cock crowed. TJ 28:75-76 75Petrus began to revile Jmmanuel, cursed himself and swore, "I don't know this confused person or his blasphemous teachings of God!" 76 But soon thereafter a rooster crowed three times, and Petrus thought of Jmmanuel's words; and he hurriedly ran away from there and wept bitterly. TJ 28:75-76 75Da hob er an und lästerte wider Jmmanuel und verfluchte sich und schwor: «Ich kenne diesen irren Menschen nicht, und so auch nicht seine Lehre der Gotteslästerung!» 76Alsbald aber krähte dreimal der Hahn, und da gedachte er der Worte Jmmanuels; und eilig lief er von dannen und weinte bitterlich. THE PROBLEM. This cursing by Peter is presumed to have been upon himself for having just denied his Lord twice. If so, however, it does not make much sense that he would at that point continue to deny he knew Jesus. Would he curse his mouth for telling a lie and then immediately tell the same lie again? Not at all likely; he would either not curse himself until after the cock crowed, or would not again deny knowing Jesus after having cursed himself for twice doing just that. SOLUTION. From the TJ parallel we see that Peter had begun to revile Jmmanuel, thus partially fulfilling the prophecy that the disciples would be angry with him that night (TJ 27:44). It was Jmmanuel who had gotten the disciples into their predicament of being sought-after accomplices. It would have been natural to revile him for this; furthermore, by reviling him Peter would seem more innocent to the bystanders. But immediately the full import of reviling his own lord and teacher got to him, and this is what caused him to curse himself. Yet to save his own skin he continued to deny his lord once again. We see that the writer of Matthew did not wish to portray Peter in any worse light than he was already in, and so he edited out the worst aspects of Peter's behavior, which caused this previously unknown problem. Yet, he included Peter's denials in his text because they proved Jesus' power to prophesy. This objection to Matthew is also too minor to expect that any literary hoaxer would come up with it. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Interestingly, the TJ indicates the cock crowed three times (in a row). The writer of Matthew likely omitted this factor of three in order to maximize the strength of Jesus' prophecy, in Mt 26:34 and TJ 27:49, which only states that Peter would deny his lord three times before the cock crows. Upon accumulating the individual probabilities of the preceding Mt-TJ passages, we find the chance that the TJ's chapter 28 could be a hoax to be the infinitesimal value: 1.8 x 10-13. In other words, this chapter comparison alone deals a deathblow to the hoax hypothesis. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & my Blog Matthew Index 27 REFERENCES 1. E.g., see Guthrie, Donald, New Testament Introduction (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1970), pp. 48-50. 2. Wells, G. A., Did Jesus Exist? (London: Pemberton, 1986), p. 188. 3. Guignebert, Charles, Jesus (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1935), p. 454. 4. This latter point is inferred by Winter, S. C., "The arrest of Jesus," Forum 1 (Spring, 1998), p. 146. 4.1 Blomberg, Craig L., Jesus and the Gospels (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 1997), p. 14. 5. Borg, Marcus J., Jesus: A New Vision (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), p. 131. 6. Borg, ibid., pp. 187-188, footnote 27. 7. Eaton, Alfred Wade, "The goddess Anat, the history of her cult, her mythology and her iconography," PhD thesis, Dept. of Language and Literature, Yale University, 1964. 8. Wells, Did Jesus Exist?, p. 25. 9. Maccoby, Hyam, "Paul and the Eucharist," NTS 37 (1991), pp. 247-267, see p. 249. 10. Halliday, W. R., The Pagan Background of Early Christianity (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1970), pp. 310-311. 11. Vermaseren, M. J., Mithras, the Secret God (London: Chatto and Windus, 1963), p. 104. 12. Davies, A. Powell, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: New American Library, 1956), pp. 195-196. 13. Davies, W. D., and Allison, Dale C, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 3 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), p. 465. 14. Crawford, Barry S., "Near expectation in the sayings of Jesus," JBL 101 (1982), pp. 225- 244; see pp. 234-235. 15. Maccoby, Hyam, Judas Iscariot and the Myth of Jewish Evil (New York: The Free Press (Macmillan), 1992), p. 36. 16. E.g., The Holy Bible: The Authorized and Revised Versions (1885). 17. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 3, p. 507. 18. Mann, C. S., The Anchor Bible, transl. Donald L. Niewyck, vol. 27 on Mark (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1986), p. 596. 19. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 3, p. 511. 20. See TJ 4:41,51; 27:14 and 28:53-54. 21. Lamy, Lucie, Egyptian Mysteries: New Light on Ancient Knowledge (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 86. 22. Guerber, H. A., The Norsemen (New York, Avenel Books, 1986), pp. 20-21. 23. Sanders, E. P., Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 274. 24. Ford, J. Massingberd, "'The Son of man,'-a euphemism?" JBL 87 (1968), pp. 255-266; see p. 257. 25. See Mk 14:65; the writer of Luke follows suit in Lk 22:64. 26. Goulder, Michael, "Two significant minor agreements (Mat. 4:13 Par.; Mat. 26:67-68 Par.)" Novum Testamentum 45, pp. 371-373. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 27 Mt 27:1-12 1When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death; 2and they bound him and led him away and delivered him to Pilate the governor. 3When Judas, his betrayer, saw that he was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, 4saying, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood." They said, "What is that to us? See to it yourself." 5And throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself. 6But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver,... 7...bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. 8Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, "And they took the thirty pieces of silver " 11Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus said to him, "You have said so." 12But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he made no answer. TJ 29:1-17 1Juda Iharioth, the betrayer of Jmmanuel, was among the councilors who wanted to kill Jmmanuel. 2But when he saw what appalling injustice and torture Jmmanuel was undergoing, and that his face was bloody, he felt repentant. Suddenly great distress and misery was within him. 3At odds with himself, he took his money bag, tossed it before the chief priests and council elders and said, 4"I have done evil to this person because I was thinking only of gold and silver and goods and wealth. 5I repent that I have betrayed innocent blood because his teachings do not seem evil to me." 6But the chief priests and elders replied, "Of what concern is that to us? 7Behold, it is up to you what you want to do to live in peace with yourself." 8And Juda Iharioth wept and fled from there, and soon he hanged himself from a tree branch in the field of the potter beyond the walls of the city. 9The chief priests, however, took the pieces of silver and said, "It is useless to put them into the collection box, because this is blood money. What shall we do with it?" 10Then one of the sons of the elders came forth and said, "I followed Juda Iharioth and he has hanged himself from a tree branch in the field of the potter." 11Thereupon Caiaphas, the high priest, said, "Well then, give this blood money to the potter and buy his field with it for the burial of strangers." 12At dawn the following day the business matter was settled, and Juda Iharioth, the betrayer of Jmmanuel, was the first to be buried in the field. 13But the chief priests and elders of the council spread the news among the people that Judas Iscarioth, the disciple of Jmmanuel, had hanged himself as Jmmanuel's betrayer and was hurriedly buried in the field of the potter. 14The people believed this talk, and they said, "He betrayed his friend for pieces of silver, and it serves him right that he hanged himself. 15He has taken a blood-guilt upon himself and so from now on the field of the potter shall be known as the Field of Blood." 16Jmmanuel, however, was brought before Pilatus, the governor, who asked him, "Are you Jmmanuel, whom they call the King of Wisdom?" 17He said, "As you say. This is what the people call me." TJ 29:1-17 1Juda Iharioth, der Verräter an Jmmanuel, war unter dem Rat, der Jmmanuel töten wollte. 2So er nun aber sah, wie Jmmanuel boses Unrecht und Folter widerfuhr und dessen Angesicht blutend war, gereute es ihn und in ihm war jäh grosse Not und Elend. 3Uneins mit sich, griff er seinen Beutel und warf ihn vor die Hohenpriester und die Ältesten des Rates und sprach: 4«Ich habe Übel getan an diesem Menschen, weil mein Sinn nur nach Gold und Silber und nach Gütern und Reichtum war. 5Ich gereue, dass ich unschuldig Blut verraten habe, denn seine Lehre scheinet mir nicht übel.» 6Die Hohenpriester und Ältesten aber sprachen: «Was gehet uns das an? 7Siehe, es ist dein Tun, was du unternehmen mögest, so du mit dir zurecht kommest.» 8Juda Iharioth aber weinte und floh von dannen, und alsbald erhängte er sich an einem Ast eines Baumes hinter der Stadtmauer im Töpfersacker. 9Die Hohenpriester aber nahmen die Silberlinge und sprachen: «Es tauget nicht, dass wir sie in den Gotteskasten legen, denn es ist Blutgeld; was sollen wir damit tun?» 10Da kam aber der Ältesten Söhne einer und sprach: «Ich bin gefolget Juda Iharioth, und er hat sich erhänget am Ast des Baumes im Töpfersacker.» 11Da sprach Kaiphas, der Hohepriester: «Wohl denn, so soll das Blutgeld dem Töpfer gegeben werden, so er uns verkaufe den Töpfersacker dafür zum Begräbnis für die Fremden.» 12Und als kam der neue Tag, war das Geschäft getan, und als erster war begraben in dem Acker Juda Iharioth, der Verräter an Jmmanuel. 13Die Hohenpriester aber und die Ältesten im Rat verbreiteten im Volke die Kunde, Judas Ischarioth, des Jmmanuels Jünger, habe sich als Verräter Jmmanuels erhänget und sei im Töpfersacker zum Begräbnis verscharret. 14So das Volk dem Gerede glaubte, sprach es: «Verraten hat er seinen Freund um der Silberlinge willen und recht ist ihm geschehen also, so er sich erhänget hat. 15Eine Blutschuld hat er auf sich genommen, und so soll fortan sein genennet der Töpfersacker als Blutacker also.» 16Jmmanuel aber war gebracht vor den Landpfleger Pilatus, und der fragte ihn und sprach: «Bist du Jmmanuel, den man nennt den Weisheitskönig?» 17Er sprach: «Du sagst es, so bin ich genannt im Munde des Volkes.» THE PROBLEMS. (a) Beare (p. 527) noted that the proceedings held by the chief priests and elders in the early morning (Mt 27:1) are described only with "great vagueness." Was this supposed to have been a second meeting of the Sanhedrin, held in the early morning so soon after the late night session? Why would the nighttime Sanhedrin meeting be described in detail but the final meeting the next morning be no more than mentioned, unless the latter was an editorial insertion? (b) And Beare (p. 525) commented upon the fact that the suicide story is clumsily placed into the narrative of Jesus' presentation before Pilate, as may be seen from the condensed version above; or, one may say that the first two Matthean verses are placed eight verses too early. This is a common sign of inattentive editorial action. (c) There is another problem with this sandwiched material, in combination with the last verse, which Beare noted (p. 525). The priests and elders are said to have delivered Jesus to the governor, and at the end we read that they accused him in Pilate's hall of judgment. In between, they are instead pictured as gathered somewhere in the temple where Judas can locate them to return the money he had received for betraying Jesus. Something is wrong here. (d) Judas would not have seen that Jesus was condemned by the Sanhedrin, but instead would only have heard of it. The writer of Matthew otherwise maintained the distinction between seeing and hearing, as in Mt 11:4, "tell John what you hear and see." There are about 33 other usages of "saw" in Matthew, and they all involve what a witness observed for himself, not what he only heard from others. (e) A minor but twinfold problem is that Judas is said to have returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. Yet only after the exchange of words is he said in Mt 27:5 to have given up the silver to them by throwing the pieces down. First he returns the pieces of silver to the chief priests, then he throws them down? The other part of the problem is that the priests simply take the money without having to pick it up off the floor of the temple; or, if the pieces of silver had been tossed into the temple treasury, as in Zec 11:13, the chief priests would have needed to fish them out in order to obtain them. Yet, there is no mention of any of this in the text, nor any mention that Judas had told them how many pieces of silver he threw down. The problems concerning where Judas threw the money are discussed by Carson.[1] (f) Referring next to the chief priests having bought the potter's field, the reader may verify from the full text that it was never stated in Matthew where the betrayer was buried; this has to be inferred by the reader to be the potter's field. It should have been mentioned near Mt 27:5 if the writer of Matthew had been writing the story from his own recollections. (g) The phrase "to this day" (in Mt 27:8) was obviously written in by someone with a vantage point many years, if not decades, later than Jesus' ministry,[2] and is thus under suspicion of being a redaction. (h) The verses supposedly giving the quote from Jeremiah were noted by Beare (pp. 526-527) and others to contain only two stray phrases at best from Jeremiah-Jer 32:9 and 18:2. However, the former mentions 17 pieces of silver, not 30, and the latter refers to a potter's house, not a field. Beare had to conclude that these Old Testament references are totally irrelevant, and, as inappropriate as some of the other Old Testament citations in Matthew are, this one is even more so. The 30 pieces of silver, rather than 17, seem to have been drawn from Zechariah, because Mt 27:5 mentions the throwing of the 30 pieces as in the verse below: Zec 11:13 So I took the thirty shekels of silver and cast them into the treasury in the house of the LORD. (i) In Mt 27:11, it is improbable that Pilate just would have asked Jesus if he was the King of the Jews, because anyone could claim or deny any title for himself, which wouldn't prove anything whatsoever. He would more likely first ask him if he was the man from Nazareth called such-and-such, to establish his identity. (j) On the last Matthean verse above, Beare (p. 527) commented upon the fact that the accusations against Jesus had finally been made, but no specific charges had been listed. Why did the compiler of Matthew fail to mention any specific charge? (k) A further objection is why the governor would even have thought the people called Jesus the "King of the Jews." One must assume that some chief priest or Pharisee maliciously told Pilate that Jesus was called by that title. Yet there is no mention of this despite there being later mention of Pilate's considerable knowledge -that Pilate knew Jesus had been delivered up out of envy (Mt 27:18). When Jesus had entered Jerusalem the people knew him as Son of David and the prophet from Nazareth, and not as "King of the Jews." It was the writer of Matthew who inserted the verse from Zechariah (Mt 21:5) that mentions "king." The people themselves are never said to have called him "King of the Jews," an omission that has not gone unnoticed.[3] Thus it doesn't make sense that the historical Jesus would have accepted this title from Pilate. SOLUTION. Beare's first criticism, (a) above, does not apply to the TJ, where no second meeting of the chief priests and elders occurs, concerning the disposition of Jmmanuel. Instead, shortly after dawn Jmmanuel was simply brought before Pilate (TJ 29:16), since he had already been pronounced deserving of death the night before. The writer of Matthew apparently drew from the pre-dawn meeting of chief priests and elders in TJ 29:9-13, in his mention of a second meeting in Mt 27:1 and for its early morning placement in time. This meeting included Caiphas and culminated in the decision to substitute Judas Iscariot's name for Juda's. His second criticism, (b), does not apply to the TJ either, where the story about the repentance and suicide of Juda Ihariot follows immediately after the story of Peter's denial. Only after the suicide story is the bringing of Jmmanuel before Pilate described. From the TJ one infers that the compiler of Matthew felt obliged to edit the TJ's verses about Juda being among the councilors who wanted to kill Jmmanuel, because he had already altered Juda into Judas, and Judas was not associated with the councilors. The compiler then took up the theme of the council and edited its business into Mt 27:1, and invented 27:2 for additional substance. This last step caused the suicide story to be out of place. The TJ has no cognate to Mt 27:2 and so is not open to this criticism. Criticism (c) does not apply to the TJ, because there is no sandwiching of the suicide story there. Concerning (d), in the TJ text, Juda repented only after seeing with his own eyes, not hearing about, the brutal treatment Jmmanuel had received, leaving him bleeding. Juda had been among the councilors during the time Jmmanuel was before the high council (TJ 29:1). The writer of Matthew failed to alter the TJ's "saw" to "heard" to go along with his earlier major change of substituting Judas for Juda. This is another example of "Matthean fatigue" on the part of the writer of Matthew. With hindsight we can recognize that Juda's viewing of the injustice of this hearing, and his sight of Jmmanuel being pummeled and bloodied up, was a much stronger cause for the betrayer to repent than only hearing about it from others would be. Regarding (e), the TJ just mentions that Juda threw his moneybag in front of the chief priests. He didn't first give the silver coins to them, and then throw the coins into the shrine. The writer of Matthew apparently wished to mention the temple so as to better bring about an analogy with Zec 11:13. This problem constitutes further Matthean fatigue. The writer inserted the line about Judas throwing down the silver; then he resumed following the TJ's course of events, where the priests took the money. He failed to revise his text so as to have the priests pick up the money from the floor or retrieve it from the treasury. Regarding the potter's field, (f), we see that the TJ does mention that Juda was buried there after committing suicide. It was presumably an oversight of editing that caused the place of Judas's burial to be left out by the compiler, until his mention of the potter's field two verses later. Regarding (g), in the renaming of the field to the Field of Blood, the TJ's "from now on" was altered into "to this day" by the compiler, apparently because he thought he was making an improvement by adding in new information. It seems he temporarily forgot that his gospel after editing was supposed to look like it had all been written only shortly after Jesus' ministry. In the TJ, "from now on" is an appropriate expression because it is included within the quotation indicating what the people at that time had actually said. Regarding (h), the TJ contains no cognate to the compiler's references to Jeremiah and Zechariah here, nor any scriptural verses pertaining to the subject, and is thus not subject to Beare's scathing criticism of that topic. We notice that the writer of Matthew did not mention the moneybag specified in the TJ; instead his emphasis upon the pieces of silver the bag contained seems to have been intended to more nearly liken the event to that of Zec 11:13 in which 30 shekels of silver were tossed into the temple and no moneybag is mentioned. This emphasis upon the pieces of silver caused the writer to mention them twice, bringing about problem (e). Regarding point (i), in the TJ source from which the writer of Matthew drew in causing Pilate to simply ask Jesus if he was the king of the Jews, he instead asks him first if he is Jmmanuel. Then to his question he adds, "whom they call the 'king of wisdom'." Thus Pilate was first making sure he had the right man in front of him, and then only asking what he was called, not what he claimed to be. As he did many times before, the writer of Matthew had to alter the response, which in this case was "king of wisdom," since the Jesus of the early church was more of a savior figure than a teacher of truths. Thus he altered him into "King of the Jews." However, regarding point (k), from TJ 22:6 and the text describing Jmmanuel's entry into Jerusalem, we learn that the people at that time and place did regard him as the king of wisdom. As for (j), the TJ is not subject to Beare's criticism about the charges not having been presented. In TJ 28:48- 49 specific charges against Jmmanuel were made, and these were amplified in TJ 28:52-62 by what he said next, causing Caiaphas to tear his robe. These charges included Jmmanuel's father being a celestial son and El being like a man in appearance, who came from "the vastness of the universe" and was master over three of seven human lineages-and thus distinct from the Creator or Creation. These statements were therefore too blasphemous for the compiler to even mention in his gospel. As a result, Matthew's gospel ended up with no specific charge against Jesus being listed and nothing really blasphemous being attributed to him. Objection (k) does not arise against the TJ, since there he is not called "King of the Jews." Concerning the TJ's "King of Wisdom" appellation, there is substantive external evidence that he was called the "wise king," which could as well be translated as the "wisdom king." The phrase occurs in the Letter of Mara, Son of Serapion, an early, straightforward letter he wrote to his son from prison without apparent prejudice or religious bias some time after A.D. 73. Mara bar Serapion was a Greek stoic philosopher living in Syria, under Roman control. The relevant paragraph is: What are we to say, when the wise are dragged by force by the hands of tyrants, and their wisdom is deprived of its freedom by slander, and they are plundered for their superior intelligence, without the opportunity of making a defence? They are not wholly to be pitied. For what benefit did the Athenians obtain by putting Socrates to death, seeing that they received as retribution for it famine and pestilence? Or the people of Samos by the burning of Pythagoras, seeing that in one hour the whole of their country was covered with sand? Or the Jews by the murder of their Wise King, seeing that from that very time their kingdom was driven away from them? For with justice did God grant a recompense to the wisdom of all three of them. For the Athenians died by famine; and the people of Samos were covered by the sea without remedy; and the Jews, brought to desolation and expelled from their kingdom, are driven away into every land. Nay, Socrates did "not" die, because of Plato; nor yet Pythagoras, because of the statue of Hera; nor yet the Wise King, because of the new laws which he enacted. The "new laws which he enacted" would refer to Immanuel's teachings of Creation's laws, awareness of which must have come from oral tradition, before the Gospel of Matthew appeared and supplanted that tradition. Hence Mara's letter was probably written before A.D. 120. His placing of the blame for Immanuel's execution upon the Jews is entirely consistent with both the TJ account and that of Matthew, since Pontius Pilate acquiesced to the Jews on this matter after the Jews arrested Jesus. Mara's lack of mention of the name "Jesus" is also consistent with the TJ account, while absence of the name "Immanuel" is consistent with there having been controversy in the last half of the first century over Paul's insistence upon calling the man "Jesus" instead of "Immanuel." The Matthean problems are seen to be numerous, with seven of them (a), (c), (d), (f), (i), (j) and (k), being quite obscure, while the TJ's straightforward text is immune to the problems. This indicates there is scarcely any chance that the TJ depends upon Matthew here. Rather, the Matthean passage must have been derived from the TJ. PHoax ¯ 0.05. This value would be attained if each of the 11 elements, (a)-(k), were estimated to have individual probabilities for hoax of 0.435. DISCUSSION. A question may arise concerning the potter's field being designated a burial place for strangers. Since Juda Ihariot was not a stranger, would Caiaphas have so designated it? The TJ indicates that the plot to call Judas Iscariot the betrayer, rather than Juda Ihariot, was hatched the day before, as Jmmanuel had "remotely sensed" the sinister plotting as it was occurring (TJ 27:27-33). Hence at the time Caiaphas and the chief priests learned that Juda had committed suicide, they already knew that they would be blaming Judas, not Juda, for having betraying Jmmanuel. So little further cleverness was needed for Caiphas to decide on the spot that they would bury Juda in the potter's field but tell others that they had buried Judas there. Judas had apparently not been a Jerusalemite, particularly if "Iscariot" held a meaning of "from Kerioth," but was a stranger to Jerusalem. So the potter's field was then designated a burial field for strangers. Mt 27:13-14 13Then Pilate said to him, "Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?" 14But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge; so that the governor wondered greatly. TJ 29:26-37 26Thereupon Pilatus asked him, "Don't you hear how harshly they accuse you? Don't you wish to justify yourself?" 27Jmmanuel answered him, saying, "Behold, I will carry my burden as it is destined. 28But it is also true that many do oppose me and will testify falsely against me, whence I will not find justice. 29Truly, I say to you, many dogs will kill a hare, regardless of how many turns it makes..." 34Pilatus said, "Judging from the way you speak, you are very wise and I see no fault in you. 35I question the teaching you just uttered, but in this, too, I see no guilt, for everyone should find salvation according to their faith. 36But since you have nothing to say regarding your innocence that would counter the accusation of the chief priests and the elders, I see no hope for you, because their will is my command, to which I must be pliant." 37But Jmmanuel did not answer him, which surprised the governor very much. TJ 29:26-37 26Da sprach Pilatus zu ihm: «Hörest du nicht, wie hart sie dich verklagen, willst du dazu nicht rechtfertigen dich?» 27Jmmanuel aber antwortete und sprach zu ihm: «Siehe, so mir bestimmet ist, werde ich meine Last tragen. 28Also ist es aber auch so, dass viele gegen mich stehen und falsch wider mich zeugen, woraus ich keine Gerechtigkeit finden werde. 29Wahrlich, ich sage dir: Viele Hunde sind des Hasen Tod, so er auch viele Haken schlagen mag.... 34Pilatus aber sprach: «So du sprichst, bist du sehr weise und ich seh darin kein Fehl an dir. 35Fraglich scheint mir zu sein die Lehre, die du eben vorgebracht, doch mag ich auch darin keine Schuld erkennen, denn selig werde jeder mit seinem Glauben. 36So du aber keine Worte zu deiner Unschuld hast, die dich der Verklagung der Hohenpriester und der Ältesten entheben würden, sehe ich wohl nicht gut für dich, denn ihr Wille ist Befehl, dem ich beugsam sein muss.» 37Aber Jmmanuel antwortete ihm nicht auf sein Wort, so dass sich der Landpfleger sehr verwunderte. THE PROBLEMS. Here Beare (p. 528) questioned why Jesus' silence would cause Pilate to be so amazed, or why the writer of Matthew would find it worth mentioning in his gospel. One may also question why Mt 27:13 refers to the "many things" that were testified against Jesus, while not presenting any of them. SOLUTION. In the TJ, seven verses occur following Pilate's question to Jmmanuel contained in Mt 27:13 or TJ 29:26, of which Pilate approved, and which do not appear in Matthew. Thus Jmmanuel did reply. It was only Pilate's concluding sentence to which Jmmanuel did not reply, as presented above. The writer of Matthew thus knew that "many things" were involved in the denunciation of Jmmanuel by the chief priests and elders (TJ 29:21-24), but he dared not present them in his gospel. In the TJ it is evident that Pilate was giving Jmmanuel one last chance to respond on his own behalf, and had he done so, he likely would have been exonerated. Thus his silence at that point naturally did surprise Pilate. This is not clear from Matthew because it omits both Jmmanuel's lengthy response to the previous query from Pilate, and Pilate's general approval of this response. Hence Beare's criticism on this point is justified but is not applicable to the TJ. The usual Christian interpretation on why Jesus remained silent on his own behalf seems supported by the TJ: only by remaining silent, at least at the point when he did, could he carry out his mission as he foresaw it. In the TJ, however, this mission required his undergoing only an apparent death on the cross, allowing him later to bring his teachings to others in distant lands. If Jmmanuel had died on the cross, his actions leading to that result would have been tantamount to suicide. In TJ 26:51-63, he teaches strongly against suicide. It is therefore noteworthy that, according to the TJ, Jmmanuel prophetically knew he would survive the crucifixion, thus preventing a contradiction with his teachings against suicide. However, regarding the crucifixion, the TJ gives rise to as much philosophical speculation as does the New Testament. Why did Jesus/Jmmanuel have to undergo the ordeal of the cross? One speculation is that without this ordeal and apparent resurrection, Jmmanuel's teachings, however distorted, would never have gained prominence. Foreknowledge that his teachings would become distorted may have been tolerated by the ETs in charge of it all if they believed that mankind can learn only through experience, which involves learning from mistakes and wrongdoings, and if they could predict that the truth would eventually become known. Another speculation is that if Jmmanuel's opponents-scribes, Pharisees, chief priests, Saul, Roman soldiers-all thought he had died at the crucifixion, he would be freer later to resume his teaching outside of Palestine under assumed names. However, the TJ's own answer to this question is that Jmmanuel needed to learn certain unspecified things from undergoing his ordeal of the cross (TJ 28:10). One conjecture is that he had to learn to trust his own judgment and prophetic ability under even the worst of circumstances, involving great pain, suffering and threat of premature death.[4] The TJ verse 29:36 provides insight on the rule by the Romans over Judea by the time of the crucifixion, suggesting they supported the will of the Jewish majority on internal matters that did not threaten their rule. The verse is consistent with the other verses in both the TJ and Matthew that indicate Jmmanuel's crucifixion was brought on by certain chief priests, elders and Pharisees, and was not an act initiated by the Romans. The TJ indicates here that Pilate was, or had become, a more reasonable person, and less evil, than NT scholars tend to assume (e.g., see Beare, pp. 530-531). This could be because Pilate's paganistic belief system (at the least, he was a Caesar worshiper) was not strongly at odds with what Jmmanuel spoke to him, which included mention of the laws of nature and of El and "celestial sons" in a context of being humanlike persons (TJ 29:21) like the gods; these are concepts that a pagan would find familiar. Or Pilate's desire not to offend the Jewish elders, if possible, could have stemmed from his having learned a few years previous of the folly of upsetting them, as suggested from historical writings of Josephus and Philo. Thus it is not surprising that Pilate would, a little further on, declare his innocence and wash his hands of the affair. The TJ's saying about the dogs versus the hare is interesting, and is hitherto unknown. Could a literary hoaxer have invented it? Could he have solved the problems that Matthew exhibits without producing text that would look like it was invented just for that purpose? PHoax ¯ 0.15. Of course, the serious investigator would need to study the entire TJ, and the TJ verses omitted here in order to not violate the publisher's rights, before trying to answer such questions. Mt 27:15 15Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. TJ 29:38 38At the time of the Passover feast, Governor Pilatus customarily released to the people whichever prisoner they most wanted, except for those guilty of murder or of causing death. TJ 29:38 38Auf das Passahfest aber hatte der Landpfleger Pilatus die Gewohnheit, dem Volke einen und stets jenen Gefangenen freizugeben, welchen sie wollten, ausser, wenn einer des Mordes oder des Todes schuldig war. THE PROBLEM. This custom is not known, outside of the Gospels (Beare, p. 529). One would expect that if the policy was so magnanimous as to allow even murderers to be let loose, such amnesty would have been better known. SOLUTION. From the TJ verse we see that the policy did not extend to murderers, and thus perhaps for that reason was not considered consequential enough to have been recorded in any other known literature of that era. As to the probable reason why the writer of Matthew omitted the clause, see under the discussion of Mt 27:43-44. Regarding the hoax hypothesis, how would a literary hoaxer have had motivation for making the change from Matthew that we see here in the TJ? I did not come across any discussion of the possibility of releasing a non- murderous criminal but not a murderous one, in connection with crucifixions during the Roman era, until noticing a brief discussion in the small print of Davies and Allison. They were able to locate one rather similar instance, recorded in Josephus' Antiquities 20.208-215.[5] PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 27:17-20,22 17So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, "Whom do you want me to release for you, Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ?" 18For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. 19Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, "Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much over him today in a dream." 20Now the chief priests and elders persuaded the people to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus...22Pilate said to them, "Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?" TJ 29:40-43,47 40And when the people were gathered, Pilatus asked them, "Which one do you want me to release, Barabbas, the criminal, or Jmmanuel, who is said to be a king of wisdom and the son of an angel?" 41But he well knew that the chief priests and elders had bribed the people by giving them copper, gold and silver, so they would plead for the release of Barabbas and the death of Jmmanuel. 42For he well knew that they had turned him over out of envy and hatred, since his teachings appealed to the people. 43His wife had also implored Pilatus by saying, "Have nothing to do with this righteous man, for today I suffered greatly in my dreams because of him, and I find that his teachings are good." Therefore, he was favorably inclined towards Jmmanuel....47And Pilatus asked them, "Thus it shall be, but what shall I do with him who is said to be Jmmanuel, a king of wisdom?" TJ 29:40-43,47 40Und da das Volk versammelt war, sprach Pilatus zu ihnen: «Welchen wollt ihr, dass ich euch freigebe, Barabbas den Verbrecher oder Jmmanuel, von dem gesagt wird, er sei ein Weisheitskönig und der Sohn eines Engels?» 41Er wusste aber wohl, dass die Hohenpriester und die Ältesten überredeten das Volk und ihnen Kupfer, Gold und Silber gaben, dass sie um Barabbas bitten sollten und Jmmanuel umbrächten. 42Denn er wusste wohl, dass sie ihn aus Neid und aus Hass überantwortet hatten, da seine Lehre Gefallen fand bei dem Volke. 43Und so auch sein Weib Pilatus beschworen hatte: «Habe du nichts zu schaffen mit diesem Gerechten, denn ich habe heute viel gelitten im Traume seinetwegen und finde, dass seine Lehre gut ist,» so war er guten Sinnes für Jmmanuel.... 47Pilatus aber fragte sie und sprach: «So soll es sein, doch was soll ich machen mit dem hier, von dem gesaget ist, er sei Jmmanuel, ein Weisheitskönig!» THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 530) could think of no plausible reason why the religious leaders of Israel would be envious of Jesus, though he thought they might be afraid that he would make trouble for Israel with the Romans; but this would not constitute the envy mentioned in 27:18. Also, Matthew leaves it unclear just how the people had been persuaded to condemn Jesus, an omission that Beare found important enough to mention. It is also to be mentioned that in Mt 27:17,22 Pilate would not have known that Jesus was already at that time supposedly called by the title of "Christ" or "Messiah." Recall that only in Mt 16 did Jesus' own disciples learn that he was supposedly "the Christ," and they were instructed not to tell anyone. Even on his triumphant entry into Jerusalem he was just called "Son of David" and "Jesus." In reality, he would not be known as Christ, or the one called "Christ," until years later when Paul made it so.[6] Hence the title as used here is anachronistic. Another problem: How would anyone know, except Pilate himself, that he was aware it was out of envy that the people had turned Jesus over to him for execution? How would the writer of Matthew learn of Pilate's private thoughts? SOLUTION. The first and last of the TJ verses shown above let us know that Jmmanuel was known at the time for what he really was. The second explains how the people had been persuaded to speak out against him. The third spells out why the religious leaders were envious of Jmmanuel, with hatred also being mentioned in the TJ account. That is, his teachings appealed to the people, and the writer of Matthew evidently felt it wouldn't be acceptable to mention this, since the same teachings had not appealed to the Jewish clergy, who upheld the Torah, as did the writer for the most part. At Mt 9:4 and TJ 9:4 we learn that Jmmanuel/Jesus could, at times at least, read other persons' thoughts. The TJ even makes mention of at least one more instance of this than does Matthew (TJ 9:39-41), not mentioned in Matthew because the TJ indicates the Pharisees were greatly upset over Jmmanuel possessing much greater wisdom and knowledge than they. Here in Mt 27:18 we see an instance in which, from the TJ viewpoint, such mind reading again occurred. Only within the TJ's context would Jmmanuel be alive later to tell all this to his writer, Judas, who took it down in writing. Within the Matthean context, its writer would have had no way of knowing if Jesus had read Pilate's mind on this or not. If the TJ were written by a literary hoaxer, its different verses would not likely escape from these criticisms. PHoax ¯ 0.35. It is of interest to notice that Matthew contains the clause, "while he [Pilate] was sitting on the judgment seat," which the TJ lacks. A TJ hoaxer would have no apparent reason for removing the clause, while it is conjectured here that the writer of Matthew (or possibly its later translator into Greek) added the clause in order to allow the possibility that the wife's wishes were made public at that time, rather than being conveyed privately to Pilate earlier in the day. Otherwise, there would be no way that any of the disciples would learn of this message from pilate's wife to write about it later, since Jesus, even if he had intuited the information, was in no position to tell any of the disciples about it later, having died at the crucifixion. This "witness problem" does not occur, of course, with the TJ, since Jmmanuel did not die at the crucifixion. We have already seen that the writer of Matthew was apparently aware of the witness problem under discussion of Mt 26:58. Mt 27:24-25 24So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather tha a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves." 25And all the people answered, "His blood be on us and on our children!" TJ 29:52-56 52When Pilatus realized there was great unrest and turmoil and that he could do nothing against the will of these people, who had been bribed, he took a pitcher of water and washed his hands before the people, saying, 53"You decide what should be done with him. 54He is the prisoner of the elders and chief priests, so let them judge him. I will have nothing to do with this just man. I am innocent of doing anything to him and wash my hands before you in innocence." 56But the people milled about, shouting, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" TJ 29:52-56 52Da aber Pilatus sah, dass er wider das überredete Volk nichts ausrichtete, sondern eine grosse Unruhe entstand und ein Getümmel, nahm er einen Krug mit Wasser und wusch die Hände vor dem Volke und sprach: 53«Sehet ihr zu, was ihr mit ihm machet. 54Er ist der Gefangene der Ältesten und der Hohenpriester, so sie über ihn urteilen mögen. 55Ich habe mit diesem Gerechten nichts zu schaffen, denn ich bin unschuldig an ihm und wasche meine Hände vor euch in Unschuld.» 56Da aber tümmelte das Volk und schrie: «Er soll gekreuzigt werden, er soll gekreuzigt werden!» THE PROBLEM. With Mt 27:25, we wonder why a group of people would wish to inflict a curse upon themselves and their own descendants. Hence Beare (p. 531) concluded that it is obvious this verse is a "hostile invention." A mob never spontaneously shouts curses against itself. Also, we would not expect that a crowd that had been yelling "Let him be crucified" would spontaneously switch to a different, unpopular outcry. Another point, made by Marcus Borg, involves the second word in the above Matthean verse: "all." He notes that this appears to be part of the redaction, designed to "save the early Christians from the [Roman] charge of being a seditious group within the Roman empire."[7] That is, by heavily blaming all the Jews, perhaps the Christians could make the Romans feel that the new religion was on their side, so they would not persecute the Christians. SOLUTION. One might wonder why the compiler, if of Jewish birth and background, as generally supposed, would have invented the phrase "His blood be on us and on our children." B. J. Hubbard's answer is that "converts are sometimes capable of virulent attacks on their former coreligionists."[8] Hubbard, like so many other scholars, felt that the compiler of Matthew was an ex-Pharisee converted to Christianity, and the TJ supports his deductions here. In the TJ's parallel verse one sees only realism, in that the phrase the people had been shouting remained the same. Regarding Borg's criticism, we do note that it does appear that the compiler added "all." However, in keeping with the rest of the Matthean verse, the compiler's purpose appears to have been to chastise Judaism as a whole for its failure to transform itself into Christianity, or into a Messianic form of Judaism with Jesus as Messiah, up to the time of his writing. This must have been a very deep disappointment to him. (The TJ verse 29:56 in this instance cannot be considered a cognate except perhaps for its first three words, but it is the verse that Mt 27:25 appears as a substitute for.) Although a literary hoaxer very likely would not retain this Matthean verse as is, it's not unlikely that he would alter it into something more acceptable yet different from what the people had been shouting. PHoax ¯ 0.45. An interesting little difference between the TJ and Matthew in Mt 27:24 is that the TJ has "I will have nothing to do with this just man, while the Matthean verse just speaks of this man. However, a paper recently written by R. Wettlaufer has addressed the fact that many of the best ancient manuscripts do speak of "this righteous man" at this point in Mt 27:24.[6.1] The TJ then suggests the following scenario. The adjective "righteous" or "just" was included by the writer of Matthew and its later translater, but some subsequent copyists felt that this couldn't be, since in the very following Matthean verse Pilate orders that Jesus be scourged-a terrible punishment. So in some manuscripts "righteous" was removed. Modern scholars then sided with the "harsher" reading that did not contain "righteous," since they could envision some copyists having reverentially added the adjective. However, in the TJ (29:57-58; see next segment) Pilate turns Immanuel over to the chief priests and elders, who were the ones to have him scourged. Thus the TJ is consistent with the present explanation. We can easily suppose that the writer of Matthew did not wish to accuse the chief priests and elders of an act as evil as scourging, and so altered the verse to have the blame be placed upon Pilate. From the TJ's verses, as well as Matthew, one sees that Pilate was not unfavorably disposed towards Jmmanuel/Jesus, whereas modern scholasticism prefers to think that the Gospel writers whitewashed the negative role of the Romans, and especially Pilate, in the whole matter of the crucifixion.[9] However, Paul Maier has convincingly argued that this is not the case.[10] Mt 27:26 26Then he [Pilate] released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. TJ 29:57-58 57Then Pilatus turned Jmmanuel over to the chief priests and elders and released Barabbas to the people. 58And the chief priests and elders had Jmmanuel whipped and handed him over to be crucified. TJ 29:57-58 57Pilatus aber überliess Jmmanuel den Hohenpriestern und den Ältesten, und den Barabbas gab er dem Volke frei. 58Die Hohenpriester und die Ältesten aber liessen Jmmanuel geisseln und überantworteten ihn, dass er gekreuziget würde. THE PROBLEM. Shortly before this point, Pilate had said "I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it for yourselves." It is then a contradiction that he himself would proceed to have Jesus be scourged. The fact that Pilate's wife had spoken well of Jesus, and Pilate had asked, in response to shouts for crucifixion, "Why, what evil has he done?" (Mt 27:23), further supports the reality of this problem. SOLUTION. The TJ verse indicates that Pilate had not contradicted himself, but instead turned Jmmanuel over to his accusers for them to see to it for themselves. They then had him scourged, perhaps by a Roman soldier, but not necessarily so. The TJ is not clear on that point, and Jewish law (Dt 25:3) did permit a lashing of up to 40 stripes. The above problem is not raised in any commentary on Matthew I'm aware of, and would not likely have been foreseen by a literary hoaxer. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 27:27 27Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the praetorium, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. TJ 30:1 1The governor's soldiers agreed with the chief priests and the elders, and dragging Jmmanuel with them into the court house, they brought the entire crowd in with him. TJ 30:1 1Und die Kriegsknechte des Landpflegers waren eins mit den Hohenpriestern und den Ältesten und schleppten Jmmanuel mit sich in das Richthaus und holten die ganze Schar zu ihm her. THE PROBLEM. It is odd, and seems unrealistic, that a whole battalion of Roman soldiers would be ordered to observe and partake in a mocking ceremony of Jesus, when it was the chief priests, elders and people of like mind in the crowd (Mt 27:20-23) who had been shouting for his crucifixion. One would therefore think that the soldiers would be staging the mocking ceremony mainly for these people's benefit, to let them know what they, the Romans, thought of the "king of the Jews." Surely the chief priests and elders would retain an interest in what was occurring. But only the soldiers are mentioned as having been present during this mocking of Jesus. It would have required undue effort, for which motivation was lacking, for the Roman soldiers to have tried to prevent the interested Jews from following them with their captive into the praetorium. SOLUTION. The TJ account indicates that the chief priests and elders indeed retained an interest in what was going on, and accompanied the soldiers and others from the crowd into the praetorium. It seems plausible that the writer of Matthew did not wish Jews to have been among those who witnessed Jesus being stripped, adorned and mocked, if it was not essential to the story. This is another aspect of realism within the TJ's story that does not support the hoax hypothesis. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 27:29 29and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on his head, and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him they mocked him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" TJ 30:3-4 3They made a wreath of thorns, placed it on his head, put a reed into his right hand and, bending their knees before him, said, 4"We greet you, O great King of Wisdom of the Jews." TJ 30:3-4 3Und flochten eine Dornenkrone und setzten sie auf sein Haupt und gaben ihm ein Rohr in seine rechte Hand und beugten die Knie vor ihm und sprachen: 4«Gegrüsset seist du, oh grosser Weisheitskönig der Juden.» THE PROBLEM. As discussed under Mt 27:1-12, we have no evidence that the people called Jesus "King of the Jews." The Roman soldiers would not likely have invented a label for him that the people did not call him by. SOLUTION. The TJ indicates he had been called the "King of Wisdom" of the Jews. (See also under Mt 2:2.) The soldiers could side with the chief priests and elders in mocking him and his title of "King of Wisdom." The writer of Matthew consistently omitted "of wisdom," again because his idea of Jesus as Messiah was as a king in its most glorious sense of wielding the power of divinity, not as a king of wisdom who wished to empower the people spiritually. Mt 27:32 32As they were marching out, they came upon a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; this man they compelled to carry his cross. TJ 30:19-22 19Upon his right shoulder they placed a heavy wooden cross, so that he himself would have to carry this great burden to the place of his own death. 20But the cross was heavy, and Jmmanuel groaned under the burden. His blood combined with his sweat into a vile mixture. 21Jmmanuel collapsed under the heavy burden because his strength left him. 22But when a stranger came along by the name of Simon of Cyrene, they forced him to help carry the cross. TJ 30:19-22 19Sie aber luden ihm auf die rechte Schulter ein schweres Kreuz aus Holz, so er es selbst trage zu seiner Todesstätte als grosse Last. 20Das Kreuz aber war schwer, und Jmmanuel stöhnte unter der Last; und sein Blut vermischte sich mit Schweiss und war eine üble Masse. 21Jmmanuel aber brach zusammen unter der schweren Last, denn seine Kraft verliess ihn. 22Als aber des Weges kam ein Fremder, namens Simon von Kyrene, zwangen sie ihn, dass er ihm sein Kreuz tragen helfe. THE PROBLEMS. Here the writer of Matthew failed to mention that Jesus had been forced to carry the cross, or crossbar, right from the start. This should have been mentioned, because otherwise the reader would wonder if the usual procedure of the prisoner being forced to carry his own patibulum was waived in this case, and if so, why. Failure to do this led to a second problem. In the phrase "his cross," the "his" would grammatically refer to Simon of Cyrene. One must refer back a verse to find that "his" must by context refer to Jesus. Although this might merely be considered clumsy wording for whatever reason by the writer of Matthew, one must keep in mind the possibility that editorial action on his part caused the clumsy sentence structure. SOLUTION. From the TJ verse one sees that the writer of Matthew omitted the description of Jmmanuel being forced from the start to carry the cross but groaning and collapsing under its burden. This omission is understandable, as it avoids portraying Jesus in his most helpless, weakened state. In the TJ verse, the cross is first mentioned as being "a heavy wooden cross;" hence when it is mentioned a second time in connection with Simon of Cyrene, it is referred to as "the cross." With Matthew's omission of the first mention of the cross, its writer could not very well refer to it the first time as "the cross," and so called it "his cross," which caused the minor problem in wording. The motivations are clear why the writer of Matthew made the alterations from the TJ text, while a literary hoaxer would not be at all likely to foresee the above Matthean problems. PHoax ¯ 0.25. It is noteworthy that there is no mention of the cross having been carried in two parts-the upright and the crossbar. It need not have been a dismantled cross that was carried, and we do not even know its precise shape. Added later: in an explanatory note in the TJ's 5th edition (2012) the cross is described as a Y-shaped tree trunk -- all one piece. Mt 27:33 33And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull)... TJ 30:23 23Soon they arrived at the place called Golgotha. TJ 30:23 23Alsbald kamen sie an die Stätte, die da heisst Golgatha. DISCUSSION. There is no problem here, but the explanation in parenthesis was long ago placed there for readers who did not understand the Aramaic language. Thus according to the tradition of Matthew having been written in Hebrew or Aramaic and preceding Mark, the writer of Mark added this parenthetical remark to his gospel when forming it in Greek out of Semitic Matthew. Later, the translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek is postulated to have done the same, since he had Greek Mark on hand to remind him to add the clause, and since his expected Greek readers could also use the explanation. The fact that the clause is not in the TJ is consistent with that text having been written in Aramaic in the first place, with its original papyrus rolls, hidden away until discovered in 1963, not having received any translation until then, as its co-discoverer claims. If a literary hoaxer had created the TJ, however, he could easily have overlooked this detail and copied the Matthean clause. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 27:34 34they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it. TJ 30:25-26 25They gave him wine to drink, mixed with bile from animals. 26When he tasted it, he did not want to drink it, and so they beat him to make him drink it. TJ 30:25-26 25Und sie gaben ihm Wein zu trinken, vermischt mit Galle von Tieren. 26Da er’s aber schmeckte, wollte er’s nicht trinken, und also schlugen sie ihn, dass er’s trinke. COMMENT. It is understandable that the writer of Matthew would omit this additional humiliation and sign of helplessness on the part of Jmmanuel. Mt 27:35 35And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. TJ 30:27-28 27Then they forced him down on the cross while beating him, and nailed his hands and feet onto the wood. This was done for the first time and contrary to custom, because until then the crucified were tied to the cross. 28After they had nailed him upon the cross and erected it, they divided his clothing among themselves by casting lots. TJ 30:27-28 27Dann aber zwangen sie ihn unter Hieben auf das Kreuz nieder, und nagelten ihm die Hände und die Füsse auf das Holz, so sie es erstmals taten wie es nicht der Brauch war, denn bis anhin waren die Gekreuzigten festgebunden worden. 28So sie ihn aber genagelt hatten und das Kreuz aufstellten, teilten sie seine Kleider und warfen das Los darum. THE PROBLEM. Beare (p. 533) commented upon how this part of the story was more of a "series of graphic touches" than a connected story, with the primary clause telling of the soldiers throwing dice for his clothes, while the act of placing Jesus upon the cross is mentioned only in a secondary clause. The implication is that this crucial part of Christianity should have had more text devoted to it. SOLUTION. As we see in the TJ's text, it did devote a couple more sentences to what happened, gruesome as it was. It would appear that the writer of Matthew did not wish to portray details of Jmmanuel's helplessness, and so omitted them. The surprise in the TJ text is the statement that nails had not been used in crucifixion previously, referring presumably to the Jerusalem area. Now NT scholars usually assume that the nails must have been driven through the upper hands,[10.5] or wrists, since otherwise the weight of a body suspended by spiked hands would gradually cause the nails to rip through the hands. However, this consideration does not apply if the body was also supported by the feet and legs, which is the condition that occurred here. Also, it is not known whether or not a support was present at the crotch level, which was provided on some crucifixes. Additionally, if this was the first-time use of nails in a crucifixion in the Jerusalem area, the soldiers would not likely have known better than to allow the nails to pierce the hands and not the wrists. Available literature on the topic seems inconclusive; one only knows that a crucifixion nail was found in a first-century Jerusalem tomb embedded in a heel bone, which explains why it had not been removed, but confirms that the legs supported the body as well as the arms.[11] The lack of evidence for nails being used there before this time is consistent with the TJ account. Although the portion about "dividing his garments among them by casting lots" occurs in a similar form in Ps 22:18 of David, we see it was present in the TJ. The writer of Matthew did not have to insert it. This suggests that some of David's prophecies were relevant to the crucifixion scene of Jmmanuel, and supports a conjecture made in the discussion of Mt 22:43-46. The fact that the Matthean problem is not present in the TJ account, which, furthermore, offers new information a literary hoaxer is not likely to have invented, favors the TJ's genuineness over Matthew here. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 27:37 37And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, "This is Jesus the King of the Jews." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. As noted in the preceding discussion of Mt 27:12, no specific charge had been leveled against Jesus. Although in Mt 27:11 Pilate asks him if he is the King of the Jews, this was only a question, to which Jesus had replied nebulously "You have said so." Thus this supposed charge was not any specific charge put to Pilate by those who had wished him to be arrested and crucified. Hence Beare's (p. 527) criticism of Mt 27:12 carries over to this verse: "Jesus the King of the Jews" was a Matthean taunt, not a charge specified within the text. Additionally, there is the question of whether the Roman soldiers themselves would have been so motivated against Jesus as to go to the effort of obtaining some sort of placard upon which they could pen the 7-word sentence (in Greek or Latin; or both plus Hebrew according to the Gospel of John) and then tie or nail it up high onto the cross after it had been erected with Jesus on it. They had earlier emplaced the wreath of thorns on his head, which took little effort because that was before he was mounted on the cross; it seems very unlikely they would later have gone to the much greater bother of acquiring, inscribing and emplacing a placard well above Jesus' head on the cross. Just to get a sponge with vinegar up to his mouth required placing it at the end of a reed or pole (Mt 27:48). This latter was mentioned, but there is no mention of some soldier getting a ladder, placing it against the cross and then emplacing the supposed placard. "They" in Mt 27:37 does refer to the Romans who crucified Jesus. And once again, as noted under discussion of Mt 27:1-12, there is no indication that Jesus had been known by the title "King of the Jews." SOLUTION. The consistent solution is that this verse was a Matthean insertion. Its writer acquired the "King of the Jews" taunt from Jmmanuel's admission in the TJ of being "king of wisdom of the Jews" (TJ 20:22, 22:6, 30:8). He merely edited out the "wisdom" thought, as noted before, leaving "King of the Jews,". As will be seen in discussion of Mt 27:39,43, the compiler of Matthew very much had Psalms 22 (Ps 22:7-8) in mind at this point of his gospel, and here, in particular, with the sentence "All who see me mock at me." With "wisdom" edited out, his "King of the Jews" expression then became a satisfactory one he could employ as a taunt in support of the mockery theme portrayed in both the psalm and the TJ. Interestingly, Mark's parallel to this verse reads, "And the inscription of the charge against him read, " There had been no previous mention within Mark of any inscription, yet here we read "the inscription." This suggests that the writer of Mark had foreknowledge of Matthew's verse, again implying Matthean priority over Mark; otherwise the Markan verse would have read "an inscription," or to that effect in the Greek, not using the article "the." There is no other known writing predating Matthew that mentions this inscription, and which could give cause to believe it was any part of known oral tradition that the writer of Mark had borrowed from. All this is consistent with the inscription having been only a Matthean redaction, invented to add historical importance to the crucifixion. This problem with Matthew is too serious and yet too unknown to lend credence to the hoax hypothesis. A literary hoaxer would be all too likely to include the verse, as he would probably not have any particular reason to omit it. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 27:39-40 39And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads 40and saying, "You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross." TJ 30:31-33 31Those all around him defamed, mocked and ridiculed him. 32They shouted, "Since you are the King of Wisdom, help yourself! 33And since you are the son of a celestial son and possess great power, get down from the cross!" TJ 30:31-33 31Die aber rundherum waren, lästerten ihn und lachten über ihn und spotteten ihn. 32Und sie schrien und sprachen: «Der du doch ein Weisheitskönig bist, so hilf dir selber. 33Und der du ein Sohn eines Himmelssohnes bist und du grosse Kraft besitzest, so steig herab vom Kreuze.» THE PROBLEMS. The phrase "wagging their heads" comes from Psalms 22: Ps 22:7-8 All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads; he committed his cause to the LORD; let him deliver him, let him rescue him, for he delights in him! This identification with the Psalms verse is especially apparent when both verses, Mt 27:39 and 27:43, are considered together. Additionally, it was noted in discussion of Mt 26:61 that the meaning behind the saying that Jesus would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days did not evolve until the early church evolved. Hence Mt 27:40 repeats the anachronism. It may also be noted that the saying was supposedly spoken by "those who passed by," who were distinguished from the chief priests, scribes and elders in Mt 27:41. In all probability, then, these passersby would not know anything about a "destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days" saying, as they were probably not members of the council. Further, in Matthew Jesus never calls himself the son of God. The closest he comes is in Mt 26:63-64, when Caiaphas asks Jesus to tell him if he is the Son of God, and Jesus is said to respond with "You have said so," which is not a particularly strong affirmative, and is quite different from Jesus himself having claimed the title. However, it was one of the passersby who mentioned this Son of God title in Mt 27:40 above, and he also would not have attended Caiaphas's council meeting. SOLUTION. It is easily seen how the TJ verses would have given the writer of Matthew the thought of utilizing the verse of the psalm in his editing, and of drawing from his earlier verse for some substance with which to replace the unacceptable TJ material. It was he who placed the Son of God title upon Jesus at this point, in accordance with the belief of the early church ever since the days of Paul. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 27:41-42 41So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, 42"He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him." TJ 30:34-37 34The scribes, Pharisees, chief priests and elders of the people likewise mocked him, saying, 35"You helped others, but you cannot help yourself. 36Since you are a king of wisdom, get down from the cross and help yourself. 37If you do that, we will believe in you and your teachings." TJ 30:34-37 34Desgleichen spotteten auch die Schriftgelehrten und Pharisäer und die Hohenpriester und Ältesten des Volkes und sprachen: 35«Andern hast du geholfen und kannst dir selber nicht helfen. 36So du ein 37 Weisheitskonig bist, so steige nun vom Kreuze und helfe dir selbst. So du es tuest, wollen wir an dich und deine Lehre glauben.» THE PROBLEMS. Again the "King of Israel" phrase, just as "King of the Jews" (see under the discussion of Mt 27:1-12), betrays the presence of a redaction. And one may question the meaning of "He saved others" in the present context. The context of saving others refers, with few exceptions, to Jesus' saving the sick and ailing from further suffering of their afflictions, rather than saving their lives. The Greek word used in "save" here, "sozo," is the same as that which indicates salvation or saving from sin, as in Mt 1:21. This concept is not at all appropriate here, where the context indicates a meaning of saving from being crucified. In Mt 27:41 one may again question why Pharisees are not mentioned here. They were generally of like mind with the chief priests, scribes and elders, and some of them were very likely present. The Woes against the scribes and Pharisees of Mt 23 were spoken in the presence of Pharisees as well as being spoken to "the crowds," judging from Mt 22:41-23:1. Hence many Pharisees in Jerusalem would have had cause to be especially upset with Jesus, who had called them hypocrites, blind guides and blind fools, filled with iniquity. SOLUTION. It is interesting that the TJ does not suffer from these Matthean problems, which appear too minor and too unknown within scholarship for any literary hoaxer to have noticed and corrected. The alteration of the last TJ verse into the end of the Matthean verse indicates the redactor's Christian way of thinking that it is belief in Jesus that is of paramount importance, not belief in his teachings. For a literary hoaxer to have edited Matthew in the other direction is less probable. This and the Matthean problem not incurred by the TJ's close parallel suggest PHoax ¯ 0.3. We note that the first TJ verse, though a close parallel to Mt 27:41, does include the Pharisees in its list. This again suggests that the writer of Matthew did not wish to include the Pharisees as being among those who would speak so dastardly as to taunt his Savior as he was apparently dying on the cross. Consistent with this, the taunt is softened slightly by alteration of the TJ's second person "you" into the third person "he." However, it is possible that the writer of Matthew did not omit the pharisees after all, because the Pharisees are included here in certain NT manuscripts (those known as D, W, 1424, and a few others). At least as likely, though, is that one or more biblical transcribers later inserted "and Pharisees" at this point, surmising that it belonged. Mt 27:43-44 43"He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'" 44And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. TJ 30:38-40 38"He trusted in his wisdom and in his being the son of the angel Gabriel. 39Thus, let his wisdom or the angel Gabriel save him now if he so desires." 40Likewise, the murderers crucified to his right and left mocked and reviled him. TJ 30:38-40 38«Er hat auf seine Weisheit vertrauet und darauf, dass er des Engel Gabriels Sohn sei. 39So erlöse ihn nun seine Weisheit oder der Engel Gabriel, so er Lust zu ihm hat.» 40Desgleichen spotteten und schmähten ihn aber auch die Mörder, die gekreuzigt waren zu seiner Rechten und zu seiner Linken. THE PROBLEMS. Beare (p. 534) explained that the first verse, spoken by the chief priests, scribes and elders, all but cites Ps 22:8, with other verses in that psalm being loosely drawn upon elsewhere, as we have just seen. Hence, one may logically conclude that this Matthean verse is not a genuine quotation coming from unrehearsed mouths. As noted in the discussion of Mt 27:39-40, Jesus never called himself the son of God, saying "I am the Son of God." An important but more obscure problem is the implausibility that a robber suspended on the cross would revile a fellow victim of crucifixion. A robber, since he does not take the life of others, at least respects life. A robber undergoing crucifixion then would be totally devastated that he was receiving that fate, rather than a more just, lesser punishment appropriate to the crime, as in "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" (Ex 21:24), and so would not likely revile another who had not even committed a crime. For two robbers facing certain death to have so reviled Jesus is more improbable still. Further, according to Carson, robbery, even violent robbery, was not a capital offense.[12] So what were robbers doing up on crosses? The same criticism applies to Mt 27:38. SOLUTION. Mt 27:43 most clearly of all demonstrates the compiler's use of the psalm (22:7-8), which was quoted above. It is again seen how the TJ verse prompted the compiler to substitute the verse from Psalms 22 in order to convert the heresy of Jmmanuel being the son of Gabriel into the later orthodoxy of Jesus being the Son of God. In the TJ, we see that it was two murderers, not robbers, who were crucified alongside Jmmanuel. This is consistent with only Barabbas and Jmmanuel having been among those considered for release, since murderers were excluded from such amnesty, judging from TJ 29:38. (Barabbas had evidently not been a murderer.) This explains why only Barabbas and Jmmanuel, and not the two "robbers," too, were candidates from which one would be chosen for release. Since murderers have no regard for life, it is not implausible that they were reconciled to their own fate of death and had no regard for Jmmanuel's. They could turn their attention from their own impending doom and side with those who were reviling Jmmanuel. In that case, this constitutes another instance of Matthean "fatigue." The writer's substitution of "robbers" for "murderers," followed by his retention of the TJ's revilement of Jmmanuel by the two other crucified men, generated this problem. The same redaction occurs in Mt 27:38, in which Matthew gives "robbers" while the TJ parallel (TJ 30:30) again gives "murderers." As to why the writer of Matthew substituted robbers for murderers, it could be because it is less demeaning for the Son of God to be crucified in the company of robbers than of murderers. An additional possibility, however, is that he wished to show an analogy with Jer 48:27, Was not Israel [Jacob] a derision to you? Was he found among thieves, that whenever you spoke of him you wagged your head? The derision described in a preceding TJ verse, which had called up the "wagging heads" of Mt 27:39, may then have brought the derision and wagging head of this verse into mind, along with its allusion to Israel being found among thieves, not among murderers. It can be noticed that Mark, whose writer has previously been deduced to be unaware of the TJ, in copying from Matthew utilizes the same term, "robbers." The writers of Luke and John, who have been deduced to have had access to the TJ before writing or finishing their gospels, corrected Matthew by generalizing "robber" into "criminals" (Lk 23:32-33) and "others" (Jn 19:18). It is the TJ verse that shows consistency with its earlier text while the Matthean verse exhibits the "Son of God" inconsistency, and it is the TJ verse that is more historically plausible (given an awareness of the reality of the UFO phenomenon, in which human-appearing aliens could be called "angels") and does not borrow from the psalm. And the TJ verse is consistent with Roman law while Matthew is not. Therefore the hoax hypothesis continues to lose ground here. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 27:45 45Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. TJ 30:41-42 41Then the sky clouded over, the sun became dark, and a great storm spread across the land, which was rare at that time of year but happened now and then. 42The terrible storm raged for three hours before the sun again broke through the clouds. TJ 30:41-42 41Es geschah aber, dass sich der Himmel bedeckte und sich die Sonne verdunkelte und grosser Sturm das Land ergriff, was nicht oft, doch dann und wann war zu dieser Zeit. 42Also herrschte das Unwetter drei Stunden, ehe die Sonne wieder durch die Wolken kam. THE PROBLEM. Here Beare (p. 535) commented upon the great improbability of darkness occurring over the whole land or earth for three hours. Although he acknowledged that the compiler of Matthew might have meant just "over all the land of Israel," he felt it more likely that a cosmic event was being imagined and thus invented by the compiler. SOLUTION. The TJ does not require any supernatural event here, and does not specify the storm to have occurred over all the land. Five verses later it is confirmed that the storm was a large thunderstorm. The writer of Matthew indeed exaggerated here in portraying God's reaction to Jesus' (apparent) death. TJ 30:41-42 makes more sense weather-wise than Matthew's fiction, and is thus more likely the genuine account. A thunderstorm during or shortly after a cold-frontal passage could well occur there in early spring, and this would not be inconsistent with the mention in TJ 27:41 that the preceding day had been cold and rainy-the type of weather preceding passage of a cold front traveling slowly over the sea. All the thunderstorms in Israel occur in the winter rainy season, starting in October and ending in April. There are no thunderstorms there in June, July, or August.[13] Thus with Passover occurring in late March or April, a thunderstorm would have been a bit more rare than usual. Three hours' duration is not atypical for a violent thunderstorm's duration of heavy cloudiness. The TJ's language of "the sun became dark" is characteristic of the terminology in that day, as in Joel's "The sun and the moon are darkened" due to clouds (Jl 2:2,10). A more literal translation of the TJ's German: "the sun again broke through the clouds," is "the sun again came through the clouds." The writer of Matthew is surmised to have omitted mention of the thunderstorm because of a desire to have the event be a really unusual act of God, as in a verse of Amos with which he was probably well acquainted: Am 8:9 "And on that day," says the Lord GOD, "I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight." It is very likely, then, that the writer of Matthew took the three-hour period of darkness from the TJ and had it commence at noon (the sixth hour) because of this verse in Amos. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 27:46-47 46And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli lama sabach- thani?" that is, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 47And some of the bystanders hearing it said, "This man is calling Elijah." TJ 30:43 43At that time Jmmanuel cried out, "I'm thirsty! Give me something to drink." TJ 30:43 43Zu der Zeit schrie Jmmanuel und sprach: «Ich dürste, gebet mir zu trinken.» THE PROBLEMS. As noted by Beare and others, the "Eli" quote comes straight from Psalm 22 again: Ps 22:1 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? since "El" means "God". It is then very doubtful of coming from the lips of Jesus. That is, if he had known and prophesied that he would die and then be resurrected, then he would know that he had not yet, anyhow, been forsaken, and would not have quoted from a psalm while undergoing the agony of the cross. The meaning intended for these words is furthermore uncertain, according to Beare (p. 535). They might represent a cry of despair, as is generally assumed; or since Jesus was supposedly quoting so much from the psalm here, Beare wondered if the writer of Matthew might have had the entire psalm in mind, in which case the words he fed in could signal a triumph of faith over hopelessness as in the last half of the psalm. Why should Jesus have cried out that he was being forsaken by God? He had done everything God wanted, and it was all going according to the plan that Jesus knew had to be fulfilled. He knew he would be resurrected (Mt 26:32). This is a serious question, for which no theologically satisfactory answer was known, according to Broadus.[14] However, the most obvious answer is that the writer of Matthew found Ps 22:1 to be too relevant to pass up. Regarding the second of the two verses, Beare could see no way the Hebrew "Eli," or Aramaic "Eloi," could get mistaken for "Elijah." Yet Mt 27:47b indicates he had Elijah in mind. Thus, this appears to be an insertion by the compiler designed to gain mention of his favorite scriptural personage, second only to Moses, and promote the idea that Elijah could come again if properly called upon (see also Mt 27:49, where the idea is inserted that Elijah might come to save Jesus). SOLUTION. In the TJ cognate to the first Matthean verse the reason for this immediate action is clear, however: Jmmanuel was desperately thirsty. There is no TJ cognate to the second of these Matthean verses. Together, these explain why the above objections do not apply to the TJ. Jmmanuel's terrible thirst may have been seen as a needless sign of weakness by the compiler of Matthew, causing him to omit it, though the writer of John did not mind including it in his gospel (Jn 19:28). It is also significant and realistic that the words "with a loud voice" do not occur in the TJ version, since they must have been written into Matthew to promote a view of strength even with apparent death impending. A firm reason has been supplied by Cope to explain why the compiler drew so heavily from the 22nd psalm in this section of his gospel. It is because "The crucifixion of Jesus was one of the major barriers to Jewish acceptance of Jesus as Messiah."[15] By quoting from the sacred Jewish writings and showing how they anticipated Jesus' suffering, the compiler was attempting to overcome the Jewish objection that it was shameful to die suspended on a tree or cross. Then his gospel would be a more useful instrument for attracting converts from Judaism to Christianity. Jmmanuel knew that calling out to El or to Gabriel would be of no avail, as the gruesome plan was proceeding as expected. He trusted his own foreknowledge, even while enduring unbearable pain. The Matthean problems indicate that its verses can hardly be true historically, while the TJ verse is historically and psychologically plausible. However, a literary hoaxer would have been strongly tempted to have Jmmanuel cry out to Gabriel for help. PHoax ¯ 0.2. Mt 27:48-49 48And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink. 49But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him." TJ 30:44-45 44And right away one of the chief priests ran, took a sponge, soaked it in vinegar and stuck it on a lance for him to drink. 45But when the others saw that, they scolded the man, saying, "Stop! Do not give him any more to drink. Let us see how long he can bear this." TJ 30:44-45 44Und alsbald lief einer von den Hohenpriestern, nahm einen Schwamm und füllte ihn mit Essig und steckte ihn auf eine Lanze und tränkte ihn. 45Da aber die andern das sahen, beschimpften sie den Mann und sprachen: «Halt, tränke ihn nicht weiter, lasse uns eher sehen, wie lange er es macht.» THE PROBLEMS. Immediately after Jesus' cry, this strange action occurs of one of the bystanders running to get a sponge, filling it with vinegar, and putting it on the end of a long reed (or lance), to let Jesus drink from it. It is totally unknown from Matthew why this action was so suddenly taken at this time. Since the verse about Jesus calling for Elijah was found to be non-genuine, it follows that Mt 27:49, the follow-up to this line involving Elijah again, must also be non-genuine. This is additionally suggested by the fact that giving Jesus vinegar to sip would have no bearing on whether or not Elijah would come to save him. If Elijah wanted to come and save Jesus, he could do so whether or not Jesus took a sip of vinegar, since the vinegar was not going to save him. And this action of rushing to give Jesus a sip occurred too promptly after Jesus' outcry for any devious plotter to have reasoned that drinking the vinegar would speed up death by suffocation, and so cause Elijah to come sooner to save him. Thus this verse has no sensible connection to its preceding verse. SOLUTION. The TJ verse indicates why the reviling onlookers did not wish to see anything done that would in any way ease Jmmanuel's torture. It was the writer of Matthew's fixation upon Elijah, as one who would come yet again, that caused him to invent the Elijah sub-plot, which does not hold up. It may be questioned why the writer did not mention that it was a chief priest who offered the vinegar. This may be because the "others" looking on presumably still consisted mainly of scribes, Pharisees, chief priests and elders, and the writer of Matthew did not wish to remind the reader more than necessary of their primary role in the crucifixion and mockery. Again, the Matthean verses can hardly be historical. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 27:50 50And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. TJ 30:47-48 47Amid the tremendous thunder, Jmmanuel again cried out, but nobody understood him, because his speech was confused. 48Then his head fell forward, he slipped into a state of apparent death, and they presumed he was dead. TJ 30:47-48 47Allso mit dem gewaltigen Donner schrie Jmmanuel ein andermal, doch keiner verstand ihn, denn seine Rede war wirr. 48Danach aber fiel sein Haupt vornüber und er versank im Halbtode, so sie dachten er wäre tot. THE PROBLEM. It is not to be expected that Jesus would have died (yielded up his spirit) right then and there if he had been able to cry out with a loud voice. As noted by Davies and Allison, "People do not usually die with a shout, much less those who have been beaten and tortured."[16] Moreover, death from crucifixion usually required a day or more to occur, not just a few hours-six hours according to Mark. And if his own prophecies were to come true, his "sign of Jonah" statement would mean that he would survive the crucifixion just as Jonah had survived three days and nights in the "big fish." A further indication within Matthew that is consistent with Jesus knowing he would survive the crucifixion is found in his Gethsemane prayer. There he is said to have prayed "let this cup pass from me." In all the Old Testament's unfavorable usages of having to drink from the cup (e.g., Pss 11:6;75:8; Isa 51:17,22; Jer 25:15- 18;49:12; Lam 4:21; Ez 23:32-34, etc.), the clause meant "to be inflicted with suffering or punishment." None of them referred to death. Thus if Jesus had thought he would die at the crucifixion, he quite likely would not have used the cup metaphor. SOLUTION. It is self-explanatory that none of these objections apply to the TJ verse. This state of "apparent death" or "near death" was likely one of either clinical death or samadhi, the deepest level of trance, which Jmmanuel could have learned from the Hindu and Buddhist masters during the years he was in India. It may also have been accompanied by an extended out-of-body experience. If so, the Matthean phrase "yielded up his spirit" ironically comes close to the truth; he (his spirit) then left his body, though returning some time within three days. There is no good reason to believe that the TJ account is any less credible here than the Matthean account, as it is fully consistent with Jmmanuel's background experience, his uniqueness, the relatively short time he was on the cross, and our modern knowledge on the reality of clinical death, near-death experiences and out-of- body travel. It is known that clinical death can be prolonged when the body is cold, and being hung mostly naked on a cross when it was rainy and thus cold (TJ 30:41-42) would ensure hypothermia. But he may not have been on the cross as long as six hours, since the TJ account does not keep track of the crucifixion timing, and Matthew similarly does not state at what hour the crucifixion commenced. PHoax ¯ 0.5. Mt 27:51 51And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. As noted by Beare (p. 536), this curtain was not even visible from outside the temple, so he could deduce that this was not an actual occurrence. And even if the verse referred to the temple's outer veil rather than inner veil, it would not have been beheld from the site of the crucifixion, because, according to Matthew, there was darkness over all the land then. SOLUTION. The criticism is well founded. The compiler of Matthew fed this in as another response of God to Jesus' apparent death. Had a literary hoaxer been involved, he may well not have perceived the problem and allowed the Matthean verse to stand as is or only somewhat altered. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 27:52-53 52the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEMS. Scholar Francis Beare did not bother to discuss these verses, other than mentioning that they are peculiar to Matthew. But these two verses have caused various theologians to wonder what happened to the raised bodies of these many saints "who had fallen asleep." Did they later sneak back into their graves? A former Anglican priest, Tom Harpur, comments that "Surely an event of such stupendous dimensions, had it actually occurred, would have not only found its way into the Gospels and letters in the New Testament, but would also have been recorded in some other Jewish or Roman historical source. Yet the record is silent."[17] SOLUTION AND DISCUSSION. The probable reason why these verses were added by the compiler is to give some substance to the church's teaching that Jesus was the "first fruits of those who have fallen asleep," as in 1 Cor 15:20. As input for this editing he evidently made use of verses from Ezekiel: Ez 37:12-13 Thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people...." We shall see in discussing Matthew's following verse, however, that "after his resurrection" in 27:53 is inappropriately placed and appears to be a somewhat later addition. There seems no end to the number of instances in which the compiler of Matthew plagiarized scripture. By my reckoning, the compiler inserted 28 segments of writing from Old Testament books or, in a few cases, from rabbinical texts, into what he extracted from the TJ (in addition to those he found and utilized in the TJ). These do not include some allusions in which he was inserting words or ideas based upon these writings but not definitely quoting directly from them. Fifteen of these 28 insertions are totally unattributed citations. The TJ, by the same reckoning, contains 17 references to Old Testament material, though often in a form suggesting the latter had undergone some redactions. All of these, in one form or another, were made use of by the compiler of Matthew. All but two of these TJ references are attributed to prophetic sources, the two exceptions having Mt 10:35-36 and Mt 19:5 as their cognates. Many scholars of Matthew, noting its numerous unattributed citations that appear to be editorial inserts, have dismissed all of its Old Testament references, as if Jesus had little knowledge of the ancient writings. The TJ instead indicates that Jmmanuel had a very extensive knowledge of these writings, at least in what he understood to be their original versions, which he passed on to Judas. Although a literary hoaxer would not likely have made use of these two Matthean verses, there is a definite possibility he would have. This, along with their lack of historicity supports the TJ's genuineness. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 27:54 54When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe, and said, "Truly this was a son of God." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. The phrase "what took place" refers primarily to the bodies of the many saints that came out of their graves and wandered around Jerusalem. However, in Mt 27:53 we see the phrase "after his resurrection," which refers to a time of up to three days after Jesus' entombment. Hence, this key part of what the centurion supposedly saw could not have taken place while he and the others were keeping watch over Jesus on the cross. Yet this is when it is said to have taken place-immediately after the earthquake that opened up the tombs, which supposedly occurred when Jesus yielded up his spirit. It might seem that a way out for the theologically committed is to assume that the tombs were opened up during the earthquake, but the bodies of the saints didn't come out until about three days later. The centurion then was perhaps commenting upon just the earthquake. However, if the centurion saw the earthquake, this had to include its splitting open of tombs; everything else that he supposedly saw can only mean the risen bodies of the saints. But does any of this make sense, if a resurrected body is supposed to be able to walk through closed doors? No earthquake would be necessary. SOLUTION. This verse was designed to emphasize the divine nature of Jesus. However, the phrase "after his resurrection" in 27:53 appears as an afterthought added to ensure that Jesus had been the first person resurrected. It would not be good theology to have all these saints appear in what could be construed as a resurrected form before Jesus himself was resurrected as the "first fruits." The addition of "after the resurrection" to the previous verse then caused the anachronism in this verse. Again the evidence of Matthean redaction here supports the TJ. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 27:55-56 55There were also many women there, looking on from afar, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him; 56among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. TJ 30:54-55 54Among them were also many women and others who watched from a distance, because they were followers of Jmmanuel; they had served him and followed him from Galilee. 55Among them were Jmmanuel's mother, Maria, and Maria (Mary) Magdalena, and others. TJ 30:54-55 54Unter ihnen waren aber auch viele Frauen und sonstige, die von Ferne zusahen, da sie waren Anhänger des Jmmanuel und hatten ihm gedient und waren ihm nachgefolgt aus Galiläa. 55Unter ihnen waren auch Maria, die Mutter Jmmanuels, und Maria Magdalena und andere. THE PROBLEM. In Mt 27:56, just who is Mary the mother of James and Joseph? If she had been the mother of Jesus, would she not have been identified as such, and listed first? The suggestion that she was Jesus' mother does arise, because two of her sons were named James and Joseph (see Mt 13:53, where they are the first two listed, and in the same order), and of all women she had greatest incentive to be there. If she were not Jesus' mother, on the other hand, one wonders why still another Mary would be introduced and identified only in terms of two unknown sons. SOLUTION. We see from the TJ that this Mary was indeed the mother of Jmmanuel. The writer of Matthew avoided identifying her explicitly for the reason stated in the discussion of Mt 28:1. In TJ 30:54, the words "and others" may have prompted the writer of Matthew to wonder if he could add a name or two to bolster his version of the story. Since he had invented the scene about the mother of the two sons of Zebedee, who had followed Jesus down from Galilee according to his story (Mt 20:20-28), he added her name in here. The TJ is consistent in not mentioning that name here. We defer assignment of PHoax here until Mt 28:1. Mt 27:57 57When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. 57 TJ 30:57 Also among them [the many women and others who watched the crucifixion from a distance], however, was Joseph of Arimathea, a follower of Jmmanuel. TJ 30:57 57Unter ihnen aber war auch Joseph von Arimathia, welcher war ein Anhänger von Jmmanuel. THE PROBLEM. The people looking in on the crucifixion from afar (Mt 27:55) were followers of Jesus. Surely Joseph of Arimathea, if he was also a disciple of Jesus, would have been there then, too. He would not just come strolling onto the scene several hours late; instead, the fact he was carrying a linen shroud with him suggests he had known about the impending crucifixion earlier. SOLUTION. As the TJ states, Joseph of Arimathea had indeed been among the followers of Jmmanuel who watched the crucifixion from a distance. Matthew's "when it was evening" can thus be seen to be a redaction, invented likely so that readers would not suspect that his body had been removed so soon that he might not have been dead after all. The TJ (30:58) indicates that only "a little while" elapsed between the time Jmmanuel appeared as if dead and the time that Joseph noticed he was not dead. The motivation for the writer to have made the redaction is apparent, while if a literary hoaxer had been involved, it is not at all clear that he would know that an alteration of Matthew at this point would be helpful. PHoax ¯ 0.35. It is interesting that the TJ (including its German text) correctly identifies this Joseph as being a follower of Jmmanuel, not a disciple. The latter word is reserved, in the TJ, for any one of the twelve. Interesting also is that Matthew's "rich" is not in the TJ text. It may have been inserted out of a surmise that Joseph was rich, due to owning his own tomb and having come provided with a shroud, but was just as likely inserted to show an analogy with Is 53:9, And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death... Of further interest, neither the Gospel of Luke nor John mentions an evening hour for Joseph's arrival on the scene, and both those gospel writers had had access to the TJ. Mark, on the other hand, follows Matthew in mentioning the evening hour, consistent with all other indications that its writer did not have any access to the TJ. Mt 27:59-61 59And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, 60and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and departed. 61Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the sepulchre. TJ 30:61-64 61And many people went with him and they removed Jmmanuel from the cross. Joseph wrapped the body in pure linen, which he had previously coated so as to form an image of Jmmanuel. 62Joseph of Arimathea then carried the body of Jmmanuel all the way as far as Jerusalem and placed it outside the city into his own tomb, which he had arranged to be cut into a rock for his future burial. 63And he rolled a large stone in front of the door of the tomb and went to obtain medicine so he could take care of Jmmanuel. 64The entrance of the tomb was guarded so no one could enter and steal the body. TJ 30:61-64 61Und es ging mit ihm viel Volk und sie nahmen Jmmanuel vom Kreuz, und Joseph wickelte den Leib in reine Leinwand, die er zuvor bestrichen hatte, so es ein Abbild von Jmmanuel gebe. 62Joseph von Arimathia aber trug den Leib Jmmanuels den weiten Weg bis nach Jerusalem, und legte ihn ausserhalb der Stadt in sein eigenes Grab, welches er in einen Felsen hatte hauen lassen für sich, so er einmal tot sei. 63Und er wälzte einen grossen Stein vor die Tür des Grabes und ging davon, dass er Heilmittel besorge, um Jmmanuel zu pflegen. 64Der Eingang des Grabes aber war bewacht von Kriegsknechten und der Mutter Jmmanuels, so niemand zu ihm hineingehe oder den Leichnam stehle. THE PROBLEMS. First, one just didn't "take" a body from the scene of a crucifixion, but rather first had to remove it from the cross. This was not a simple task, when large nails held it to the cross. Second, the body first had to be carried to the tomb before being laid in it. This tomb would likely have been some distance from Golgotha, but there is no mention of it being carried some distance. Third, why is the Greek word for "body" (σωμα) used here and in the preceding verse, and not the word for "corpse" (πτωμα)? Jesus is supposed to have died. The Greek word for corpse was used when referring to the dead body of John the Baptist (Mt 14:12, Greek version). In examining other biblical uses of "body" and "corpse," one finds that "body" referred to a live body unless expressed as "dead body" or "corpse." Although in Mt 27:53 the bodies of the raised saints were referred to as σωματα, these were supposedly resurrected bodies, but Jesus hadn't yet been resurrected. Last, why are the two Mary's mentioned as being there, without any reason being given? SOLUTION. From the TJ account one sees that Joseph received help from some people in taking Jmmanuel off the cross. Why did the writer of Matthew omit this from the TJ? Perhaps it was because the Matthean timing placed the event after sundown on Friday, which is early on the Sabbath, when Jews would not be traveling about. However, the TJ's timing of events is earlier, the crucifixion being on Thursday, as discussed herein under Mt 27:62. In the TJ account Joseph does carry Jmmanuel's limp body, or perhaps has help from the people with him in carrying it, "all the way as far as Jerusalem" and outside the city. This suggests a distance from Golgotha on the north side of the city to a tomb site on the south side, which is indeed a substantial walk, of about 1.5 miles. It accords with the general placement of the tomb site indicated by Michael Hesemann and Eduard Meier, the TJ's co-discoverer in 1963.[18] Since Jmmanuel was not dead, the Aramaic word used in the TJ papyrus rolls must have been the word for "body," not "corpse." Like Greek, the Aramaic/Hebraic language also had different words for "body" (besar) and "corpse" (nebelah). The writer of Matthew evidently again suffered an incidence of "editorial fatigue." Ten verses back he had altered the TJ so as to have Jesus die, but here he forgot to alter the TJ's Aramaic word for "body" into that for "corpse" for consistency. The later translator of Matthew into Greek, and still later Christian scribes kept it as they found it: "body" (σωμα), perhaps because "corpse" or "cadaver" implies a carcass no longer useful or viable for a resurrected entity to occupy. It is interesting that the TJ does not contain the description of Joseph being rich. Presumably the writer of Matthew assumed this from the fact that Joseph had his own tomb already cut out, had purchased a linen cloth and had it painted in some special way, and was able to influence Pilate. It is a reasonable assumption. As to the image on the shroud, the writer of Matthew would not likely have known anything about that, or may have thought the image might indicate Jmmanuel was still alive at the time, and so omitted mentioning it for such a reason. The shroud itself is not believed by Eduard Meier to be the shroud of Turin, because the image on that shroud does not look similar enough to a sketch of Jmmanuel that Meier received from one of his ET contactors.[19] Interestingly, the TJ account does not have Mary Magdalene being there at this time. It is understandable that the writer of Matthew would have added her, because he did not wish to refer directly to Jesus' mother at this point in his text (see under Mt 28:1), and could not refer to her as "the other Mary" without a second Mary being present. On the other hand, the TJ does place a few soldiers there, who apparently came along to the tomb with Joseph of Arimathea, Mary and others, to secure the body from possible theft. A reason for Mary being there is thus given. In the TJ account, there is no mention that the posting of the guards, and sealing of the stone in front of the tomb, occurred on the next day. Instead, the implication is that this occurred on the same afternoon or evening (see under Mt 27:62-66 below), soon after Jmmanuel was entombed. It is not very plausible that a literary hoaxer would have invented the text about the shroud, if the TJ's editor would insist in its preliminary pages that the TJ's shroud is not the Shroud of Turin. And it is not very likely that a hoaxer would have been aware of the above problems with Matthew. PHoax ¯ 0.45. Mt 27:62-66 62The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate 63and said, "Sir, we remember how that imposter said, while he was still alive, 'After three days I will rise again.' 64Therefore order the sepulchre to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away, and tell the people, 'He has risen from the dead,' and the last fraud will be worse than the first." 65Pilate said to them, "You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can." 66So they went and made the sepulchre secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard. TJ 30:66-72 66The tomb was being guarded on the other side by the soldiers because the chief priests and Pharisees had gone to Pilatus and said, 67"Sir, we have considered that when this crazy man was still alive, he said to the people, 'I shall return after three days and three nights and rise, because I will only be in a state of apparent death.' 68But since it was established through a soldier that he was really dead, his tomb should be guarded so that no one can come, steal the body and say, 'Behold, he has risen from the dead after all!' 69Command therefore that the tomb be guarded up to the third day so that the last deception may not be worse than the first." 70And Pilatus said to them, "Take my soldiers as guardians. Go and guard the tomb as best you can." 71And they departed, guarded the tomb, and secured the stone in front of the door with a seal. 72However, they did not realize the secret of the grave, namely, that it had two exits or entrances. Jmmanuel's helpers, therefore, could go to him to apply healing salves and herbs without being detected. On the third day he was once again strong enough to walk. TJ 30:66-72 66Das Grab aber war bewacht auf der andern Seite durch die , Kriegsknechteweil die Hohenpriester und die Pharisäer waren gegangen zu Pilatus und sprachen: 67«Herr, wir haben bedacht, dass dieser Irre sprach zu dem Volke, da er noch lebte: ‹Ich werde nach drei Tagen und drei Nächten wiederkommen und auferstehen also, denn ich werde nur im Halbtode sein›. 68So aber festgestellt wurde durch einen Kriegsknecht, dass er tot ist in Wirklichkeit, so möge man sein Grab bewachen, so nicht welche kommen und den Leichnam stehlen und sagen: ‹Sehet, er ist nun doch auferstanden›. 69Darum befiehl, dass man das Grab verwahre bis an den dritten Tag, so der letzte Betrug nicht schlimmer werde als der erste.» 70Pilatus aber sprach zu ihnen: «So nehmet meine Kriegsknechte als Hüter; gehet hin und verwahret es, so gut ihr’s könnt.» 71Und sie gingen hin und verwahrten das Grab und versiegelten den Stein vor der Türe. 72Nicht kannten sie aber das Geheimnis des Grabes, dass es zwei Ausgänge und Eingänge hatte, so Jmmanuels Helfer unbewachet zu ihm gingen und ihm heilende Salben und Kräuter auflegten und er am dritten Tage wieder kräftig war zu gehen. THE PROBLEMS. As Beare (p. 539) noted, and many others before him, the day after the day of Preparation was simply the Sabbath, since the day of Preparation refers to the day before the Sabbath. They have pointed out that it is very unlikely a deputation of chief priests and Pharisees would have gone to Pilate on a Sabbath, since they were not supposed to conduct business then. Also questioned by Beare (p. 539) was how it could be supposed that the chief priests and Pharisees would have known, and vividly remembered, that Jesus had predicted he would rise from the tomb on the third day. His prophecies of that had been made only privately to his disciples, and they had not seemed to understand it or believe it (e.g., Mt 16:21-22; 17:12-13). Although at Mt 12:40 he had supposedly told the scribes and Pharisees that he would be in the heart of the earth for three days and nights, there was no mention that he would "rise" after that time. And when Jesus was before Caiaphas with the chief priests and Sanhedrin members, two members supposedly said that he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days; however, this referred to a wild claim that could not have been taken seriously or interpreted at the time as meaning that Jesus would rise in three days. SOLUTION. If a disciple had informed the chief priests of Jmmanuel's "rise in three days" prediction, it could only have been Judas Iscariot, by Matthew's account, at the time he supposedly went to them to offer to betray Jmmanuel, or at the time he was supposedly gathering together an arresting party. However, we have seen how overwhelming the evidence is that the TJ's account is correct-the betrayer had not been a disciple, but had been a young Pharisee. The TJ has no cognate to Matthew's awkward "Next day... after the day of Preparation." It appears that by the reckoning of the writer of Matthew, the posting of the guards occurred on the Sabbath, and so to forestall the above objection, he avoided use of the word "Sabbath." By the TJ's timing of the crucifixion events, however, the posting of the guards did not occur on the Sabbath. Below is a summary of my interpretation of the TJ's timing in terms of today's weekday calendar: Tuesday or Tuesday evening: The saying that Passover would occur after two days (Mt 26:2; TJ 26:46) Wednesday: First day of Unleavened Bread; the disciples help prepare their last meal together (Mt 26:17; TJ 27:34) Wednesday evening: The last supper, Jmmanuel's arrest Wednesday night: Jmmanuel's condemnation by Caiaphas and the High Council Thursday morning: Jmmanuel's "trial" before Pilate and the crowd; the crucifixion Thursday afternoon: Jmmanuel removed from the cross, taken to Joseph's tomb and placed inside; guards requested and posted. These actions took place before commencement of Passover at sunset. Thursday evening: The Passover feast; start of Jmmanuel's first night in the tomb. TJ 31:32 mentions that the last meal (Last Supper) occurred before the Passover Feast, and this could not have been more than one day before. The commencement of Passover then was close enough to the hour of the crucifixion to have fulfilled Pilate's custom of releasing a prisoner at the "time of the Passover feast" (Mt 27:15; TJ 29:38). Friday: Passover and also the Day of Preparation; Jmmanuel's 2nd day and night in the tomb Saturday: the Sabbath; Jmmanuel's 3rd day and night in the tomb Sunday morning: the empty tomb, after three days and nights, not two (TJ 31:1) By the above reckoning, unlike in Matthew, the arrest and trials did not occur on Passover, when no such business would ordinarily have been conducted by Jews. Also, this reconstruction has the first day of Passover falling on Friday rather than on Thursday. The timing of the last supper in the Gospel of John agrees with that of the TJ in being a day before Passover (Jn 19:14). This is best explained by the writer of John having had access to the TJ, as has been noted previously. The TJ's mention of "two entrances or exits" to the tomb refers but to two entrances, which were of course also exits. (In the German text, it is worded "two exits and entrances," which is the manner in which access was sometimes expressed in Hebrew/Aramaic; see Ez 43:11). The secret entrance/exit known only to Joseph of Arimathea was a smaller one located around a curve in the hillside and connected only by a small tunnel to the main tomb.[20] The TJ does not supply any explanation of why Joseph had constructed this second entrance. Such tunneling is not unknown, however, and an example can be found in a 1st-century tomb explored by archaeologists, in which a tunnel connected one tomb to the interior of a separate, neighboring tomb that had its own entrance.[21] It may be noted that in TJ 30:67 the timing is expressed as "after three days," with which Mt 27:63 agrees. However, in five other spots Matthew expresses it as "on the third day" (Mt 16:21, 17:23 & 20:19) or as "in three days" (Mt 26:61 & 27:40). This has caused some exegetes to consider Mt 27:63 a spot where the writer of Matthew took exception and followed Mark, since Mark uses the expression "after three days" in three spots (Mk 8:31, 9:31 & 10:34). However, with but one exception, the TJ only uses expressions like "after three days" or "for three days," and doesn't use "in three days" or "on the third day" in describing the end of the entombment period. It has no parallel verses or words to the five Matthean usages of it. The exception, however, is its use of "up to the third day" in TJ 30:69 above, which usage is replicated by Matthew's "until the third day" in Mt 27:64. Hence, the solution to these variations between Matthew and Mark that can be deduced from the TJ is that the writer of Matthew preferred the "in three days" or "on the third day" expression for the entombment time period, and so utilized them in his redactions of the TJ, while once retaining the TJ's "after three days." The reason for this preference could be his awareness of a couple verses from Hosea he may have thought were relevent: Hos 6:1-2 1"Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn, that he may heal us; he has stricken and he will bind us up. 2After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him." The writer of Mark preferred the "after three days" expression, while retaining two of Matthew's "in three days" expressions (in Mk 14:58 & 15:29). Thus each of these two gospel writers had their own preferences for this phrasing, but was not rigidly following either type of expression to the exclusion of the other. The TJ's writer preferred the more correct "after three days" type of expression. The exception of TJ 30:69 indicates either that the chief priests and Pharisees had used the term in its less correct meaning, or that it was the TJ's writer, or Jmmanuel while dictating to him, who did so in one instance. In the TJ, Jmmanuel did speak to the chief priests, scribes and elders when telling the parable of the vineyard. On that occasion he clearly explained that he was like the son of the administrator of the vineyard, who was killed by the vine dressers, so they thought, placed in a tomb, remained there in a state of near death for three days and nights, and then fled and returned to the lord of the vineyard. Hence the chief priests, if not some Pharisees also, heard this from Jmmanuel and would likely have remembered it, since it had caused them to conspire on how to seize him. See also under Mt 21:42. It is truly amazing that Jmmanuel could trust his own prophecies so much as to even tell this key one of them to his adversaries, and even that did not cause the prophecy to fail; instead, it caused the posting of the guards, which helped to verify the significance of the empty tomb. Since the TJ does not suffer from Matthew's problems mentioned earlier, but is nevertheless pretty much self- consistent in its own timing of events, it evinces the greater sense of genuineness here. PHoax ¯ 0.4. In summary of the comparison between Mt 27 and its TJ parallels, accumulation of the individual, estimated probabilities for hoax produces the very small hoax probability of 8.0 x 10-8. Go Back to: Make Comment in: Go On to: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog Matthew 28 REFERENCES 1. Carson, D.A., "Matthew," in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), p. 566. 2. Kingsbury, Jack Dean, "Reflections on the 'reader' of Matthew's gospel," NTS 34 (1988), pp. 442-460; see p. 456. 3. Broadus, John A., Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1886), p. 561. 4. Warning! Do not subject yourself to any such ordeal under the mistaken belief that Fate would deliver you from it. 5. Davies, W. D., and Allison, Dale C., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, vol. 3 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), p. 583. 6. Maccoby, Hyam, The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity (HarperSanFrancisco, 1987), pp. 104-105. 6.1 Wettlaufer, Ryan D., "A Second Glance at Matthew 27:24," NTS 53 (2007), pp. 344-358. 7. Borg, Marcus, Jesus: A New Vision (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), p. 188, footnote 30. 8. Hubbard, Benjamin J., in review of The Vision of Matthew by John P. Meier, JBL 100 (1981), pp. 121-122; see p. 122. 9. Patterson, Stephen J., "The dark side of Pilate," Bible Review 19 (December 2003), p. 32. 10. Maier, Paul L., "Pilate in the Dock," Bible Review 20 (June 2004), p. 27. 10.5. Zugibe, Frederick T., The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Forensic Inquiry (New York: M. Evans & Co., 2005), pp. 71-89. This expert has found that the claim the nails were put through the wrist was unfounded and unnecessary; the upper palm of the hand can bear the weight without ripping. 11. Tzaferis, V., "Jewish tombs at and near Giv'at ha-Mivtar, Jerusalem," Israel Exploration Journal 20 (1970), pp. 18-32; see p. 31. 12. Carson, "Matthew," in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, p. 569. 13. Personal communication from Colin Price, Dept. of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel Aviv University. 14. Broadus, Commentary on Matthew, p. 574. 15. Cope, Lamar, Matthew: A Scribe Trained for the Kingdom of Heaven (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1976), p. 108. 16. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 3, p. 627. Of course, Davies and Allison did believe he died at the crucifixion. 17. Harpur, Tom, For Christ's Sake (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987), p. 102. 18. This links to my file: tombsite.htm. 19. Meier, Eduard, ed., The Talmud of Jmmanuel (Mill Spring, NC: Wild Flower Press, 1996, pp. viii-ix, or 2001, pp. ix-x). A reproduction of this sketch, showing just the face, can be viewed here. 20. This also links to my file: tombsite.htm . 21. Rosenthal, E. S., "The Giv'at ha-Mivtar Inscription," Israel Exploration Journal 23 (1973), pp. 72-81; see p. 72. MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS, Mt 28 Mt 28:1 1Now after the sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre. TJ 31:1 1When dawn broke on the first day of the week after Passover, the three days and nights had passed following which Jmmanuel would live again after his apparent death, as he had foretold. TJ 31:1 1Und da das Passahfest aber vorbei war und der erste Tag der Woche anbrach, so waren die drei Tage und drei Nächte um, da Jmmanuel sagte, dass er aus dem Halbtode wieder leben werde. THE PROBLEMS. Regarding Mt 28:1, Beare remarked (p. 542) that the specification of the time of day is quite awkward, and this was more clear from the Greek translation: "Late on the sabbath, as it was dawning towards the first day of the week..." Was it late or early in the day? Was it still on the Sabbath, or was it the next day? The question remains after keeping in mind that the Jewish day began at sundown, whence "late on the sabbath" is just before sundown on Saturday. Also, why is one of the two Mary's identified only as "the other Mary?" This was done also at Mt 27:61. Going back further, one finds the implication that this "other Mary" was the mother of James and Joseph (Mt 27:55). Hence she may have been Jesus' mother Mary, since the names of two of his brothers were James and Joseph (Mt 13:55). However, this is not at all clear. It should be an essential part of the story to clearly identify both of the two key witnesses to the angel and the empty tomb. SOLUTION. With the TJ verse, the timing is not in question, as the German word involved, "anbrach," means "dawned." And we see that its point had nothing to do with when the two Mary's arrived. Evidently the compiler felt he had to revise this verse, as the altered timing of the crucifixion he had inserted at Mt 27:62 (the day before the day after the day of Preparation, i.e., Friday, the day before the sabbath), could cause the discerning reader or listener to conclude that Jesus had been in the tomb for only two days and nights, if attention were drawn to the matter. So he made a substitution for the TJ's "three days and nights" sentence, and mentioned the two Mary's to supply some substance. In this connection, it is noteworthy that he did not even refer to the time spent in the tomb as verifying Jesus' prophecy. At the same time, we see that the true author, Judas, wanted to record for posterity that another of Jmmanuel's prophecies had come true. In TJ 31:7 the identity of the two Mary's is not in question, indicating that Matthew's "other Mary" was indeed Mary the mother of Jmmanuel. She is mentioned first in order, as would be expected, and Mary Magdalene second. We may surmise that the writer of Matthew omitted explicit mention of Mary as mother of Jesus because she was witness to Jmmanuel having survived the crucifixion, and because she later accompanied the living Jmmanuel and two others on their long treks in Anatolia and thence eastward to the land of India. This the writer of Matthew could learn from reading further into the TJ, if it was not already a whispered tradition. Thus she may have been held in disgrace for this, and the omission of her name at this point in the gospel strongly suggests this is how the compiler felt. See also the similar treatment the compiler gave to: genealogical names (of those who had been named after some of Enoch's "fallen angels") he omitted (see under Mt 1:2-3,5,6), a name (of the prophet Micah) he omitted at Mt 2:4-6, Galilee: its omission in the vicinity of Mt 1:18 (see under Mt 2:22), Nazareth: its omission due to its rejection of Jesus; see in the discussions under Mt 13:54 and Mt 14:1, and a name (Aaron) he omitted at Mt 26:18. These problems with Mt 28:1 indicate a lack of historical accuracy, which suggests that redaction was involved. The TJ verse on the other hand exhibits no such problem, is fully consistent with its previous text, and allows us to deduce why the writer of Matthew made the changes he apparently did, and how that led to the problems. Concerning the TJ-hoax hypothesis, then, from just this verse comparison I would at most assign PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 28:2-3 2And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. 3His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment as white as snow. TJ 31:2-3 2And behold, a great thundering arose in the air, and a radiant light came from the sky and settled on the earth, not far from the tomb. 3Then a guardian angel stepped forth from the light; his appearance was like lightning and his garment was as white as snow. TJ 31:2-3 2Und siehe, ein grosser Donner erhob sich in der Luft und vom Himmel kam ein strahlendes Licht und setzte unweit des Grabes auf die Erde. 3Dann aber trat hervor aus dem Lichte ein Wächterengel, und seine Erscheinung war wie der Blitz und sein Kleid weiss wie Schnee. THE PROBLEMS. If Matthew is to be taken seriously here, one must ask what connection there could be between an earthquake and the arrival of an angel: how had the angel approached? The earlier visitations by an angel in Matthew were in dreams, four times to Joseph and once to the magi; why does this angel come in person? Would not a great earthquake itself have rolled away the stone? It might then be inferred that the great earthquake is a cover story invented to avoid reporting more of what really happened. And is it realistic, if the angel were an alien being as today's knowledge would require, that the angel would attend to rolling away the stone before attending to the guards who would be expected to oppose this action? SOLUTION. The TJ account reads very much like a close-up UFO and alien sighting, although in only a small fraction of such reports does the UFO make a loud noise.[1] An earthquake cover-up story would come naturally to a writer with Jewish background as a scribe and Pharisee. He would be familiar with Old Testament verses, such as this one in Isaiah: Is 29:6 you will be visited by the LORD of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise which associates great noise with earthquakes, and earthquakes in turn with the coming of Yahweh (in this case, one of Yahweh's heavenly hosts). This earthquake then is the invention of the compiler of Matthew rather than being any aftershock of the earthquake in TJ 30:46 and Mt 27:51. However, the compiler of Matthew was not averse towards angels, judging from his mention of them in Mt 1-2 and elsewhere, and so he faithfully reproduced the last half of TJ 31:3. In this instance, he could not put the angel into a dream, for the real-life angel, if not needed to roll away the stone, was needed to frighten the guards almost to death so that the two Mary's could check out the tomb. We shall see from TJ 31:7 that only after he had dispensed with the guards did the angel roll away the stone, which he did not sit upon. It could be that the writer of Matthew moved the rolling away of the stone forward in his story, and had the angel sit upon it, so as to more forcefully express the Christian feeling of "fait accompli!" The thought that the angel would need to assure his own safety first of all would not enter the writer's head, as he regarded angels as possessing omnipotent divine power, as in Mt 26:53. The reality of the TJ's description of events, for those who have explored the UFO phenomenon, contrasts with the more mythical nature of Matthew's description in Mt 28:2. If one is genuine and the other a hoax, it is the TJ that has to be favored here. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 28:4 4And for fear of him [the angel] the guards trembled and became like dead men. TJ 31:4-7 4And he [the guardian angel] went to the tomb, and the soldiers, full of fear, moved out of his way. 5He lifted his hand, and from it bright lightning sprang forth and struck the soldiers, one after the other. 6And they fell to the ground and did not stir for a long time. 7Then the guardian angel stepped up to the tomb, rolled the stone away from the door, and said to Maria, the mother of Jmmanuel, and to Maria Magdalena, who were both there: TJ 31:4-7 4Und er ging zum Grabe und vor ihm wichen weg die Kriegsknechte voller Furcht. 5Er aber hob die Hand und aus ihr hervor ging ein heller Blitz und traf die Kriegsknechte, einen nach dem andern. 6Und sie fielen zur Erde und rührten sich nicht für lange Zeit. 7Alsdann trat der Wächterengel zum Grabe und wälzte den Stein von der Türe und sprach zu Maria, der Mutter Jmmanuels, und zu Maria Magdalena, die beide da waren: THE PROBLEM. The behavior described in Matthew is extremely bizarre for soldiers-not the fearing of a radiant angel, but the lying down spontaneously as if dead. Obviously, something is not being reported here that would explain this unheard-of behavior. And why wouldn't the two Mary's have become equally frightened and faint? SOLUTION. The TJ account supplies a sound reason why the soldiers temporarily "became like dead men." There are similar accounts in the UFO literature.[2] The two Mary's were not treated the way the soldiers were; moreover, they were very soon told not to be afraid. Further, mother Mary had experienced an encounter with an alien (angel) shortly after Jmmanuel's birth, and thus would have been less traumatized by this encounter. PHoax ¯ 0.25. The writers of Mark and Luke were evidently more reluctant to allow an angel to interfere into the worldly affairs of men, so they improved upon Matthew by doing away with the posting of the guards, and replaced the angel with one or two men, respectively. Mt 28:6 6"He [Jesus] is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay." TJ 31:9 9"He is not here, for he is alive just as he said he would be. Come here and behold the place where he has lain." TJ 31:9 9«Er ist aber nicht hier, denn er lebet, wie er gesagt hat; kommet her und sehet die Stätte, da er gelegen hat.» THE PROBLEM. Jesus had supposedly died on the cross and then been resurrected. The angel thus should have said, in effect, "His body is not here, for it has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where his corpse lay." If, to avoid this objection, it should be assumed that he had been resurrected as soon as he had been placed inside the tomb, then the problem would arise that there was no reason why a resurrected Jesus would need to lie inside a tomb for two or three days and nights. SOLUTION. Here the compiler of Matthew followed a certain portion of the TJ's language too closely, thus causing the problem, which may be placed in the category of "Matthean fatigue." That is, the writer of Matthew had earlier altered Jmmanuel's survival into death, and then forgot to alter these sentences into ones more compatible with having undergone death. PHoax ¯ 0.4. The question may arise as to why Mark, which text we have found depends primarily upon Matthew, does not incorporate any of Matthew's resurrection material. (The text of Mk 16:9-19 is pretty well accepted to be a later addition.) The TJ cannot speak directly to this. However, if theological commitment is set aside, one finds that the simplest explanation is the most plausible. The writer of Mark just didn't believe that a dead body could be brought back to life. Consistent with this, we find that in the Greek text of Mk 15:45 Jesus' body is referred to as a corpse, whereas in the parallel Matthean verse (Mt 27:60) the parallel word used is "it," which referred back to "body" rather than to "corpse" (having been based upon the TJ, which uses the word for "body" and not "corpse"). Also, we may notice that in Mark's instructions to the disciples (Mk 6:7- 13), there is no mention of "raise the dead," as in Matthew's parallel (Mt 10:8). Additionally, in Mk 5:23 Jairus describes his daughter as being at the point of death, before she was cured, whereas in Mt 9:18 he tells Jesus/Jmmanuel that his daughter had died. These appear to be significant clues concerning the theology, or lack of it, of the writer of Mark. Mt 28:7 7"Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. Lo, I have told you." TJ 31:10-11 10"Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from apparent death. 11Also tell them: He will walk before you to Galilee, and there you will see him. Behold, I have told you." TJ 31:10-11 10«Gehet eilends hin und saget es seinen Jüngern, dass er wiedererstanden sei aus dem Halbtode. 11Und saget ihnen: Er wird vor euch hergehen nach Galiläa, da werdet ihr ihn sehen; sehet, ich habe es euch gesagt.» TJ 31:21 21Maria and Maria Magdalene, however, left and did as they had been instructed by the guardian angel. TJ 31:21 21Maria und Maria Magdalena aber gingen hin, so sie taten, wie ihnen vom Wächterengel befohlen war. THE PROBLEMS. Here, Beare (p. 542) pointed out the very minor problem that nowhere in Matthew are the two women at the tomb mentioned as actually having delivering the angel's message to the disciples, as instructed. Yet the disciples did receive the message, judging from later verses in Matthew. And one must wonder why a resurrected person would need to walk from one place to another when he should simply be able to appear suddenly wherever and whenever he pleased (as in Lk 24:36 and Jn 20:19,26). In addition, why are the two Mary's instructed to tell the disciples about the resurrection, and where they will see him, and by implication not to tell others? Why doesn't the resurrected Jesus show himself to all of Jerusalem as proof of his having risen from the grave? A resurrected body would not have to fear death, but could show itself fearlessly to all in order to promote the good news.[3] SOLUTION. The only essential difference between TJ 31:10-11 and Mt 28:7 is the near-death in the TJ, which the compiler had to omit. TJ 31:21, which has no Matthean cognate, is included above to indicate that in the TJ the "angel's" message was indeed delivered. Would a literary hoaxer have been able to anticipate such a seemingly petty criticism from Beare? The writer of Matthew evidently retained a bit too much from TJ verses here (and in Mt 26:35-36, too), in implying that the resurrected Jesus would have to walk all the way from Jerusalem to Galilee, just like a live person would. This may also be called a problem of "Matthean fatigue," in that the writer of Matthew had earlier altered his source in writing that Jesus had died, but then he forgot to alter it again here for consistency, since a resurrected body should be capable of showing itself to anyone anywhere, at any time, and need not laboriously walk or travel by mule from Jerusalem to Galilee. However, the TJ supplies no details on how uncomfortable it may have been for Jmmanuel to walk or travel that distance. In the TJ account, it is perfectly obvious why the two Mary's were instructed to tell only the disciples about what had transpired. Jmmanuel would need to stay under cover for as long as he remained in the vicinity of Jerusalem and even Palestine and a still wider area, so that he would not be recognized and hauled back to Jerusalem for a second crucifixion, which would then guarantee his early death. Subsequent verses in the TJ, having partial New Testament cognates in the Gospel of John but not in Matthew, describe how Peter and another disciple, after they were informed by the two Mary's, went to the tomb, looked around and saw some linen cloths there (Jn 20:5-7; see also Lk 24:12). Interestingly, another translation for the Greek word involved there (οθονια) is "bandages" (plural), which is just as valid a translation as is "linen cloths." The TJ indicates that these linens had indeed been bandages. The historical plausibility of the TJ account contrasts strongly with the lack of any such plausibility in Matthew's resurrection-based account. This plus Matthew's problems suggest PHoax ¯ 0.15. Mt 28:8 8So they [the two Mary's] departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. TJ 31:16 16Jmmanuel's mother and Maria Magdalena then departed, leaving the tomb. TJ 31:16 16Die Mutter Jmmanuels aber und Maria Magdalena gingen hin und verliessen das Grab. THE PROBLEMS. A problem with the Matthean verse is that it seems impossible to be in great joy and at the same time fearful. Fear drives out joy, and vice versa. It might be argued that first there was the fear, and then the joy, and that the verse merely failed to arrange them properly in time. However, their fear should have been commented upon two or three verses earlier, before the angel told them not to be afraid. Hence this verse is properly suspect of being a redaction of a source text. A second, minor problem is that there is no mention in Matthew of whether, or by what means, the angel departed. The angel is just left there, to wander around or whatever. His departure should have occurred between verses Mt 28:7 and 8. SOLUTION. The TJ verse is barely a cognate of the Matthean verse, having only two words in common between the German versions of each. It does not suffer from the first criticism, while leaving the reader uncertain as to how the two Mary's felt. From an earlier omitted TJ verse, however, one reads that Mary questioned the angel as to how it could be that Jmmanuel was alive when they all (except Joseph of Arimathea) had thought he died. So her joy must have been tempered by doubts, while her initial fear was not so overwhelming to have left her speechless. The latter could have been due not only to the angel's calming "Do not be afraid," but also due to she and her husband having been exposed firsthand to "angels" years before, during Jmmanuel's birth. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Concerning the angel's departure, the TJ gives the following description: TJ 31:15 15And the guardian angel went to the bright light and disappeared into it. Soon a great thundering came forth from it again, and it rose up into the air, shooting straight into the sky. TJ 31:15 15Und der Wächterengel ging hin zu dem strahlenden Licht und verschwand darin; und alsbald ging daraus hervor wieder ein grosser Donner und es hob sich in die Luft und schoss in den Himmel. One should not assume here that the angel's UFO utilized rocket power in ascending into the sky. UFOs that make loud noises usually don't exhibit flaming exhaust underneath. The loud noise itself may just be an ET add-on for effect. Lk 24:12 12But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home wondering at what had happened. Jn 20:2-10 2So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." 3Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. 4They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; 5and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and he went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, 7and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples went back to their homes. TJ 31:27-31 27So they [mother Mary and Mary Magdalene] departed, and they met Petrus and another disciple, telling them what had taken place. 28Petrus and the other disciple went to the tomb, with the other disciple arriving there first. 29And he looked into the tomb and saw the linen bandages laying neatly on the ground, but he did not enter. 30Then Petrus arrived, went into the tomb and found everything just as the other disciple had said. 31The bandages had been carefully folded and placed on the ground. The sweat cloth, which had covered Jmmanuel's head, had been placed on a particular spot, together with the salves and herbs and clay figurines of peculiar appearance, the likes of which he had never seen before. Thus they were foreign to him. TJ 31:27-31 27Und sie gingen hin und trafen Petrus und einen andern Jünger und berichteten, was war geschehen. 28Petrus aber und der andere Jünger gingen hinaus zum Grabe, und der andere Jünger war zuerst am Grabe. 29Und er schaute hinein und sah die leinenen Binden gelegt fein säuberlich am Boden und ging nicht hinein in das Grab. 30Aber also kam Petrus und ging in das Grab hinein und fand alles wie der andere. 31Die Binden waren fein säuberlich gewickelt und geleget auf den Boden, und das Schweisstuch, das Jmmanuel geleget war um das Haupt, und Salben und Heilkräuter, die alle geleget waren an einen besonderen Ort, zusammen mit tönernen Figuren von eigenartigem Aussehen, wie er sie noch nie gesehen und so sie ihm fremd waren. THE PROBLEMS. The verse in Luke is relegated to a footnote in many Bibles, as it is omitted from some of the earlier manuscripts. It is a terse account in comparison with the account in John. But why in John is there mention of linen cloths, plural? These are in addition to the cloth that had been on Jesus' head. There had only been "a linen shroud" mentioned earlier (in Lk 23:53). And why does "the other disciple" suddenly appear in the Gospel of John account, as if the reader should already know that just one other disciple would be involved? Also, why is this other disciple not named? The answer might be that it was out of self-modesty, if the writer of that Gospel was the disciple John, who in that gospel is apparently the one Jesus loved. However most NT scholars doubt that any of the Gospels were written by their namesakes. SOLUTION AND DISCUSSION. Elsewhere in the TJ clues are also apparent that the writers of Luke and of John had had access to the Talmud of Jmmanuel, probably not too long after the writer of Matthew had written his gospel. They had apparently made sparing use of the TJ mainly to add thoughts that the writer of Matthew had omitted, which they could include upon editing them into acceptability. Hence verses from those Gospels are displayed above along with the TJ source. We can see how understandable it is that the writer of Matthew omitted these TJ verses, since they support Jmmanuel's survival of the crucifixion-a risen resurrected body would have no need to fold up linen bandages or cloths in which he had been wrapped; and the clay figurines would have made no sense. The Greek word for "cloths" also means "bandages." With the TJ account, it is clear that the linen cloths had been the bandages with which Jmmanuel's attendants from India, and Joseph of Arimathea, had wrapped him after administering to him inside the tomb. More than one cloth bandage had obviously been needed to attend to the wounds on the hands, feet and side. The Hindu healers and/or Joseph evidently folded up the bandages and the head cloth upon helping Jmmanuel get dressed and before exiting the tomb. In the TJ, the "other" disciple is first introduced as "another" disciple. The writer of John had slipped up in forgetting that though the presence of this other disciple was familiar to him, from having read through the TJ and especially this section of the TJ, and/or from private discussions with others who had read the TJ, he had not yet introduced the "other" person to the reader. He is not named in John because he had not been named in the TJ. Why was this? Considering that Judas did write the TJ, and so had apparently been a witness to this empty-tomb event with the linen bandages, at which event Jmmanuel had not been present, it must have been Judas who omitted his own name out of modesty. It would have been quite boastful of him to say, "I (Judas) ran to the tomb and arrived there first, and had the first look inside. I beat Peter!" Unlike the account in John, the TJ account does not bother to say that the disciples went home afterwards. And they might not have, since they had fled earlier, on the night before the crucifixion, according to TJ 28:44 and Mt 26:56, and even Peter had been afraid to admit he was one of the Twelve. Regarding the peculiar clay figurines, which were foreign to Peter and Judas, they must have been left behind by the Hindu attendants who healed Jmmanuel. The figurines may have been used during prayers of Hindu worship by the attendants during the three days and nights. These figurines might have been retained by Judas and later given to Jmmanuel, and carried with them on their later travels to India. Still later, in this scenario after Jmmanuel's death, his elder son packaged them along with the original TJ rolls, which packet he carried back to Jerusalem and buried in Joseph's tomb, not to be discovered until 1963 by Meier and Rashid. Meier still retains one such clay figurine. Mt 28:9-10 9And behold, Jesus met them and said, "Hail!" And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me." TJ [No cognate] THE PROBLEM. The first Matthean verse would indicate that the two Mary's saw Jesus in the vicinity of the tomb or in Jerusalem, in contradiction to the angel who had just told them, "He is not here," and that he wouldn't be seen until in Galilee or on the road there. This contradiction has been pointed out by Naland.[4] On the latter verse, Beare (p. 542) observed that the resurrected Jesus is merely repeating what the angel had already said. Thus, either Jesus or the angel need not have said it, causing it to become suspect of being a redaction. Both Mt 28:9 and 10 are therefore widely believed by scholars to be either an editorial composition by Matthew's compiler or a later insertion.[5] SOLUTION. The TJ agrees with the scholars' conclusions here, there being no TJ cognate to either of these two verses. PHoax ¯ 0.4. Mt 28:11-15 11While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. 12And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sum of money to the soldiers 13and said, "Tell people, 'His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.' 14And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." 15So they took the money and did as they were directed; and this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. TJ 31:17-20 17The soldiers, however, recovered from their paralysis and were greatly astonished. So they went into the city to spread the news of what had happened. 18And secretly they met with the chief priests and elders of the council to decide what to tell the people. 19The chief priests and elders gave sufficient money to the soldiers and said, "Tell the people his disciples came at night while we were sleeping and stole his body." 20And the soldiers took the money and did as they had been instructed. TJ 31:17-20 17Die Kriegsknechte aber fielen aus ihrer Starre und sie wunderten sich sehr, so sie hingingen in die Stadt und die Kunde verbreiteten von dem, was geschehen war. 18Und sie kamen zusammen mit den Hohenpriestern und Ältesten des Rates und hielten eine geheime Rede, was sie dem Volke sagen sollten. 19Und die Hohenpriester und Ältesten gaben den Kriegsknechten Geld genug und sprachen: «Saget dem Volke, seine Jünger kamen des Nachts, so wir schliefen, und stahlen seinen Leichnam.» 20Und die Kriegsknechte nahmen das Geld und taten, wie sie gewiesen waren. THE PROBLEMS. This story of the bribing of the guard at the tomb is much doubted by Beare (p. 543) and others because the soldiers would normally be expected to report to one of their own officers, or possibly to the governor, Pontius Pilate, and not to a priest.[6] Its clause in Mt 28:14, "And if this comes to the governor's ears," received an unfavorable review by Beare (p. 543). By his analysis, Matthew is incorrect in stating that the chief priests had so much influence over Pilate that they could convince him to overlook such a serious breach of duty as falling asleep at the post. In Mt 28:15 its last phrase, "to this day," gives indication of being written decades after Jesus' ministry,[7] just as we noted in Mt 27:8. A minor criticism of Mt 28:11 advanced by Thomas Sheehan is that the guards could not have reported all that had taken place if they had been like dead men then.[8] SOLUTION. With the soldiers having been stunned into unconsciousness or immobility by the angel or ET, this experience would have been so terrifying and unexplained that it is not at all surprising that the guards went to the chief priests in search of an explanation of the supernatural rather than face the likely incredulity of their own superiors.[9] Sheehan's objection does not apply to the TJ, because the guards who "talked" just told what they knew had happened to them, not all that had happened as stated in Matthew. However, this difference in wording is so slight that it could be an inadvertent alteration occurring during translation rather than a purposeful redaction by the compiler. The TJ, having no cognate to Mt 28:14, is free of Beare's logical objection to the chief priests' statement that they would be able to influence Pilate if necessary-a Matthean insertion. The news must have reached Pilate's ears, and for all we know, the guards involved did get in trouble. A likely reason why the writer of Matthew added this sentence is that he realized Pilate would probably not be satisfied with the guards' explanation, as they could hardly have stayed asleep while disciples rolled the stone away and carried out the body. Overall, the consensus view scholars hold of this passage is an example of the incorrect conclusions one can come to by assuming the wrong verses to be the redactions, associated with what the compiler edited out as well as what he put in. Thus Beare (p. 543) and other scholars have gone much too far in assuming the whole story to be a fabrication. It may be noticed that while the TJ has the chief priests and elders saying "...stole his body," Matthew has it "stole him away." While the former is appropriate for the chief priests to have said, it suggests that the writer of Matthew wished to emphasize that Jesus was by then resurrected, and to be thought of as "him" rather than "his body." It is not likely that a literary hoaxer would be astute enough to recognize and remove Matthew's problems here, yet fail to go along with the scholarly consensus. The fact that the TJ does not suffer from such problems is likely due to its genuineness. PHoax ¯ 0.3. Mt 28:16 16Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. TJ 31:57-32:1 57And while they [the disciples] were eating and in good spirits, he said to them, "Go to Galilee to such-and-such mountain; there I will join you, because our time together has ended and each of us may go his separate way." 1They went to the mountain to which Jmmanuel had directed them. TJ 31:57-32:1 57So sie aber assen und frohen Mutes waren, sagte er zu ihnen und sprach: «Gehet hin nach Galiläa zu dem und dem Berg, so ich dort zu euch kommen werde, denn unsere Zeit zusammen ist beendet, und jeder möge gehen seiner Wege.» 1Und sie gingen hin und kamen auf den Berg, dahin sie Jmmanuel beschieden hatte. THE PROBLEM. Here, Beare (p. 544) noticed a small but important difficulty with Matthew: Jesus had given his disciples instructions to go to Galilee, in verse Mt 28:10, but subsequent instructions to go to some specific mountain are missing. SOLUTION. The verse of TJ 31:57, of which Jn 21:12-13 is a faint cognate, avoids this criticism. It appears that the compiler of Matthew did not wish to make use of this text, with its episode of the great catch of fish at the Sea of Galilee followed by a fish meal that Jmmanuel ate with his disciples (nor the doubting Thomas episode, which is in the TJ), because it could indicate that Jmmanuel had been alive in his ordinary physical body and had not been resurrected after all. However, the writer of John did make use of both stories in his gospel, indicating there were differing opinions among the evangelists as to when to omit an unacceptable passage from the TJ and when to retain it upon editing it into sanctionable verse. In altering this text, then, the compiler of Matthew omitted TJ 31:57 because in it Jmmanuel again talks to his disciples as if he had never died. Thus, the mountain meeting place became edited out, causing the inconsistency. However, the TJ's author, Judas, apparently did not remember the name of the mountain or hill when writing the TJ text years later, but remembered only that it was in Galilee, and that they had all known where the place was at the time. So what he most likely wrote, which was translated into "zu dem und dem" in the above German, was "dinah vedinah," which is the Aramaic expression for our "such and such" as used as a demonstrative adjective, and which most literally means "this and this."[10] If a literary hoaxer had somehow been astute enough to realize that a verse like TJ 31:57 was needed, he would in all likelihood have supplied or invented some specific name for the mountain. PHoax ¯ 0.3. We also notice that the TJ just refers to "the disciples" while Matthew refers to "the eleven disciples." This is further editorial action on the part of the writer of Matthew that one can point to, upon realizing the truth to the TJ's solution to Matthean problems involving Judas at and subsequent to the last supper. The writer of Matthew did not slip up here and refer to "all the disciples" by mistake, as he had in Mt 26:35-36, because it was more obvious at this point that he should not refer to "the twelve," having already dispensed with Judas Iscariot. However, in 1 Cor 15:5 Paul did refer to "the twelve," likely indicating either that he had known better than to believe the rumor that it was the disciple Judas Iscariot who had committed suicide, or indicating that the rumor had not yet in his time become an established tradition except within a few synagogues and church meeting places. In TJ 31:57, its "in good spirits" comes from the German "frohen Mutes," which also means "good cheer." When referring to the individual human spirit the TJ instead uses the German word "Geist." Mt 28:17 17And when they saw him they [the eleven disciples] worshiped him; but some doubted. TJ 32:2 2When they had gathered there, he said to them, "Behold, I will speak to you one last time; then I will leave and never return." TJ 32:2 2So sie aber versammelt waren, redete er mit ihnen und sprach: «Sehet, ein letztes Mal werde ich zu euch reden; so ich dann von dannen gehe und niemehr wiederkehre.» THE PROBLEM. Here, I. P. Ellis logically questions, "Why does Matthew mention 'doubt' in this short narrative? It is not explained.... Did the doubt remain? If it was dispelled, why mention it? It stands incongruously between the disciples' worship of the risen Christ and the great Trinitarian formula which he delivers to them.... Indeed, worship may be seen as the opposite of doubt."[11] Thus, if they all sincerely worshiped him, none doubted him; so therein lies the contradiction. The tentative solution of Ellis was that the writer of Matthew inserted the "but some doubted" clause to emphasize his belief that true discipleship must be firm and unwavering in its faith. Either way, this looks like a Matthean redaction. SOLUTION. The TJ verse differs from the Matthean verse too much to be called a cognate strictly, but the preceding verses of both texts indicate the connection between the two. The Matthean criticism is seen not to apply to the TJ verse. The TJ suggests a different reason for Matthew's "but some doubted" clause. A few of the compiler's close associates whom he may have allowed to read the TJ likely acquired some doubts about the resurrection versus the living Jesus, perhaps causing the writer to add the clause so as to imply the same doubt on the part of the disciples. PHoax ¯ 0.35. Mt 28:18-20 18And Jesus came and said to them [the disciples], "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." TJ 32:46-48 46"But you, go therefore and prepare the way for my teachings and make all peoples their disciples. 47However, beware of erroneous teachings, which you may allow to arise because of your lack of judgment, for some of you are inclined that way. 48Teach them to follow everything I have commanded you, so you do not falsify my teachings." TJ 32:46-48 46«Ihr aber, gehet darum hin und seiet die Wegbereiter meiner Lehre und machet zu ihrer Jünger alle Völker. 47Hütet euch aber vor irren Lehren, die ihr in eurem Unverstande könnt lassen aufkommen, so einige unter euch dazu neigen. 48Lehret zu halten alles was ich euch befohlen habe, so ihr meine Lehre nicht verfälschet.» THE PROBLEMS. Concerning Mt 28:18, Beare (p. 544) commented upon the fact that nowhere in the Old Testament prophecies was a future Messiah promised any kind of authority at all in heaven. He thus doubted the genuineness of that verse, which extends Jesus' sovereignty to all of existence and heaven, too. Regarding the Trinitarian-like formula in Mt 28:19, Beare (p. 545) noted that its first voicing would not have come until some years or decades after Jesus' ministry. Thus it is an anachronism not spoken by the historical Jesus. In the last Matthean verse, there is no explanation by Jesus of what he means in saying he is always with his disciples-is he with them in their lifetimes, or after their deaths, or what? This verse further conflicts with the earlier Matthean statement (Mt 24:30) that the Son of man (Jesus Christ) would appear at the end of the age; here the converse is stated, that he is here until the end of the age. Davies and Allison commented here that "What happened subsequently is not narrated."[12] They didn't mean this in any critical sense, but for the scholar who is not theologically committed and can voice some curiosity regarding basic questions, this becomes one. Why is there no further text or narration as to what happened next? Did Jesus ascend, did he vanish before their eyes, did he walk alone down the other side of the mountain until out of sight, or what? SOLUTION. The TJ has no cognate to Mt 28:18, so that Beare's criticism there (regarding all authority in heaven) does not apply. And it makes no mention of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as is to be expected if it is genuine. Its call for widespread discipleship is consistent with its earlier verses, since in the TJ, unlike in Matthew, the earlier instructions had been to go out to the Samaritans and the heathen in all parts of the world rather than to remain within Israel. This Matthean inconsistency likely means that this last passage was added to the Gospel of Matthew by a later person, probably the translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek, upon his examining the TJ one last time to see if anything non-heretical had been overlooked that would be appealing to gentiles and that could be utilized in an unobtrusive manner, such as by adding on to the end of the existing gospel. Scholar George Howard has pointed to indirect external evidence suggesting that the Great Commission and the Trinitarian-like formula here were indeed a late addition.[13] After Mark and Luke came out, in Greek, the translator of Matthew into Greek quite likely was motivated to add some verses (Mt 28:18-20; also Mt 12:17-21) that would be attractive to gentiles and counteract the anti- gentile statements that the writer of Semitic Matthew had inserted. Otherwise, the Gospels of Mark and Luke, with their openness to gentiles, could come to dominate over the Gospel of Matthew in authority and popularity. Nor does the TJ suffer from the criticisms made against the last Matthean verse, since it has no cognate to "I will be with you always." The latter may also have been added by the translator, who realized that Jesus had not yet come again, as had been hoped, but that the "end of the age" might occur too long into the future for Christians to wait. Interestingly, the TJ portrays the picture that Jmmanuel knew, through his prophetic powers and ET tutors, that his teachings would be distorted and not widely known in their true form or accepted until after finally being rediscovered at a much later date. Yet, knowing this, he still felt obliged to try to bring Creation's laws and El's teachings to mankind, starting in his own time. In the above TJ passage when admonishing his disciples, he is consistent in making use of this philosophy. There is far too much TJ realism here and corresponding lack of it in Matthew to take the hoax hypothesis seriously. PHoax ¯ 0.15. The TJ of course does continue on to narrate what happened next, and describes Jmmanuel's various post- crucifixion appearances to his disciples. Of these, there were three that the writer of Matthew omitted before the last appearance to the disciples at the mountain location. At that time he spoke 51 verses of advice, philosophy and prophecy to them, of which Matthew makes use, in redacted form, of only two-TJ 32:46,48 (see above). There follow four more TJ chapters of immense interest. Had the TJ's papyrus rolls discovered in 1963 survived after 1974 to be translated in their entirety, there would have been about three times more text yet than what's in the present Talmud of Jmmanuel, according to Eduard Meier. His estimate is that of the four rolls present upon discovery, only the first one was translated before they all were destroyed. If the individual pro-hoax probabilities of this chapter are accumulated, one obtains an overall probability of hoax of 7.0 x 10-5. Acts 1:9 9And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. TJ 32:49-53 49And it came to pass, that while he was speaking to them in this manner, a thundering came from the sky, and a great light descended. 50The light settled on the ground not far from them, and it glittered like metal in the sunlight. 51Jmmanuel spoke no more, but went to the metallic light and entered into it. 52Then, however, a haze arose all around it. Once again a thundering began and the light ascended back into the sky. 53And the disciples returned to Jerusalem in secret and made known the events among their own kind. TJ 32:49-53 49Und es geschah, als er so zu ihnen redete, dass ein Donner kam vom Himmel und ein grosses Licht, das niederfiel. 50Unweit von ihnen setzte das Licht auf die Erde und glitzerte metallen im Lichte der Sonne. 51Jmmanuel aber sprach nicht mehr und ging von dannen zu dem metallenen Licht, und er trat hinein in das metallene Licht. 52Es geschah aber so, dass sich nun rundherum ein Nebel erhob und abermals ein Donner anhob und das Licht sich wieder in den Himmel erhob. 53Die Jünger aber kehrten wieder zurück nach Jerusalem heimlich und verkündeten das Geschehen unter ihresgleichen. THE PROBLEM. Here we have departed from Matthew, and for the sake of completeness added a verse from Acts. Its problem, of course, is that a cloud cannot lift someone up and cart them away. SOLUTION. The vehicle that conveyed Jmmanuel away (to Damascus, it turns out in the next TJ verse) was likely the same UFO that had appeared at the empty tomb. The haze that enveloped it as it took off may have been what suggested to the writer of Luke/Acts to use the word "cloud." Additionally, the concept of the "cloud of the LORD" is well known from verses in Exodus and other chapters of the Old Testament to have been a means by which God traveled around. In many UFO accounts the witnesses report a shimmering, fuzzy, hazy, halo-like, smoky or cloudy appearance around the UFO's perimeter as it hovers or moves.[14] Go Back to: Make Comment in: Verse Comparison, Introduction & Index my Blog REFERENCES 1. UFO reports describing a loud, thundering noise accompanying a UFO apparently occur in about 1-3% of cases. One example, in D. Scott Rogo's Alien Abductions (New York: New American Library, 1980, pp. 140- 141), reads, "And all of a sudden out of the sky there came a big light, lit up the trees and the road. Then there was a rumble. It was so loud I thought it was lightning or thunder." Then follows the witness's account of her abduction, which was no weather phenomenon. A second such account is in the well known Lonnie Zamora case, e.g., see UFO FBI Connection by Bruce Maccabee (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2000), pp. 267-275, or an online account. A third report, from a summary of the National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle, came from Seaford, Delaware, 8:15 p.m. on Feb. 26, 1988: Two adult ladies sighted a circular object bigger than an airliner. The UFO stopped over the witnesses for several seconds at an altitude of about 300 feet. The object gave off a 'thundering sound.' Since its shape was circular it could not have been a helicopter. Two other reports, in which the departing UFO made a thunderous roar and the sound of a thunderclap, respectively, are described in Jenny Randles's The UFO Conspiracy (London: Javelin Books, 1988, pp. 55, 137). Or search Google using key words: "UFO 'loud noise'". 2. Good, Timothy, Above Top Secret (New York: William Morrow, 1988), p. 133. Also, a Santa Fe, Argentina case in which (as translated): "Sheriff Legstra said that a woman told him that 'the entity pointed at her with its finger and left her paralyzed'." 3. Ahmad, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam, Jesus in India (Islamabad, U.K.: Islam International Publications Ltd., 1995; reprint of the 1905 book), p. 49. 4. Naland, John K., "The first Easter," Free Inquiry 8 (Spring, 1988), pp. 10-20; see p. 14. 5. Neirynck, Frans, "John and the Synoptics: the empty tomb stories," NTS 30 (1984), pp. 161-187; see p. 166. 6. As noted previously, it is also doubted because scholars assume that Mt 27:62 is genuine, which implies that no guard would have been set on a Sabbath. 7. Kingsbury, Jack Dean, "Reflections on the 'reader' of Matthew's gospel," NTS 34 (1988), pp. 422-460; see p. 456. 8. Sheehan, Thomas, The First Coming (New York: Random House, 1986), p. 151. 9. Even with modern UFO sightings, most citizens know the futility of reporting them to their employer, or to the police, the Air Force, or NASA. Usually, only a close family member or friend is entrusted to the news, or sometimes the minister of the church to which the witness may belong. 10. I thank Bruce Chilton for informing me of the common Aramaic phrase that means "such-and-such." 11. Ellis, I. P., "But some doubted," NTS 14 (1968), pp. 574-580; see pp. 575, 580. 12. Davies and Allison, Critical Commentary, vol. 3, p. 686. 13. Howard, George, "A note on the short ending of Matthew," Harvard Theol. Review 81 (1988), pp. 117-120; see p. 119. 14. See, for example, Good, Beyond Top Secret, pp. 167, 175, 210, 213, 238-239, 244-245, 275. Or search Google using key words "UFO" and "halo around it", or the words: UFO" "shimmering", "UFO" "enveloped in cloud", or "UFO" and "enveloped in mist". INTRODUCTION TO MATTHEW-TJ VERSE COMPARISONS Comparing Matthew with the TJ. In these comparisons within the linked files, the Gospel of Matthew verse(s) are listed first in black under "Mt," followed by the parallel or cognate Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) verse(s), when the parallels exist, in blue in English; this is followed by the same TJ verse(s) in green in German. I refer here to the TJ 2007 or 2001 edition, but not the 2011 edition. To access those Matthean verses that have received scholarly criticism or question, with their TJ cognates, just click within the Table below. Explanations for the colors used in the Table follow it below. Mt 1: 1 , 2-3,5-6 , 16-17 , 18-19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 2: 1-2, 4-6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13-14, 15, 16-18, 19-20, 22, 23 3: 1, 3, 5-6, 7, 8-10, 11, 16, 17 4: 1-11, 12-13, 14-16, 17, 19, 23 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17-18, 19-20, 21-22a, 22b, 23-24, 5: 25-26, 28, 30, 34-35, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44-45, 46-47, 48 6: 1, 2, 3-4, 6, 7-8, 9-13, 14-15, 16b, 19, 20-21, 24b-25, 27, 30-32, 33, 34 7: 1, 6, 7-8, 11, 15, 17, 19, 21-22, 23, 28-29 8: 4, 10, 11-12, 20, 21-22, 23,24-25,26,27, 30-31 9: 2-3, 5-6, 8, 10-11, 13, 14-15, 16, 22, 27-33, 35, 37-38 10: 2, 5-6, 7, 9-10, 15, 18, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29-31, 32-33, 34, 35-37, 38, 39, 40-42 11: 2-3, 5, 11, 12, 14, 19, 20-24, 25-26, 27, 28-29, 30 6-8, 9, 11-12, 14, 15-17, 18-21, 22-26, 27-28, 29, 12: 30, 31-32, 33-37, 38-40, 41-42, 43-45, 46-47, 48-50 13: 1, 3-11, 12, 13-14, 19-23, 24-30, 31-32, 36-43, 44, 47-48, 49-50, 54 14: 1-4a, 9, 13, 14, 17, 19, 21, 23, 29-31, 33 15: 1-4, 11,18, 12, 13-17, 19-20a, 21, 22-28, 29-31, 32-39 16: 1, 4, 4b-5, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21-22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 17: 1-9, 10-13, 14, 17-18, 21, 22-23, 24-27 18: 1, 3-4, 5, 6, 8, 9-10, 11, 12, 13-14, 16-17, 18, 19, 20, 21-22, 23-35 19: 3-5, 6, 7-9a, 12, 13-15, 16-17, 18-20, 21-22, 24,25-26, 28, 29, 30 20: 1-16, 17-19, 20-28 21: 2-3, 4-5, 7, 9, 11, 12-13, 15, 16, 18-23, 28-32, 42, 43, 44 22: 1-14, 15-16, 29-30, 31-33, 34-35, 36-40, 42, 43-46 23: 1-2, 3, 7-8,9,10, 11-12, 13, 14, 17-19, 20-22, 23, 26, 31, 32, 33, 34-36, 37, 38-39 24: 3-4, 5, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15-16, 20, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 37-41, 42-44, 45-50, 51 25: 1-13, 14-30, 31-34, 35-40,41,42-43, 44-45, 46 1-2, 3-4, 5, 6-13, 14-16, 17-18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27-28, 29, 30, 31-33, 35, 36-46, 26: 47, 49-50, 51-52, 53, 54, 55-56, 57, 58, 59, 61-62, 63, 64, 65, 67-68, 69-70, 74 1-12, 13-14, 15, 17,18,20,22, 25, 26, 27, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 39-40, 27: 41-42, 43-44, 45, 46-47, 48-49, 50, 51, 52-53, 54, 55-56, 57, 59-61, 62-66 28: 1, 2-3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9-10, 11-15, 16, 17, 18-19,20 COLOR KEY FOR THE TABLE Matthean verses or passages in blue received valid questions and criticisms from Francis Beare, to which the TJ is not subject. Those in italics indicate there is no TJ cognate. Verses or passages in green received valid questions and criticisms from other Gospel scholars, to which the TJ is not subject. Verses or passages in red receive criticisms of Matthew raised by myself with the aid of TJ hindsight. An occasional Matthean verse not receiving criticism (in brown) is listed when the TJ verse it substitutes for is especially interesting or informative. Non-italicized verses do have TJ parallels, though these are often only distant cognates. When criticisms of two or three categories apply to the same verse or passage, priority in color-coding is assigned first to blue, then green, then red. Some passages contain a verse or two that did not receive criticism. In all parallel verses, where the TJ reads "Jmmanuel" the Gospel of Matthew has "Jesus." Click here to learn of the evidence and clues that point to Paul as being the one who altered Immanuel's name into "Jesus," why and how he accomplished this, and how long it took before the taboo against use of the name "Immanuel" was finally broken. The Matthean (Mt) verses quoted within the Table come from the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible (New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1952). The TJ verses come primarily from the 4th edition (2007) English/German version of the Talmud of Jmmanuel (Wild Flower Press; see Steelmark online); in a small minority of instances, the 2001 English translation was given preference over the 2007 edition. The TJ was first given its chapter and verse numbers by its translator, Isa Rashid. These were subsequently revised somewhat by the TJ's editor, Eduard Meier, in TJ versions of 1992 and thereafter. In the brief discussions following the verse presentations, the criticisms or questions raised by various scholars regarding the Matthean verse(s) are first aired. Then follows a brief explanation of why any parallel TJ verses do not suffer from the scholar's criticism or question. The scholar whose criticisms are presented most frequently here is the late Francis Beare, using his commentary The Gospel according to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981). He will be referenced by name and page number (e.g., Beare, p. xxx). His text is most heavily utilized here because it post-dates the TJ, is comprehensive, is critical, and was the only one known to me with these qualifications at the time I started this study in 1988. However, I have tried not to present "invalid" criticisms based only upon assumptions that with hindsight appear to be false, even when they support the TJ's text over the Matthean text. The most common "invalid" assumptions are: (a) The supposition that a Matthean verse is non-genuine merely because it or a portion of it is not found in Mark; (b) The supposition that a Matthean verse is non-genuine merely because it is found also in Luke and not in Mark (and would then be assumed by some to have been present in the hypothetical document "Q"); (c) The supposition that no person, no matter how unique and how well attested to be a short-range prophet, could validly prophesy events in his distant future; this would include certain OT prophets as well as Jesus/Jmmanuel; (d) The supposition that no such thing as the human spirit, its evolution and power (this includes reincarnation and past lives), along with the spiritual world, could exist; (e) The supposition that angels must not be equated to ETs nor their means of transport to UFOs. These last two, especially, deserve discussion. If Jesus/Jmmanuel realized the existence and reality of the human spirit and of UFOs/ETs, and his disciple-writer inscribed his teachings about those topics in the TJ, while modern NT scholars remain unaware, that fact will color their opinions of the TJ. They will be unable to distinguish between a true wisdom teacher versus one that is an artificial construct of the writer of Matthew. This is a key point in analyzing the genuineness of the TJ; so if desired, the reader may express his opinion on it in my Blog. This presentation within the Table above contains some 243 passages from Matthew's 28 chapters, each passage comprising one or more verses, for which Matthew receives criticism and the parallel TJ verses do not. It also contains some 105 more passages of Matthew that have been criticized, of one or more verses, for which no TJ parallel exists. I have included the latter because a literary hoaxer basing his hoax upon Matthew would have slipped up occasionally and unknowingly utilized Matthean verses that are not genuine. Matthean "Fatigue."Some of the problems with Matthew are identified as "Matthean fatigue" or "editorial fatigue." It has been defined by scholar Mark Goodacre as where the writer or redactor makes a characteristic change (insertion or substitution) in the text he had been following, but then fails to alter subsequent text he copies from his source document to bring it into logical agreement with his change (Goodacre, Mark, "Fatigue in the Synoptics," NTS 44 (1998), pp. 45-58). Goodacre's presentation included the possibility that the writer of Matthew became "fatigued" in some of his supposed alterations of Mark; however, he did not realize that these can be explained by the writer's alterations of the TJ plus the behavior of Mark's writer. Of course, editing that was inattentive or not carefully thought out is more likely to be the cause of the writers' errors than actual fatigue. With hindsight one realizes that the writer of Matthew was more concerned about achieving a text free of the heresies he found in the TJforming a text as compatible as possible with the Torahthan about how logical, free-flowing, non-redundant and sensible his fabrication would appear to be to scholars of the future. Some 35 apparent instances of Matthean fatigue relative to the TJ have been identified so far. They may be found by searching for "fatigue" either in the Matthew-TJ verse comparisons or in the search engine at the bottom of the Contents page, or by reading under the discussions in the following links: Mt 1:21-23, Mt 2:9, 3:11, 5:3, 5:6, 5:12, 6:9-13, 6:24b-25, 7:7-8, 9:2-3, 9:8, 10:5-6, 11:19, 12:11-12, 13:44, 15:1-4,10-11, 15:13-17, 16:21-22, 19:13-15, 21:28-32, 23:17-19, 24:3-4, 26:14-16, 26:27-28, 26:35, 26:47, 26:49-50, 26:55-56, 26:61, 27:1-12 (two), 27:43-44, 27:59-60a, 28:6, 28:7. Probabilities of a Hoax. Near the end of each Mt-TJ verse/passage discussion, I have usually included my estimate of the probability (PHoax) that the particular TJ verse(s) could be a hoax and the Matthean verse(s) not have been fabricated out of it. It is based upon considerations such as the likelihood that a hoaxer could have, either accidently or purposely, altered the Matthean verse so as to remove the scholar's criticism(s) of it, while retaining continuity in flow and theme of the TJ text, and at the same time maintaining consistency as to why the writer of Matthew would have made the alteration. At the end of each Matthean chapter I have accumulated these individual probabilities to arrive at an overall probability that the parallel text of the TJ over that chapter could be a hoax. I've generally expressed my best estimates of PHoax to values divisible by 0.05 (e.g., 0.35, 0.40, 0.45, etc.). The extreme value of 0 or 1 is avoided since no single verse or passage can be so convincing of hoax or no-hoax that other information might not prove it wrong. The value PHoax = 0.5, when assigned, means that in that instance there was complete uncertainty whether that verse/passage pointed towards hoax or no-hoax for the TJ. In a recent tabulation (Nov. 2005) of results, of 335 Matthean verses in the blue-green-red categories that point towards Matthew having been derived from the TJ rather than vice versa, 183 or 54.6% involve verses in Matthew whose authenticity scholars have criticized or questioned over the years, many before the TJ came out, but some only after 1978. 127 or 37.9% of the 335 involve problems with Matthew that I have now pointed out but which New Testament scholars apparently don't yet know about; this was only possible through TJ hindsight. 15 or 4.5% involve Matthean verses that could not have come from a wisdom teacher although even in Matthew Jesus is called just that; in those cases what Jmmanuel says in the TJ parallels do constitute words of wisdom. In 10 instances, or 3.0%, the Matthean verse or passage just does not make sense, or holds no clear meaning, whereas the same verse or passage with no substantial difference in the TJ does so, due to the TJ's overall context being totally different from Matthew's. In 32 additional instances analyzed, the probability for hoax was set at 0.5. This was due in some cases to the points in favor and against counterbalancing themselves, and in other cases, where the TJ lacked the verse/passage, to the Matthean verse being so heavily criticized by scholars that it had to be assumed that a literary hoaxer would not have copied it or utilized it. In only two instances was a probability for hoax greater than 0.5 assigned (see under Mt 5:28 and under Mt 21:7). Comparing the TJ with Luke/Acts and John. Interestingly, there are a few verses in the Gospel of Luke, in Acts, and in the Gospel of John that bear an unmistakenly close connection to TJ verses. For example, in Luke's 2nd chapter the narration that speaks of the nativity taking place during the decree of Caesar Augustus and the reign of Quirinius can be seen to have stemmed directly from the TJ (or the other way around, if you like). The post-crucifixion appearance of Jmmanuel to his disciples at the Sea of Galilee, where he pointed out to the fishermen where to cast their nets for a huge haul, is seen to have been altered within Luke into a pre-crucifixion miracle at Lk 5:1-7. Luke's post-crucifixion appearance on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13f) can be seen to be a highly altered version of the TJ's post-crucifixion appearance on the road to Galilee. In the Book of Acts, its first description of Saul's conversion experience on the Road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-9) can be seen to have derived directly from the TJ's account. This provides further evidence that the writer of Luke and of Acts was one and the same person. Of the Gospels only John mentions (briefly) that Judas Iscariot was the treasurer for the Twelve. The TJ mentions this also, but, in addition, describes an incident in which Judas, early in Jmmanuel's ministry, became disloyal to his teachings. He had begun secretly collecting money from Jmmanuel's listeners and living for his own self-gratification. When Jmmanuel learned about this, he took Judas aside for several days and taught him the difference between right and wrong, whereupon the disciple repented (TJ 14:1-7). A remnant of this appears within the Gospel of John, at Jn 12:6, where Judas is mentioned as being a thief. Also, only in John do we read that Judas was the son of Simon (Jn 6:71), while in the TJ, the actual betrayer of Jmmanuel to the arresting party, who afterwards committed suicide, was Juda, the son of Simeon. (Soon afterwards the rumor was initiated by chief priests and Simeon that the betrayer had been Judas Iscariot.) Additionally, two of Jmmanuel's post-crucifixion appearances to his disciples are described, in redacted form, more correctly in John than in the other Gospels. It is also interesting that the Gospel of Mark contains nothing that can be inferred to have derived straight from the TJ. It very much appears that some time after the writer of Matthew was done forming his gospel out of the TJ, and after the writer of Mark had made use of the Gospel of Matthew, the writers of Luke/Acts and John were allowed very limited access to the TJ. It seems as if they had been required to agree to extract only those items from it that the writer of Matthew may have overlooked, and to place them into a proper early Christian context. For TJ text that the writer of Matthew had already utilized and sanitized, they were to use his version. That the writer of Mark was left unaware of the TJ makes sense in that the writers of Matthew, Luke and John were located somewhere in the Mideast or Anatolia (Turkey), while the writer of Mark is believed from the external evidence to have written in Rome (where he seems, however, to have had access not only to an early Semitic version of Matthew but to an aborted stolen writing that preceded the TJ, brought to Rome by Peter and John Mark). This all also makes sense out of the well-known saying from Papias, presented by Eusebius, that "Matthew compiled the Logia in the Hebraic tongue, and each interpreted them as best he could." The TJ indicates that these "each" consisted of the writers of Luke/Acts and John, and also of certain Gnostics. For those under the impression that Matthew could not have been formed out of the TJ because the majority of New Testament scholarship assumes that Matthew was formed out of Mark, a comprehensive hypothesis favoring Mark having been formed out of Matthew is presented here. Abbreviations. In references at the end of each 1- or 2-chapter section on Matthew and its TJ comparisons, within the above Table and elsewhere in this website, the following abbreviations are used: JBL: Journal of Biblical Literature NTS: New Testament Studies For books of the Bible, the following abbreviations are used: Old Testament Genesis Gn 2 Chronicles 2 Chr Daniel Dn Exodus Ex Ezra Ez Hosea Hos Leviticus Lv Nehemiah Neh Joel Jl Numbers Nm Esther Est Amos Am Deuteronomy Dt Job Jb Obadiah Ob Joshua Jos Psalms Ps(s) Jonah Jon Judges Jgs Proverbs Prv Micah Mi Ruth Ru Ecclesiastes Eccl Nahum Na 1 Samuel 1 Sm Song of Solomon Sg Habakkuk Hb 2 Samuel 2 Sm Isaiah Is Zephaniah Zep 1 Kings 1 Kgs Jeremiah Jer Haggai Hg 2 Kings 2 Kgs Lamentations Lam Zechariah Zec 1 Chronicles 1 Chr Ezekiel Ez Malachi Mal New Testament Matthew Mt Acts of Apostles Acts 2 Corinthians 2 Cor Mark Mk Romans Rom Galatians Gal Luke Lk 1 Corinthians 1 Cor Ephesians Eph John Jn Return to: Contents Night Sighting by Erwin Mürner in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 321 translated by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 I had an interesting experience on Saturday evening in July 1986, when I, together with other persons, stood outside the residence plaza of the Center. We became eyewitnesses, when suddenly in the sky diagonally across from the carriage house [see map, No. 8], a red fireball was to be seen, which abruptly extinguished itself as if a switch had been pressed. After several seconds the fireball was again visible, and from top downward waves began to move through it. At the same time, nevertheless, the object whizzed towards the direction of Sitzberg [a couple miles to the northeast]. Two weeks later a man who had worked in the same firm as I related to me that on Saturday, two weeks before, he had been driving with his son from a hospital visit. In Turbenthal [about 3 miles to the northwest] the youth suddenly asked, "Dad, what's that object in the sky?" They both could observe a disk-shaped object, which very quickly took off into the distance. For us at the Center this shape was not discerned because it was too far away. It then no longer especially amazed me that they had made the sighting at the same time as we in Hintersmidrüti. Sightings Experiences by Erwin Mürner in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 322 translated by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 On a Saturday evening, whose date is no longer in my memory, someone came running and cried out that an object was to be seen and we should come immediately if we wanted to see it. We followed the caller outside into the open and actually saw a cigar-shaped UFO, which was moving quickly at the east horizon. One other time, on a June evening in 1987, I made my way to the outdoor pulpit, in order to be able to better observe the sky. As my eyes wandered over the star-studded firmament, I suddenly noticed a white sphere, which was flying from west to east. The white light pulsed and then changed its color from red to green to blue, before it again shined white. This was entirely new to me. After several minutes the luminous object stood directly above the pulpit, before it suddenly was completely dark. The light had disappeared, as if turned off. Downstairs from the house plaza others had witnessed the same spectacle, among them Billy. When I called out to him, whether he had been able to see the object, he answered that for this very reason he had stepped outdoors. Sighting on a National Holiday by Erwin Mürner in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 318-19 translated by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 Twice I have had sighting experiences on August 1, the Swiss national holiday. The first date [probably 1982] I have unfortunately forgotten, although it attracted the attention of many Core-Group members and their cameras with zoom lenses. While Billy was setting off fireworks that he had prepared himself, after some time someone cried out, "Look at the horizon -- a ship." Everyone rushed over in front of the auto parking place by the main residence [just southwest of No. 9 on the map], and on the horizon observed a white sphere, which moved slowly towards the east and soon disappeared. The fireworks continued on until Billy suddenly stopped it and someone remarked afresh to us that the sphere was now over us. And actually, it had exactly the same appearance. It slowly moved at a similar height over the Center in the direction of Sitzberg [to the northeast], where it again disappeared. Then Billy said to us, Semjase has seen our fireworks and wishes us a wonderful celebration. After 02:00 hours I was ready to leave the Center with my wife when we saw the beamship once again, moving from north to south towards Sitzberg. The second experience was on August 1, 1984. On this evening one had the feeling that the beamship would have a great flight-day. We stood close to the Center's main residence and Billy began, as he does each year, with his self- produced fireworks. Then we saw undoubtedly 30 lights present as three objects whizzed toward us from the west; two flew beside each other (visible as whitish spheres), and the third one of reddish color, behind. Later, at the house plaza, it then first began properly: At first two beamships crossed over the Center, and then they came from all possible sides. All those present lay down on the ground, in order to be able to observe it all better. Later I understood that this had been a parting gift of the Pleiadians/Plejarens. From then on, the Contacts would be broken off for several years, namely until about 1989. We Are Not Alone Liberal Translation of Write-up by E. Mürner in FIGU Bulletin #30 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Dec., 2000) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 This Saturday, the 27th of May, 2000, was lecture time once again. I didn't yet know then what was expected of me and the audience at the end of the study hour. We stood outside the meeting place [or "carriage house," see map, No. 8] of the Center in Hinterschmidrüti, where we had gathered together after 11:00 pm for a little conversation before leaving. Nearby were Anton and Hildegard Bachofen, Fritz Egger, who was next to me (Erwin Mürner), and some people of the FIGU Core Group. As always, we observed the beautiful starry sky above us, and I said to the members of the group: "It would be nice, now, if a Plejaren ship were to appear." So I was informed, through the statement of a FIGU member, that around 7:30 pm someone had made a joke that this night a beamship would appear or arise. And exactly that happened, only later in the night. The ship approached in the starry night sky from the northeast. It was visible as a whitish ball, and seen obliquely against the sky, it crossed the firmament gently and silently in a southwesterly direction. Suddenly, a Core Group member said, "It would be nice if it were to send a greeting to us." And actually this wish was fulfilled, because suddenly, as if a light switch had been turned on, the object blazed up, glistening, with the bright light spreading outwards and outshining the whole ball. The whole spectacle repeated itself five times during the further course of its flight. One could not help having the feeling that to produce the whole magic light show, a switch was again operated when restoring its previous appearance. So once again we saw the ball, whose flight we could follow in the night sky until it was recognizable only as a small dot. During the whole sighting there were murmurs, marvelings and talk going on through the ranks of the observers. From this I had the feeling -- myself included -- that all were gripped by a feeling of happiness. To be sure, I already had some experiences in this regard, but with respect to this spectacle everything was somewhat new. Everything was imprinted indelibly in my memory, and so the bright light still remains in my mind's eye. When something like this takes place before one's own very eyes, then one first realizes how small and inconspicuous we humans really are. Of course, everything for us was a great pleasure, especially the fact that we were able to receive a prominent greeting in this manner. Therefore, I would like to say, "We have understood your greeting, and also what you wanted to say to us: We have not forgotten you." And in this sense it has also become clear to us that the effort of learning on the way to the truth bears good fruit. We assume that our wishful thoughts were received, and that it was an intentional decision to send us the greetings, in return for which we really want to thank the occupants of the vessel. We would like many people to have similar experiences, because too many unfortunately are still unable to recognize the truth as truth; so it unfortunately will still be a long time for them before they find the way to true peace, to true love, to real knowledge and to truth and wisdom. My Own UFO Sightings Sighting 1. It was on June 9, 1986 -a clear day. I was in my Oregon State University office (in Stag Hall) finishing off a brown-bag lunch and gazing out the east-facing window when I spied what looked like a dark, black balloon slowly passing by, from N.E. southward. It had a roughly spherical shape. At its closest it looked like it was only a few blocks away and only some 1000 feet up. It caught my attention right away as it seemed larger than any toy balloon; it was certainly no weather balloon or hot-air balloon, as it carried no suspended payload. I estimated that its width subtended an angle roughly equal to 3 mm at arm's length, or about 1/3 the angular width of the moon. I estimated its elevation angle to lie between 30 and 45 degrees. It soon became obscured behind trees and buildings. Its first suspicious feature was its dark black color, without disclosing any shiny black that would show a highlight. And I didn't know of any black balloons like that. I noticed a second suspicious feature as it neared its closest approach, when its elevation angle was around 40 degrees. It had tiny points of glitter scattered all over its upper half, which reflected the sunlight brightly, but none on its lower half. The above rendering cannot do justice to the brightness of the glitters. I couldn't think of any scientific experiment or other reason why any balloon would be so decorated. Its third suspicious feature, which didn't strike me until later, was that it was moving along at apparently constant altitude. Ordinary balloons we see down low either are buoyant and in the process of rising or just the opposite and sinking. A nearly neutrally-buoyant balloon is a rarity, requiring extra skill in construction, adjustment or operation, and it will still rise up and down with the turbulent air currents, which this object didn't do, and wouldn't survive long before entering a convective downdraft and ripping open against a tree, building or the ground. A fourth suspicious feature is that the "balloon" wasn't rotating about any arbitrary axis, as an ordinary non-ballasted balloon would likely have been doing within a turbulent atmosphere. I did take time out from gawking at it long enough to run down the corridor from my second-floor office, looking to see if anyone was around to yell to as a witness. No one was, and even in the departmental office no one was around, which was rather rare but happened sometimes during noontime lunch hour. Also, I noted that the wind direction (from the NNE) was about the same as the direction of motion of the balloon-like object. So I didn't later go around informing others of this UFO sighting, knowing for that reason it would be assumed to have been some sort of man- made balloon. Yet I regarded it as a UFO because of its suspicious features, especially the upper-half glitters. I kept my eyes and ears open for any newspaper, radio or TV reports of others having seen it, but heard nothing about it. Sighting 2. The very next afternoon (June 10th, 1986) around 5 p.m., as I was riding my bicycle southwards from campus towards home (on 26th St.), I couldn't help but notice an aerial object that resembled a high-flying kite (polygonal with 5 or 6 edges) except that it had a "tail" which displayed an alternating bright irridescent ruby red color and a gray-black color. It appeared to be a quarter mile away or so, about 35 degrees above the horizon, and drifting from NW to SE, which again was about the direction the breeze on that clear day would have carried a floating object. Thus it resembled a kite that had broken loose from its string-I looked hard for any such string and didn't see any. However, a kite without its string would have come down pretty quickly, but this object retreated towards the tree line to the south, without apparent descent, faster than I could bicycle towards it. Moreover, the brilliant "tail" was oriented along the direction a kite string would have been directed-downwards and upwind, rather than trailing downwind behind the kite. The sighting lasted for about 4 minutes, as I bicycled slowly along 26th St. taking time to look at it carefully. The black dots in the crude picture above indicate its continued direction of movement. I continued south across Philomath Blvd. bicycling faster and then southward along Brooklane Ave., until near the final curve of Brooklane I lost sight of it after looking back up from the road. It may have been obscured by nearby trees, though I thought I should have espied it a while longer before the trees would obscure it. When on 26th St. I had again looked in vain for any pedestrians or persons in stopped cars whose attention I might direct towards the object, but there were none around. I had to place this in the UFO category because the object didn't behave the way a kite would have yet didn't resemble anything else, and because of the brilliance of its dazzling color. Also, the fact that it occurred only a day after my first UFO sighting reinforced the idea that it belonged in the same category of UFO. Again I did not attempt to convince any of my atmospheric-science colleagues that I had seen a UFO, as I had already given a UFO talk within the department, and had learned by this time of the rationales that many scientists and ufologists alike employ to explain away UFO sightings whenever at all possible. I knew that the broken-string kite hypothesis would be seized upon and the disparities would be ignored or dismissed. Sighting 3. This occurred during a clear August evening around 1990 when my wife and I were tenting overnight on a campground along the south fork of the Willamette River, on the west slope of the Cascades (between Eugene and Crater Lake). We were taking a stroll along a dirt road around 9 p.m., at dusk, when we spotted a bright yellowish- white satellite-like object moving steadily and silently from south to north. It was much brighter than an airplane or a satellite either one, however, and appeared to be lower down than a satellite. We could see it through the treetops for about a minute -- much longer than any meteor sighting would last. It was as bright when viewed from the rear as it had been when viewed from the front -- some 5 times or so as bright as Venus. Again, I did not report this to my colleagues or to any UFO organization because the object did not execute any UFO-like maneuvers, and would be explained away as a satellite. However, I have seen too many satellites to think it was one, and it was not leaving any trail of sparks or debris behind as a reentering satellite would. Sighting 4. My brother, when he lived on the north side of Corvallis, called me a couple times about an unusually bright but silent "airplane" he had seen on several nights, around 10 p.m. This was in July of 1992 or 1993. The "airplane" appeared to the east of his residence, moving from north to south. Both its brilliant white light and lack of any noise alerted him to its unusualness, plus the fact that it flew unusally low. So I arranged to meet with him on a following evening when we drove to the top of a nearby forested ridge to the east for a better view of it, and waited. Sure enough, shortly after 10 p.m. it came into sight in the north, on a track that would take it abreast of us on the east as it traveled on to the SSE. I focused my binoculars on it, and after it had approached nearly broadside, could notice how its bright white front light appeared to wrap around its nose for a distance of some 5% of the "plane's" length, but appeared to have a grill-like structure superimposed on it. Still, I was not quite certain of the uniqueness of these apparent features, due to the difficulty of holding the binoculars steady enough while tracking it. If the object had wings, they didn't show up, which wouldn't have been too surprising considering the darkness and the fact that its flight path was low, only slightly higher than our own elevation. However, if it had been an airplane its navigational lights, at least the green one on the right, should have shown up, but did not. However, just about when it was broadside to us, directly to the east, I was suddenly startled to notice through the binoculars that a tiny red-orange "pip" shot down from the craft for perhaps a hundred feet and then curved upwards before vanishing, having traced out a "J" shape in less than a second of time. Immediately after, a second "pip," this time yellow, zoomed upwards a similar distance from the craft and then curved down a bit before vanishing, just as quickly tracing out an inverted "J" figure. The above picturing is only suggestive, as the pips did not leave any trail of dots behind, and as the UFO craft moved along the locations of the two pips were left behind. Also, unlike in the depiction above, I could not visually quite discern a tail (or the tail) of the craft. Unfortunately, my brother was not watching through his binoculars at these moments and missed the two pip events. Naturally I knew of no devices coming from any ordinary airplane that would behave in this manner, nor any motivation for any human deployment of any such devices. At its closest approach, the craft seemed to be about 1 or 1 1/2 miles away and at an elevation only slightly above our own, which was around 500 feet. But not even then could we hear any noise from it, even though we were on a quiet hillside miles north of the nearest city (Corvallis). We believe we sighted the same craft from a greater distance on a couple of subsequent nights, but didn't see it any more after that. Again, however, neither of us reported this sighting to any UFO organization, believing it would be dismissed as an ordinary commercial airliner whose flight track for some reason took it unusually low in traveling from Portland to Eugene. Moreover, I checked the airline schedules, and there was a nightly plane from Portland to Eugene scheduled to arrive in Eugene around 10:30 p.m. Surely a UFO wouldn't show up on a regular schedule! The fact that an airliner shouldn't be flying that low, 30 miles north of the Eugene airport, would be shrugged off, and the "pips" I had seen just a 1000 feet or less above the ground would be ignored as aberrations. For the other reasons mentioned, however, I had to place this sighting in the "for sure" UFO category. It then alerted me to the realization that UFOs in general often pass themselves off as other objects to those who do not get a close look or who do not listen to all the details of the witnesses' reports. In this manner the aliens, or UFO pilots, can alert those whose minds are open to the possibility of the alien presence that they are indeed here and well aware of us, while not shaking up those whose minds are unable to accept that likelihood. The UFO phenomenon is replete with cases of this nature, which to me says something about the level of ethics of the UFO aliens in charge. It thus appears that they wish to act as catalysts who then cause perceptive witnessing humans themselves to be the ones who try to inform their fellow humans as to what's going on and what mankind's position within the cosmos is -- Johnny-come-latelies. Sighting 5. On June 12 of 1996 at 8:25a.m. I was in my back yard in Corvallis, OR, looking over a row of tomato plants. The skies were clear that morning, except for a few old contrails, and the sun was out. I happened to glance up towards the west for a fraction of a second and noticed what appeared to be a small airplane, but at first didn't think anything about it. However, a couple of seconds later I realized I didn't hear any airplane engine noise. Then I looked up at it carefully. It was moving steadily from north to south and appeared to be about a mile away. I couldn't see any wings or tail on it; it just had a cylindrical shape and was of a silvery color. It was at about 30 degrees elevation, and knowing that its wings then may not have shown up well, I looked for them intensely (with 20/20 vision as corrected by eyeglasses), but still couldn't see any. And there was definitely no indication of any characteristic tail shape, just the precise cylindrical shape from fore to aft. Most peculiar, there was a single vertical stripe along the center of the cylinder, making it resemble a narrow capsule, horizontally oriented. Its length was around ten times its width, and its length subtended an angle about equal to the width of my little finger at arm's length. The sighting lasted around a minute, before the craft disappeared into the near-horizon haze to the southwest as it approached a tree line. I had considered running inside the house to grab a pair of binoculars, but decided that would take a bit too long, including time that would be needed to focus them, before it would be practically out of sight. My wife wasn't around to call upon as a witness, as she had already gone to her part-time job. I glanced up and down the street to see if any neighbors were outside to yell to, but they weren't. The following summer I read over the Internet of the sighting of an object described the same as I have described it: as a capsule moving along like a small airplane, near the town of Monmouth, OR. It had been seen by a high-school aged student whose father reported the sighting. Sighting 6. During early afternoon on the clear day of July 16th, 1998, I happened to be out in my front yard in Corvallis, OR, admiring the blueness of the sky due to lack of any field-burning smoke or slash-burning smoke or noticeable smog, and due also to a clear-weather high-pressure subsidence situation. There was scarcely any wind. When facing west I looked up to watch a plane go by nearly overhead, from N to S, at around 5000-6000 ft. While my head was still up, a fast-moving whitish object suddenly streaked into view, moving from nearly overhead towards the west. It seemed to be some 500 to 1000 ft. up when nearly overhead, but moved so fast that within about 1.5 seconds (1 1/2 sec.) it had already disappeared into the western horizon. When closest overhead its apparent angular length I estimate to have been about 2/3 of a little-finger width held at arm's length. It didn't make any noise or show any exhaust or lights. Its shape was sort of like a rocket with a pair of very short "wings" whose outer edges ran parallel to its body length, as I recall, as in the picture above. I estimate that its ratio of length to greatest width was about 4 to 1. It was of a "misty" white color, with the peculiarity of showing no darkness on its underside, which ought to have been shadowed from the sun. Nor did it exhibit any highlights of reflected sunlight. Yet the sky was clear. Its most striking aspect at the time was, in moving so fast, to have moved in a perfectly straight line -- no swooping, no "flapping of wings" or anything like that. So it didn't resemble a bird or a plane or a thistle seed. Nor did it resemble any "floater" in the eye, as I checked for that possibility immediately afterwards. It more resembled a stick drawing in chalk of a ski jumper stretched out horizontally and viewed from directly above or below. It was out of sight so quickly that I of course had no chance to look for another witness to view it, or to go for a camera or binoculars. The sighting might fall into the category of UFO that has been called "rods;" by coincidence that very night I heard an interview of a "rods-type" UFO investigator on the Art Bell radio talk-show in which the description given seemed to come rather close to fitting what I had seen. My earliest UFO event (most likely involving UFOs). In 1953 I was an ensign in the Navy, serving with a Special Weapons group aboard the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain (CV 39). We were operating in the Sea of Japan, in waters off of South Korea. It was in the evening of July 26th (I learned the precise date later) around 7 pm that general quarters was sounded, and we all went to our battle stations -- mine was below decks where our group had the duty of maintaining a few atomic weapons at the ready. We didn't know what was going on, until word was passed that the ship's radar had detected a lot of bogies (unidentified blips) nearby. We were all extremely apprehensive. I took a peek into the office of our group leader, Lt. Robinson, who had just gotten off the telephone, and saw him just quivering all over, a bundle of fear, in his swivel chair. Needless to say, that didn't improve our morale! I have never seen any such fright like that before or since, and this is what implanted the whole event firmly into my memory. However, nothing further happened, and around 10 or 11 pm the all-clear was sounded. I expected we'd be told the next day what had happened, but there was nary a word spoken about it then or later from the ship’s captain on down. It wasn't until some 25 years later that I had learned enough about the UFO phenomenon to know that this is typical behavior when UFOs are involved. Those who knew or suspected that the bogies were UFOs apparently realized, or were told, not to speak about it to others, and so the silence spread. If the bogies had been North Korean aircraft, and if the carrier's fighter planes had engaged any of them, or had any of our aircraft been shot down, we certainly would then have heard about it. A few more years passed before I learned that, in a disproportionately large fraction of sightings, UFOs had been witnessed above nuclear missile sites and nuclear reactors (one of the latest books on this is by Robert Hastings, UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites, 2008). From then on I strongly suspected that this traumatic event involving the USS Lake Champlain, with its onboard nuclear arsenal, had been a UFO event. It wasn't until September of 2008 that I came across the following information from a Navy chronology web site: 26 July Hwangto-do Island drew anti-tank and machine gun fire from the enemy mainland, but experienced no damage. As Task Force 77 replenished, a small number of bogies made non firing runs on spotting aircraft from the Force. The spotting aircraft made seven visual sightings, all unidentified. Later in the day from two to four possible jet bogies orbited at 20,000 feet 60 miles north of the Task Force, but departed before CAP could make contact. About 100 bogies were reported by USS Lake Champlain (CVA 39) during the night northwest and southwest of Task Force 77. The bogies, in five different groups, were never contacted by VFN aircraft and did not close the Task Force. VFN aircraft are carrier Navy planes equipped for nighttime operations. The last paragraph above, in bold face, is the relevant one. Task Force 77 included three other aircraft carriers. From information supplied by Carl Feindt, I also learned that at the time a Jack Sauter had been an electronics technician who flew with one of the Lake Champlain's aircraft. He wrote: The only threat to TF 77 occurred on 26 July 1953, the night before the truce was signed. Many bogies were seen closing on the force and we all went to general quarters. Aircraft, including one of ours [one of the Lake Champlain's], were launched, but whatever was out there disappeared before our planes got close. I was glad to learn of this confirming information, and of the date of the event. Evidently the bogies, or UFOs, occurred in groups as large as 20. The carrier's aircraft could not make contact with the UFOs, nor did the latter "close" (approach too close to) the task force, which included CV 39. This is typical UFO behavior -- to scare those involved with dangerous weapons, and to let us know they are around and aware of our activities, while generally inflicting no violence against us. In December of 2010, I spoke with Jack Sauter over the telephone, and he confirmed that none of the bogies had been seen visually as far as he knew. The rumor he had heard, as to their possible explanation, was that it may have been a large swarm of Chinese bombers that approached from the west but then were ordered to turn around before approaching closer than some 20 miles from the Task Force. This is unlikely, however, as news of this could not have been kept suppressed. Go Back to: Contents The Nag Hammadi Library *** = Writings avoiding “Jesus” by at least 10:1 · · The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles 3 mentions of “Jesus” · Allogenes a non-Christian Gnostic text · The Apocalypse of Adam A Sethian Gnostic text, probably no Christian connection · The (First) Apocalypse of James *** · The (Second) Apocalypse of James *** · The Apocalypse of Paul A Christian-Gnostic work re Heaven & Hell, no Christ figure · The Apocalypse of Peter *** · The Apocryphon of James: *** · The Apocryphon of John *** · Asclepius 21-29 A non-Christian Gnostic Coptic text · Authoritative Teaching A non-Christian semi-Gnostic treatise on the Soul · The Book of Thomas the Contender *** · The Concept of Our Great Power *** but is docetic · The Dialogue of the Savior *** · The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth A Gnostic, Hermetic, non-Christian document · Eugnostos the Blesse ***d* · The Exegesis on the Soul *** · The Gospel of the Egyptians* *** · The Gospel of Philip It references Jesus many times • The Gospel of Thomas: It also references Jesus many times · The Gospel of Truth:* It references Jesus several times · The Hypostasis of the Archons A non-Christian Gnostic tractate re Adam & Eve… · Hypsiphrone A short, deteriorated Gnostic text, apparently non-Christian · The Interpretation of Knowledge *** · The Letter of Peter to Philip A Gnostic-Christian tractate that refers to Jesus frequently · Marsanes A Sethian Gnostic text, non-Christian · Melchizedek A Gnostic-Christian tractate that refers to Jesus frequently · On the Anointing A short, 7-line Gnostic-Christian text, mentions Jesus · On the Baptism (A) A short Gnostic-Christian text, mentions Jesus · On the Baptism (B) Mentions Christ once, no “Jesus,” but too short to seek avoidance · On the Eucharist (A) Short Christian text, plenty of “Jesus” · On the Eucharist (B) Presumably as above but too short to tell · On the Origin of the World* Gnostic-Christian tractate; 1 “Jesus,” 2 ;”Christ”; little more · The Paraphrase of Shem Long Gnostic tractate, no Christian influence · Plato, Republic 588A-589B A non-Christian, possibly Gnostic, version of a Plato excerpt · The Prayer of the Apostle Paul A short Gnostic-Christian prayer, does not avoid “Jesus” · The Prayer of Thanksgiving A Hermetic Gnostic prayer, non-Christian · The Second Treatise of the Great Seth A docetic Gnostic-Christian text, slightly avoids Jesus · The Sentences of Sextus A Hellenistic text slightly Christianized; no Christ figure · The Sophia of Jesus Christ *** · The Teachings of Silvanus *** · The Testimony of Truth A Christian-Gnostic tractate, only slightly avoids “Jesus” · The Thought of Norea A brief Sethian Gnostic text, non-Christian · The Three Steles of Seth A brief Sethian Gnostic text, non-Christian · The Thunder, Perfect Mind A semi-Gnostic non-Christian poetic text · The Treatise on the Resurrection A Christian-Gnostic text, scarcely avoids “Jesus” · Trimorphic Protennoia *** · The Tripartite Tractate *** · A Valentinian Exposition A Christian-Gnostic text, uses “Jesus” 10 times; docetic or not? · Zostrianos *** GOSPEL NOMENCLATURE For convenience, most scholars refer to the writer of the Gospel of Matthew simply as Matthew, and similarly for the writers of the other Gospels. However, a majority of scholars nowadays no longer believe that the Gospels were written by their namesakes, that is, by the names attached to them. This is due to indications that the Gospels appeared too late to have been written by any of the twelve disciples, or to the fact that Mark and Luke were not eye witnesses to any of the events of Jesus' ministry yet the Gospels are written from the point of view of the eye witness. Nevertheless, such scholars speak and write as if they thought that the writer of Matthew was the disciple Matthew himself. One of the conveniences of this custom is that it avoids offending Christian publishers and editors who do not hold the more modern view, thus gaining the scholar's papers or books a better chance of being published. However, the practice may leave the reader uncertain as to the scholar's true views on this important problem. Moreover, the newcomer to the field will find that any explanations of this practice are few and far between. And the practice can sometimes lead to confusion as to whether it is the Gospel that is being referred to, or its writer. In order to avoid any such uncertainty or confusion, this practice is not followed here, and "the writer of" is prefixed before the name of a Gospel when referring to its writer. Go Back to: Contents AVOIDANCE OF "NAZARETH" NEAR MATTHEW'S REJECTION STORY, AND THE RESULTANT FLASHBACK PROBLEM OF MATTHEW 14:1-12 James W. Deardorff November, 1992 Omission of "Nazareth" at Mt 13:54 The seriousness of the rejection at Nazareth Nazareth omitted elsewhere? A single solution to a two-fold problem Omission of "Nazareth" at Mt 13:54. The peculiarity was noted by Francis Beare that at Mt 13:54, as in the parallel of Mk 6:1, Jesus' next stop during his ministry is stated to have been his fatherland or "home town" (patris). His native village of Nazareth is not named here.1 The reader, if he were encountering the gospel for the first time, would need to turn back 9 or 11 chapters within Matthew, or five chapters within Mark, to recall what this home town was, as it is not alluded to in the interim. Hence this is a peculiarity from the point of view that the writer of Matthew must have wished that his writing be understandable. Here we shall explore this oddity from the perspective of possible Matthean priority over Mark and Luke. This Nazareth-omission problem is a special peculiarity within Matthew, as that gospel seems to have been written for Jews with a goal of converting them to the new Messianic form of Judaism.2 The writer of Matthew should then have been pleased to include the name of the Jewish home town of the Messiah at every opportunity. In fact, the town where Jesus presumably spent much of his youth and a good part of his life should have been the most honored town within all of Israel for the compiler of Matthew to extoll. But it is not. If one assumes that Matthew follows and expands upon Mark, the problem is perhaps more severe than if one were to assume Matthean priority. For with Marcan priority, it is precisely at Mt 13:54 where the compiler of Matthew most definitely should have noticed his opportunity to fill in on the omission of Nazareth at Mk 6:1. It is therefore instructive to discuss the matter here within the framework in which the problem may seem least severe -- that of Matthean priority.3 This study, then, can be viewed as a brief example of exegesis as it could occur if Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine and Eusebius were correct in their statements indicating Matthean priority. Within that framework the testimony of Papias becomes relevant,4 and we shall assume that the compiler of Matthew had an extensive written source before him -- the Logia known to Papias -- which he felt free to alter while forming his own gospel.5 Although this latter subject is far too intricate to delve into here, one can readily perceive that the many redactions recognized to exist within Matthew can as easily be explained as that compiler's alterations to the basic text of the Logia as to assume they are additions to Mark.6 It might be supposed that "Iesous Nazarenos" was a well-known formula ever since Jesus' ministry, and remained so until (and after) the first Gospel appeared. In that case it could be argued that the compiler of Matthew may have desired to write "patris" instead of Nazareth here simply because Jesus' home town was already well known to potential readers. However, that argument is less cogent than that the compiler of Matthew should have wished to express the name "Nazareth" at every opportunity, and not having mentioned it in the previous nine chapters presented a strong opportunity for him to do so at Mt 13:54. In fact, a natural and plausible literary tendency would be for "Nazareth" to be mentioned in Mt 13:54 and "patris" in Mt 13:57, to avoid absolute redundancy or monotony.7 Beare suggested that "patris" was used instead of Nazareth in Mt 13:54 probably in anticipation of the "prophet without honor" proverb to be cited three verses later.8 However, the preceding argument indicates that the use of Nazareth in the first position and "patris" three verses later would have been more logical. By the time the first Gospel appeared, which may not have been until early in the 2nd century,9 one cannot even assume it was still common knowledge that Nazareth had been Jesus' home town. The opposite is more plausible, since Paul, if he had known about it, did not write of it, nor did Clement I, nor Barnabas, nor Ignatius. In that case, only after reading his source document did the compiler of the first Gospel come to know it, and subsequently the other Gospel writers. Once the omission of Nazareth here is seen as a problem, as Beare recognized, a more plausible solution than that proposed by Beare does come to mind. The compiler of Matthew was "punishing" Nazareth for having rejected Jesus, and the writer of Mark simply followed suit, probably unknowingly, at the point of parallelism in his gospel. That is, omitting the name of Nazareth in this section of his gospel constituted the compiler's punishment for the town. Evidently, this solution makes use of the arguments of G. F. Moore that there was indeed such a town as Nazareth.10 Although this solution might seem possible within the framework of Marcan priority, it is most feasible for Matthean priority, since Matthew's compiler was concerned with the fate of towns such as Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, which he deemed in dire need of redemption (Mt 11:21-24). The author of Mark, on the other hand, is believed to have written his gospel in Rome, if we give some weight to the patristic evidence from Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus.11 Mark's author would thus have had less reason to be concerned with the destiny of towns within Palestine, as indicated also by the absence of a Marcan parallel to Mt 11:20-24 and by the far fewer Judaisms within Mark than within Matthew. Thus it could hardly be proposed seriously that it was the writer of Mark who first omitted the name, Nazareth, with Matthew's compiler then following suit. The compiler of Matthew could have expressed his dislike for the behavior of the residents of Nazareth in one of several ways. The first is by avoiding all mention of the rejection incident: Mt 13:53-58. However, this would have required maximal editorial intervention, and, moreover, would have deleted the favorable passages of Mt 13:54 and 56 along with the interesting proverb of Mt 13:57. A second is to have omitted just Mt 13:57-58, but that would also have omitted the proverb. A third is to have omitted just the two offensive statements: Mt 13:57a and 58. However, this would have left the proverb without a basis. A fourth way is to have inserted an upbraiding of Nazareth like that of Chorazin and Bethsaida (Mt 11:21), and a fifth is the proposed one of omitting the name, Nazareth, in the vicinity of the rejection story. This last suggestion is the most plausible if the compiler had been following a guideline of making the minimal editorial changes necessary to render his source text acceptable or tolerable. Such a policy seems to have been used in the formulation of parts of the OT, according to Richard Friedman.12 The seriousness of the rejection at Nazareth. There is additional internal evidence that indicates how seriously the early evangelists treated this matter of Jesus being either unwilling or unable to perform many miraculous deeds during his ministry in Nazareth. Luke's quite different rejection story seems designed primarily to rationalize the inadequacy of Jesus' performance there by comparing him to Elisha, whom God did not inspire to provide aid or healing except to a widow in Sidon and to Naaman, the Syrian, according to Lk 4:16-30. Then, the rejection by Nazareth in Luke could be attributed mainly to its citizens' anger over Jesus' sermon story due to its preference for non-Israelites, and not due to any failing of his healing powers. This subject was treated very seriously because of the competition Jesus' fame for healing encountered from other miracle workers, such as Apollonius of Tyana and Simon the magician of Acts 8:9. With this solution, we see that although the first and third evangelists handled the rejection in totally different manners, they both felt it necessary to take editorial action over the matter. The writer of Luke is seen here as having improved upon Matthew's and Mark's rejection story by removing or ameliorating the embarrassment of Jesus being unable or unwilling to perform healings there.13 He could not omit the story altogether because, by the time of his writing, it was already too well known from Matthew and Mark. In this regard, many studies do uphold the conclusion that Luke makes use of Matthew in addition to Mark.14 Nazareth omitted elsewhere? In light of the present scholarly preference for Marcan priority, not Matthean, additional support for the present solution is desirable here. Hence, we consider the possibility that the compiler of Matthew omitted the name "Nazareth" a second time in the general vicinity of the rejection story, and inquire what additional exegetical problem, if any, might thereby come to light and be capable of solution. The closest point following the rejection at which Nazareth could plausibly have been explicitly mentioned within a Matthean source document corresponds to Mt 14:1. Suppose its parallel within the Logia had read something like, "At the time that Jesus taught in Nazareth, Herod the tetrarch heard about his fame." (The emphasized portion indicates the reconstructed or hypothesized portion of the source text.) In removing the name "Nazareth" here, too, as part of its punishment, the compiler of Matthew would have had to remove adjacent words from the first clause in order to maintain some sense; it is not unlikely that this would result in the present text: "At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus." Would such a relatively minor editorial alteration have created any problem? The answer is affirmative. It would have destroyed the original time setting in which the pericope of John's beheading was embedded. Instead of this pericope being a flashback occurring at a time some weeks earlier than when the story of Jesus' ministry resumes at Mt 14:13, it would force the pericope to occur at the same time. There would then be insufficient time for the beheading episode to have occurred and for John's disciples to have buried John's body and then to have sought out Jesus. This problem does exist for the beheading-of-John pericope in Matthew, which otherwise reads as a flashback. Werner Kümmel is one who has noticed it to be a problem.15 Beare noted a different problem, that Jesus' rejection in Nazareth, coming just before Herod's comments in Matthew, would not likely have caused Herod to think of Jesus as John redivivus.16 With the present reconstruction, however, both objections vanish. Herod heard of Jesus' fame at the earlier time, before his rejection at Nazareth had occurred or before word of it had spread about to tarnish his fame. The flashback problem is sufficiently obscure that it could well have escaped the attention of the editor-scribe who unintentionally created it, while being noticed by one or more later scribes, including the writer of Mark. With the present solution, we see that after noticing the flashback problem within Matthew, the writer of Mark applied a correction. He altered Mt 14:12 so that instead of John's disciples seeking out Jesus to report what happened, it is Jesus' disciples who appear on the scene (Mk 6:30). It may also be argued that the writer of Mark placed the Mission of the Twelve late, relative to Matthew, as part of his attempt to solve Matthew's problem: there would then be some definite healings for Herod to have heard of immediately preceding the beheading story. Moreover, this latter alteration would provide a connection between his relocated Mission of the Twelve and his revision of Mt 14:13a into Mk 6:30. Thus, the Marcan time frame permits the beheading story there to fit in as a flashback. However, this leads to the problems for Mark that (a) the healings effected by the twelve in Mark, just before Herod is mentioned, were not performed by Jesus and thus did little to regain his reputation after his rejection at Nazareth; (b) Mk 6:30-on has no connection to the beheading story; (c) while Mt 14:13 correctly mentions that it was "in a boat" (en ploio) that Jesus withdrew to a lonely place, since a boat had not been mentioned earlier in connection with these events, Mk 6:32 incorrectly presumes the presence already of Matthew's boat, and so refers to "in the boat" (en to ploio); and (d) in Mk 6:31-32 there is no good reason supplied why Jesus and the disciples would then have gone away to a deserted place. With Mt 14:13, however, the reason Jesus withdrew can be surmised to have been because of shock and sorrow over the beheading of the man he most respected.17 A single solution to a twofold problem. We see that this solution to the Nazareth-avoidance problem within Matthew also solves the beheading-of-John flashback problem in a mutually supportive manner. The deduction of a second avoidance of "Nazareth" by the compiler of Matthew in the same general area of text makes it more certain that the first avoidance was also purposeful, while restoring the proper time frame that solves the flashback problem. The probable reason why this combined solution to the Nazareth-avoidance and flashback problems has not been set forth previously is that Mark's reordered and somewhat edited text, relative to Matthew, essentially prevents any such reconstruction from coming to mind if Marcan priority is taken for granted. That is, the present combined solution only exists with Matthean priority and is thus essentially irreversible, if Nazareth was purposefully avoided within Matthew. This then is but one more argument suggesting that the hypothesis of Matthean priority deserves renewed consideration.18 However, here we see no advantage to the Griesbach hypothesis (or two-gospel hypothesis) over the traditional Augustine hypothesis regarding Gospel priorities.19 In summary, it is plausible to expect that the author of the source document utilized by the compiler of Matthew would have written normally; i.e., would have reintroduced the particular name of a town (Nazareth) he had not mentioned in the previous nine chapters, rather than refer to it obliquely. It is just as plausible to suspect that the compiler of Matthew avoided using the name of Nazareth, where it had occurred near the rejection story within his source, as punishment or retribution for that rejection. We then find that shortly thereafter he likely rejected the name Nazareth a second time, causing the flashback problem for the beheading-of-John pericope. FOOTNOTES 1. Francis W. Beare, The Gospel according to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981) 319. 2. Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 3rd Ed. (Downer's Grove, Ill: Inter-Varsity Press, 1970) 25; Robert H. Gundry, Review of "The theme of Jewish persecution of Christians according to St. Matthew," JBL 87 (1968) 347. 3. There is renewed support for the Griesbach hypothesis of Matthew-Luke-Mark Gospel priority; e.g., see Arthur J. Bellinzoni, ed., The Two-Source Hypothesis: A Critical Appraisal (Macon, Ga.: Mercer Univ. Press, 1985), 21-217; and William R. Farmer, ed., New Synoptic Studies (Macon, Ga.: Mercer Univ. Press, 1983), 67-229. There is also fresh impetus in support of a modified form of the Augustinian hypothesis of Matthew-Mark-Luke priority, which updates the study of H. G. Jameson, The Origin of the Synoptic Gospels (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1922); see J. W. Deardorff, The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins (San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992). 4. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History (EH), vol. 1, transl. K. Lake, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953) 297 (3.39.16). 5. According to Eusebius (EH vol. 1, 291, 3.39.1), Papias wrote five treatises interpreting the Logia; this can only mean that the Logia were very extensive and constituted something different than the Gospel of Matthew. 6. Deardorff, Gospel Origins, passim. 7. Dale C. Allison, "Peter and Cephas: One and the same," JBL 111 (1992) 491-492. 8. Beare, Gospel according to Matthew, 319. 9. Bellinzoni, "The Gospel of Matthew in the Second Century," The Second Century 9 (1992) 197-258. 10. George F. Moore, "Nazarene and Nazareth," in The Beginnings of Christianity, vol. 1, F.J.F. Jackson and K. Lake, eds. (London: Macmillan, 1920) 426-432. 11. See respectively Eusebius, EH, vol. 2, 49 (6.14.6-8), and "Irenaeus against Heresies," in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1956) 414 (3.1.1). 12. Richard E. Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Summit Books, 1987) 226. Concerning Ezra as the likely final editor of the Torah, Friedman wrote "His only guideline seems to have been to retain as much of the original texts as possible without intolerable contradictions." 13. Here Mark's rejection story (6:1-5) is considered to be essentially a copy of Matthew's. The small alteration and addition there ("And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them") appear to be "change for the sake of change" akin to Mark's many pleonasms. An additional reason why Luke's rejection story appears to be a (lengthy) redaction, inserted into the writer's story of Jesus' first ministerial period in Nazareth instead of his second, is that the mention of Jesus having been in Capernaum in Lk 4:23 occurs prior to his visit there in Lk 4:31. See also Michael D. Goulder, Luke -- A New Paradigm (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989) 299-310. 14. E.g., see A. W. Argyle, "Evidence for the view that St. Luke used St. Matthew's Gospel," JBL 83 (1964) 390-96; W. R. Farmer, The Synoptic Problem: A Critical Analysis, 2nd Ed. (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1976), 128-141, 220-24; Jameson, Origin of the Synoptic Gospels, 26-53; E. P. Sanders, "The argument from order and the relationship between Matthew and Luke," NTS 15 (1969) 261; Werner Georg Kümmel, with P. Feine and J. Behm, Introduction to the New Testament, 14th Ed., A. J. Mattill, transl. (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1966) 50; and Goulder, Luke, 461. 15. Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament, 76. 16. Beare, Gospel according to Matthew, 323. 17. E. Bammel, "Jesus as a political agent in a version of the Josippon," in Jesus and the Politics of his Day, E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) 227. 18. E.g., see Farmer, Synoptic Problem, and Bellinzoni, ed., The Two-Source Hypothesis. 19. The main argument against the Augustine hypothesis has been that the behavior of Luke's writer is inexplicable if, while preferring Mark over Matthew, he disrespectfully failed to follow Matthew's order when borrowing from Matthew. However, this and related arguments are not irreversible, and can be traced back to theological commitment. Also, the most telling arguments against the Griesbach hypothesis come from its placement of Mark after Luke, rather than from Matthean priority. See Deardorff, Gospel Origins, 93-103, 157-175. For other reasons why Luke can be logically argued to be the last of the synoptic gospels, see Goulder, Luke, vols. 1 and 2. Go Back to: Contents The Ober-Sadelegg Movie Meier made no written record of the date of this 8mm movie-camera session, as he took no photos with his 35mm camera on this occasion, and only during his still-camera sessions did he enter date, time and location. However, from Meier's recollection, expressed while the film was being video-taped at Meier's residence in 1979, it occurred in June or July of 1975. He filmed it with one of two different movie cameras listed in his Verzeichnis, the Raynox XL and the Nalcom FTL, we don't know which. The site is designated Ober- Sädelegg, located little more than a kilometer southeast of Schmidrüti, where he moved to in 1977. Stevens gathered that the occasion of this movie segment was probably not the same as that of 8 March, 1975, when Meier took still photos at a location very close by also designated as Ober-Sädelegg. This movie segment is the only one in which Meier himself is depicted. He set up the camera on his tripod, and aimed it slightly upwards, so that it showed a foreground path up a hill as well as some sky above and beyond. He turned on his camera, apparently upon telepathic communication from Semjase, walked into the scene up the path, and then squatted and pointed up at her beamship, which stayed a rather large distance away. He is seen gesturing while communicating telepathically to her requesting her to move in closer, but she did not comply. Fig. 1. Frame from the Ober-Sädelegg movie segment, of "Beamship: The Movie Footage," after Meier had taken about 19 steps up the path. Without brightening enhancement, only his head shows up well. After another half step, he squats down. The movie segment shows him walking back also, altogether giving us a very good indication of how far away he had been just before finally squatting down. This, along with the dimensions provided by Meier himself, allows us to closely estimate what the camera's focal-length setting had been. Estimating the camera's focal-length setting. The camera equation gives: Focal length = (Length of object on 8mm film) x (Distance away) / (Actual length), which then is useful in looking into the hoax hypothesis. The distance was first estimated from the 19 steps Meier took up the path until he finally squatted down against the slope to the right. These were fairly small steps being uphill, estimated as 1.8' (ft) each for the first eight steps, 1.3' each for the next three when he moved at an angle and then squatted down the first time, and 1.8' for each of the last 8 steps. The result is decreased a foot for the small additional step taken while shifting from standing (Fig. 1) to squatting down. It is augmented by 5' as the estimated distance in striding away from the tripod before he came into the camera's view. The resulting distance is 37.7'. A second distance estimate comes from his strides back towards the camera: 13 steps, each estimated at 2.5', decreased by 1' in first standing up before striding, and augmented again by 5' while out of sight close to one side of the tripod. This amount comes to 37.5'. Hence we adopt an average of 37.6' for the distance from the camera to Meier in Fig. 1, realizing that this could be in error by some 10%. For a length scale, 5'10" was taken as Meier's height, from the bottom of the heel of his left leg upwards to the top of the head. For this estimate, Fig. 1 was enhanced in brightness and contrast so that the position of his heel could better be assessed (Fig. 2). Fig. 2. Same frame as in Fig. 1 after enhancement of brightness and contrast. With this length estimate, after taking the ratio of Meier's height on the image to the full width of the image, and multiplying by 8 mm, the camera equation gave a focal length of 10.6 mm. As a second length scale, the width of the back of Meier's head was taken as 6.5" (inches). After similar measurements and arithmetic, a focal length of 9.4 mm was obtained. According to Meier's Verzeichnis, his Nalcom FTL camera had a focal length that could range from 8 mm to 64 mm; his Raynox XL had a focal length ranging from 10.5 mm to 30 mm. The value obtained is close to the lower focal-length limit of either camera. It suggests that he used the camera with focal length set to its minimum value, so that he could better assure that Semjase's craft would show up, as well as the foreground which included himself. However, the errors inherent in the present analysis prevent us from determining which camera he used here. We do know that Meier used the one camera during 1975 and the other camera during 1976, since Stevens shot sample photos of the film for almost all the segments and presented them in Preliminary Investigation Report, Appendix I; frames from the two cameras are distinguishable by the cusp at the top-center of the Nalcom camera frames, and those all occurred in 1976. Here we adopt an intermediate focal-length value, between the minima of the two cameras, of 9.4 mm with uncertainty of ±14%. Problems with the hoax hypothesis. If the beamship or UFO seen in Fig. 1 were a model of typical width 1 ft, its distance from the camera, as determined with the aid of the camera equation, using a focal length of 9.5 mm, would be 105', or 32 meters. This would require much too long a pole, out of the camera's sight, with which to support the model. If a 1" model, it would be nearly 9' away, requiring a pole about 20' long (extending upwards at a 45° angle, and anchored to the ground behind the tripod). Even this length of support pole is scarcely manageable, and would leave a tiny 1" model swinging in the breezes. The craft in the movie segment did not undergo such oscillatory movements. Assuming it was the beamship of diameter 7 m, its distance was 740 m. Go to: Contents Concerning the OM and its relationship to the Book of Enoch Explanatory Notes and Tentative Translations by Vivienne Legg (gaiaguys@nor.com.au), edited by J.W. Deardorff, Dec. 2004 The OM was written down by Eduard Albert "Billy" Meier between 10th May '83 and 9th October '84. (Published in '88 in German.) It's described as "The Book of Books," and as Billy's greatest work. It comprises 77 Kanons of 7,616 verses, over 455 pages. Each Kanon contains a number of verses being a multiple of seven. The parts of OM which, we are told, were in the original Ur-OM written down by Henok (Enoch) (389,000 years before 1984!), were delivered to Billy by Ptaah, via telepathy, also in '83-84. As far as I can tell, it's basically just Kanons 31 and 33, which seem to correspond to the Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) in overall structure, however with persistent differences which relay a profoundly different message. OM's introduction explains that the vast number of proverbs of wisdom contained in OM have been produced in their original and correct form through Billy's own efforts. (Presumably these were also originally relayed by Henok). According to the introduction, these proverbs were known in Lyrian as the Salomonische Weisheit (wisdom proverbs of peace), and were drawn from directly by King Solomon, who was wrongly given credit for them, and who, to a large extent, greatly falsified them. There are other parts of OM comprised of Semjase's words written down by Billy, basically including and following on from "The Introduction to the Spiritual Teaching", and all remaining teachings, proverbs, explanations and clarifications come from Billy. The OM's introduction explains that it often uses very old German spelling. No complete translation into English yet exists (as of November, 2004) or is authorized by Meier. The German version is sold by Meier's group (FIGU). Most of the OM is delivered straight as the teachings of the current prophet (Meier, whose past lives extend back to Henok and then long before). However the section on Henok is presented as a re-transmittal of that which Henok produced in his time. It contains, among other things, the only account in OM of what took place between the heaven's sons and daughters and the Earth people. Some main points are included below. Other than the Henok section, there is little in OM of a historic nature. It basically contains what appear to be the original spiritual teachings, which have been corrupted to a greater or lesser extent in the Bible and elsewhere. Most of OM is simply the timeless spiritual teachings considered applicable throughout the universe by the Plejarens and their forefathers. Quite a lot of what is presented by Billy sounds like it comes from the figure we know as Jmmanuel. It's all rather timeless, and thus a little confusing regarding who exactly is speaking when. After all, in most instances it's the same spirit form (of the prophet) that speaks, who holds the memories, both past and prophetic, of his incarnations. That is, from Kanon 20, with the German language Meier received it in printed first, and the tentative English translation following: 95. Es waren gegeben den Menschengeschlechtern und Völkern der Erde Propheten von alters her, so also ward gesendet der Henoch und der Elja, der Jesaja und der Jeremja, und der Jmmanuel und der Mohammed in direkter Folge und steter Wiedergeburt, nebst dem Johannes und Eljas und dem Hjob und allem Heer der anderen Rechtschaffenen und Gerechten, wie sie da auch waren der Buddha, der Zoroaster und der Babatschi und andere. 95. The humankind and peoples of the Earth were given prophets since ancient times, so therefore were sent Henoch and Elja [Elijah], Jesaja [Isaiah] and Jeremja [Jeremiah] and Jmmanuel and Mohammed in direct succession and always reincarnated, along with Johannes [John the Baptist] and Elijas [Elisha] and Hjob and all hosts of other upstanding and righteous ones, as also were Buddha, Zoroaster, Babatschi and others. Periodically the voice of the JHWH (highest Plejaren leader) speaks in the OM. The OM's first seven Kanons are dedicated to making absolutely sure the reader understands that the JHWH is not "God," but just a king of wisdom and like a father friend to the prophet (i.e., to Henoch and his later incarnations), and that neither are to be worshipped or be confused with Creation. Kanon 25 is all about the true nature and role of the prophet. Kanon 52 is all about "God" versus Creation. Exerpts from KANON 31 --The first arrival of the Sons and Daughters of heaven-- 109. Und es geschehete in jenen Tagen, nachdem die Menschenkinder der Erde sich gemehret hatten, dass da die Söhne und Töchter der Himmel Zur Erde kamen, die da waren die Weithergereisten aus den Tiefen des Universums. 109. And it happened one day, after the human kind of the Earth had increased, that the sons and daughters of heaven came to Earth, who were the far travelers out of the depths of the Universes. 110. Es waren die Menschenkinder in jenen Tagen noch wild und unbändig, doch waren ihnen eigen Schönheit in grossem Masse, also den Weibchen und den Männchen. 110. At that time the human kind were still wild and unruly, yet they had beauty in great measure, both the women and the men. 111. End es ersahen die Söhne und Töchter der Himmel die Schönheit der Menschenkinder der Erde, also nach ihnen gelüstete und sie rätig wurden untereinander und sprachen: "Wohlan, wir wollen uns Mannen und Weiber auswählen unter den Menschenkindern dieser Welt, so wir mit ihnen Nachkommen zeugen und eigene Völker gründen." 111. And the sons and daughters of heaven saw the beauty of the human kind of the Earth and therefore lusted after them. And they consulted amongst each other and said, "Well, we will choose for ourselves men and women of this world so that we can produce descendants with them and establish our own people." 112. Es ward aber diese Tun wider das Angeordnete des JHWH, der da ware der oberste Führer der Weithergereisten aus den Tiefen des Universums. 112. This would be done against the orders of the JHWH, who was the highest leader of the far travellers out of the depths of the Universes. 113. Und es hatte der oberste Führer, der JHWH, Unterführer, die da waren seine Stellvertreter unter den Söhnen und Töchtern der Himmel, die da gleichsam waren Wächter und genennet Wächterengel. 113. And the highest leader, the JHWH, had sub-leaders who were his representatives among the sons and daughters of heaven. These sub-leaders were the same as guards and were named watcher angels. 114. Unter ihnen aber war Semjasa, der oberste Führer der Unterführer, der da war in Verantwortung zum JHWH, und er sprach also zu den Söhnen und Töchtern der Himmel, als er gewahr wurde das Vorhaben derselben: “Wohlan, ich fürchte, dass ihr nicht willig seid, eure Tat auszuführen und dafür die drohende Strafe auf euch zu nehmen, denn ihr wisset sehr wohl, dass solches Tun im Verbote stehet durch den JHWH, also müsste ich allein die Strafe erdulden müssen.” 114. But among them was Semjasa, the highest leader of the sub-leaders who were responsible to the JHWH. And he spoke to the sons and daughters of heaven as he became aware of what they had in mind. "Well, I fear that you are not willing to follow through with your deed and therefore to take on the threatened punishment, because you know very well that such acts are forbidden by the JHWH. Therefore I must alone endure the punishment." 115. Es antworteten aber alle und sprachen: ”Alle wollen wir einen Schwur tun zur Verbundenheit und uns untereinander dadurch verpflichten, unser Vorhaben nicht aufzugeben und dieses durchzuführen und Schweigen darüber zu bewahren, dass es der JHWH nicht erfahret.” 115. But they all answered and said, "We will all swear an oath to bind us together obliging us not to abandon our intentions but to follow through, and preserve silence about it so that the JHWH does not come to know. 116. Also schwuren sie alle zusammen und verpflichteten sich untereinander, und alsbald gingen sie heimlich weg, in der Zahl von Zweihundert, und flogen mit einem singenden Lichte zum Scheitel eines Berges. 116. And so they all swore an oath together and obliged themselves to each other, and soon they went secretly away in the number of 200 and flew with a singing light to the peak of a mountain. 117. Und als sie waren gelandet auf dem Scheitel des Berges, also shwuren sie sich ein andermal den Schwur des dunklen Bundes, und also benenneten sie den Berg des Schwures in ihrer Sprache Ardjs, was da saget Schwurberg. 117. And as they were landed on the peak of the mountain they swore another time the oath of the dark bond and therfore named the mountain the Mountain of the Oath, in their language Ardjs, which means Oath Mountain. 118. Und es waren unter den Zweihundert der Oberste der Unterführer, Semjasa, und also waren da unter allen anderen auch niederigere Unterführer, die da waren benennet mit den Namen Andanj, Ezekeel, Daanel, Urakjbarameel, Arjjsa, Lunera, Akjbeel, Tamjela, Tamjel, Ramuela, Asaela, Asael, Batraala, Armers, Sarakajal, Arazjal, Turela, Jomael, Sartael, Satanon, Samsafel, Satana, Zakebel, Larjjsa und Terjel. 118. And among the 200 sub-leaders the highest was Semjasa and therefore among all the others were lower subleaders, and they were named Andanj, Ezekeel, Daanel, Urakjbarameel, Arjjsa, Lunera, Akjbeel, Tamjela, Tamjel, Ramuela, Asaela, Asael, Batraala, Armers, Sarakajal, Arazjal, Turela, Jomael, Sartael, Satanon, Samsafel, Satana, Zakebel, Larjjsa und Terjel. 119. Also nahmen sich die Töchter und Söhne der Himmel Mannen und Weiber von den Menschenkindern der Erde, un die Töchter wähleten sich aus einen Mann, und jeder Sohn wählete sich aus ein Weib, und alsdann fingen sie an, hineinzugehen zu ihnen in zuchtlosem Vermischen. [Roughly:] 119. Therefore the daughters and sons of heaven took men and women from the human kind of the Earth, and the daughters chose themselves a man and every son chose himself a woman, and then they began to engage in undisciplined/licentious mixing. 122. Es ward aber, dass die Menschenkinder der Erde waren anders geartet als die Söhne und Töchter der Himmel, also sie gebäreten Nachkommen, die da anders waren als sie. 122. The human kind of the Earth were differently formed than the sons and daughters of heaven, therefore they bore descendants that were different from them. 123. Und sie gabäreten Nachkommen, die da schnell haranwachseten und grösser waren als die Menschenkinder der Erde, und also grösser als die Söhne und Töchter der Himmel. 123. And they bore descendants that grew quickly and were bigger than the human kind of the Earth and therefore bigger than the sons and daughters of heaven. 124. Denn die Nachkommen wachseten heran zu Riesen, die da messeten in der Länge dreiunddreissig Fuss, was da ist dreissig Ellen. 124. Then the descendants grew on to become giants that measured 33 feet in height, which is 30 ells. Presumably this great height is a maximum height reached over many generations of the giants. The "feet" units refer to whatever the typical non-giant's foot length was in those days, probably a little less than 12 inches, while the "ell" refers to some original "elbow-size" unit comparable in length. Even if it represented 33 9-inch-sized feet, a height of 25 ft still seems almost incredibly large. Where are all the fossil remains, one might ask. The answer appears to lie within the field of "forbidden archaeology" (see book of this title by Michael Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, 1994), which can no more be discussed in scientific circles than can UFOs. However, many reputable reports do exist on fossils of giants. Here's an example from Essex, England, and here's a report of tombs with 15-ft tall giants from the Euphrates Valley in S.E. Turkey. See also this link. There are reports of their graves within mounds, and of giant petrified human footprints. There are Australian giant fossils & tools that date from 10,000 to 240,000 years ago. And we must not forget all the Biblical references to giants of only somewhat lesser stature who persisted past the days of Noah: Nm 13:33 (the Nephilim); Dt 2:20, 3:11; 2 Sm 21:16,18,20,22; and 1 Chr 20:4,6,8. Even Flavius Josephus mentions them in a serious vein, in his Antiquities (Book V, Chap. 2, Para. 3), where he states that back in the days of Moses there were still some giants "who had bodies so large, and countenances so entirely different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight, and terrible to the hearing. The bones of these men are still shown to this very day." An interesting account of such evidence worldwide is found in the article by Boyd Rice. From Greek mythology we may speculate that Henoch had some sort of contact with the surviving giants of latter days. This is because Henoch was actually Atlas of Greek mythology (see Milik, J. T., The books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 9). Atlas is known for having been involved in the Greek battle against the Titans, though he is said to have sided with the Titans, provoking the wrath of Zeus. These Titans must have been descendants of the giants described above. The above cited biblical evidence of giants has nothing to do with what is known as creationism. BELOW IS A PARAPHRASE OF 7 VERSES FOLLOWING 31:124: There were many descendants and after a few generations they became a great people. They increased and became wild and unruly like the people of the Earth from whom they had come. They were big eaters and consumed everything, and there came to be need and hunger. In hunger the giants turned to attacking the human kind of the Earth and the sons and daughters of heaven who had produced them. They imprisoned, slaughtered and ate them. 132. Und als die Riesen nicht mehre finden konnten die Menschenkinder der Erde und die Söhne und Töchter der Himmel, da begannen sie zu shänden alles Getier, das sich da regete. 132. And as the giants could no more find the human kind of the Earth and the sons and daughters of heaven they began to violate all animals that moved. 133. Also schliefen sie bei dem Getier, den Vögeln, dem Getier des Landes und den Fischen der Wasser also, sie aber töteten sie auch und frassen sie auf untereinander, so sie Nahrung hatten am Fleische und also das Blut trinketen. 133. Therefore they copulated with animals - the birds, the animals of the lands and the fish of the water. They also killed them and ate each other, so they had nourishment from flesh and therefore blood to drink. 134. Also ward gezeuget dadurch das Böse auf Erden, das Ungerechte und der Krieg, die Lüge und das Blutvergiessen und alles andere Uebel, das da ist unter den Menschen der Erde. 134. Therefore through this was produced evil on Earth, unrighteousness and war, lies and blood- pouring and all other evil that there is among the humans of the Earth. 135. Es lebeten aber die Riesen lange Zeit auf Erden, ehe sie in Unfruchtbarkeit verfalleten und aussterbeten. 135. The giants lived for a long time on Earth before they became infertile and died out. 136. Die Menschenkinder der Erde waren entwichen in ferne Lande, und mit ihnen waren die Söhne und Töchter der Himmel. 136. The humans of the Earth and the sons and daughters of heaven, who had all fled the giants, then lived together in a far-off land. It is uncertain what fraction of the human population of that region went with the sons and daughters of heaven to the distant land, and where that land was. We presume it was still on Earth. 137. Sie alle aber ware gefangen im Geschehen, das da ward erzeuget durch die Riesen, die da waren ihre Nachkommen und Nachkommen der Nachkommen. 137. They all were imprisoned by events that were produced through the giants, who were their descendants, and descendants of their descendants. 142. Und es waren die Menschenkinder der Erde unterwiesen durch die Söhnen und Töchtern der Himmel in allerlie Handwerk und in vielen anderen Dingen, so also auch im Gutem und im Bösen. 142. And so the human kind of the Earth were instructed by the sons and daughters of heaven in all kinds of handiwork and in many other things, so therefore also in good and in evil. 196. Und es werden sich erfüllend in kommender Zeit alle eure Uebel an euch selbst, da ihr doch sein werdet eure eigenen Nachkommen eurer Nachkommen und die Zeuger der Zeuger, und also die Alten der Zeuger und die Alten der Alten. 196. [very roughly:] And it will come to pass in coming time that all your evil comes back on yourselves. You will be the descendants of your own descendants, the begetters of the begetters and the ancestors of the ancestors. Above, in 31:196, Henok appears to be addressing people of his time as the biblical Enoch. In saying that they would be the descendants of their own descendants, he is apparently saying that their spirits would continue to reincarnate into the bodies of their descendants whose spirits had long before inhabited the earlier "sons and daughters of heaven," and that they would have to contend then with the corruption "they" had caused. 551. Und es offenbaret der JHWH das Geheimnis um Semjasa und seine Anhänger und um die Geschehen, die da veränderten den Lauf des Fortschrittes auf der Erde. 551. And the JHWH revealed the secrets around Semjasa and his followers and around the events that changed the course of the progress on the Earth. 552. "Es ward dreihundertachtundsiebzigtausend und vierhundertachtzehn Jahre vor Henoks erseter Geburt auf Erden, als sich zutragete das Geschehen um Semjasa und seine Spiessgesellen, die da getötet waren durch die Todessonnen. 552. It was 378,418 years before Henok's first birth on Earth, when the events around Semjasa and his accomplices who were killed there through the death sun took place. As to the meaning of "death sun," the following translation from a preceding verse tells us this: Kanon 31:166. But Semjasa and Asasel were skillful/experienced in the production/manufacture of death suns out of the rocks/stones of life... --The second arrival of the Sons and Daughters of Heaven-- 557. Es ward aber grundet dreitausendsiebenhundert Jahre vor der ersten Geburt Henoks auf Erden, als da die Töchter und Söhne der Himmel und ihr JHWH reiseten andermals zur Erde, nach vielen neuen Wiederleben. 557. It was but around 3,700 years before the first birth of Henok on Earth that the daughters and sons of heaven and their JHWH (at that time) travelled another time to Earth after many new reincarnations. 560. Und es ward da grundet das Jahr eintausendsiebenhundert vor der ersten Geburt Henoks auf Erden, als Semjasa, der Himmelssohn und Aufseher des des JHWH, des grossen Herrschers der Weithergereiseten aus den Tiefen des Universums durch seine eigene Ratgebung mit einem irdischen Weibe zeugete den Nachkommen Adam, den Vater des weissen Menschengeschlechtes, das da ward gleichsam den Söhnen und Töchtern der Himmel. 560. And it was there around the year 1,700 before the first birth of Henok on Earth that Semjasa, the heaven's Son and overseer of the JHWH, the great ruler of the far travellers out of the depths of the Universes, through his (the JHWH's) advice, with an Earthly wife produced the descendant Adam, the father of the white race, that would be the same [have the same general appearance] as the sons and daughters of heaven. [It is at this point that the Talmud of Jmmanuel's genealogy commences, and that within the Old Testament.] 566. Es bringeten aber die Lehren des Henok keine grossen Früchte unter den Menschenkindern der Erde, also er ward wiedergeboren in neuer Zeit als Prophet und also als Sohn des Jared. 566. But the teaching of Henok brought no great fruit with the human kind of the Earth, therefore he was reincarnated in a newer time as Prophet and therefore as the son of Jared. The following are excerpts from a later section From KANON 42, Meier as prophet speaking now: 396. Ursprünglich haben einst auf der Erde drei Menschengeschlechter gelebt, und davon sprechen die ältesten Sagen der Völker, die noch nichts von irreführenden und verfälscheten Religionsbüchern wussten. 396. Originally have once on the Earth three human races lived, and of them speak the oldest legends of the people, who knew nothing of erroneously leading and falsified religious books. 398. Nur die ältesten Sagen und Legenden der Völker, wie Z.B. bei den Indianern, deuten auf eine solche Zeit zurück, und sie allein sprechen von den drei Menschengeschlechtern. 398. Only the oldest myths and legends of the people, for example those of the Indians, point back to such a time, and they alone speak of the three human races. 399. Und zu dieser Zeit war der Mensch noch reinste Unschuld, und da waren seine sinnlichen Triebe und die Empfindungen seiner Psyche in keinem Widerspruch mit den heiligen Gesetzen und Geboten des Geistes. 399. And to this time was the human still purely innocent, and his sensual drives and perceptions of his psyche were not in opposition with the holy laws and directives of the spirit. 400. Damals war der Mensch noch einiger mit der Schöpfung und der Natur. 400. At that time the human was still at one with the Creation and nature. 401. Wilst du nun, Mensch der Erde, deinen Abfall und dieses Entstehen der inneren Zwiestracht mit dir selbst erklären, dann blicke einerseits auf die Geschichte der Ausserirdischen, die das Uebel zur Erde brachten, und andererseits blicke auf die Geschichte jedes einzelnen Sterblichen von seiner Geburt an, und blicke also auf die Geschichte deines eigenen Lebens zurück. 401. If you will now, human of the Earth, explain your decline and the coming into being of the inner discord with yourself, then glimpse, on one side, the story of the extrarerrestrials who brought evil to the Earth, and, on the other side, glimpse the story of any single mortal from his birth on, and glimpse therefore the story of your own life back. 426. Als die ersten der irdischen Menschengeschlechter einmal durch den Sinnesrausch der Ausserirdischen verführt waren, hatten sie schnell das Schöpferische in sich vergessen. 426. As the first of the human generations once were seduced through the intoxication of the senses of the extraterrstrials, they quickly forgot that which is Creational within them. The foregoing, though only a tiny fraction of the OM's 455 pages, gives an indication of how much more complete it is than the Book of Enoch (1 Enoch). More on the OM can be found here. www.figu.org/ us/ figu/ supporter/ kinder.htm An Open Letter to the UFO Community by Gary Kinder, author of "Light Years" I have received so many phone calls and letters (and copies of letters sent to others) about the forthcoming LIGHT YEARS, it seems appropriate for me to write a letter of explanation. Had I not been involved with the arrival of a new daughter two weeks ago, I would have written this letter much sooner. I know that many of you were confused to hear I was writing a book on Meier; I also know that most of you will understand when I offer a proper explanation. Here it is. Though no one in the UFO community has seen the manuscript for LIGHT YEARS, much of the vehemence over its publication seems to arise from a feeling that I betrayed the UFO community, that I pretended to be interested in ufology, its history, and its people, when my only intention was to write about Meier. Some of you may have felt used. I have been researching the Meier case since the fall of 1983. In 1984 and the first half of 1985 I made three trips to Switzerland totaling about thirteen weeks in [the] country visiting the alleged contact sites, speaking with Meier, interviewing witnesses (some of whom are detractors), and talking to neighbors, town administrators, etc. I also made side trips to Munich and London. In the States I traveled several times to Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, San Jose, and the Los Angeles area to speak with the people who had investigated the case, the ufologists who had called it a hoax (Korff, Lorenzen, Moore, Spaulding), and the scientists who had analyzed the Meier evidence. Yes, qualified scientists, engineers, and a special effects expert did analyze the Meier evidence, and yes they were intrigued by what they found. More on that later. Everyone I talked to in the UFO community, except Lou Farrish, warned me that the Meier case was poison. They said that Meier made preposterous claims about traveling back and forth in time to speak with Jesus and to photograph the future destruction of San Francisco. Some pointed to Bill Spaulding and said that he had found ten of the Meier photos to be patently fraudulent. Others pointed to Kal Korff, who, they claimed, had conducted an exemplary investigation of the case. After two years of research and over 120 interviews in Switzerland and the U.S., I finally told my editor I simply could not make sense of the Meier case; it all was too confusing, and I had no idea how to begin laying out the story. If everything I had uncovered concerning the case had proved to be negative, I would have found it easy to abandon the project-my editor had given me that option from the beginning; the problem was that I discovered many aspects of the case that truly were intriguing and difficult to explain. In the meantime I had read many books on ufology to become familiar with the field, and I found the UFO community and the history of UFOs fascinating. I felt there was a book in it, and during the fall of 1985 I began to focus my research on the broader picture, traveling first to Washington, D.C., to spend a week with Dick Hall, Bruce Maccabee, Larry Bryant, et al., though I still was under contract for a book on Meier. (When Maccabee asked me how I became interested in the field, I told him and several others present at a Fund meeting that my first exposure was through the Meier case.) My editor agreed that a bigger UFO book would be a good one. I began to concentrate on this book, quitting work on Meier, packing up all of my research on him in big boxes, and throwing them into the basement. When I spoke with the Washington, D.C. group, and later in the spring/summer of 1986 attended Hal Starr's conference in Phoenix, the MUFON symposium in Lansing, and Sprinkle's contactee convention in Laramie, I myself was under the impression my research was for a book on ufology, not the Meier case. At the same time I began traveling to attend the various UFO symposia to acquaint myself with more of the community, my editor met with me in Phoenix at Starr's conference and encouraged me at least to give the Meier story a try, just to write it simply and as it happened. Continue to research the other book, he said, but get something on paper about Meier. With that completed, I could go on to the bigger book on ufology. So I pulled my Meier research out of the basement and forced myself to sit down and wade through all of it to try to piece something together. Once I did that, though, all of a sudden LIGHT YEARS came pouring out of me. A 15-page treatment grew in three weeks to a 100-page outline, and in three months I had a 300-page manuscript. Then I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote. Once it began to fall together I liked it more, and when I assembled all of the quotes from the scientists the story began to feel far more solid than it had while I was researching. I also finally located the two sound engineers who had analyzed Meier's audio tapes, and the special effects expert who had studied the Meier 8mm footage and some of the photos back in 1980. The two engineers told me the sounds were unlike anything they had ever heard, or seen, on a spectrum analyzer. The special effects expert informed me that Meier could have created the films and photographs only with a team of experts and tens of thousands of dollars worth of sophisticated equipment. (From my own experiences in Switzerland I knew that neither of these existed.) I had heard so many negative references to Meier for so long I had nearly forgotten similar intriguing things that the scientists had told me two years earlier. My editor liked what I was writing. He showed it to the people at Atlantic Monthly Press, where he has his new imprint, and everyone there liked it, too. Last October they took the first half of the manuscript to the Frankfurt Book Fair as their lead title, while I continued to work on the manuscript, as it was far from being finished. I honestly don't know how many drafts I finally completed, but figure is somewhere between five and seven. Then last fall two things happened: My editor felt that the Meier story needed to be set in historical context, that I needed to provide the reader with background on the UFO phenomenon itself. Not only did I already have a tremendous amount of research in that area, I had also completed 35 pages of a proposal on the bigger UFO book. I expanded that work, pulled in more detail, and weaved it into the Meier story. You will find about one-half of the second half of LIGHT YEARS is all Arnold, Robertson, Condon, Hynek, Blue Book, Hill, etc. The second thing that happened was that when my editor took the manuscript to Frankfurt he discovered that even in Europe books on UFOs are difficult to sell, too difficult. After that experience he and his publisher both told me they felt it would be unwise for me to follow a book on Meier with another book on UFOs. So we decided to utilize all of my research into the history of ufology for the Meier book and go on to something new for my next project, a decision that frankly left me not too unhappy. Ufology is a frustrating field to research and more frustrating to try to make sense of and put down on paper in a readable fashion. Emotions run so high and name-calling among the ufologists (even without the Meier case) is so rampant, a writer finds himself wallowing in explanations and counterexplanations until every sentence dissolves into battle and nothing is decided. Anyhow, the foregoing is why many of you (and I) thought I was researching a book on ufology when we met in Michigan, or Washington, D.C., or Phoenix, or Laramie. Prior to beginning that general research, I always informed those I interviewed that while I wished to know more about the entire field, I was particularly interested in the Meier case. Spaulding, Moore, Lorenzen, Korff, Starr, all knew back in 1984-85 that I was looking primarily at the Meier case during the early part of my research. This sentence from my letter to Kal Korff on March 28, 1985, is indicative: "I am researching a book about the UFO community, what it does, who it is, where it is (in more ways than one). I'm particularly interested in the Swiss Case or the Meier case, which seems to have generated a fair amount of emotion within the community. I know you have referred to it as the most infamous hoax in the history of ufology." The next quote comes from a letter written by Bill Spaulding the day after I interviewed him. "It was a pleasure talking to you on January 6, 1985, regarding the subject of unidentified flying objects and the Billy Meier hoaxed UFO photographs. Because the Meier incident is such an obvious hoax, and further publicity extended to this incident ... will only provide additional exposure to this case. We cannot involve ourselves to any extent which could further generate favorable publicity for the conspirators of the Pleiades book." In a small community whose members correspond regularly, it was no secret that I was researching the Meier case. Now on the substance of LIGHT YEARS. Many of the witnesses I interviewed in Switzerland, none of whom had ever been contacted by anyone in ufology, had seen things happen to Meier that no one could explain: Standing next to another man, he once disappeared instantly from the roof of a barn twelve feet off the ground; in a separate incident he suddenly reappeared, warm and dry, in a group of men standing in a dark and secluded forest in a freezing rainstorm. These scenes, associated with alleged contact experiences, appear in much greater detail in the book. They may be tricks, but if so they were performed by a master illusionist. When Meier claimed to have had a contact, sets of three six-foot diameter circles would appear in a meadow surrounded by thick woods. I did not see these myself, but talked to several people who had seen them and who had photographed them while still fresh. Swirled counterclockwise and perfectly delineated in tall grass, one set remained for nine weeks, until a farmer came and mowed the grass. Here is the mystery of the landing tracks: Grass that is green rises even after being mashed down; grass that dies turns brown and lies flat. This grass remained green but never rose; it continued to grow in a flat circle. The landing tracks puzzled everyone I spoke to who had viewed them, including Meier's most ardent detractor, Hans Schutzbach. Schutzbach told me that other people had tried to duplicate the landing tracks, but that their efforts were "a bad copy." Meier's were "perfect." I listened to dozens of such stories, so many I could not include all of them in the book, including nighttime sightings of strange lights reported by a variety of people, many of whom witnessed the same incidents and corroborated each other's accounts. One nighttime photograph, taken by a school principal from Austria during an alleged contact, will appear in the book. On the other side, I know that Meier's photos of the alleged future destruction of San Francisco, for instance, came right out of the September 1977 issue of GEO Magazine. After one of the witnesses reported this to me, I found the magazine myself and compared the photographs. They were identical. All of this is in the book-the crazy claims, the apparent lies, the unexplained disappearances, the mysterious landing tracks, all weaved into the narrative. In London, Timothy Good provided me with many lengthy letters from Lou Zinsstag (who often had been pointed out by ufologists in the States as one who thought that Meier was a fraud and "crazy"). Zinsstag had written the letters between June 1976 and October 1977, as she investigated Meier and reported back to Good. In one letter she calls Meier "the most intriguing man I have ever met." She goes into great detail in her observations, including a description of "this feeling of discomfort" she experiences in Meier's presence. In another letter she writes, "If Meier turns out to be a fake, I shall take my whole collection of photographs to the ferry boat and drown it in the old man river of Basle." Back in the States I interviewed nine scientists/engineers/special effects experts who had analyzed or otherwise studied the Meier evidence. (One, Bob Post, is none of the three, but heads the photo lab at JPL.) Following is a sampling of what they had to say. Realize that where the photos are concerned an original transparency was never available for analysis, so none of the work done on those was definitive (Spaulding himself told me he had no idea of the generation of the photographs he analyzed); however, knowing this limitation, the scientists who did agree to examine them told me they would have been able to detect all but a very sophisticated hoax. Dr. Michael Malin is an associate professor of planetary sciences at Arizona State University; he wrote his doctoral thesis on the computer analysis of spacecraft images beamed back from Mars. He was at JPL for four years and he's worked with the special effects people at LucasFilm. He works under various government grants at ASU, and a recent experiment he devised has just been accepted for a future Shuttle launch. A friend of mine who is the science editor at National Geographic and who has researched and written many cover stories on the Universe, the Space Shuttle, etc., had spoken to Malin before and once told me, "If Malin says it, you can believe it." Here is one thing Malin said concerning the Meier photographs which he analyzed in 1981: "I find the photographs themselves credible, they're good photographs. They appear to represent a real phenomenon. The story that some farmer in Switzerland is on a first name basis with dozens of aliens who come to visit him ... I find that incredible. But I find the photographs more credible. They're reasonable evidence of something. What that something is I don't know." Malin also told me, "If the photographs are hoaxes then I am intrigued by the quality of the hoax. How did he do it? I'm always interested in seeing a master at work." These quotes, and all of the rest of the quotes I attribute to the scientists here, appear verbatim in the book. Steve Ambrose, sound engineer for Stevie Wonder and inventor of the Micro Monitor, a radio set complete with speaker that fits inside Wonder's ear, analyzed the Meier sound recordings. "The sound recording's got some surprising things in it," he told me. "How would you duplicate it? I'm not just talking about how to duplicate it audio-wise, but how do you show those various things on a spectrum analyzer and on the scope that it was doing? It's one thing to make something that sounds like it, it's another thing to make something that sounds like it and has those consistent and random oscillations in it. The sound of the spacecraft," he added, "was a single sound source recording that had an amazing frequency response. If it is a hoax I'd like to meet the guy that did it, because he could probably make a lot of money in special effects." His findings were corroborated by another sound engineer named Nils Rognerud. In 1978 Nr. Robert Nathan at JPL was sufficiently impressed with the Meier photographs to have copies made of Meier transparencies at the JPL photo lab. After the transfer he refused to analyze the photographs, however, because his developer discovered they were several generations away from the originals. Nathan felt that the transparencies were so far away in generation from the photographs he had seen that Wendelle Stevens had attempted to trick him. Later, I showed the Meier films to Nathan, and he laughed at some of them, but he couldn't figure out how Meier flew the ship into a scene and had it come to a sudden halt; or how it sould hover motionless while a pine branch in the lower right corner blows in a stiff wind. Nathan said, "He would have to be awfully clever, because that's a very steady holding. It would have to be a very, very good tethering." Then he said, "Apparently he's a sharp guy, very clever. So he should be given some points for effort." Nathan concluded about the films, "If this is a hoax, and it looks like it is to me but I have no proof, this is very carefully done. Tremendous amount of effort. An awful lot of work for one guy." From all of the scientists, these were the most negative comments I received. With Nathan saying that in theory the films could be hoaxed, I was curious about the logistics involved. Then I discovered that a special effects expert, Wally Gentleman, who for ten years had served as Director of Special Effects on the Canadian Film Board and who, for a year and a half, was director of special photographic effects for Stanley Kubrick's Film 2001, had viewed these same films. This is what he told me: "To produce the films, Meier really had to have a fleet of clever assistants, at least 15 people. And the equipment would be totally out of (Meier's) means. If somebody wanted me to cheat one of the films, $30,000 would probably do it, but this is in studio where the equipment exists. The equipment would cost another $50,000." That's for each of the seven Meier films. Gentleman also had examined the photographs. "My greatest problem is that for anybody faking this" (he pointed to one of the photographs) "the shadow that is thrown onto that tree is correct. Therefore, if somebody is faking it they have an expert there. And being an expert myself, I know that that expert knowledge is very hard to come by. So I say, 'Well, is that expert knowledge there or isn't it there?' Because if the expert knowledge isn't there, this has got to be real." Then there is Robert Post, who had been at the JPL photo laboratory for 22 years and was the head of that lab in 1979, when Nathan brought the Meier photos to him to have copies made. Post oversees the developing and printing of every photograph that comes out of JPL. Though he analyzed nothing, his eye for spotting fabrications far surpasses a lay-person's. Post told me: "From a photography standpoint, you couldn't see anything that was fake about the Meier photos. That's what struck me. They looked like legitimate photographs. I thought, 'God, if this is real, this is going to be really something.'" Besides working in the highly classified field of military defense, David Froning, an astronautical engineer with McDonnell Douglas for 25 years, has done exploratory research to develop ideas and technology for advanced spacecraft design. As a longtime member of the British Interplanetary Society and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, he has presented many papers on interstellar flight at technical conferences in Europe and the United States. In October 1985, he addressed the XXXVI International Astronautical Congress in Stockholm. Froning's wife discovered at a friend's house the photo journal published by the Elders in fall, 1979, and took it home to her husband because of one word in the text-tachyon. In Meier's notes from 1975, he spoke of the tachyon propulsion system utilized by the Pleiadians. For over a year Froning had been spending most of his spare time working to design just such a theoretical system. When he read more of Meier's notes on faster- than-light travel (he had contacted the Elders and Stevens for more information), he found that Meier's figures for the time required to achieve the speed of light (at which point, according to Meier, the tachyon system would kick in to make the hyper leap), and the distance a ship would have traveled at that point, were within 20 percent of his own calculations determined through the use of complex acceleration formulas. Froning told me, "If what this Meier is saying is just a hoax, he's being cued by some very knowledgeable scientists. I've only discussed this Meier case with scientists who are fairly open-minded about interstellar flight, but I'll tell you, the majority of them think it's credible and agree at least part, or sometimes all, of the things talked about by the Pleiadians." During my research I read an article from a British publication called The Unexplained, in which the author, referring to the alleged Meier metal analysis by Marcel Vogel at IBM, wrote, "Jim Dilettoso characteristically failed to further the cause by claiming that [the Elders] hold a 10-hour videotape of 'the entire lab proceedings' (which Dr. Vogel denies having made). 'And,' Dilettoso incautiously persisted, 'we have about an hour of him discussing why the metal samples are not possible in earth technology, going into intrinsic detail of why it is not done anywhere on earth.'" The author, of course, is poking fun at such a claim. I have seen that video. I have also seen another video in which Vogel states, "I cannot explain the metal sample. By any known combination of materials I could not put it together myself, as a scientist. With any technology that I know of, we could not achieve this on this planet." I've interviewed Vogel twice and he insists that the metal sample he spent so much time analyzing is unique. I spoke with him again three weeks ago and to this day he remains fascinated with the specimen. He said that if the metal sample had not disappeared while in his possession, he would now be continuing research on it with a number of other scientists from IBM and Ames Research. A reporter from the Washington Post also called Vogel two days ago and Vogel again verified the above quote. With exception of Vogel, and possibly Nathan, though he doesn't remember, none of these men had ever been interviewed by anyone in the UFO community. And Vogel even said to me on tape regarding one of the ufologists who did interview him about Meier: "Treat him with caution. He'll ramble on and he'll quote you out of context. So watch it." He also told me this same person "has taken my statements completely out of context and published them. This case has been badly mangled." In the book, I go into much greater detail with each of the scientists and engineers. I mention each by his real name (as I do everyone else in the story) and I include his place of employment. After completing the final draft of the manuscript I mailed to each of the scientists a packet which included everything in the manuscript pertaining to him. I asked that each make any corrections, technical or otherwise, he cared to make. I have heard back now from all of them either by mail or by phone during the past six weeks. Some had nothing to change, others made minor changes. Everything concerning their analyses of the evidence will appear in the book exactly as they have authorized it to appear. (Two weeks before sending his letter to my publisher attempting to persuade him not to publish LIGHT YEARS, Walt Andrus called me and we talked for forty-five minutes. During that conversation, I told Andrus of the comments made by the scientists. I gave him their names, I spelled the names for him, I gave him their places of employment, and I encouraged him to contact them for verification of their statements, three of which appeared in an ad for the book in Publishers Weekly. Apparently, he never did so.) In his letter to me Michael Malin opened with this: "Thanks for letting me see what you have written. It's a credit to your writing that I cannot tell whether you are a supporter or a detractor of Dilettoso, and of the claims of the people who supplied the UFO images." Eric Eliason of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, is the ninth of the experts I spoke with. After receiving his packet, he wrote to me, "Thank you for the accurate representation of my views on the Meier UFO photographs. If your LIGHT YEARS publication remains as objective as the pages you provided, I will look forward to reading what you have to say." Eliason creates image processing software so astrogeologists can analyze photographs of the planets beamed back from space. He spent two years producing the intricate radar map of cloud-covered Venus acquired by Pioneer 10, and his software has been applied in processing space photography beamed back, by both Viking and Voyager. He was sent to France and to China as a representative of the U.S. space program and an expert in image processing. He had analyzed the Meier photos on his equipment in 1981. He told me in an interview in August 1984: "In the photographs there were no sharp breaks where you could see it had been somehow artificially dubbed. And if that dubbing was registered in the film, the computer would have seen it. We didn't see anything." What would you do with evidence like this? Would you diregard it because Meier makes outlandish claims? Or because a ufologist reports that a colleague in Germany has a friend who saw ropes and pulleys hanging in Meier's barn? Or because Wendelle Stevens is now in prison? Or because Meier has an 18-inch model of one of the Pleiadian beamships sitting in his office? Or because a group of believers has formed around the man? And if you had a choice between the analyses performed by the scientists Malin at ASU and Eliason at USGS and those performed by Bill Spaulding at Ground Saucer Watch, on which would you stake your reputation? After all of the bad-mouthing given the Meier case, I was surprised to learn that ufologists like Walt Andrus had never heard of Malin, or Eliason, or Gentleman, or Froning, or Ambrose, or even the alleged detractors in Switzerland Hans Schutzbach and Martin Sorge. Schutzbach was Meier's right-hand man for two years, with him night and day, driving him to contacts, organizing and cataloguing all of the photographs, measuring and photographing the landing tracks. Then they had a falling out, and Schutzbach left. He hates Meier and is certain Meier is a fraud; if anyone would know Meier's "technique" and be ready to divulge it, Schutzbach would be the man, yet to this day he has no clue how Meier could have made the tracks, or the photos, or the sound recordings, or the films. Nor does he have even one suggestion for an accomplice. Sorge, a cultured man with an university degree in chemistry and author of two books, had been mentioned frequently by ufologists as the one who discovered charred photographs and thereby exposed Meier as a fraud. He told me in the summer of 1985 that he is "certain" the contacts took place, though in a different fashion than Meier describes. He also told me the real story of how he obtained the burned slides. That, too, is much different than the version I got from ufologists here in the States. Again, all of this is in the book. One of the more interesting ironies in the current uprising of the UFO community against the publication of LIGHT YEARS is that every time someone slams the book (before it has been read) he points to Bill Spaulding and Kal Korff as the two authorities in whose skills the community places great faith. After all of the negative comments I have heard about Bill Spaulding's work from various members of the UFO community, why would anyone rely on his analysis of anything? Bill Moore, who is not known for his kind feelings toward the Meier case or the people who investigated it, had this to say about Spaulding in an interview on March 25, 1985: "He's generally regarded by anybody in the field as somebody to ignore. It's all puffery. He wrote a paper on the analysis of photographs, and I have a critique of that paper by a scientist who knows what he's talking about, and he just rips it to shreds. It sounds good unless you know what the system is and then you realize that the guy's a phony." While Korff was young and inexperienced, these factors do not necessarily discredit his work. But I am certain that few ufologists have heard him say what he told me in an interview on April 13, 1985: "I'm even open to the possibility that Meier had some genuine experience somewhere in there," he said, "but there's so much noise around his signal that I don't even know how to sift it. I've always maintained that, yeah, maybe there's something to it. Most of the people who have read my work say, 'Ah, the Meier case it totally a hoax, there's nothing to it.' I say, 'The claims [Stevens and the Elders] have made don't hold up; but it's possible the guy may have something somewhere." After three years of research and thinking about this story it finally came clear to me that two things kept the UFO community from taking a far more serious look at the Meier case: One, of course, is Meier's preposterous claims, and (in an ongoing effort to insulate itself from the fringe) the general reluctance of the community to accept any claim of contact, especially repeated contact; the other is that Lee Elders grabbed all of the evidence and sat on it. George Earley, after reviewing the Elderses' UFO ... Contact from the Pleiades, wrote in Saucer Smear that until the Intercep group produced some of the evidence they claimed to have, they deserved to be castigated by the UFO community. And Earley was right. So was Korff. The claims by themselves don't hold up. But the evidence in fact existed; I've talked to the people who examined it. None of the foregoing is offered as proof that Meier sat in a Swiss meadow and conversed with Pleiadians, but only to demonstrate that people intrigued by the Meier case, who see a fascinating story in the man, are not simplistic in their thinking. No one, including Stevens and the Elders, has ever claimed he possesses irrefutable evidence of the Meier contacts, and I do not make that claim now. No one in ufology can make that statement about any case. After I sent a letter similar to this one to Jerry Clark, he responded that while he continued to have serious reservations about Meier's claims to meet with extraterrestrials, he, too, found the Meier story "fascinating." "My colleagues are going to be astounded and confused," he wrote. "It really has been an article of faith among us (me included) that this whole business was just an exercise in heavy-handed fraud. But apparently you have shown it is rather more interesting than that. It's ironic. Ufologists forever complain that scientists and debunkers won't take an objective look at the UFO evidence. You have demonstrated, I think, that in this case the ufologists acted just like the people they criticize." You will find the book a balanced report that holds many surprises for you and other ufologists, and in no way degrades the stature of the UFO community or impedes its progress. Due to cooperation from many of you, the historical sections in LIGHT YEARS will provide readers with a true appreciation of the UFO phenomenon and those who study it. Like Jerry Clark, I myself remain fascinated with Meier, but uncertain about the truth behind the actual contacts. I end LIGHT YEARS with this: "I would not call him a prophet, though he may be. I would not rule out imposter, though I have no proof. I know that if you boiled the story in a kettle you would find a hard residue composed of two things: One would be Meier's ravings about time travel, space travel, philosophy, and religion; the other would be the comments by the scientists and engineers impressed with the evidence he has produced. I can't believe the former, nor can I dismiss the latter. He may simply be one of the finest illusionists the world has ever known, possessing not the power but the skill to persuade others to see things that did not happen and do not exist. Perhaps he has no such ability; perhaps beings on a much higher plane have selected him and controlled him and used him for reasons far beyond our comprehension. I do know this: Trying to make sense of it all has been the most difficult thing I will ever do. Finally I realized, as the Elders had years before, that the truth of the Meier contacts will never be known." The entire homepage of the FIGU Community was self-created by the FIGU Community. The entire contents (texts and images) are property of the FIGU Community. Exclusively responsible for any content in this document is the author. © COPYRIGHT 2005 by FIGU, 'Freie Interessengemeinschaft fuer Grenz- und Geisteswissenschaften und Ufologiestudien', Semjase-Silver-Star-Center, CH-8495 Schmidrueti ZH, Switzerland. All rights reserved. No part of the writings, photographs, films, slides, etc. may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, performance, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the holder of the copyright. The FIGU Community expressly declares that it has no influence on the design and contents of linked pages. Therefore, the FIGU Community expressly dissociates itself from the contents of all those pages on its homepage that are linked to other homepages, and the FIGU Community does not make those pages its own property. This statement is valid regarding all links and all contents of pages that are shown on the FIGU Communitya€™s homepage and which may be addressed by banners and links. Overview of the TJ The translation of the Aramaic leaves of the first roll reads as if it is the original writing of the ministry and teachings of Jesus. However, it indicated that his original name was not Jesus, but had been Immanuel. His desire to have it be spelled starting with a "J" symbol is partially explained in Meier's Foreword to the TJ: it was to honor the Plejaren extraterrestrials who had long planned his life and mission, and in the language of their forefathers the symbol "J" had initiated their spelling of the name. The New Testament gospel most closely resembling the TJ is the Gospel of Matthew. It resembles the TJ closely in both wording, where the verses have close parallels, and in order, although each contains much text not contained by the other. Since 1986 I have been analyzing this Talmud and finding several hundred reasons consistent with its verses having been genuine and Matthew's verses having been derived from them. It is impressive that despite this close similarity between the two texts, the TJ contains its own theme-a no- frills New Age theme in its essence that is absent from Matthew except for traces left behind. The TJ gives its own story in a straightforward manner that is remarkably free from inconsistencies, ambiguities and interruptions in flow of thought, all of which scholars have found characterize Matthew many times over. Comparison of the two texts allows one to deduce which of Jmmanuel's teachings had to be altered or omitted to conform with the early Christianity that Paul had initiated, and which teachings of Jmmanuel managed to find their way into the Gospels almost intact. A summary of these teachings is presented here. Unfortunately, his teachings that were carried forward into Matthew essentially unaltered are in the minority. Comparison of the two texts leads to consistent reasons why the writer of Matthew made the changes he did. The spiritual message of the TJ, which is its main thrust, is both enlightening and inspiring for one whose belief system does not oppose certain basics of New Age thought. It is described in an internet article, whose source appeared in Wildfire magazine (vol. 4, No. 2; 1989), which I authored. I discuss the spirituality of the TJ further in the July issue (vol. 15, No. 3) of the J. of Religion and Psychical Research. Basically, this theme involves discussions of the human spirit, its gradual evolution over innumerable lifetimes, its immortality and its eventual merger with and into the Great Spirit or Universal Consciousness or God, which the TJ refers to as Creation. A related theme teaches the distinction between human-like beings much advanced over us (called guardian angels and celestial sons), and Creation; these beings are of course commonly referred to as extraterrestrials (ETs) or aliens today. Their leader, for whom Jmmanuel had great respect, is referred to as "Gott" (God) in the German translation but as El here, since the Aramaic word, "El," as in "Immanuel," is what was used to refer to this entity. However, "El" in the Old Testament is translated as "God," which then was the procedure followed by the TJ's translator. The overarching motif surrounding the TJ is that a certain alien group, who told Jmmanuel they were from the constellation of the seven stars-the Pleiades, were genetically compatible with us and had been visiting Earth in past scores of thousands of years. Some 10,000 or so years ago they decided to oversee us in a manner that no longer involved themselves directly, and to give us some guidance in a similar indirect manner. This they did by arranging to have a highly advanced spirit form or soul periodically reincarnate into the human race in the Middle East region, starting with the biblical Enoch. Some 3000 years ago they decided the time was approaching when the key human lifetime of this spirit form should occur, for the purpose of teaching humanity some spiritual truths. So some 2000 years ago they brought about this incarnation, with that spirit form reincarnating into the fetus of Jmmanuel around A.D. 6, not 6 B.C.! His alien procreator saw to it that Jmmanuel would receive intensive education in his youth, which involved those "lost years of Jesus" spent in India -- a topic receiving very substantial evidential support. Thus Jmmanuel was an occasional contactee of these aliens. They realized that his teachings would inevitably be distorted, but felt that mankind could only learn through making mistakes and then learning from those mistakes. So they maintained a continued interest over the centuries. One of the TJ's minor heresies is that the person who betrayed Jmmanuel to the arresting party and a little later committed suicide was Juda Ihariot, a young Pharisee who had been acquainted with Jmmanuel and the disciples, and not Judas Iscariot. Judas was Jmmanuel's designated writer as well as the treasurer for the twelve. However, the greatest of the TJ's heresies is that Jmmanuel survived the crucifixion, with the help of medical attention inside the tomb during three days and nights. Then, after appearing to his disciples several times, he went on to Damascus where he stayed incognito a couple years, before sending for his mother Mary, brother Judas (Judas Thomas) and disciple Judas Iscariot to join him. Soon thereafter they started on their travels, of which various traditions speak. The TJ rolls were mostly written by Judas Iscariot who traveled with Jmmanuel to India, along with Judas- Thomas (Jmmanuel's brother Judas) and mother Mary, several years after the crucifixion. However, the full story was only completed in India in the early second century, with a transcription of the rolls apparently having been penned there. After Jmmanuel's eventual death in the Kashmir region in early 2nd century, the rolls and their transcription were carried back to the Palestinian or Anatolian region by Jmmanuel's oldest son. He evidently released the transcription somewhere in that region, where it eventually found its way into the hands of the writer of Matthew, but he preserved and hid the original TJ rolls within a tomb just south of the Old City of Jerusalem. There they were presumably safeguarded from premature discovery by aliens of the same group until they prompted Meier and Rashid to discover them in 1963. Early in his Pleiadian contacts Meier asked his primary alien contactor, Semjase, if she could give him a picture of Jmmanuel. She declined, but told him that if he supplied paper and pencil (so that no alien evidence would be left behind) she would make a sketch from their records. This she did, and gave to Meier; it is shown on the left. He is seen to be young looking but bearded, with almond- shaped eyes, hair parted in the middle, a mustache and lips that are not especially prominent. These same features are seen in the picture on the right, which is an etching on a stone that came from the Burrows cave in Michigan containing various native-American artifacts. The latter did not come to public attention until 1879, and were recently dated to the 4th century A.D. or earlier (Wayne May, Jmmanuel as sketched by "Son of the Great Spirit." Semjase, retouched by an artist. From Ancient American, Vol. 4, No. 26. "Christ in America?," Ancient American, Vol. 4, No. 26 From the Talmud of Jmmanuel. (Jan./Feb. 1999)). (The face shown in these drawings does not much resemble the one on the Shroud of Turin.) Considering that Jmmanuel was a contactee whose mission was to teach spiritual truths in many lands, we must keep open the possibility that some time after traveling to northern India and settling down there, Jmmanuel was taken on extended tours to the Americas and back in his father's UFO. See He Walked the Americas by L. Taylor Hansen (Amherst, WI: Legend Press, 1963), for Native-American legends regarding "Jesus," as influenced by Christianity in the last few centuries. Interestingly, both the stone etching and the legends indicate the man had a full beard, which Native Americans did not grow. The TJ's text continues well into the narratives of Jmmanuel's travels in Anatolia, with interesting and practical teachings occupying much of it. Then it ends due to the written translation of the rolls that Meier received from Rashid not having extended past the point where Jmmanuel and his traveling companions were in a caravan on the road headed east to the land of India. Meier has estimated that only the translation of one of the original four rolls of writing was sent to him before their destruction in 1974. Thus, all has been lost that pertained to Jmmanuel's long life and ministry in India and Kashmir, except for what Rashid read during his initial reading of the rolls and then related to Meier, and except for what certain other traditions indicate. What was not lost, however, includes a wealth of extremely valuable material. Among it is confirmation that Jmmanuel alias Jesus did travel to India and back during the Lost Years of his youth and early manhood. This confirms further research on this topic, the most recent of which is that of Ed Martin, author of King of Travelers (1999) and King of Wisdom (2008). Return to: Contents MY THREE UFO-RELATED PAPERS IN PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS Possible extraterrestrial strategy for Earth. Quart. J. Royal Astron. Soc., 27, pp. 94-101 (1986). The arguments are reviewed which hold that our Galaxy is nearly saturated with extraterrestrial life forms, that our existence requires in hindsight that they were and are benevolent toward us, and that our lack of detection of them or communications from them implies that an embargo is established against us to prevent any premature knowledge of them. An inconsistency is detected, in that any sudden lifting of the embargo in a manner obvious to the public would cause societal chaos and possibly touch off a nuclear exchange, while any communications received via radio telescope would likely be either quickly confiscated by government agencies and not revealed to the public, or heavily censored. The inconsistency is that the advanced civilization should be expected to have planned some other strategy, if it is actually benevolent, experienced and intelligent. It follows that any embargo not involving alien force must be a leaky one designed to allow a gradual disclosure of the alien message and its gradual acceptance on the part of the general public over a very long time scale. A possible strategy for their accomplishing this is proposed. Examination of the embargo hypothesis as an explanation for the Great Silence. J. British Interplanetary Soc., 40, pp. 373-379 (1987). The embargo or quarantine hypothesis for explaining the 'Great Silence' is reviewed and found to be more plausible than the view that, at most, we might expect to receive radio messages from some distant star. The latter hypothesis is shown to be compatible with extraterrestrial technologies only a few hundred years in advance of our own, whereas the embargo hypothesis more reasonably infers that they should be tens of thousands of years in advance and in control of any contact with humanity. Reasons why the embargo hypothesis has received insufficient attention are presented: they involve failure to allow for the application of both greatly advanced alien technology and high ethical values by maturing societies of extraterrestrial intelligence. The implication of the embargo hypothesis for space development is that planets already harbouring diverse biota are ethically off-limits for exploitive colonisation. Extraterrestrial communications. J. Communication, 37, pp. 181-184 (1987). No abstract; but summary is as follows: So far, the search for alien intelligence, in its concentration upon a radio message from the stars, has neglected to search right here on Earth and examine the UFO phenomenon. The prevailing scientific rationale responsible for this breakdown in logic fails to take into account the embargo hypothesis and Clarke's third law, which holds that the actions of advanced extraterrestrials would likely seem to us to defy the laws of physics. Go Back to: Contents PAUL'S CONVERSION EXPERIENCE It would be pushing coincidence a bit too far to imagine that Saul's conversion experience on the road to Damascus was just an internal vision, if Jmmanuel (alias Jesus) was in the vicinity of Damascus at that time as traditions indicate. Indeed, the version of the event in Acts 9:1-9 indicates that the men with Saul, as well as Saul, heard the voice of "Jesus" speaking to him. And the light that temporarily blinded Saul is also an indication that a real, physical confrontation of some sort occurred. The Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) indicates that the writer of Luke/Acts extracted this first version of the event from the TJ, while altering it somewhat, and that his second and third versions (Acts 22:6-11 and 26:12-18) lie progressively farther from the truth in their attempts to turn the event into an internal vision that occurred at noon. Paul's own mention of the event, in 1 Cor 15:5-8, speaks of his own experience in the same terms as those of the apostles who had seen their Master after the crucifixion, not referring to it as any vision. The TJ indicates that Jmmanuel, after sending for his brother, Judas-Thomas, and also for Judas Iscariot to join him in Damascus, became aware, through unspecified means (probably his prophetic ability), that Saul was soon coming to Damascus to track down the two men and return them to Jerusalem in shackles. It was a full week's trip to travel afoot from Jerusalem to Damascus. From a friend who was knowledgeable in "secret things that involved powders, salves and liquids, which smelled bad," Jmmanuel acquired the chemical ingredients necessary to prepare a display of fireworks. This probably included sulfur, magnesium, charcoal and saltpeter (potassium nitrate). The TJ states that after a day's journey outside of Damascus he waited in the rocks two days for Saul to appear along with his group of men. However, it was at night that Saul and his men came by there, and although the TJ says that Jmmanuel saw "a large group of armed men coming," one must presume that he could sense this much, including the presence of Saul, through his capability of clairvoyance or remote sensing. It is not surprising that it was night when the group was traveling, for, as has been noted, "Most overland travel in biblical Palestine likely sought to avoid the oppressive heat of the day. There is some evidence to suggest that especially noncaravan travel may have been nocturnal" (Beitzel, 1985). At the appropriate moment Jmmanuel struck a fire, threw it down into his chemical concoction alongside the road, and from behind a large rock, stirred it with a long stick, causing a bright, flaring, smoking illumination. Then Jmmanuel called out to Saul, asking why he was persecuting his disciples, and identified himself by voice. He was not visible, it being nighttime, and because he must have been situated on the opposite side of the fireworks from Saul and his men and partially hidden by the rocks. After a few more words Jmmanuel retreated back to Damascus, while Saul and his men lingered, waiting to get over their temporary blindness, which, however, for Saul lasted for three days due to his having stared the most intently into the bright light, trying to see the source of the voice that was addressing him. Not long after this event, Jmmanuel sent for his mother Mary to join him in Damascus, and about a month later the four of them set out on their long journeys, with Saul no longer being the arch persecutor he had previously been. The traditional place where this event occurred is called Kaukab (which means "Celestial light"), and is the name of a hill alongside the road leading southwest from Damascus towards Jerusalem, some 12 or 13 miles from central Damascus. This road was the very "Road to Damascus," which only went alongside Kaukab hill, not over and on top of it. The hill top is where a shrine, built in 1965, exists to commemorate the event. (See the map below, where Kaukab hill ("Kokab") is located by the two arrows, along whose west side the road passes. As of a century ago this road still existed intact, as mentioned by Renan (1890). He noted that, "The road from Damascus to Jerusalem has in nowise changed;" however as of today the road is a main thoroughfare. From Baedeker's Palestine and Syria, 1912, p. 320. A careful examination of satellite photos of this Road to Damascus doesn't disclose any obvious spot near Kaukab hill where a suitable field of rocks exists at which Jmmanuel could have carried out his fireworks trick. Evidently the hilltop was chosen as the most appropriate spot to erect the shrine. There is also a tiny village of Kaukab on the Road some 9.3 miles southwest of Damascus. Although inspection of a satellite photo did not disclose any obvious location for the site near the village either, an old local tradition does place it there, according to Minardus (1981) However, upon proceeding farther southwest along the road one finds several possible locations judging from the satellite photo. One of these is located 20 miles (a long day's journey) from central Damascus. Photo from the Ikonos satellite of a section of the "Road to Damascus" 20 miles SW of the city. Resolution 0.8 m. North is up. Photo taken about 10:30 local time on Dec. 13, 2002. Solar elevation was between 32 and 33 degrees. Acquired from the Satellite Imaging Corp., Houston, TX. The satellite photo shows what seems to be a rock field straddling the road just to the east of the bend, while just west of it there is another rock field lying just alongside the road to the northwest. Much of the land there could not be used for orchards, gardens or habitations, but only for the apparent rock quarries one sees. The road has, of course, been very appreciably widened in the past century, and one cannot guess what the rocks and boulders had been like right adjacent to the narrow old road two millennia ago, here and at the other possible locations. The location here is 36.907 degrees north latitude and 22.65 degrees east longitude. Careful inspection from ground level is needed in order to ascertain if this spot, or one of the others, is the more promising. This spot may be somewhat too distant from the city. The TJ's version of Saul's conversion event is consistent with its portrayal of Jmmanuel as a man of knowledge, action and clairvoyance. It is also consistent with the saying in Matthew 10:16 to be "wise as serpents and innocent as doves," which was carried over from the TJ without alteration. In fooling Saul into wondering if he had heard a ghost, and causing him to give up his persecution of Jmmanuel's early followers, Jmmanuel was being clever. In truthfully stating to Saul who he was, he was being innocent and honest. REFERENCES Baedeker, Karl (1912): Baedeker's Palestine and Syria (Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, Publisher), p. 320. Beitzel, Barry J. (1985): The Moody Atlas of Bible Lands (Chicago: Moody Press), p. 65. Meinardus, Otto F. (1981): "The site of the apostle Paul's conversion at Kaukab," Biblical Archeologist (winter), pp. 57-59. Renan, Ernest (ca 1890): The History of the Origins of Christianity, Bk. 2 (London: Matheison & Co.), Chap. x, p. 96. Return to: Contents Night Sighting Liberal Translation of Write-up by Piero Petrizzo in FIGU Special Bulletin #39 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Sept. 2007) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 It was after the passive-group meeting of 2007, on my second round of the night watch, at 2:45 on 27 May, when I looked out the window and saw Billy out for a walk -- nothing special, because he often goes out at night to catch some fresh air. Later, as I continued my round out there, I met him on the way to the garage parking place [see map, No. 11] where we exchanged a few words with each other. Watching, I saw him as he looked at the sky, which was not entirely clear, because to be sure, you saw a few stars, but the sky was covered with haze and scattered clouds. I just wanted to turn back to my night watch tour and therefore continued on. Hardly had I proceeded a few meters when Billy cried out to me: "Look, Piero, a ship," whereupon I again approached him and looked along his line of sight, searching for a small, glowing, flying point in the sky. But at first I saw nothing at all; only when Billy pointed out the direction with his finger, I saw it. To my surprise it was a relatively large point of light high in the sky, moving towards the north. At first I thought, "much too large for a satellite." Together we watched as the spot of light on the vault of heaven moved in its orbit. Suddenly I noticed how it seemed to become a little larger, and at the same moment, Billy said: "Look, it's lighting up." In fact, the flying object started to strongly light up; it was a bright, oval, bluish-white light that the object radiated. The spectacle lasted about 2-3 seconds, then became again smaller and smaller, until it eventually disappeared. Of course I was quite impressed, for until then I had never seen such a large and brightly radiating object. In fact I needed a couple seconds to collect my thoughts, after which I asked Billy whether he had had telepathic contact with the really very unusually bright flying object. He confirmed it to me, saying it had been Florena (of the Plejarens). Later, he explained that on this day Florena had observed the Passive-Group assembly at the new location in Dussnang/TG [some 25 miles east of Zurich], and recorded the whole thing, as she told him. When we saw it fly by in the night sky, Billy asked her via telepathy for a small sign for me in the dark sky -- and in fact it was a uniquely beautiful presentation, which was very impressive not the least because Florena had a new ship, with which she could produce different radiative effects than with the older models. I am very grateful to Billy and Florena for this new and rich experience, which I will not forget. Phobol Cheng's 1999 Talk at Laughlin, Nevada From the video "The Reopening of the Billy Meier Case," Collector Series Vols. 2 & 3, video-taped at the International UFO Congress in Laughlin, NV, on Feb. 23, 1999 Available from: International UFO Congress, Inc., IUFOC 1515 W. University Dr., Suite 103 Tempe, AZ 85281 Phone: USA (602) 889-3083 IUFOC Store Transcription by Jim Deardorff, July, 2005 -- ROUGH VERSION -- Notes: [italics]-- explanatory insertion .... -- inaudible word or two ?? -- my best guess of a word INTRODUCTION OF PHOBOL BY MICHAEL HESEMANN, GERMAN UFOLOGIST I'm very happy and very proud that I can introduce a lady to you which I reported in my magazine (Magazin 2000) and called the top eye witness in the [Meier] case. And I will tell you in a minute why I was invited a couple of years ago to a lecture at the United Nations organized by Mohammed Ramadan, a tenured UN diplomat, ... And after my lecture a very friendly, nice little lady came to me and said, "Mr. Hesemann, you're from Germany, and do you know Billy Meier, and what do you think about him?" And I said, "Do I know him? I think he is for real." And she said "Thank you." And then she told me one of the most incredible stories I ever heard in my life. And the interesting thing about this lady is that not only is she one of the warmest, most spiritual and wonderful human beings I ever met in my life, and this is a very honest declaration ..., but she also comes from a political high society of her country of Cambodia. She is, she was -- she's retired -- she was a member of the Cambodian delegation to the United Nations. She spoke several times to the General Assembly of the United Nations about human rights and other questions. So she was a high ranking diplomat. Her family consists of advisers to the king; her grandfather was [the highest ranking monk], appointed by the king in Cambodia. Her grandfather has a very fascinating life indeed. He is 111 years old right now [in 1999]. And he looked -- and there are pictures of him -- he looked younger when he was 80, and he looks younger now at 111 years, than he looked when he was 60 or 70 and just became a Buddhist monk. After being the first Sap(??) in her country in Cambodia, this man decided to become a Buddhist monk. And he decided to live a spiritual life, and he founded the Ashoka Mission, named after the greatest king of India -- the king who introduced Buddhism to India, and under whose Buddhism India had the peak of its culture. It was about at the time of Alexander the Great. And he [the grandfather] founded the Buddhist mission in Delhi. He was a person who had a very close friendship with Mahatma Gandhi. He is such a highly respected Buddhist teacher that he is on the same level as, let me say, the Dalai Lama. But this is a different way of Buddhism. You have Mahayana Buddhism, you have Hinayana Buddhism, you have different schools and it's a different school -- the more authentic schools. Because the Tibetan Buddhism is influenced highly by the Bon religion -- the Tibetan -- northern Tibetan -- demonic cult, and so on and so far. So this is the purest teachings of Buddha and her grandfather is an authentic representative. And he by himself is 111 years old and is still a teacher of Buddhism and still a monk [now] living actually in your country [the U.S.]. He's a very fine example of the power of his teachings. When Billy Meier was a young man -- I already told you -- he was traveling around the planet, by hitchhiking, by foot, by car, by whatever. He did dozens/billions of different jobs, from taste tester to bodyguard, from driver to veterinarian, and he managed to come to India when he learned about this famous teacher. And he went to his Ashram and became his disciple, because he wanted to learn the authentic Buddhist teachings. And this is where he had [alien] contacts. And just everyone in the Ashram saw the craft. And including this lady, saw Billy and Asket, a lady from the Dal Universe -- not from the Pleiades but from the Dal Universe -- who walked and talked [together] for hours. So, we have an early case of contact, which you find nothing about in any of the books that... and Wendelle Stevens published, because this was not the focus of their investigations. [Stevens does devote several pages to it in his 1989 book and subsequent books.] The focus of their investigations was the Semjase contacts, page 3(??) as I call it, in Switzerland from 1975 on. But the story you might have in mind starts in January of 1975 when this farmer went out and saw a spaceship landing and so on. But this is how it all started, ...when he was a little boy of 5 years of age or something like this -- 5 years of age. And he had contacts through all his life. He was Semjase contacts, and since they got physical and expensive enough(??) for this team to go to Switzerland and do the primary investigations, they didn't go to India too because they didn't know -- nobody knew -- before, actually, originally Wendelle relocated our primary witness. And I announce that as soon as it is possible that he will go to India and interview several witnesses of this "new" contact case when it was an open contact When it wasn't a [covert] contact, people could witness. At the very same time, Timothy Good, the famous English UFO investigator -- the most respected British UFO investigator, was in India playing for the London Symphonic Orchestra and Billy. Then he read in a [Delhi] newspaper about Billy Meier. And this is how Lou Zinsstag.... of Jung, the great psychoanalyst and convert of Sigmund Freud, and learned about it, and she informed -- as Wendelle said before-- she informed Wendelle about the case. So this is where it all began, in India. So we go back to the 1960s. We go back to the golden age when it was possible to travel in Middle Eastern countries where today unscrupulous dictators rule. And we go back to a time when indeed an open contact happened in 1964 -- the year in which I was born -- in 1964 in India. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to a lady who confessed to me that it was no problem for her to talk in front of the General Assembly of the United Nations, but today she is a little bit nervous because this is deeply, deeply personal not only because you are the more important audience, but also because what she will talk about now is deeply, deeply personal; it has to do with her life and her past. And after her we will listen to another very amazing witness of this contact Welcome -- welcome to Laughlin, Phobol Cheng. PHOBOL'S TALK: Thank you. Thank you very much. As he said, it is more difficult for me tonight to dwell into my childhood and my past and share something very personal and very intimate. More difficult than standing in front of the United Nations General Assembly for 14 years, defending my country. Not because you have not been a great audience, as this is one of the most fabulous audiences I have been a part of. It's just my own feelings, because we are not brought up to open our hearts to strangers so much, such as delving into our past and talking about ourselves. So, I'm going to do just that tonight. Maybe I'll give you a little background on myself so you'll have some idea. I was born in Cambodia, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. And my father is still alive and lives in the United States also, with me. He was an advisor to the king, and also a member of the Cambodian Cabinet. When I was about 8 years old, my father was sent on a diplomatic mission to India. So our whole family moved to New Delhi, India with him, and I and my brother were sent to a school there to study. This will explain how a person from Cambodia ended up in India in a temple that was built by my grandfather in India -- to give you a little background. So after a year, when my father's diplomatic mission came to an end, they moved back to Cambodia, but decided to leave myself and my brother in school under the guardianship of my grandfather. At that time my grandfather had just founded the Ashoka Vihara, or the Ashoka ashram, as it is now popularly known. He is a Buddhist monk, as you know, This monastery is about an hour and a half from the main center of New Delhi -- an outskirt of New Delhi, and it is a very large temple with six buildings in the compound. I give you a background of the temple so you'll have an idea of the place and how the ship [Asket's UFO craft] appears and so on. As I said, there were six big buildings in the area of about, I think, 30 acres, all surrounded by high stone walls. There were a lot of, hundreds of, fruit trees -- I don't have a picture to show you but I will give you an idea of the area I grew up in when I was a child. (I think we can have the pictures -- the first picture...) So from eight years old onward, my brother, who was about six years old, [and I] grew up in this temple under the guardianship of my grandfather. (Slide of Phobol, her brother and their grandfather V.B. Dharmawara, and her English tutor. Dharmawara died in June of 1999.) Because my parents were not able to be with us they kind of kept us surrounded with a lot of caretakers; like I had an English nanny who taught me English, and I had a Cambodian nurse, and a few of the Indian ayahs to help us, surrounded by all these kind-of-like parents to us. And they [her parents] would visit us maybe once a year or so from Cambodia, but in the meantime these women and my grandfather took care of us. [Discussion of the slide:] I just wanted to introduce the audience to myself, my brother, my grandfather -- at that time I was about nine years old -- and my English tutor. In the background is the tree -- it's called the bodhi tree, or the people's tree. This tree's lineage came out of the tree that the Buddha became enlightened under. The seedling came from there. The reason I wanted to also bring your attention to this tree is because whenever a ship appeared in front of our temple or our area this tree would become illuminated. Each of the leaves would become quite iridescent, or like a peacock feather, all different colors. So one could see that; and I was not the only one to see that. There were many people who lived on the area and ashram saw that. Now the ashram was about 30 acres, as I said, with youth hostels, animal shelter, the main buildings of the temple, and the five buildings for resident monks, for visitors who come, and for students of my grandfather who came from Europe, the United States, and other Asian countries to study with him. So I had all these people coming in and out of the area, of the ashram. So of course one of those persons, who visited the temple, was this person. Now of course, we all know, at least I know, popularly, everyone also knows -- his name is Eduard Meier. At that time, of course, he was called Billy Meier -- Billy. Of all the hundreds of people who passed through our place, why [did] I take notice of him, because we never had any conversation? The way I was brought up was not to talk to any strangers, especially males. So I just observed people, and one of the persons that I observed coming in and out through my grandfather's room, through the temple area in the evening or to take classes or lessons from my grandfather, was this person. He has a very unusual eye. I remember when I was nine years old when I first noticed him, out of all the people he had these strange eyes that were so penetrating when he looked at you or when he looked at me, that it goes right to your inner core. This is what stayed in my mind in that time. And also it makes you sense that there's some truth; I don't know why it's like that, but that's what I thought at that time. So I would follow, watch him when he comes to my grandfather's place. But I'm sorry, I'm jumping ahead of the story, because I have to go back to ask how it came about that I took notice of this person. I used to have, when I was 8 years old, my first notice of visitation. In the evening, late in the evening, when I finish my studies of my tutor, and go to bed -- my brother and I share a room -- and I would put us to bed and they would leave. I would have this lady who just appeared in the room and would come to me, and then I would fall asleep. The first time it happened I didn't understand what it was, but it felt so wonderful I felt I was perfectly at home and was with my parents, although my mother was in Cambodia. But I felt very comfortable -- very, very at home, very comforted, and peaceful, and fell asleep. A while later the same thing happened, but this time she would come and pat my head; she would sit at the edge of my bed, put my head on her lap, and, I could say, sing me to sleep, but she didn't sing. She didn't use -- there were no words, it wasn't a tone even, it's not a humming. There was some high pitched tone that was so beautiful to my ear that I would right away fall asleep. It goes on for a little while like that. And I would ask my brother, who was 6 years old at that time, and he said "Yes, he remembered," but he didn't see any being coming to him and [but?] he would sense the presence. So after a while I would kind of look forward to her coming. I didn't know who it was; I didn't know it was anybody. All I thought was: [how] wonderful, it made me so at home. I didn't know that it was Asket -- there was no name -- but I know it was a real living being, because my head was on her lap. It was as real as [when] my head would be on my mother's lap. This went on for quite some time. And then once or twice, it was not right away I would fall asleep, but once she would sit at the edge of my bed and then ... some sort of understanding of messages, and I would just sit there and kind of absorb everything. I didn't ... there was no conversation, but there was conversation going on, as I now know that there must be some kind of a transferring. Because I understood everything. She told me something that later on I would have more understanding [of], in the later part of my life. So stuff like that. And the next day [when] I would wake up I would feel, you know, like I understood everything -- as how the world came about, how people are the way they are, how this person is happy or sad, -- I would know that. But that was all I went(??) through, because that's why I spent so much [time] in my growing-up years at that time observing so much, so many people. And that's why I observed people coming in visiting my grandfather, staying as our guest, and so on, and that's how I noticed this one person who was something different. He was totally different. And that is when -- OK, back to -- I do not want to jump ahead. So, one time I was observing people coming in and out of my grandfather's temple. Suddenly I saw this being now we call Billy, and he was accompanied by the being that used to come and sing me to sleep. So then I know for sure there was no doubt in my mind that he's also a friend. It was -- suddenly I see somebody who has been close to me for all these times walking with somebody who I had always noticed that there was something different about him, together walking. And at the same time that I noticed and became aware of them walking together, I found that they also knew that I was aware. So, both of them turned and looked at me, and then continued on in their conversation and so on. And that was -- she would come to meet Billy Meier at the ashram many, many times, and they would walk around, looking at areas, looking at the temple, and discuss the teaching. Because Billy at the time was, I think, still under the spiritual instruction of Asket, which is how I came to encounter [them]. [On] one of the few contacts, one time, she came to my room and I kind of -- it was not a question -- I asked her, my understanding I transferred to her, saying that: "This being, he's working and staying with us. I find that he's OK", or something like that. I don't exactly recall, but I know that it was like telling her, or something, how I felt about him. And she said, "Yes, and maybe there will be more contacts later. That will be in your life, ...there will be some meeting at some point." And that was it. I do not [did not] ...keep that in my memory, so to say. And by the same token that she had transferred this understanding to me, I also understood that he then could become my friend, because she had kind of okayed it. I was only 9 or 10. (Can we have the second slide?) I want to show you how he looked when he came to the temple of my grandfather and studied the Buddha's teachings from my grandfather. At one point he also studied some auto-meditation. This is how he was, working in our compound. He had two monkeys. Those two on the left. One he named Emperor Hanuman, and the other one he name Empress Hanuman. The reason I knew this is because my brother -- you have seen the little boy -- was so fascinated with the monkey that he would run after Billy and play with the monkey. And then he asked his name. And that was why I remembered the name because he told [me] the name. I remember that -- one thing I noticed was that some time [when] he had food, or bananas, he would feed the monkey first. And then if he had something left, he would eat it himself. So that impressed me a little bit, too. So also, as you noticed, this is the only picture around that we see him when he still has both arms -- before his accident in Turkey in the middle 60's or later part of the 60's. The being we now know as Asket -- how she appeared to me at the time: She has nice long, dark hair. She does not look Caucasian nor Asian, almost a blend of the two. I cannot describe to you how, but definitely not a Western or Caucasian look. She does not look Asian; it's almost a blend of the two. She has a very nice golden kind of skin, very luminous and very beautiful to look at. She has long dark hair. That is one thing, because later on when I came to know about Billy's story, I was shown a picture of Asket. It's a being looking very thin and with long blond hair. So I asked, "It must not be Asket, the being that interacted with Billy, because the Asket that I met did not have blond hair." So this puzzles me, and I ask a few people; but now I'm sure you understand, at least now, the photo you have been seeing of Asket all along was not [of] her. It was a hoax, I was told, ... it was an exchanged [photo]. (Question from audience...). Yes, that was also the question I asked Billy when I met him. But one thing is true, though, she does have a long ear lobe. She does have a long -- very different from our -- kind of ear lobe. This is another thing I always like to make a joke on. She is not very big. She is not very tall, only 5'1". So, I feel quite comforted [Phobol is also short]. So as all these years went by, [involving] the encounter with Asket and encounter with Billy Meier at my grandfather's place -- he came when he was still seeking, and before his accident that caused him to lose the arm -- he came to the ashram and stayed there for a while. Later on, when [after] he lost his left arm, he passed through our place and stayed there for a very short while. And the reason I know this was because the gardener of our place [Mr. Suraj] had interacted with Billy quite a bit. He made a comment to me that this is the person that was here before, and now he's back again but he lost an arm. I have to backtrack a little again to say that when Billy stayed at our place, and sighted the ship on the ashram, and walked around with Asket, there was other people also that saw the ship. And most of all, our head gardener -- the area used to be -- we have a lot of gardens, we have a lot of trees, so people that take care of the land -- there were six gardeners that take care of the land and one head gardener, and he's the one that comes back and forth to report what's happening around the area. One time Billy was walking around the ashram, and the head gardener came and encountered him and Asket. And the head gardener came and talked to my grandfather and I, and said, "Oh, he's the same being who has always said he has been in love with the goddess, who came from heaven." You have to understand in India, with the gardeners, who are Indians, anything that is out of this world has to do with gods and goddesses. So here you have this person, who stays at our ashram, and sees ships and takes photos, and sometimes people ask, "What is that?" and he would be sharing his stories, and they wouldn't understand what... [if] the situation was coming from God and the universe and so on -- they wouldn't understand. They would always take him as telling a story of him having contacts with goddesses, from other universe or from heaven. So this is what the head gardener would call him: the person who is in love with the goddess from heaven. So when he returned to the ashram in the late 70's [60's] on his way back to Europe, he came with one arm, and that is when I noticed, because he said that the beings came back again, but this time I lost an arm. But I said, "Who was that?" -- The same beings that the goddess from heaven. So I didn't that he mentioned it. He mentioned it -- Billy Meier. I hope I don't jump all over the place in telling my story, but this is my first sharing of the experience for you. (Can I have another picture of...?) [End of Tape 2 of 3 of "The Reopening of the Billy Meier Case," Collector Series Vol. 263-2] [Start of Tape 3 of "the Reopening of the Billy Meier Case," Collector Series Vol. 263-3] (Slide shows Phobol with her grandfather) This is a later time -- this is just a year later -- after Billy Meier passed through the mission; and that is my grandfather when he was in his late eighties, and myself just a year and a half before I left the country [to go to] the United States to go through my university studies. The background [shows] a little bit of how the ashram looked all over the place. After that contact, when I was around 14, there was no more contact -- the lady didn't visit me any more. And I just continued a normal life that a teenager would grow into. I finished my high school and then was sent to the United States to study [as] an undergraduate in New York. As I continued my university studies, I had forgotten all about that contact. It never stayed in a place in my mind where it is utilized. I had a life of a person who was a newly arrival of the United States, newly [a] college student. [With] a new life in front of me, I could not have spent much time dwelling on what took place in my childhood. And so I continued studying, and even when at the time I finished my undergraduate and continued on to my graduate study, some people would come to me and talk about UFOs and all, and I would say, "Ha, I don't believe in those -- I've never seen any of them." So, eventually, almost 5 years ago -- 5 or 6 years ago, I think it was 5 years ago [12 years ago perhaps?] -- somebody handed me Gary Kinder's [1987] book, called "Light Years." So I looked at it and saw the pictures of UFOs, and I thought, "This is not my thing." I left it on the shelf and never touched it again [for some years]. And then, on finishing my graduate work, I went to help my country, became a diplomat, was sent back to New York to defend my country at the United Nations, worked at it for 12 years, and suddenly one day I was cleaning and came across the book again. So I thought before I throw it away I should look at it. I opened [to] a page and saw the name Ashoka Ashram in one of those pages. So I was wondering, how could our place be named in this book? I said "Oh well"(??) to it and saw the stories. And, immediately I said, "I bet you it is the same Swiss person that stayed at our place when I was a child." So I thought, "But how would I find out if this is the right person?" I called up the official textbook, but nobody could find him. Finally, some kind person said, "You should contact this person who has published in other books, called "Message from [the] Pleiades," and his name is Wendelle [Stevens]. So I contacted [him] -- through some miracle, I don't know how, I found his number -- I contacted Wendelle and told him, "Do you think this is the right person who came to stay at my grandfather's place so many years ago, is this the same being?" And so on, "And I would like to get in touch with him. Is he still alive?" And Wendelle suggested he's still alive but he doesn't meet anyone, he's isolated. So many people came up to me and said, "I knew him before, I don't think he would want to meet you, because" and so on. So I said, "Well, if this is the right person, can you tell me, at Ashoka he has a monkey, and he has the name of the monkey. If he's the person that I knew, if he has the monkey, it's the same person. So Wendelle wrote to him, and I think Wendelle said, within an hour [after receiving the letter] Billy wrote back and said, "There's those two children, and " And so a few months later I flew out to meet Billy at the Center [Semjase Silver Star Center in Hinterschmidrüti]. I had only a few -- I had only about 5 days there, but we sat and talked for three straight nights without sleep. It was almost like I felt I had returned home and he felt he has returned home! It was just a sharing of some part of him that he has not been able to share so much with other people before. And so that is how I reconnect with Billy. And now I have talked so much I would like to show you some of the pictures that I brought back. (Slides, please.... Slide of Asket's UFO hovering above the ashram) That's a picture of the ashram. The stone walls come up to here, and these are all trees from the So this ship would appear at the time -- usually would be around at the same time I had a visitation, or sometime no visitation -- but I would see the ship. (In response to a question: This [photo] was taken by Billy Meier, and [the ship] was present even when I first met [him] not every day, but almost -- I would see it once a week, or sometimes twice a week; there was no timing [to it]. Can I have the next, please? ) This is the I think. This is the ship over the Ashoka Ashram but from an angle behind the Ashoka Ashram. There's a little hill, and on top of -- next to that hill -- we have an area where we make a shelter for animals -- a kind of an animal shelter for stray animals ...and so on, taking care of animals. And we used to call it "Dark Hill," So this [photo] was shot from the Dark Hill. And Billy spent a lot of time working at the animal shelter. Helping to cure [ailing] animals and also feeding stray animals, mostly dogs, monkeys, cows sometimes and horses. This was taken on May 24, 1964 at 1:53 pm [the precise time comes from Billy's record made at the time]. (Next one), [shows two bright, fuzzy orbs at night.] Yes. This was taken [when the ship was] quite far away, way up high, just on the side towards the east of the ashram. This two slide's(??) ball of fire, which sometimes I would see more than two of them -- a whole bunch of them This [slide showing three distinct bright lights in the sky] is taken from a monument in that area -- it's called ......, this is an old Indian historical monument, it's taken near that area. (Answering a question from audience: This is Billy Meier, who took these photos.) And this is a very rare photo. He didn't show these photos a lot because this is a part of that contact when he had his accident. And so when I went to visit him and he showed me all these pictures because he was from which angle and so on. Unless you had been there you would[not] know where and in what reference to the Ashoka Ashram. (Next one, please.) OK, this is a very interesting, and also important to me, [slide]. This is a whole bunch of them [white blobs in the sky] around on top of the Ashoka. This is the background of the place. You cannot see very clearly of the reproduction here. But this is one of my ayas washing my clothes sitting in the veranda outside of my room. She's washing here (pointing with laser pointer) my school uniform. On the original photos it's much more clear. So we shared these stories because we had interacted with her quite a bit -- the washing lady. For me it's very important, because when I had my experience it was not something.. -- for me it was very natural and have seen [to have seen?] a lot of ships over the temple or over the -- we have a large area -- over the trees, near the well, over the house. All these areas that have seen the ship sometimes it was very low. I could see a huge -- almost like -- one time I saw a, maybe, half a bassoon(??) size of the ship. And sometime I see [it] very small, further away. It was nothing strange; it was not something that caused me to run to the ... to ask some adult or my grandfather or my ayah or my governess what I see. It was a very natural phenomenon for me. So when I had experiences with Asket, it was also not something [of] a very unusual experience for me. It was almost -- it's the most natural -- it was almost like a returning to some known familiar state. (Could we have the next one, please? -- [slide shows large area of bright light]) (Question from audience) Yeah. I think one of the balls descends down, and that's what produces UFO phenomena. (Next, please.) Yes, this is an amazing one. [Slide shows a huge bright white blob against night sky.] This phenomena, when it shows up like this, is usually followed by an apparent -- another disk and shape, the classical shape. It flew in and about the clouds overhead of people. Sometimes there would be a few villagers walking around, and they would look up and see this. In the ashram itself sometimes our servant would come and said, "I saw something very strange. Have you seen [something]?" I would say "Yes." That was the end of it. There was nothing further to be said. (Next one, please? [Slide shows dark disk-shaped craft with large white cumulus cloud in background.]) This is right on top of the ashram, in the evening. I remember this very well, because sometimes there will be people looking up with me, looking up, and some of them will see the ship very clearly, like myself, but some would look around, said, "I don't see it. I don't know where this is." And it's not a very small spot; it's a big spot. But some would not be able to see it. I don't know whether, you know, living in India, the villagers around may not have good eyesight. I don't know, I used to think that way. But now I think it might be some other problem. (Next one.) [Slide shows similar scene, except displaying just the dark circular underside of the craft overhead.] (Next one, please.) [Slide shows a roughly circular array of 8 lights in the night sky.] I think this is one of the phenomena where hundreds of people saw this. This one I think had been witnessed by a whole -- I think maybe a hundred people, even.... in the Indian newspaper in the sixties. Actually, one reporter was dispatched from the newspaper -- the New Statesman or something; if you look you could find the article [the Delhi New Statesman of Sept. 30, 1964] -- he came, talked to ... some of the people who worked at our place and even talked to Billy, and was shown the photos. And he wrote an article about it. And interviewed a lot of other people (Next please.) That's Billy and his family. That's Billy [on the left], and of course the boy in the red shirt is Methusalem, and this is , and the baby... (Methusalem comes up to the podium and, using the laser pointer, tells Phobol,) "This is my father, this is my mother, this is my brother Atlantis, my sister [in red] Gilgamesha, and that [the baby] is me." (That's all the slides.) Thank you. I would like to go back to the picture, and tell a little story before I sum up. (The picture of the temple) This is the inner part of the temple. This picture shows my grandfather sitting in front of the altar of the temple. There's a lot of ... visitors. This area I want to show you, because one evening when I had finished my lessons with my tutor, I came in and saw my grandfather sitting right there with two beings. And for some unknown reason, I do not know why I knew right away that these beings were not from here -- were not the beings that come from the Earth. But they do not look any different. They were two males, all in some kind of white gowns. Kind of a darkish complexion, very very beautiful but very thin, talking to my grandfather. And I quietly went in and sat near to them and listened to their conversation. I did not see anything much, but I understood. At least, what I got from that conversation between my grandfather and the two beings was that they were very grateful to my grandfather for having taught the spiritual teachings of the Buddha. Also, teaching meditation. This is what I got, that they were very grateful that we are in meditation, and that we have many, many secrets that I don't begin to study in the form of meditation that he was teaching us at that time. And that's how -- I was sitting there and listening, and suddenly I turn around, and they were no more. They were there one minute, and they were not there the next minute. So afterward, I ran over to my grandfather and asked him, where were they? And he said, "Yes, this is how they come, and this is how they leave." And I was quite satisfied with that answer. I have no reason to have any more doubts, or to not understand what he meant. And that was the same spot that we saw him sitting with the visitor. I have put all these together to share with you, much as it is kind of... for me; it is a little difficult. You might think it's not that hard to share something, but it is hard for me, because it's very, very personal, as I said again, and its very -- it's very deep. So, four years ago, close to five years now, I reconnected again with Billy; after that letter I went to visit him, and as I shared with you that we....three nights talking without sleep, and sharing so much. And throughout those conversations there are other memories that open up, and I kind of shared with Billy and he confirmed it. And he told me that he had always thought of the two little children [Phobol and her little brother] and what happened to them. He also shared that he was always told that we would also reconnect some time in the future. And so I still feel a closeness with him ever since we reconnect. Last year November I ?? [was] invited ?? [to Billy's place to spend] two weeks with my husband -- to introduce my husband to him, and to ?? on as a -- almost like a family to me. But this closeness I cannot describe, whether it's friends or family or what, but at least something more, maybe something less, but there is a closeness of the being-ness of all that we are here. Thank you. (Final applause) Thank you very much. I've forgotten -- I have one more thing to share with you. I have a friend in India; she [Sashi Raj] was with me when I was growing up in India. She... I found her when she came to visit the United States, so I brought her to share with you briefly. [Sashi Raj gives the next presentation; she testifies to having known Phobol at the Ashoka Ashram, and to have witnessed one of the UFO events there.] Go Back to: Previous level The Pleiades The Pleiades is a beautiful, bluish star cluster located in the constellation Taurus and containing many hundreds of relatively young stars. They are about 400 light years distant, and so lie relatively close to us, within our own galaxy. Only the brightest six or seven are visible to the unaided eye, and these have acquired the names indicated in the photo. The Pleiades would seem to be a most improbable region of the heavens for extraterrestrials (ETs) to come from, to have a home in. Most of the stars in this cluster are deduced to be only some 100 million years old, which is far too young to have allowed advanced life forms to evolve. However improbable it may seem, traditions of many cultural groups say that their ancestors came from the Pleiades. These include the Incas, the Iroquois, the Lakotas, the Cherokees, the Navahos and the Hopi. The Pleiades, and their star names, are also rooted in Greek mythology. Eduard Meier was eventually informed by his ET contactors that they came from a space-time dimensionally shifted form of the same Pleiades, whatever that Courtesy of Anglo-Australian observatory may mean. If so, many surprises lie ahead of us, http://www.aao.gov.au/images.html in the next several millennia, as our science and technology progress and evolve along with our spirituality, hopefully, and allow us to understand such matters. Return to: Contents THE GOSPEL PRIORITY PROBLEM REEXAMINED: INVESTIGATING THE VERBAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN PARALLEL TEXTS, UTILIZING THE FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF STRINGS OF IDENTICAL CONSECUTIVE WORDS A Paper by James W. Deardorff Dec. 1997; Revised Aug. 1999, June 2004, Nov. 2004 Abstract: The strong role that theological commitment played in bringing about the present consensus on Gospel priorities (Mark-Q hypothesis) is reviewed in Part I. A key point against the present consensus, noted by various scholars, is the apparent interdependence of Greek wording between Matthew and Luke's "Q" verses, there being excessive numbers of lengthy strings of consecutive identical duplicated words within parallel passages, up to 27 words long. A technique, believed new, is described in Part II for assessing when such duplicated strings are due to chance arrangements of words during ordinary editing, or when due to a deliberate desire to make the fact of duplication be evident. In Part III the latter is found to be the case for the Matthew-Luke "Q" verses as well as for the verbal agreement of Matthew-Mark parallels. The technique is first explored against several actual test cases as well as against a synthetic test case. A modified Augustinian hypothesis, which expands upon studies by Zahn and Vost, can explain the observations, while being compatible with the external evidence and other internal evidence. It is summarized in Part IV and here, where it is tested against critics' arguments against Matthean priority. It requires that theological commitment be abandoned and the Gospel writers be treated as possessing human motivations over the question of whether Jews or gentiles were more worthy to become disciples. I. A Summary of the Gospel Priority Problem as Influenced by 19th-Century Theological Commitment II. Use of Frequency Distributions of Duplicate Strings of Words in Parallel Passages: Theory and Tests of Verbal Agreement III. Results from Frequency Distributions of Duplicate Word Strings in the Gospel Parallels IV. A Solution Embracing Realistic Editorial Behavior For the past three quarters of a century the synoptic gospel priority problem has been considered settled by a scholarly consensus that favors the two-document hypothesis, which views Mark as having been written first, and Matthew and Luke written independently of each other.1 However, numerous arguments disputing this consensus have been raised by scholars of the past century who decry the validity of this outcome, and many of their arguments still stand intact.2 Much of the evidence has been set out by a resurgence of the Griesbach school of thought, and as regards to Matthew having come before Mark, it has either not been capably refuted, or has been refuted using only weak or reversible argumentation.3 The same can be said for evidence indicating that Luke came after Matthew and is dependent upon Matthew, not just upon Mark.4 Evidence for this dependence is bolstered by scholars favoring the Augustinian hypothesis (Matthew- Mark-Luke), who have set forth many plausible, non-refuted arguments.5 Traditional Augustinian scholars tended to utilize the now largely outdated assumption that the Gospels were written by the men whose names are attached to them, or that Peter was the source for Mark, or both. However, it must be emphasized that these do not necessarily negate other portions of their argumentation. These particular assumptions will not be utilized here, and the "writer of a Gospel" will be referred to in that manner rather than by the name of a Gospel. One tool available to the text critic has been to compare the Greek text of certain parallel Gospel passages and note how long a string of successive identical words may occur. The longest extends to 33 words. Such verbal harmony has helped lead to the agreed upon belief that Matthew and Mark are not independent, and so also perhaps Matthew and Luke.6 However, this tool has not heretofore been quantified in terms of frequency distributions that can be compared against a statistically expected distribution for independently edited works. This will be done here, in Part II. The results from Part III will suggest that the two-document hypothesis, and any refutations applicable to a modernized Augustinian hypothesis, need reexamination from within a framework devoid of theological commitment. Hence, a brief review of the Gospel priority problem with this result in mind is presented first. I. A Summary of the Gospel Priority Problem as Influenced by 19th- Century Theological Commitment From the first few centuries until the 18th, it was common knowledge that Matthew had come first, followed by Mark and then Luke, due to this having been expressed by Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine.7 In addition, the terse gleanings from Papias support this Augustinian viewpoint in two ways: 1. that Matthew had been first written in the Semitic tongue, as would be expected of the earliest gospel; 2. that parts of Mark were written in improper order, which implies improper order relative to a preexisting, written gospel.8 This earlier gospel, then, if not Luke, must have been Matthew. In 1783 Johann Jakob Griesbach challenged this tradition, proposing on the basis of a particularized textual criticism that the order had been Matthew-Luke-Mark, with each evangelist having made use of the previous one's works. By this assumption he was able to explain in somewhat acceptable terms the peculiarity that Luke follows Mark's order and content where Mark deviates from Matthew's order, and frequently deviates from both where Mark follows Matthew. He could explain that the writer of Mark "almost never diverged from Matthew in order and seldom in content unless he was following the order and content of Luke."9 The Tbingen school that grew in general support of this hypothesis helped spark both opposition and creativity from less radical scholars. In 1820 both the Augustinian and Griesbach hypotheses were challenged by Johann Gottfried Herder, who, as explained in a near contemporary report by H. U. Meijboom, believed that "among writings of such close affinity as the gospels, the briefest must be considered the earliest document."10 As noted by W. R. Farmer, this idea built upon the still earlier idea that the first gospel had been an oral gospel, which would be expected to give rise to a shorter written gospel rather than to a longer one.11 In 1838 Christian Hermann Weisse applied a more scholarly approach to the same basic idea. He reconstructed an Ur-gospel based upon passages found in all three synoptics, though this guaranteed that it would most closely conform in extent and content to the shortest of the three, namely Mark.12 However, many others have since pointed out the weakness of this argument, since Mark could as easily be an altered abbreviation of Matthew, as was considered to be the case by Augustine. Yet, Weisse took a large step in framing the modern two-document hypothesis by postulating that in addition to the priority of Mark, or of an Ur-Marcus, the Logia referred to by Papias was a second, important source of sayings. With the latter assumption, he was following F.E.D. Schleiermacher.13 In the 1840-1860 period Eduard Ruess's studies largely convinced fellow French scholars of the priority of Mark; he also believed that "when two gospels are mutually dependent the earliest date must be attributed to the shorter one." He seems to have been among the first to attach a theological motivation to this belief, in wondering aloud why the writer of Mark, if he were not the first evangelist, would have omitted many of the discourses he found in Matthew.14 However, as noted by E. P. Sanders, theological commitment ought not play any role in seeking historical truth: "I have been engaged for some time in the effort to free history and exegesis from the control of theology; that is, from being obligated to come to certain conclusions which are predetermined by theological commitment."15 Such commitment on the part of a scholar prevents him from seriously considering more plausible alternative solutions, because his theology causes him to consider as implausible what would otherwise be considered plausible. In the above instance, an alternative we shall come back to is that the writer of Mark was located in Rome.16 He was then writing his gospel for gentiles, and therefore omitted Judaisms he felt his future readers would not be interested in.17 Another is that this writer did not share Matthew's emphasis upon humility and pacifism, and did not wish to include admonitions and concepts that he did not agree with or understand. Although these may seem like obvious alternatives to consider, theological commitment has dominated in deterring their open discussion, culminating with Canon Streeter's remark in 1924 that the writer of Mark would have had to be a "lunatic," if he had copied from Matthew, for leaving out the Sermon on the Mount and most of the parables.18 Such pejorative stemming from a most influential scholar seems to have caused still later scholars who may have wished to publish discussions of the alternatives to avoid doing so, lest they be branded lunatics. It should be mentioned that the well known New Testament scholar David Friedrich Strauss, whose influential books came out in 1835-1840, is believed to be indirectly responsible for aiding in the promotion of the Marcan-priority hypothesis over the Griesbach hypothesis.19 He had favored the Griesbach hypothesis, which places Matthew first, but considered much within the gospels to be myths, in particular, the post-crucifixion appearances of the risen Jesus. The backlash that this induced from theologically committed scholars was very strong, thereby helping to promote the opposing hypothesis of Marcan priority. Around 1850 the influential Heinrich Ewald similarly supported Mark as being primary, and furthermore contended that Luke and Matthew were written independently.20 This latter belief would seem to have arisen out of the theological commitment that the Gospel writers were "divine men," as described by Eusebius,21 and so surely should have had no need to copy from one another's work. Yet the assumption of independence between Luke and Matthew has persisted within the two-document hypothesis to this day. Ewald did not attempt to hide his theological commitment, and felt that Biblical criticism, though like a storm, was necessary in clearing away the haze and darkness caused by the misinterpretations of other, perfidious and satanic, scholars.22 The latter he identified with the Tbingen school of biblical scholarship. Weisse's form of the two-document hypothesis was endorsed by Heinrich Holtzmann, who rescued it from the likely defeat it would otherwise have suffered from the Tbingen school. Although Holtzmann assumed that an Ur-gospel underlay all four Gospels, he also had an Ur-Marcus in mind here, again in essence because Mark is the shortest of the Gospels.23 Later, Ur-Marcus came to be identified with Mark itself. For the second document of the two-document hypothesis, Holtzmann drew upon the Logia of Papias, but assumed it contained material common to Luke and Matthew. This gave birth to the modern form of the two-document hypothesis. (Later, this common material was called "Q" and divorced from the testimony of Papias.) Advocates of the two-document hypothesis then learned to compromise a little with theological commitment, to the extent that Matthew and Luke were allowed to be dependent upon Mark, after Ur-Marcus became identified with canonical Mark. This was less radical than the Tbingen school's departure from theological commitment in that the Griesbachians treated Mark as being dependent upon both Luke and Matthew, and Luke also being dependent upon Matthew. At this point another reason why the Augustinian school of thought was gradually abandoned needs to be mentioned. By the 19th century, if not before, it had been noticed that when parallel passages of Matthew and Mark dealing with the disciples are carefully compared, the Twelve consistently come out looking relatively dumb, fearful and disrespectful to their Lord in Mark as compared to Matthew. Even the Jewish people receive similar treatment. These are called "Mark's harder readings." This comparison is amply documented by Pierson Parker.24 If Matthew were considered primary to Mark, this would mean that the writer of Mark had intentionally made slight alterations in meaning to the Matthean text he copied/translated in order to cast the Jewish disciples and people in a bad light. Such a thought must have been intolerable to theologically committed scholars, and to others who wished to remain in good standing with their Christian colleagues and editors. It is still intolerable to some today, as evidenced by what one scholar said at a Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting, as reported by Daniel B. Wallace.24.1 This scholar confessed, "I cannot hold to Matthean priority because of Mark s decidedly harder readings." The readings are "harder" only because it is hard for theologically committed scholars to believe that the writer of a gospel could have been pro-gentile and anti-Jewish. The problem could most easily be removed by assuming Mark held priority over Matthew; then it could be argued that the writer of Matthew had improved upon Mark's rough language, and had added reverential touches. I believe the problem was of such grave theological concern that scholars rarely dared to mention it in writing; hence we cannot be certain just when this repressed consideration became paramount.25 Due to its powerful emotional influence, however, it very likely contributed strongly to the growth in favor of the two-document hypothesis, and once that hypothesis dominated, the problem did not exist for its advocates. The most they then ever needed to say is: "Who can deny that Matthew enhances the disciples' and Jesus' images, both by upgrading their status and also by removing the unflattering warts which Mark for whatever reason retained?"26 Though the problem still existed for scholars who supported the Augustinian and Griesbach hypotheses, theological commitment or standards of "good taste" would prevent their opponents from mentioning it, and so no defense was needed. If such commitment were set aside, however, students of the synoptic problem could then discuss reasons why the writer of Mark would have made such alterations to the Matthean text he incorporated into his gospel. Chief among these is the fact that Matthew denigrates gentiles in at least eight places, which vituperation the writer of Mark quite naturally either refused to include in his gospel or greatly alleviated.27 The problem is enhanced by the real possibility that the key counteracting passages of Mt 12:17-22 and 28:18-20, the latter of which contains a Trinitarian-like formula, were later additions to Matthew.28 If theological commitment and political correctness are both set aside, one could also question why the writer of Matthew would have been anti-gentile in his outlook. With the Jewish background commonly believed of this writer, probably having once been a Pharisee or scribe and possibly even a rabbi, the answer is straight-forward. In being a strict follower of the Torah, he was to treat his own people with kindness (Lv 19:18), while treating gentiles as dire enemies (Dt 7:1-8; Ex 23:22-24) or as slaves (Lv 25:43-46). The God of Israel would be looking out for the welfare of his own people, who dwell in Zion, and not of outsiders (Is 10:24-27). Thus it is not surprising that the writer of Matthew held these anti-gentile beliefs. Jn 4:9 indicates that they persisted at least until the time of writing of that gospel. That this writer could seem anti-Jewish, too (e.g., Mt 27:25), could easily reflect his great disappointment that, nearly a century later, the Jewish people had not come to recognize Jesus as Messiah. Thus the suspicion is strong, from a fresh Augustinian viewpoint, that the writer of Mark was avenging Matthew's denigration of gentiles by in turn denigrating the Jewish disciples.29 Needless to say, this possibility is studiously avoided in our own era, as it attaches an anti-Semitic attitude to the writer of Mark, and invites the same to any scholar who suggests it. At best, one can only say that by this hypothesis the writer of Mark cast the Jewish disciples in a bad light so as to make gentiles look more capable by comparison and thus promote their discipleship, of which the writer of Matthew evidently did not approve. It would only have been human nature for the writer of Mark to have struck back at the writer of Matthew in some such manner. Neither is the Griesbach school of thought free from its own theological commitment. It is because the editorial behavior of the writer of Luke seemed so inexcusable, if Luke came third and depended upon Matthew, that Griesbach postulated Mark to have come third; then a consequent editorial strategy underlying Mark could seemingly make sense and restore the editorial reputation of the writer of Luke. As later expressed by Streeter, the writer of Luke would seem to have been a "crank" if he had taken Matthean material not in Mark out of order and placed it into inappropriate or out-of-context places within his own gospel. 30 This viewpoint again must stem from a theological conviction that a gospel writer would never exhibit unsavory though realistic psychological behavior, and it tends to close off all debate of alternative explanations. Subsequent scholars did not wish to be labeled as "a person who supports a crank" by authorities within their own professional field. The key alternative here is that the writer of Luke, like the writer of Mark, must have been appalled at Matthew's denigration of gentiles and statements to the effect that discipleship was reserved for the children of Israel. He would then have much preferred Mark over Matthew, though he apparently felt obliged to write a more universal gospel that required inclusion of much from Matthew that the writer of Mark had omitted (these inclusions would later become known as Q). The writer of Luke could then subtly express his feelings against Matthew by following Mark's order and content where Mark deviates from Matthew's order, and inserting his own special material and Matthean inclusions elsewhere, the latter in improper order and context.31 As a result, there would be relatively few agreements in order between Matthew and Luke, as observed. Although this editorial behavior, for someone with an "axe to grind," may seem quite plausible in hindsight, theological commitment or concerns of "good taste" have until 1992 prevented its discussion in the available literature on New Testament studies.32 Thus the basis for the Griesbach school stems from an attempt to avoid a very serious breach of theological commitment, causing this school to accept what they must have considered to be less serious breaches of same in departing from the Augustinian tradition. Not surprisingly, the school of thought that suffers the least disruption of theological commitment is the one that came to dominate, namely that of the two-document (or two-source) hypothesis. Its scholars could avoid the most serious breaches of faith already discussed by placing Mark first and maintaining that Luke and Matthew were written independently.33 This latter assumption is primarily what will be called into question by the remainder of this paper. This brief review need not be amplified here or continued further towards the present time, as the key assumptions leading to the present two-document hypothesis were laid down over a century ago. Although modern scholars are less beholden to theological commitment than their counterparts back then, the danger that exists now is the strong desire for the present consensus to signify successful scholastic achievement and progress within the profession. This desire tends to preclude any serious reexamination of the subject, its tenuous assumptions and the alternatives, lest such be recognized as an admission that the consensus could well have been wrong in its essential conclusions over the past century. II. Use of Frequency Distributions of Duplicate Strings of Words in Parallel Passages: Theory and Tests of Verbal Agreement There are only a finite number of ways a particular thought or sentence is usually expressed, within a particular language. Thus if two different translators or editors are working independently from the same extensive text, either translating or editing it or both, there will be numerous occasions whereupon the same two or three or more successive words are by chance or of necessity utilized by both parties, within parallel portions of the two texts. Evidently, long strings of duplicated words will occur much less frequently than short strings. Suppose that at a certain point the two translators or editors of the same basic text, working independently, have by chance or necessity used the same three words in a row in expressing a thought within that particular section of the text. The odds that they would each choose the same fourth word is some fraction less than unity. Then the odds that their choice for the fifth word would also coincide is again expected to be further diminished by some fraction less than unity, as the passage is completed and the next one within the parallel texts commences. Upon continuing this process through the entire text with all its parallel passages, one obviously finds that there is some average value for this fraction of diminishing odds, which we shall call f. The frequency distribution that expresses this reasoning is simply the geometric distribution, or the exponential distribution or curve, as will be explained. Thus if I is the number of successive duplicated words in a string, and Y(I) is the number of strings of that particular length occurring in the one editor/translator's work, upon comparing it against parallel passages of the other's, we might postulate: Y(I)= A*exp(-b*I) (1) where the asterisk denotes multiplication, "exp" denotes e (=2.7183) raised in this instance to the -b*I power, b is the exponential decay coefficient and A is a coefficient of proportionality. That is, for example, with Y(4)/Y(3) = Y(5)/Y(4) = ... = Y(I+1)/Y(I) = f we have, upon using Eq. (1) and dividing Y(I+1)/Y(I), f = exp[-b*(I+1)]/exp(-b*I) = exp(-b), which relates f to b and explains why an exponential distribution might be expected to prevail. Even if a second editor/translator is not working independently of an earlier translation, an exponentially shaped distribution is still expected to result, for ordinary editing in any advanced language, though significant deviations may occur for I as small as 2 or possibly 3 when excessive numbers of particular short phrases may exist. However, Greek is an ideal language upon which to utilize the method, as word order is there not particularly important and many different choices of verb tense, voice, mood, etc., as well as word order, lie at the disposal of the editor/translator. In the case of editing rather than translation, the particular value of b within the exponential formula will depend primarily upon the particular style of the editor; if he feels the text is in poor shape and needs much editing, b will be relatively large. In the case of translation by two independent translators, b will be relatively large if the translators tend to use rather different vocabularies, or if one emphasizes meaning while the other emphasizes literalness. The feature to be emphasized here, therefore, is how well the distribution fits an exponential- like curve, especially as I becomes increasingly large, rather than the precise value of b. The coefficient A is very roughly proportional to the number of duplicated words, S, within the word strings, which is S = Summation[I*Y(I)]. It is of lesser importance, except that the larger S is the better, so as to minimize sampling error (scatter in the derived data). The ratio S/N, where N is the total number of words in the text analyzed, will also be examined. However, N is dependent upon the manner in which the parallel passages to be analyzed are selected: whether simply by pericopes, or by excluding irrelevant verses within pericopes, or by excluding irrelevant halves of verses. Hence no particular importance will be placed upon A or S/N here. Duplicate "strings" of only one word each, or sometimes two words each, are excluded from the present practice of the method because of their non-representativeness, and S will include the summation from I = 2 or 3 on up. For normal editing/translating, the frequency distribution of strings of verbal agreement is expected to follow a curve of exponential type for all three of the following cases, which involve two texts, (a) and (b) that can be compared: 1) Original (a) ---> Edited version (b) 2) Original ---> 1st translator (a) " ---> 2nd translator (b) 3) Same as 2) except that 2nd translator utilizes (a) as well as the original This expectation follows from the fact that the editor/translator would be making changes of many different kinds at very many different places within his manuscript in his attempt to produce a more accurate version or translation, and/or to utilize better word choices and/or better grammar, and/or to produce a final work that is more understandable or one that better follows a certain philosophy or theology, or one that is written for a different intended audience. The number of reasons for editing or achieving a differently worded translation is then sufficiently large that randomness can dominate the overall process. Since in case 3) the 2nd translator is also an editor, making some use of the 1st translator's work, we shall simply refer in all three cases to the later writer as editor/translator. There is one vitally important exception, however. If this editor/translator purposely refrained in places from making editorial alterations over lengthy strings of text, purposely copying his source text word for word in a significant number of these places, the resulting frequency distribution would deviate from the exponential, as this would produce an excessive number of duplicated longer strings of words above and beyond the exponential distribution exhibited by the shorter strings. This case of purposeful copying of longer strings without editing them will turn out to be of special interest here, in comparing parallel Greek text of the synoptic gospels where copying of one sort or another is already suspected by most New Testament scholars to have taken place. However, the possibility of non- purposeful copying of sections of text through the editor/translator's inadvertent relaxation of a critical attitude at times during the course of his editing of a lengthy text will also be examined. Testing the Procedure on Greek Text Translated from Hebrew I am unaware that the method has been utilized previously, and so some tests are in order. To determine if the distribution actually lies close to the exponential for ordinarily edited/translated works, and to ascertain a rough value for b, the method is here first employed upon the Greek text of 2 Chr 35-36, all of Ezra and Neh 7:73-8:12, which overlap with the apocalyptic text of 1 Esdras (with the exception of 1 Esdr 2:16-5:7, which has no parallels.)34 These two texts are believed to relate back to different translations from Hebrew text, and whether or not the latter translator/editor borrowed words or phrases from the earlier one's Greek translation does not matter, if this was done in any ordinary manner. Words are not considered duplicated here unless they are spelled exactly the same, and word strings common to parallel passages do not qualify unless the words are consecutive in both parallel strings and occur in exactly the same order. Punctuation is neglected (since it was not present in the original ancient texts), and also capitalization, if it was used only to signify the start of a sentence. 1 Esdr 5:29-34 and 8:13 were excluded from analysis, as they consist of long repetitive phrases like "the sons of X, the sons of Y...," all strung together, which have no counterpart within the Gospel parallels to be analyzed, and which might bias the result to some small degree. The results for this test case are shown in Table 1: Table 1. Number of occurrences, Y, of duplicate strings of I words in the Septuagint's text of 2 Chr 35-36, Ezra and Neh 7:73-8:12, relative to the parallel verses in 1 Esdras. I Y Exp. Curve 2 232 147.1 3 114 90.1 4 44 55.2 5 36 33.8 6 24 20.7 7 12 12.7 8 6 7.8 9 1 4.8 10 1 2.9 11 1 1.8 12 1 1.10 13 1 0.67 14 0 0.41 15 0 0.25 16 0 0.15 17 0 0.094 etc. The column labeled "exp curve" is given by Y(I) = 392 exp(-0.49*I) (2) which means that for each word added to a string's length, the probability of occurrence of that string is reduced by the factor f = 0.613, on the average. Thus, these two extensive sets of parallel passages appear to support the method, with b being in the vicinity of 0.5 (0.49 here). For I = 2 the exponential curve fitted allows for a significant excess of occurrences due to so many nouns, both proper and common, being preceded by the article. Hence the I = 2 datum is essentially ignored here. The observed value for Y(3) lies somewhat above the exponential curve; this might be due to 3-word phrases such as the preceding 2-word examples followed by "kai," as well as 3-word prepositional phrases, tending to survive editorial rearrangements. On the other hand, this did not occur in two cases out of six to be examined, and thus may not be statistically significant. And since the data for small I are the more numerous and contain less sampling error, relative to the mean, than for large I, I have retained the I = 3 data in this study. Hence I have fit the exponential curve within the region I > 2 up to but not including values of I for which Y becomes as small as 2 or less. (It is an accident of sampling error here that five consecutive values of Y = 1 occurred in this latter region, without being interspersed with any zeroes or two's.) The above exponential was derived as a least-squares linear fit to the data after transforming the Y values to their natural logarithms. Although the values in Table 1 derived from the "exp curve" are not accurate in any absolute sense to the number of digits indicated, the decimal digits are retained so as to avoid any confusion between the fitted-curve values and the Y integers of the raw data. Since the two texts involved here were written at points well separated in time, we may consider the behavior of only the later translator/editor, as in case 3): Did he translate and edit in an ordinary manner that did not involve purposely copying lengthy strings of text, in case he had utilized the earlier translation in such a way while undertaking his own translation? The results indicate that his translation or editing was indeed ordinary in the sense that there are no lengthy strings of text for I >13, for which the expected number of strings rapidly diminishes to less than one, i.e., to 0.4 and less from the exponential curve. That is, if there were ten other nearly identical test cases available for analysis, an expectation from the exponential curve of 0.4 for a duplicate word length of 14 words means that in about 4 out of 10 of the cases one such string of words would occur, but none in the other 6 cases. One value of this kind of analysis is that it indicates that one or two strings of verbal agreement as long as 12 or 13 words is not unexpected in this case, since the expected number of occurrences there has fallen only to 1.10 and 0.67, respectively. However, if two or three duplicate strings of 17 or more words had occurred, this would have been more indicative of copying along with purposeful refraining from editing, as the estimated frequency of occurrence in those instances is only 0.094 or less. For reference purposes, the value of S here was found to be 1494, while that for N (from parallels within the 1 Esdras text) was approximately 6660, giving a ratio of S/N = 0.22. Examining the Procedure's Sampling Error The region of moderate to large I is of greatest interest here, but that is precisely where sampling error becomes relatively greatest. Hence it is of interest to explore the sampling error in a synthetic case with the same frequency distribution. Suppose that you have a mixed bag full of 577 black balls and 423 red balls --1000 in all. You start drawing them out one at a time, replacing each in the bag and remixing it before drawing the next, and keeping account of how many black balls in a row you remove until drawing a red one. Overall, you expect the odds of drawing a black ball to be f = 0.577, and if you had just drawn two black balls in a row, your odds of drawing a third are still 0.577, etc. Upon repeating the procedure over and over, it must lead to a geometric or exponential probability distribution for the number of strings, Y, of consecutively drawn black balls as a function of the length of string, I. And as may be calculated from the relation between f and b, the associated exponential decay factor should be b = 0.55. (This value, rather than 0.49 for b, was chosen here from a preliminary analysis in which the 1 Esdras data had been fit by eye rather than by the method of least squares, and had then yielded the somewhat greater value of b. However, the difference is quite minor and the results remain of interest.) The computer equivalent to this thought experiment was carried out, until the number of extracted black balls that occurred in strings of two or longer first exceeded S = 1495, approximately as in the 1 Esdras test case above. The results are given in Table 2: Table 2. Number of occurrences, Y, of strings of length I of consecutively drawn black balls from a mixed bag of 577 black balls and 423 red ones, after 3113 drawings (after S=1497), from a typical realization. Also shown: the associated exponential curve, and estimated frequencies of occurrence of extrema. I Y Exp. Curve Top 1% Top 5% Bottom 5% Bottom 1% 0 590 559 1 311 322.5 2 174 186.1 219 210 164 152 3 122 107.4 135 123 90 79 4 64 61.9 84 76 49 44 5 33 35.7 54 45 27 22 6 17 20.6 36 28 14 10 7 14 11.9 23 17 6.7 3.6 8 3 6.9 16 11 3.1 1.0 9 3 3.96 11 7.1 1.0 0.07 10 6 2.28 8.1 5.2 0.12 0 11 0 1.32 6.4 3.7 0 0 12 3 0.76 4.8 2.9 0 0 13 0 0.44 3.9 2.1 0 0 14 0 0.25 3.1 1.6 0 0 15 1 0.15 2.5 1.3 0 0 16 0 0.084 2.0 1.1 0 0 17 0 0.049 1.7 0.9 0 0 18 0 0.028 19 0 0.016 20 0 0.009 21 etc. 0.005 The exponential curve in this case could be fit using the data for I = 0, 1 and 2, as well as for larger I, and by utilizing the average from very large numbers of computer generated test cases.35. It is given by Y(I) = 559 exp(-0.55*I). (3) Table 2 shows the same general appearance or degree of scattering of values as Table 1, especially if both are presented in graphical form. In particular, it shows that a long string can easily occur (I = 15) through chance where the expected exponential frequency has dropped considerably below unity (to 0.15 in this case). The computer experiment was run another 99 times in order to obtain the firm estimate of the mean and estimates of the magnitude of the more extreme Y(I) values that occur less than or equal to 5% and 1% of the time, respectively. These are also presented in Table 2. Thus a string of 15 is expected somewhat more often than 5 times in 100; a string of 20 is expected to occur about one time out of 100, and cannot be totally ruled out. However, if such occurred in addition to two or three other similarly long strings within the same real data set, this would be cause for rejection of the assumption that the balls had been drawn randomly from the bag (or in the case of word strings of verbal agreement, a rejection of the assumption that ordinary editing of text had occurred without any deliberate copying). A More Rigorous Computer Analogy A further set of computer runs was made to test the merit of the computer analogy, in view of the fact that in reality the odds for the editor/translator's choice of his next word, in a developing string, to be a duplicate of the first editor/translator's word in general is different from word to word, and would not always have the same value of f. For example, if at some point the first editor/translator had translated a phrase as "the kingdom of God," the odds are quite high, perhaps 0.9, that having duplicated "kingdom" the second editor/translator will also duplicate "of God:" yet the odds are not unity since he may instead choose to write "of heaven" or "His" (kingdom of Him). On the other hand, at another point, if after having by chance duplicated several words the second editor/translator needs to express some particular verbal action, he may choose a different tense, voice or mood, or different but nearly synonymous verb, than what the first writer chose; or he may even transpose or interject another phrase or thought into that position. So at that point the odds might be only 0.25, say, of his choosing the same word as in the parallel text. Hence in these further computer runs the odds themselves of choosing each black ball from the bag were allowed to vary randomly on each draw from the bag, between values of 0.254 and 0.90, with a uniform distribution of odds in between. In the long run, then, the odds overall were the average of 0.9 and 0.254, which is the same as the previous value: 0.577. The results were statistically the very same as before, being well fit by the same exponential distribution with the same values of A and b. (This program and its simpler predecessor were kindly programmed for me, using C++, by Frank Griswold of Corvallis, Oregon.) Thus as long as randomness is involved, the exponential or geometric distribution is to be expected from ordinary editorial alterations, barring word strings that are extremely short. It doesn't matter that the particular odds for each decision is steady or varies from word to word depending upon their context; a single value of f and thus for b that applies overall is obtained, when randomness dominates. Hence the exponential frequency distribution is a basic one against which to compare actual frequency distributions of word strings of verbal agreement in the case of ordinary editing and/or translation, when a sufficiently large data sample exists. Test of the Procedure on English Translations of Greek Text As a further test using these same parallel passages from 1 Esdras and Ezra et al., their English translations were analyzed in exactly the same manner. 36 Results are shown in Table 3: Table 3. Number of occurrences, Y, of duplicate strings containing I words each in two separate English translations of the Septuagint's text of 2 Chr 35-36, Ezra and Neh 7:73-8:12, relative to parallel verses in 1 Esdras. I Y Exp. Curve 2 335 319.9 3 202 196.0 4 122 120.1 5 63 73.6 6 47 45.1 7 34 27.6 8 13 16.9 9 14 10.4 10 3 6.4 11 6 3.9 12 2 2.38 13 1 1.46 14 4 0.89 15 2 0.55 16 0 0.33 17 1 0.20 18 0 0.12 19 0 0.076 20 0 0.046 21 1 0.029 22 0 0.018 23 0 0.011 24 etc. 0.0067 Here the value of b for the least-squares exponential fit to the Y(I) data happens to be the same: 0.49, leading to Y(I) = 900 exp(-0.49*I). (4) Again the exponential or geometric distribution fits well for I up through 15. For I = 17 we do see an occurrence where the expectation is for only 0.2 events on the average, but since this could happen in about 1 case out of 5, it cannot be considered anomalous. Moreover, in this instance, and also in one I=14 and one I=15 case, strings of names and/or numberings were involved, which tend to resist editorial alteration. The one string at I=21 occurs where the odds against its presence given by the exponential curve is about 34:1. This does verge on the appearance of an anomaly. However, because there is only one such event at low odds we cannot conclude that it did not occur through ordinary editing/translation.37 Statistically, isolated rare events do (and must) occasionally occur, as noted from the computer-generated black-ball test cases previously analyzed. For reference purposes, the total number of words in the parallel text of 1 Esdras in English was approximately N = 8498, yielding S/N = 0.363. This larger value of S/N, with consequent occurrence of greater numbers of duplicate strings in the English translations as compared to the Greek, may be due to the fewer variants of expression available in English than in Greek. Moreover, in the two Greek texts compared, the translators had used vocabularies that were significantly different; however, this seems no cause for disqualification of the data, as the different synoptic evangelists, whose texts will be compared soon, also utilized somewhat distinctive expressions or vocabularies. Tests involving Two Different English Translations: A. From a Psalter The one text in this case was comprised of Psalms 92-101 from the RSV Bible. It derives from an English translation of the Jewish Masoretic Text of the 6th to 9th centuries, after the translation had evolved through several intermediate editions of various English Bibles, culminating in the RSV text of 1952. The other text is the Nikitas Psalter, 1981 edition, which is presently used by the Greek Orthodox Church. It stems from the (Greek) LXX text of these psalms. Table 3.1. Number of occurrences, Y, of duplicate strings containing I words each in two different English translations of Psalms 92-101. I Y Exp. Curve 2 65 68.8 3 45 46.4 4 30 31.4 5 20 21.2 6 19 14.3 7 9 9.6 8 6 6.5 9 1 4.4 10 0 2.97 11 2 2.00 12 0 1.35 13 1 0.91 14 2 0.62 15 0 0.42 16 0 0.28 17 0 0.19 18 1 0.13 19 0 0.086 20 0 0.058 The least-squares derived exponential, fit from the data of I = 3 through 8, is given by 151 exp(-0.393*I). (4.1) As can be expected in this case with only 110 verses available for analysis, the scatter becomes large for I > 8. The single replicated phrase of 18 words might be thought to be anomalous; however, if one sums the expected values from the fitted curve from I = 16 onwards, they amount to 0.86, close to unity. This is consistent with the exponential curve retaining validity far out in its tail, and with ordinary, objective editing/translating behavior occurring during the forming of the texts. B. From the Book of Enoch An exceptionally lengthy data set is available from two different translations of 1 Enoch, also known as the Ethiopian Enoch. Parts of it date back to very early Old Testament times of Enoch himself, when it had been written in Aramaic, with later transcriptions and editings of it having been made by custodians of the sacred Jewish literature. At some point it was believed to have been translated into Greek, and still later into Ethiopic its main text was discovered in Ethiopia around 1773. By 1821 its first translation from Ethiopic into English had been done by Richard Laurence. In 1912 another translation of it from Ethiopic into English was made by R. H. Charles. The verbal agreement between these two translations is compared here. Table 3.2. Number of occurrences, Y, of duplicate strings containing I words each, from parallel passages within two different English translations of 1 Enoch. I Y Exp. Curve 3 823 828.8 4 500 516.9 5 328 322.4 6 208 201.1 7 128 125.5 8 79 78.3 9 47 48.7 10 39 30.4 11 21 19.0 12 12 11.8 13 11 7.4 14 2 4.6 15 1 2.9 16 3 1.8 17 1 1.1 18 0 0.70 19 1 0.44 20 2 0.27 21 1 0.17 22 0 0.11 23 0 0.06 24 0 0.04 When plotted graphically, the scatter does not become noticeable until I = 10. The exponential was fit using values from I = 3 through 9, and is given by: 3415 exp(-0.472*I). (4.2) The data do not extend appreciably further than what is predicted by the exponential tail. Although for I = 13 Y is about 4 more than is expected from the exponential, for I = 14 it is about 3 less. For I > 17 a total of 4 long duplicate strings occurred, while the exponential expectation is for 1.9. This is not inconsistent with what is expected from sampling error. Thus these data behave as if the second translation were essentially independent of the first one, although there may have been a tendency for the second translator to avoid duplicating words used by the first,37.1 it being very improbable that Charles was unaware of Laurence's translation. If so, this comparison demonstrates that the exponential curve nevertheless fits the data well, and that some longer strings are to be expected even if the later translator/editor tried to avoid replicating words used by the earlier translator. At the least, it shows that there is no tendency for any great excess of longer strings to occur well past the point where the exponential expectation does not predict them. For this case, S/N was approximately 5990/36,000 = 0.17. Test of the Frequency Distribution Resulting from Non-uniform Editing A test case became available to this investigator for which the conditions of translation/editing were better known. It involved the TJ document described elsewhere in this web site. Numerous errors and imperfections had been noticed in the 1996 English version of this German text, and so two translators, to be designated here as R&P, both proficient in both German and English, undertook the task of making a thoroughly improved translation. They of course utilized the 1996 English version of the TJ as well as its 1996 German version, and so fall under the category 3) case of translating/editing discussed earlier. This case will be seen to be of particular interest to the synoptic- gospel hypothesis of Matthew having been written first in a Semitic tongue, then utilized (translated) by the writer of Mark as he formed his Greek gospel from it, then translated by the writer of Luke as he formed his Greek gospel from it and from Mark, and finally translated directly into the Greek form of Matthew very close to the form we have it today, with this latter translator making use of Mark and Luke. This hypothesis has been called the modified Augustinian hypothesis. The first editors/translators in this case (R&P) undertook their task in the usual way, i.e., they did not refrain from revising any portions of the 1996 text out of any purposeful reason, but made improvements everywhere they felt they were needed. The R&P draft version of the TJ was then compared with the 1996 TJ for their verbal identities.38 Table 4. Number of occurrences, Y, of duplicate strings of I words in a row within parallel passages (in English) of the 1996 edition of the TJ and its interim revised version by R&P. Second column: expected value for a purely exponential frequency of occurrence (Exp. Curve); third column: expected value for a hyper-exponential frequency distribution (Hypo-Exp.). I Y Exp. Curve Hypo-Exp. I Y Exp. Curve Hypo-Exp. I Y Exp. Curve Hypo-Exp. 3 463 269.2 419.8 35 11 7.0 7.9 67 0 0.183 0.72 4 356 240.2 334.0 36 10 6.3 7.2 68 0 0.163 0.67 5 272 214.3 272.1 37 5 5.6 6.6 69 0 0.145 0.63 6 217 191.2 225.3 38 4 5.0 6.1 70 0 0.130 0.59 7 186 170.6 188.9 39 6 4.4 5.6 71 1 0.116 0.55 8 150 152.3 160.1 40 6 4.0 5.2 72 1 0.103 0.52 9 118 135.8 136.8 41 1 3.5 4.8 73 0 0.092 0.49 10 118 121.2 117.8 42 2 3.2 4.4 74 2 0.082 0.46 11 107 108.2 102.0 43 7 2.8 4.1 75 1 0.073 0.43 12 96 96.5 88.8 44 4 2.5 3.7 76 0 0.065 0.40 13 78 86.1 77.7 45 5 2.2 3.5 77 2 0.058 0.38 14 82 76.8 68.2 46 5 2.0 3.2 78 1 0.052 0.35 15 67 68.5 60.2 47 3 1.8 3.0 79 1 0.046 0.33 16 52 61.2 53.3 48 1 1.6 2.7 80 2 0.041 0.31 17 46 54.6 47.3 49 2 1.4 2.5 81 0 0.037 0.29 18 33 48.4 42.1 50 3 1.3 2.4 : : : : 19 29 43.4 37.6 51 1 1.13 2.19 85 1 0.023 0.23 20 30 38.8 33.6 52 2 1.01 2.04 86 0 0.021 0.22 21 29 34.6 30.2 53 0 0.90 1.89 : : : : 22 26 30.9 27.1 54 3 0.80 1.76 90 1 0.013 0.172 23 26 27.5 24.4 55 0 0.72 1.64 91 1 0.0118 0.162 24 24 24.6 22.1 56 0 0.64 1.52 92 0 0.0106 0.153 25 14 21.9 19.9 57 3 0.57 1.42 93 1 0.0094 0.144 26 18 19.6 18.1 58 1 0.51 1.32 94 0 0.0084 0.136 27 21 17.5 16.4 59 0 0.46 1.23 : : : : 28 19 15.6 14.9 60 1 0.41 1.15 104 1 0.0027 0.0777 29 11 13.9 13.5 61 1 0.36 1.07 105 0 0.0024 0.0736 30 6 12.4 12.3 62 1 0.32 1.00 : : : : 31 14 11.1 11.2 63 1 0.29 0.94 156 1 0.000007 0.0057 32 13 9.9 10.3 64 0 0.26 0.88 157 0 0.000006 0.0054 33 10 8.8 9.4 65 2 0.23 0.82 : : : : 34 6 7.9 8.6 66 3 0.21 0.77 end of data The column labeled "Exp. Curve" is the least-squares exponential fit using the data from I = 3 through 40. It is given by Y(I) = 379 exp(-0.114*I) (4a) However, it is a poor fit to the data. For I = 3 through 7 it produces Y values significantly too small, while for I = 8 through 26 it produces Y values all too large (with only one exception). And for I > 60 it cannot account for more than about 3 occurrences of very long duplicate strings whereas 25 actually occur. The editing/translating behavior that can account for this is one where the editors at times become disturbed over how poor the previous translation was, and then make very frequent editorial changes for a significant section of their text; then at later times they find other sections of the text to have been translated quite well, and so relax their degree of criticality for a while and make relatively few editorial alterations for some time thereafter. Such non- randomness in criticality causes an excess in Y(I) for small I, relative to the exponential curve, and also at large I, leaving a deficiency at intermediate I if the amount of data is great enough, and the overall degree of criticality not too great, for the effect to be noticeable. In this case these conditions appear to have been met, with the amount of data within duplicate strings greatly exceeding that of previous cases analyzed, except for the 1 Enoch comparison. This TJ case, then, appears to be one in which unintentional verbatim copying of rather lengthy strings of text at times did take place. A key feature to notice, however, is that, except for the inevitable scatter in the data, the Y values do decrease monotonically with increasing I. This suggests that a modified exponential function could fit the data if the I coordinate is shrunk as in the following formula: Y(I) = A exp(-b*I n) with n < 1. Accordingly, a 3-point fit to the data was performed using smoothed Y values at I = 5, 30 and 62. The resulting curve, here called a hypo-exponential, is given by: Y(I) = 1473 exp(-0.663*I 0.581) (4b) Its values are listed (under Hypo-Exp.) in the 4th, 8th and 12th columns of Table 4. The fit is seen to be quite satisfactory. In particular, at large I beyond the points of fitting it still yields satisfactory expectations for occurrences, upon lumping together the data in blocks of 5 or 10. Even the final lengthy string of 156 words is not too surprising an occurrence in that the sum of the hypo-exponential expectations for all I > 115 (within which region only the one event occurred) is about 0.92. We now have a background within which to place whatever results we find from analysis of the verbal agreement between Gospel parallels. For ordinary translating with editing, an exponential frequency distribution should be found. If inattentive copying of longer strings occurs, a hypo-exponential form for the frequency distribution may occur. If deliberate copying of an excessive number of longer strings should occur, the resulting frequency distribution could be too abnormal to satisfy any exponential form. III. Frequency Distributions of Duplicate Word Strings in the Gospel Parallels Results for Mark versus Matthew We turn first to the extensive parallels between Matthew and Mark.39 Again, words were not counted as duplicates unless spelled exactly the same, only strings of two or more consecutive words were counted, and all other text possessing parallels was included in the analysis. Secondary members of doublets and pleonasms were not included unless they were present as parallels in both texts. Results are shown in Table 5: Table 5. Number of occurrences, Y, of duplicate strings of I words in a row within parallel passages (in Greek) of Matthew and Mark. Expected frequency of occurrence in last column. I Y Exp. Curve 2 321 264.2 3 195 173.6 4 122 114.1 5 54 74.9 6 52 49.2 7 33 32.4 8 28 21.3 9 13 14.0 10 9 9.2 11 2 6.0 12 5 4.0 13 4 2.6 14 2 1.71 15 2 1.12 16 3 0.74 17 1 0.49 18 2 0.32 19 1 0.21 20 2 0.14 21 0 0.090 22 0 0.059 23 2 0.039 24 0 0.026 25 0 0.017 26 0 0.011 27 0 0.0073 28 0 0.0048 29 1 0.0031 30 0 0.0020 31 0 0.0013 32 0 0.00088 33 1 0.00059 34 0 0.00038 35 0 0.00025 36 etc. 0.00017 The least-squares exponential fit again made use of the data from I=3 up through I=10, since for I=11 Y had fluctuated down to 2. (The sampling error in ln(Y) increases strongly as Y approaches values as small as 2 or 3.) It is given by Y(I) = 612 exp(-0.42*I) (5) with the decay coefficient, b, again being in the vicinity of 0.5, namely 0.42. However, for I > 15 we see that the frequency of occurrence consistently exceeds the expected value from the exponential curve, and by increasing ratios, as I increases further. At I = 23, for which Y=2 strings occurred duplicated in Matthew and Mark, their occurrence exceeds the expected number within the surrounding block of I = 22 to 28 by a factor of 9. The very long string of I = 29 exceeds the expected (fractional) number of occurrences for ordinary editing within the surrounding block I = 28 to 32 by a factor of 89. The exceedingly long string of I = 33 exceeds the expected (fractional) number of occurrences for all I > 32 by a factor of 470.40 Anticipating, then, that a hypo-exponential distribution might have resulted through inadvertent copying of longer strings of text, a 3-point hypo-exponential fit was made using the data for I = 4 (Y=122), 10 (Y=9) and 20 (Y=1.0). The resulting curve is given by: Y(I) = 4.82*1010 exp(-16.42*I 0.135) However, the small power to which I is raised (n = 0.135) and consequent huge values for b (16.42) and A ( 4.82*1010) indicate a poorly conditioned formula, in which the calculated values of Y are super-sensitive to the precise values of the three parameters. It furthermore yields values of Y at I < 3 that are much too large, while predicting that one or two more lengthy strings of duplicate words should occur for I > 35, which does not occur. This is due to the fact that the data for I < 13 appears to follow a normal exponential quite well, while the Y values for I > 14 abruptly become too large in comparison, requiring an ill-conditioned hypo-exponential to fit. It appears, then, that the verbal agreement between these two gospels, for the longer strings, did not occur through the ordinary editorial process, and quite likely not through inadvertent copying either. The parameters derived for the hypo-exponential curve of the TJ test case produced a well-conditioned formula, suggesting that non-uniform criticality in editing only moderately alters the exponential shape from that expected when editorial decisions are made at random intervals during editing/translating. Instead, the much stronger distortion of the exponential shape for the frequency distribution of the Matthew-Mark parallels requires us to consider that one editor or translator, when making use of the other's work (or possibly of a common source), purposely duplicated certain lengthy strings of words; i.e., decided not to edit them to his usual taste. That one made use of the other's text is already a common conclusion, since the verbal agreement is striking even from casual inspection and has been long known. Although later scribal assimilation might be responsible for two or three of the longer strings, through inadvertent or purposeful connection of adjacent shorter strings, it seems wholly inadequate in explaining most of the excesses. Of particular interest is that for the smaller values of I (I < 13 here), the Y values do appear to be quite well represented by the exponential curve, as was found to hold for the 1 Esdras-Ezra (in Greek) test case for its larger I also. This suggests that the editor normally cannot refrain from making many minor alterations in wording in order to improve, clarify or more faithfully render his own interpretation or translation of the text, even if he purposely duplicates certain longer strings of text. Thus the purely exponential curve may hold approximately for the shorter strings of duplicate words even if an editor should purposely copy intact a significant number of long strings of words while making alterations on the text as a whole. For the record, the total number of words in the parallel Matthean verses was N = 8980, while the sum of words duplicated within word strings of two or longer was S = 3419 = 0.38N. Results for Luke versus Mark Here only those verses of Luke were utilized that exhibit a stronger, or much stronger, parallel to Mark than to Matthew. That is, not only were all "Q" verses omitted from Luke here, but most of the triple tradition where it is not certain if Luke's version is closer to that of Mark than to that of Matthew, or perhaps is a conflation of the two.41 The results are shown in Table 6: Table 6. Number of occurrences, Y, of duplicate strings of word length I in parallel passages (in Greek) of Luke and Mark. I Y Exp. Curve 2 92 51.4 3 57 35.2 4 25 24.1 5 11 16.5 6 11 11.3 7 4 7.7 8 5 5.3 9 5 3.6 10 3 2.5 11 2 1.7 12 1 1.15 13 1 0.79 14 0 0.54 15 0 0.37 : : 26 1 0.0056 27 0 0.0038 28 0 0.0026 29 1 0.00180 30 0 0.00123 31 0 0.00089 32 etc. The least-squares fit exponential curve, whose values are listed, is in this instance given by Y(I) = 110 exp(-0.38*I). (6) The purely exponential fit is seen to be satisfactory for 3 < I < 15, and even somewhat further. However the two long strings encountered at I = 26 and 29 are exceptions. For I > 23 the exponential expectation is that only 0.046 events should occur, not 2, so that their occurrence defies the odds for a normally edited work by a factor of 2/0.046 = 43. They appear anomalous further because in the region 15 < I < 23 no strings occurred while 1 or 2 could be expected. Hence in this case we cannot be certain that they indicate any abnormal editing behavior in view of the possibility that scribal assimilation may have produced their verbal agreement. The string of I=26 occurs at Mk 1:24-25 = Lk 4:34-35, but this might have been separate adjacent strings of 9 and 16 words, or of 9, 12 and 3 words, if the presence of one or two intermediately positioned words of somewhat uncertain reliability, according to Nestle- Aland's 27th edition, had not been judged as reliable.42 The string of I=29 occurs at Mk 10:14-15 = Lk 18:16-17, but might similarly have consisted of two strings of length 12 and 17 words each if a certain word in Luke ("gar" within the witness D and others) had been deemed authentic. Thus no strong case can be made here that the writer of Luke used abnormal editorial behavior when editing passages from Mark that he utilized, although the consensus of New Testament scholarship is that the writer of Luke did indeed make heavy use of Mark. However, without any motivation being apparent as to why he would choose just two particular lengthy stretches of text to copy without making his usual more frequent alterations, the two anomalies at I=26 and 29 seem best attributable to scribal assimilation. Or, perhaps one of them is due just to the vagaries of chance. The ratio S/N in this case is 821/2850 = 0.29. Results for Luke versus Matthew: "Q" verses The 65 Q passages listed by E. Linnemann are now analyzed in the same manner.43 Results are shown in Table 7: Table 7. Number of occurrences, Y, of duplicate of length I in parallel passages (in Greek) of Luke and Matthew: the "Q" verses. I Y Exp. #1 Exp. #2 2 90 38.1 75.2 3 59 30.9 50.9 4 31 25.0 34.6 5 23 20.3 23.5 6 15 16.4 16.0 7 11 13.3 10.9 8 8 10.8 7.4 9 3 8.7 5.0 10 7 7.1 3.4 11 5 5.7 2.3 12 4 4.6 1.6 13 3 3.8 1.08 14 6 3.0 0.73 15 4 2.5 0.50 16 1 2.0 0.34 17 0 1.6 0.23 18 0 1.3 0.16 19 1 1.1 0.106 20 1 0.86 0.072 21 0 0.70 0.049 22 0 0.57 0.033 23 0 0.46 0.023 24 2 0.37 0.015 25 1 0.30 0.0105 26 2 0.24 0.0072 27 1 0.20 0.0049 28 0 0.16 0.0033 29 0 0.13 0.0022 30 etc. Values from the exponential curve, Exp. #1, in Table 6 derive from the usual manner of least-squares fit: Y(I) = 58 exp(-0.21*I) (Exp. #1) We see that here the value of b, namely 0.21, is significantly smaller than in the other cases for which a pure exponential applied; also, the value of A = 58 is also unusually small for a data set of this size. As a result, the predicted Y value for I=3 is radically too small, and somewhat too small for I=4 also. On the other hand, the predicted Y value for I = 9 is radically too large. That is, the actual Y data, for 2 < I < 10 does appear to decrease in exponential fashion, but the least-squares fit for Exp. #1 does not reflect this because it made use of the deviant Y data for 9 < I < 16. If the criterion for fitting the exponential had been to utilize data only up to but not including the point in I where Y first drops to 3 or less (rather than 2 or less), the previous analyses would remain the same but a much different exponential curve would be obtained in this case. This is the curve labeled Exp. #2 in Table 6, which utilizes the Y data for 2 < I < 9. It is given by: Y(I) = 164 exp(-0.39*I) (Exp. #2) We now see that the exponential decay coefficient, b = 0.39, is close to the values previously obtained, and gives a very satisfactory fit to the data for I up to 10, where the deviant values of Y commence. It may again be wondered if a hypo-exponential curve fit through 3 points would prove satisfactory. The fitting was attempted at the (I, Y) points of (3, 59), (8, 8) and (25, 1). However, no value of n in Y = A*exp(-b*In) small enough to provide a fit could even be found; a hypo-exponential curve was even less applicable here than in the case of Matthew-Mark. Thus it appears that we may consider the frequency distribution of curve Exp. #2 as being representative of normal editing, with abnormal editing being responsible here for the occurrence of excessive numbers of duplicate strings of words for values of I of 10 and greater. Although sampling error becomes significant in this range, we find seven adjacent sets of strings that are abnormally long (none shorter than the mean expectation for Exp. #1 or #2). The odds of this happening for a normally edited work are only 1 in 128, or 0.5 raised to the 7th power, since about as many values of Y should fall below the expected curve as above. For the region 17 < I < 24, two strings occur when the expectation with ordinary editing (Exp. #2) is for only 0.6 of a string. For I > 24, where 6 strings occur, the expectation is for only 0.036 of a string altogether. If one editor/evangelist was using a preexisting Greek Gospel here, this would mean that he purposely copied down intact some 27 strings of length I > 9, avoiding any editing of those strings.44 This appears to be far too many instances to represent the results of later scribal assimilation. The conclusion, then, is that either the writer of Luke edited verses of Matthew in this abnormal manner, or the writer/translator of Matthew edited verses of Luke in this abnormal manner. The ratio S/N for these Q verses was found to be 1412/4319 = 0.33, larger than might be expected in view of the large amount of recasting of the Q verses by one of the two gospel writers. Although 13 of the 65 passages exhibit only one short string of duplicated words or none at all, this is compensated by others that exhibit many. It might be thought that the longer duplicated strings in the Matthew-Luke comparison involve the most impressive sayings, and were preserved intact for that reason. However, this is not the case. The longest, 27-word, string combines the praising of God for revealing things only to infants with the declaration that all things had been delivered to Jesus, which is a union of two concepts each difficult to fathom and therefore unlikely to have been previously preserved and known through oral tradition. One of the duplicate 26-word strings involves the cutting asunder of the wicked servant; the 25-word string involves the centurion saying how his soldiers and slaves obey his orders, with its last two words involving narration rather than discourse; the 24-word string involves God raising up children to Abraham out of stones. These are not among the more memorable sayings. On the other hand, many of the more memorable sayings within the Q verses did not survive heavy editing. For example, the three parallel beatitudes (blessed are the poor, the mourning and the hungering) together comprise 28 words in Matthew and 22 in Luke, but contain only two 3-word strings and one 2-word string common to both. The saying concerning "enter by the narrow gate" is some 42 words long in Matthew and 15 in Luke, yet only one string of 3 words is common to both. The "house on the rock" parable contains 95 words in Matthew and 83 in Luke, yet only two 3-word strings are common to both (excluding single-word duplications in all these). This kind of analysis does not tell us if Luke depends upon Matthew or vice versa, but it does indicate how very unlikely it is that the writer of either gospel made use of a "Q" document, for why would both of them edit their copyings from "Q" in this abnormal manner? If abnormal editing of this kind occurred, it is more plausible to attribute it to one editor/translator than to two. Thus, the present findings support the analyses of those who, for other reasons, find that the Q hypothesis is untenable. B. C. Butler, for example, showed that by the two-document hypothesis (also known as the two-source hypothesis), the writer of Matthew would repeatedly have had to conflate Mark and Q over whole passages, requiring of him a "superhuman but futile virtuosity."45 The question of just how both the parallel verses between Matthew and Mark, and those between Matthew and Luke, could exhibit the same abnormal frequency distribution in their verbal agreements will be deferred to the next section. Presumably only one evangelist or translator would be responsible for such unusual editorial behavior, as already noted. Thus, not only does the two-document hypothesis fail to explain it, but so also the Griesbach hypothesis. However, the latter fails on other counts also, including why the Greek grammar of the third gospel, if it were Mark, would be by far the worst of the synoptic gospels.46 After the first version of this study was completed and made known on the web, a similar, earlier study by John Poirier came to my attention.46.1 He did not delve into the frequency distribution, though he also found that the excess of lengthy word-strings in the double tradition's parallels (Matthew-Luke) and in Matthew-Mark parallels pointed to Matthew as the middle term. Although he concluded from this that the writer of Matthew had made use of both Mark and Luke, he did not consider the alternative solution to be presented. It is appropriate now to sketch out a scenario that is consistent with the findings from the above frequency distributions. It will involve alternatives mentioned in Part I and will be consistent with the external evidence. IV. A Solution Embracing Realistic Editorial Behavior In keeping with Part I's demonstration of how both the two-document and Griesbach hypotheses evolved out of the theological commitment to avoid impugning the standards of truth held by the gospel writers, we return to the Augustinian hypothesis. We observe that Butler's argumentation in favor of Matthew having first come out in the Semitic tongue, or in Aramaic as he specifically preferred, is quite compelling, as well as agreeing with the external evidence implied by Papias and stated by Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine.47 However, the similarity in Greek wording between Matthew and Mark caused Butler to assume that Mark was not written until after Matthew had been translated into Greek, at which time the writer of Mark is then supposed to have utilized Greek Matthew. Butler did explore a particular Augustinian theory due to J.M. Vost, however, which postulated that the writer of Mark utilized Aramaic Matthew, and that it was a later translator of Matthew into Greek who duplicated pieces of Mark's Greek text.48 Butler noted a strong argument in favor of Vost's theory: Mark shows some Aramaisms that are absent from parallel passages in Matthew.49 Yet Butler felt it was too complicated a theory, though his counter arguments seem very weak. His chief one was that "It is psychologically most improbable that the translator of Matthew, with a good Aramaic text to work from, and a perfectly adequate command of Greek, if we may judge from his performance in the non-Marcan sections of his gospel, should nevertheless deliberately adapt, in his rendering of the Aramaic Matthew, the poor Greek of Mark."50 However, Butler did not attempt to demonstrate that Matthew's Marcan parallels systematically demonstrate poorer Greek than its non-Marcan sections, and indeed a prime criticism of the Marcan priorists against Matthean precedence is that the writer of Mark, if coming second (or third), would not have "dumbed down" what he copied from Greek Matthew. And Butler failed to consider reasons other than Vost's as to why the translator would have chosen to replicate some lengthy strings of Greek wording within Mark. Vost's theory avoids the "dumbing down" criticism, which Butler's does not, and Butler's only recourse was to assume that Mark embodies rough Greek discourse due to having derived from Peter while (John) Mark used Matthew as a guide, when he and Peter were in Rome together in 50-60 A.D.51 Objections here to Butler, however, are: 1. It is not likely that Peter, the ex-fisherman, knew much Greek, since (John) Mark was his interpreter; 2. if any of the Gospels had been written that early, surely they would have been referenced long before several decades into the 2nd century, and referenced by name; 3. Mark does not really seem to have been written from the viewpoint of Peter; 4. within an Augustinian framework it is especially illogical to posit Peter as an important source of Mark, since so much of Mark follows Matthew's text so closely, excluding Mark's omissions of Matthean material; 5. if Peter had really been the source of the Gospel of Mark, surely that gospel would have borne Peter's name.52 Moreover, H.-H Stoldt has supplied a chapter full of reasons why Peter was not an informant for the writer of Mark.53 According to Butler, Vost had assumed that the translator of Aramaic Matthew into Greek had utilized some of Mark's Greek language either as a guide and convenience in translation, or out of respect.54 However, neither of these possibilities satisfied Butler, and neither will fit the present theory. The translator of Semitic Matthew evidently knew Greek better than did the writer of Mark, and so did not need Mark as a guide. And after reading how the writer of Mark omitted so much from Matthew, how he had made alterations that portrayed the disciples in a bad light and how he had placed many Matthean verses in the wrong order, the translator would have had little or no respect for him, psychologically speaking.55 So Butler seems correct in not following Vost on this point; however, it was probably subconscious theological commitment that prevented either of them from arriving at a plausible explanation. Before presentation of this explanation, it is important to consider how Luke fits into the picture from a fresh Augustinian viewpoint. Butler did not question whether Luke's dependence upon Matthew was upon Semitic Matthew or upon Greek Matthew. He simply assumed the latter, due to the strong verbal dependence between Matthew and Luke we have quantified in Part III combined with all the other indications that Luke depends upon Matthew. However, it is psychologically inconceivable that the writer of Luke, who preferred the pro-gentile Mark over the anti-gentile Matthew so much as to incorporate the Matthean verses Mark omits in improper context and order, and to follow Mark's order and content where Mark deviates from Matthew's order, would then have turned around and followed Matthew's Greek wording meticulously in some 27 instances, carefully duplicating strings of up to 27 words in a row. This is a most important point. At this juncture we therefore examine the situation from the point of view of the translator of Matthew, if his translation had been made after Mark and Luke came out. By then it would only have been prudent of those of the provenance where Matthew originated to decide that a Greek version of Matthew was urgently needed. Otherwise, the first and primary Gospel was in grave danger of becoming forgotten or obsolete within gentile Christianity. This translator would naturally have desired that Matthew retain its primacy in authority, but since its Greek translation was being written only after Mark and Luke had already appeared, would Matthew still be regarded as primary? The writers of Mark and Luke had made so many omissions, alterations and additions to Semitic Matthew that future readers might treat them as quite different writings from Greek Matthew, if Greek Matthew did not use familiar wording, and therefore might credit Mark and Luke as being more primary and authoritative than Greek Matthew. To avoid this, the translator of Matthew had one weapon at his disposal. He could show how similar Mark and Luke were to Matthew by purposely copying significant stretches of their Greek language in those places where they had made no significant alterations in meaning to Semitic Matthew. Then, as it must have been well known at the time that Semitic Matthew had predated Mark and Luke, there would be no question but that Matthew was the primary gospel, to be available from then on in Greek, and that Mark and Luke were little more than alterations of it. It should be kept in mind that at the time the Gospels were written, it could have been no secret which one had come first, which had come second, and which third.56 So also the translator of Matthew would have known he had no chance of pretending that his Greek Matthew had come before Mark and Luke; it would be common knowledge that it was written afterwards. But to recapitulate, with the continued spread of Christianity into gentile lands in the early 2nd century, this translator would likely have realized that Semitic Matthew was doomed to future obscurity. Hope for the primacy of Matthew to be retained by its late-appearing Greek version could best be achieved by making it as clear as possible that Mark and Luke were just altered versions of Matthew that their writers had extracted much from Semitic Matthew. Therefore the translator rendered this fact of copying as evident as possible by returning the favor: he replicated lengthy strings of Greek words wherever feasible from both gospels, which replication has been seen in Part III. It is interesting to observe, then, that with the present hypothesis, not only do Mark and Luke both depend upon (Semitic) Matthew, but some of the detailed wording in Matthew in turn depends upon Mark and Luke. This behavior on the part of the translator of Matthew, relative to Luke, would have the added advantage of helping draw attention to many of the spots (in the "Q" verses) where Luke takes Matthean verses far out of context and which therefore might be mistaken as original Lucan material. Thus the translator of Matthew was reaffirming the primacy of Matthew, so that its Greek version within gentile lands would maintain the eminence that its Semitic version had held within Jewish quarters. It is likely that it was during this process of translation of Semitic Matthew into Greek that the translator added the longer ending to Matthew (i.e., "...make disciples of all nations..."), which would offset Matthew's anti-gentile statements elsewhere. It is only common sense that if their gospel was to be promoted amongst gentiles and made available to them by being translated into Greek, it would have to be made less unfriendly to gentiles. However, the eight or so verses overtly hostile to gentiles and to gentile discipleship in Semitic Matthew could not at that late date be removed in forming Greek Matthew, as their existence was too well known; little more could be done than to add a counteracting pro-gentile passage to the end. Quite likely a few other, more minor, alterations and additions (such as Mt 12:17-22) were made to Matthew by the translator, and these, together with the added pro- gentile ending, provided further incentive to phase out the original Semitic Matthew as quickly as possible in ensuing years. If later Aramaic texts of Matthew were desired, they would have had to be translated from the Greek. Thus the translator of Matthew, in replicating various strings of words within Mark and Luke, did not do so as a guide or convenience in translating. However, he likely did utilize the LXX for this purpose at places where Semitic Matthew's rendition of a Hebrew scriptural verse did not deviate very much from it. By the present hypothesis the writer of Luke much preferred Mark over Matthew, but this would not have been cause for him to utilize abnormal editing behavior of the type analyzed here, with respect to Mark. It is true he would follow Mark's order and content most closely where Mark deviates from Matthew's order, but he had good reasons for not desiring to purposely copy lengthy strings of Markan words without editing them. These include: 1. The writer of Luke needing to improve upon Mark's poor grammar and remove most of its redundancies or pleonasms, 2. the desire that his gospel appear distinct from Mark and not be regarded as any copy of it (which he achieved additionally by omitting a substantial chunk from Mark, by including his own special material, and by including much Matthean material out of context).57 With the present hypothesis, the writer of Mark is seen as also having made many of his minor deviations from the content of Semitic Matthew as changes for the sake of change. Frequent abbreviation of Matthew and deviation from its order, specifically in the area of Mark's parallels to material within Mt 8-11, and writing in Greek rather than in Aramaic or Hebrew, were not enough to ensure that Mark would not be a replication of Matthew. Addition of pleonasms throughout and touches of apparent vividness were needed in this attempt at creating an aura of priority, in which the writer of Mark was not successful until the 19th century. Thus the translator of Semitic Matthew into Greek was not working within any vacuum in seeing to it that Greek Matthew would retain the authority its Semitic version had held; he could easily discern the attempts that had been made by the writers of Mark and Luke to dislodge this authority. An important feature of the present theory deserves mention in order to understand how so much of Matthew, if it deserves priority, nevertheless appears to be made up of redactions. Even if many of the criticisms against Matthew's genuineness are incorrectly based upon the assumption of Marcan priority, as many more are based upon considerations independent of that assumption.58 So how could Matthew enjoy priority? The key consideration here is that Papias's statement about Matthew can be interpreted as meaning that Semitic Matthew was based upon the Logia, and that the latter was a very extensive manuscript or set of scrolls of narrations and sayings, as emphasized by Linnemann, since "ta logia" can mean "what the Lord said or did," not just sayings."59 The five separate treatises that Papias wrote concerning the Logia support this interpretation of the Logia having been an extensive writing. The large number of redactions in Matthew are unlikely to have come about, then, by anything other than the Logia having been unacceptable or heretical in various respects, requiring much editing before becoming sanctionable. This would also explain why the Logia did not survive, nor any of Papias's five treatises on them except what Eusebius extracted from the latter and presented as examples, intended to make Papias seem foolish.60 With the present scenario, the writer of Matthew was a different person than its later translator into Greek. This writer appears to have been a late holdout for the anti-gentile sentiment characteristic of Pharisees, which he carried over into early Christianity, and would therefore not likely have wished to set his gospel into the Greek language nor to add its longer pro-gentile ending. In conclusion, this modified Augustinian hypothesis makes use of the external evidence that the two dominant, more recent schools of thought have largely abandoned, as well as being consistent with the internal evidence. It explains the verbal agreements in Greek between the Matthew-Mark and Matthew-Luke gospel parallels in human terms. A drawback for some is that theological commitment is in no way upheld. However, the fact that such commitment dates back to the time of composition of the Gospels themselves explains very much. Among other things, the shameful editorial behavior portrayed here explains why so very little has survived about the origin of the Gospels: when, where, why and by whom they were composed, as this should have been a most glorious time in the growth of the early church about which much should otherwise have been written.61 For detailed discussion of the internal evidence in support of this hypothesis, however, and the ease by which arguments that have been utilized against the Augustinian hypothesis can be reversed, or shown to be inapplicable to its present modified form, the reader must turn to references already cited. Endnotes 1. E.g., see Burnett Hillman Streeter, The Four Gospels (London: Macmillan, 1964); Werner Georg Kmmel, with P. Feine and J. Behm, Introduction to the New Testament, 14th ed., transl. by A. J. Mattill (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966); Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 3rd ed. (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 1970); W. Barnes Tatum, The Quest of Jesus: A Guidebook (Atlanta, Georgia: John Knox Press, 1982); C. M. Tuckett, The Revival of the Griesbach Hypothesis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983). The two-document hypothesis is also called the two-source hypothesis, Mark and Q being the two sources. 2. See Arthur J. Bellinzoni, ed., The Two Source Hypothesis: A Critical Appraisal (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1985), pp. 97-217. 3. B. C. Butler, "The Synoptic Problem," in A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, R. C. Fuller, L. Johnston and C. Kearns, eds. (Nashville: Nelson, 1969), pp. 815-821; Pierson Parker, "The Posteriority of Mark," in New Synoptic Studies (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1983), pp. 67 142; William R. Farmer, The Synoptic Problem: A Critical Analysis (Dillsboro, North Carolina: Western North Carolina Press, 1976); J. W. Deardorff, The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992), pp. 121-156. 4. B. C. Butler, The Originality of St Matthew: A Critique of the Two Document Hypothesis (Cambridge: University Press, 1951); A. W. Argyle, "Evidence for the view that St Luke used St Matthew's Gospel," JBL 83 (1964), pp. 390-396; R. T. Simpson, "The major agreements of Matthew against Mark," NTS 12 (1965-66), pp. 273-284; E. P. Sanders, "The argument from order and the relationship between Matthew and Luke," NTS 15 (1969), p. 261; Farmer, Synoptic Problem, pp. 220-225; Michael Goulder, Luke A New Paradigm, vols. 1 and 2 (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1989). Seven other scholars whose studies found Luke to depend upon Matthew are listed in Kmmel, Introduction to the New Testament, p. 50. 5. H. G. Jameson, The Origin of the Synoptic Gospels (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1922); John Chapman, Matthew, Mark and Luke: A Study in the Order and Interrelation of the Synoptic Gospels (New York: Longman's, Green and Co., 1937); John Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992). 6. Farmer, Synoptic Problem, p. 14 (in discussing what was already common knowledge to Herbert Marsh in 1798); Butler, "Synoptic Problem," p. 821. 7. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. III.1.1; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History (EH) V.8.1 5, VI.25.3-6; Augustine, De Consensu Evangelistarum I.3-4. 8. See Papias as quoted by Eusebius in EH III.39.14-16. Papias could not have meant improper order relative to an oral gospel, as the context was one of written gospels; moreover, there is no evidence that any lengthy oral gospel paralleling any of the Gospels ever existed. Mark's lack of order relative to Mt 8-11 stands out as being what Papias referred to. 9. Farmer, Synoptic Problem, p. 8. Farmer's review of the synoptic problem in his chaps. 1-4 is especially comprehensive and relatively impartial, and will be utilized extensively here. 10. Hado Uden Meijboom, A History and Critique of the Marcan Hypothesis 1835-1866 (Groningen, Neth.: University of Groningen, 1866), J. Kiwiet, transl. & ed. (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1993), p. 17. Meijboom will also be referenced frequently here, as his work appears to be quite unbiased and yet contemporary with the emergence of the Marcan hypothesis. Herder's observation that the vividness and freshness in Mark (in some places, at least) points to Marcan priority does have much merit, however. This falls out as a byproduct of the modified Augustinian hypothesis of Deardorff, Problems of Gospel Origins, chap. 5. 11. Farmer, Synoptic Problem, pp. 33-34. 12. Farmer, Synoptic Problem, p. 41. 13. Schleiermacher, "ber die Zeugnisse des Papias von unsern ersten Evangelien," Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1832, pp. 735-768. 14. Meijboom, History and Critique, pp. 48-49. 15. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, pp. 333-334. 16. As attested to by Clement of Alexandria and also Irenaeus, and reported by Eusebius, EH V.8.2 3, VI.14.5-7. 17. E.g., see Phillip Segal, "Aspects of Mark Pointing to Matthean Priority," in Farmer, New Synoptic Studies, pp. 187-190. 18. Streeter, Four Gospels, p. 158. 19. Stoldt, Hans-Herbert, History and Criticism of the Marcan Hypothesis, transl. Donald L. Niewyck (Macon, GA: Mercer Univ. Press, 1980), pp. 227-235. 20. Meijboom, History and Critique, p. 40. 21. Eusebius, Theophania, Bk. I, 24. 22. Meijboom, History and Critique, pp. 38-39. 23. Farmer, Synoptic Problem, pp. 40-41. 24. Parker, "Posteriority of Mark," pp. 67-142. 25. It would be naive to assume that no influential 19th century scholars were aware of this problem. 26. Eugene E. Lemcio, The Past of Jesus in the Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 49. 27. Deardorff, Problems of Gospel Origins, pp. 76-77. 28. George Howard, "A note on the short ending of Matthew," Harvard Theol. Rev. 81 (1988), p. 119. 29. The denigration may even extend to Jesus' Jewish "friends" in terms of their supposed belief that Jesus was "beside himself" (Mark 3:21). 30. Streeter, Four Gospels, p. 183. 31. The writer of Luke could furthermore express his disdain for Matthew by frequently contradicting Matthew's content. 32. Deardorff, Problems of Gospel Origins, pp. 93-108. 33. It might be thought that it was the followers of the Augustinian school who most strongly upheld the faith, by maintaining traditional views. This may have been correct within their own minds, but their reasons for brushing aside the problems that came to disturb the other two schools of thought do not hold up. 34. I thank George Howard for suggesting this test case. For the parallels within the 1 Esdras text I used Septuaginta, vol. 1, Alfred Rahlfs, ed. (Stuttgart: Wrttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935). For the canonical LXX I used The Septuagint Version: Greek and English, Lancelot C. L. Brenton, ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1970). The latter source is believed to be two or three centuries more recent than the former; see Charles C. Torrey, The Apocryphal Literature (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1963). 35. I = 0 corresponds to not drawing any black balls in a row, which is to say, drawing a red ball that is followed by a black. Hence the coefficient A is given by the total number of such red balls drawn, allowing for some sampling error. 36. For the 1 Esdras translation I used The Apocrypha, Edgar J. Goodspeed, transl. (University of Chicago Press, 1938); for the English canonical texts I used the RSV Bible. 37. The single string of 21 words occurs at 1 Esdr 8:54-55 = Ezra 8:24-25. Within the Greek parallels, this area of text is overlapped by shorter duplicate strings of 2, 3, 2 and 11 words. 37.1 In comparing the two translations, one may notice that where Laurence used "saw" Charles often used "beheld," and similarly for: see/behold, went/proceeded, dwelling/habitation, transform/change, trouble or anxiety/affliction, extremities/ends, power/might, top/summit, path/way, conducted/led, exhibited/showed, arrive/come, obtained/acquired, extreme/great, wealth/riches, disclosed/revealed, rembrance/memorial, rise/arise, deeds/works, respecting/regarding, secure/safe, and others. The only difference between words that I ignored, besides capitalization, was the theological English often used by Charles, such as "ye," "thee" or "thou" for "you," "cometh" for "come" and the like. 38. The analysis started on verse 81 of the TJ's first chapter, thereby omitting the lengthy genealogy, which was not at the discretion of the editors/translators to alter, and continued to the end of its 36th chapter, for a total of 1703 verses averaging about 27 words per verse. Breaks between chapters were of course ignored. 39. The parallels utilized here are those listed in Deardorff, Problems of Gospel Origins, App. 2. Or see Section 2 of this website document. Some 468 verses in Matthew and 574 verses in Mark are involved. The Greek text used for this and the other NT analyses herein is the 21st edition of Eberhard and Nestle's Novum Testamentum Graece. The longer duplicate strings of the Matthew-Luke (Q) parallels have been checked against N-A 27, however, with no changes occurring. 40. These two very lengthy strings occur at Mt 16:24-25 = Mk 8:34-35, and at Mt 10:21-23 = Mk 13:12-14, respectively. 41. The Lucan verses utilized (along with their Marcan parallels) are: 4:31-44; 5:12-16,18-28,29b-35; 6:1-2,6- 16,17b-19a; 7:36b-37; 8:4-15,17-23, 25-43a,45-56; 9:4-5,8-9,13-16,18,23,26-29,33-35,37-38,40,42 43b,46-50; 12:12,41; 17:2; 18:15-22,24,26,29-30,32-33,35,37-43, which encompass 40 pericopes. 42. These words involve "oida" ("I know") and "legon" ("saying") in Mark, the first of which is the more uncertain, according to Nestle-Aland's 27th edition, and a three-word phrase in Luke. 43. Eta Linnemann, "Is there a Gospel of Q?" BR 11 (Aug. 1995), p. 21. These stem from Siegfried Schulz, Griechisch deutsche Synopse der Q berlieferungen (Zrich: Theologischer Verlag, 1972), pp. 5f. 44. 27 is the approximate number of occurrences that lie above the exponential curve #2 for I > 9. 45. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, chap. 1. 46. See Deardorff, Problems of Gospel Origins, chap. 11. 46.1 Poirier, John Christopher, "New Items in Synoptic Interdependence," Master of Theology thesis, The Divinity School, Duke University, Durham, NC, 1993. 47. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, chap. 10. There is an opposing contention of J. Krzinger, Papias von Hierapolis und die Evangelien des N.T. (Regensburg, 1983), supported by B. Orchard and H. Riley in The Order of the Synoptics (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1987), pp. 198-199, that Papias's "in the Hebrew dialect" or "in the Hebrew language" actually meant "in a Hebrew style," which in turn meant "in Greek but with a Hebrew style." I believe this is reaching much too far to support one's position. In addition it assumes that the knowledge by Irenaeus and others of Matthew having been written in Hebrew or Aramaic depended only upon Papias's testimony instead of being more widely known at the time. 48. Joacobus M. Vost, De synopticorum mutua relatione et dependentia (Rome: Collegio Angelico, 1928). This theory actually dates back at least to Theodor Zahn, Introduction to the New Testament, v. 2 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1909) 570-612, and is supported by H. G. Jameson, The Origin of the Synoptic Gospels (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1922) 23-24. 49. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, p. 159. 50. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, p. 160. 51. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, pp. 167-169. 52. However, the statements from Clement of Alexandria about Peter and (John) Mark in Rome, and a document Mark wished to disseminate, should not be ignored; such a document (Peter's "Memoirs") was known also to Justin Martyr of Rome (Dialogue with Trypho, chap. 106). A likely connection between Peter in Rome and the document that (John) Mark possessed there, which accords with the five listed objections, is given by Deardorff, Problems of Gospel Origins, chap. 3. 53. Stoldt, Hans-Herbert, History and Criticism of the Marcan Hypothesis, transl. Donald L. Niewyk (Macon, GA: Mercer Univ. Press, 1980), chap. 11 (pp. 185-200). 54. Butler, Originality of St Matthew, pp. 159-160. 55. Mark's verses that are out of order correspond primarily to the parallels of Mt 8-11. A plausible explanation for this is presented in Deardorff, Problems of Gospel Origins, chaps. 4-5. 56. Hence the tradition that Matthew had come first, written in the Hebrew tongue, must have been based upon fact. There was no theological commitment involved in such an undeniable fact at that time, and thus no motivation for this tradition to have been the result of a false rumor. 57. Luke's "Great Omission" of Mk 6:45-8:26 can also be explained largely on this basis: its writer had followed Mark's order sufficiently long up to that point that to continue doing so would render his gospel too similar to Mark. In addition, it is only a little before Mk 6:45 that Mark's order commences to follow Matthew's order quite rigorously, which the writer of Luke preferred not to do. 58. E.g., see Francis Beare, The Gospel according to Matthew (San Francisco, Harper and Row, 1981). 59. Lineman, "Is there a Gospel of Q?" BR 11 (Aug. 1995), p. 20. 60. Orchard and Riley, Order of the Synoptics, p. 195. 61.Also, the less than ethical editorial behavior of the various evangelists explains why not one of the synoptic gospels' writers mentions his own role in the writing or his dependence upon preceding gospels (except perhaps in Lk 1:1-4) and/or upon the Logia. Humility on the part of the evangelists does not explain this, as it is not consistent with their editorial actions. Go Back to: Top of Document Go Back to: Contents Proch & Bertschinger's Experience on a Meier Contact in Gary Kinder's Light Years (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987), pp. 41-42 One afternoon in the winter of 1977, he [Harold Proch from Munich] stood in the attic of the old farmhouse helping Meier print the contact notes. Suddenly Meier's foreheaed began to glisten and his eyes closed. After a few seconds, the color returned to his face and his eyes opened once again. When Harold asked him if he was all right, Meier said only that there would be a contact later that night. In the kitchen after dark, Harold and Jakobus [Jakobus Bertschinger] waited for Meier to receive another telepathic contact. About one o'clock Meier came into the kitchen, saying it was time to leave. They drove in Jakobus's old blue Volkswagen for almost an hour until they reached a narrow dirt road in the forest, where Meier told Jakobus to stop. "It was pitch dark," Harold later remembered. "Billy said he would leave, and we had to wait there. Jakobus was so scared he trembled. I still remember that." The night was bitter, ten to fifteen degrees below zero on the Celsius scale. While waiting for Meier to return, Jakobus stayed close to the car; but Harold, trying to keep warm, paced back and forth about a hundred feet away. The two men said little to each other. Meier had not been gone long when suddenly they heard the sound of the beamship. Months earlier, Harold had heard the original cassette of the sounds, the ones recorded the afternoon Hans Schutzbach had stood in a field with Meier and listened to the eerie resonance until the police came. Harold had noted immediately that there were other sounds as well on the tape--a car horn, a dog barking in the background. Now, as he stood in the dark and the cold listening to the strange warbling noise, he strained to hear the telltale bark of a dog or the honk of a horn, either of which would have proved to him that Meier was simply rebroadcasting the same recording. Harold had served in the army for two years, where he had been trained to detect the origin of sounds in the forest at night. But that night, as he listened, he had no idea from where the sound came. "I tried to find out whether it came from above, below, or the side," he recalled. "When you hear a sound it reflects from the sides. But you could not know where this came from." Nor did he hear any other sound, only the the eerie pulsating of the beamship somewhere in the sky above their heads. When the sound subsided, the walkie-talkie crackled with Meier's voice, directing them to a place about a mile away, where they found him at the side of the road waiting. Meier holding the ray gun; Menara took the photo. From Ref. 9, p. 168. Ray Stanford's Background as Contactee and Psychic EMAIL FROM LOREN COLEMAN TO THE UFO-UPDATES LIST From: Loren Coleman To: ufoupdates at sympatico.ca Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2003 23:27:46 -0400 Subject: Ray Stanford Ray Stanford has a history on the internet of joining Lists and then responding "with sarcastic comments and demands that certain subjects immediately be dropped," as one observer on a dinosaur list once wrote. Forgive me. I now understand what is going on. I did not realize that Mr. Stanford was _the_ Ray Stanford, contactee, medium, and channel through which such less-than-scholarly books as "Speak, Shining Stranger" and "Fatima Prophecy" - gained via Stanford's psychic readings - have been produced. Stanford, of course, is the author of a book, Look Up (1958) that discussions his repeatedly close encounters with flying saucers and his discussions with their occupants, who he termed "the space people," but whom he would later call "The Watchers" (some even named "Aramda" and such). No, I did not realize I was dealing with the Ray Stanford who in the 1970s, was the leader of the Association for the Understanding of Man (AUM), a national organization located in Austin, Texas. The purpose of AUM was given to Stanford via his so-called "psychic reading,..." given to him by "the Source," as well as "voices other than that of the Source [who] speak through the unconscious Stanford... speaking in various accents and inflections," as a 1977 AUM membership solicitation noted. "These voices were identified as exalted spiritual beings, members of an ethereal association called the 'White Brotherhood,' archangels, and even Jesus Christ himself -- all speaking courtesy of Stanford's 'borrowed' vocal cords, of course. Some of these 'Brothers' identified themselves as members of a UFO-operating alien race called 'The Watchers,'" as has been observed. "Examination of the AUM material leaves no doubt that the 'Stanford readings' were the major 'drawing card' for the group's dues-paying members and its contributors - indeed, the organization's raison d'etre," a watchdog noted. Furthermore, Stanford had plans to construct a time machine known as "the Hilarion Accelerator." He needed funding to get this done, of course. "In a tape-recorded lecture to the annual AUM membership conference on August 24, 1974, Stanford told his followers that 'the Accelerator' would allow spiritually competent subjects to teleport physically from one place to another, but also to PHYSICALLY transport their bodies BACK IN TIME," remarked one who researched this gentleman. Stanford's time machine was never built, to the best of anyone's knowledge. No wonder Ray Stanford has no sense of humor about predictions done by crop circle promoters. After all, only Stanford knows the future. Best wishes, Loren FROM DANIEL H. HARRIS, Ph.D., MARCH 2, 2001: ....After receiving my Ph.D. in astronomy in 1976, from the University of Arizona, I looked for work in astronomy, and found none. And being in serious need, I took a job again doing UFO research. I had mostly forgotten my encounters with the UFO cults, nearly twenty years earlier. Then in 1977 I came face to face with the cults, all over again. Noted UFO researcher, and psychic, Ray Stanford, asked me to come to work for him. The organization operated out of a modern office building, in central Austin Texas, and there was no talk of cultic topics, only what, at that time, to me seemed to be serious UFO investigative work and their need for a credible scientist to do the analysis of their many instrumented UFO recordings. I later learned of Stanford's long time contactee cult activities. So in August, 1977 (until December 1978) I began work for the Association for the Understanding of Man, informally called AUM, in Austin Texas. AUM was the promoter of the trance medium activities of Ray Stanford, and the research of his brother, Rex Stanford, Ph.D. psychologist, who was then doing ESP research in their offices. I learned later that AUM was financed partly by selling transcripts of the trance medium readings of Ray Stanford. I was then incredibly naive and open to occultic influence at the time. I became the Research Director, of their instrumented UFO observatory, and investigating activities, known as Project Starlight International, or PSI for short. At the Project Starlight remote UFO observing location near Lake Travis, PSI observers said they saw things, but just as it was in the 1950's, when I looked I saw nothing. These expectant, hopeful, persons were having delusions. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND JOURNAL ARTICLES SUPPORTING REINCARNATION Through use of Hypno-Regression: Dr. Morris Netherton, Past Lives Therapy (William Morrow, 1978) Dr. Helen Wambach, Reliving Past Lives (Bantam Books, 1978) Dr. Edith Fiore, You Have Been Here Before (Ballantine Books, 1978) Dr. H. N. Bannerjee, Americans Who Have Been Reincarnated (Macmillan, 1980) Dr. Bruce Goldberg, Past Lives, Future Lives (Ballantine Books, 1982) Dr. Joel L. Whitton, Life Between Life (Warner Books, 1986) Dr. Roger Woolger, Other Lives, Other Selves (Bantam Books, 1988) Dr. Brian Weiss, Many Lives, Many Masters (Simon & Schuster, 1988) Dr. Raymond Moody, Coming Back: A Psychiatrist Explores Past-Life Journeys (Bantam Books, 1991) Dr. Winafred Blake Lucas, ed., Regression Therapy: A Handbook for Professionals. Vol. 1, Past-Life Therapy, and Vol. 2, Special Instances of Altered State Work (Crest Park, CA: Deep Forest Press, 1993) Dr. Michael Newton, Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life between Lives (St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 1994) _____Destiny of Souls: New Case Studies of Life between Lives (St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 2000) Dr. Christopher M. Bache, Lifecycles: Reincarnation and the Web of Life (New York: Paragon House, 1994) Dr. Marge Rieder, Mission to Millboro (Nevada City, CA: Blue Dolphin Pub., 1995) Dr. Marge Rieder, Return to Millboro: The Reincarnation Drama Continues (Nevada City, CA: Blue Dolphin Pub., 1995) Dr. William Baldwin, CE-IV: Close Encounters of the Possession Kind (Headline Books, Inc., P.O. Box 52, Terra Alta, WV 26764; 1999. Or contact: Center for Human Relations, P.O. Box 4061, Enterprise, FL 32725), chap. 2, pp. 24-36. Capt. Robert L. Snow, Looking for Carroll Beckwith: The True Story of a Detective's Search for his Past Life (Emmaus, PA: Daybreak Books, 1999) Carol Bowman, Children's Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect your Child (New York: Bantam Books, 1997) Carol Bowman, Return from Heaven: Beloved Relatives Reincarnated within Your Own Family (New York: HarperCollins, 2001) Dr. Ormond McGill, Hypnotherapy Encyclopedia, p. 633 (Palos Verdes, CA: Creativity Unlimited Press, 2001) Dr. Jim B. Tucker, Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005) Dr. C. V. Tramont, M.D., From Birth to Rebirth (Columbus, NC: Swan-Raven & Co., 2009) Dr. Linda Backman, Bringing Your Soul to Light: Healing Through Past Lives and the Time Between (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Pubs., 2009) Dr. Elena Gabor, Home at the Tree of Life: An Introduction to Subconscious, Ethereal Science (New York, McGraw-Hill, Chegg, 2013) Online example of an excellent case From Spontaneous Past-Life Flashbacks (Adults; no hypnosis): Dr. Frederick Lenz, Lifetimes: True Accounts of Reincarnation (Ballantine Books, 1979) Jenny Cockell, Across Time and Death: A Mother's Search for her Past Life Children (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993) Through Very Young Children Speaking of their Most Recent Past Life (no hypnosis): Lafcadio Hearn, Gleanings in Buddha-Fields (Houghton-Mifflin, 1897, Chap. 10) (Dr.) Ian Stevenson, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (New York: American Society for Psychical Research, 1967) Ian Stevenson, Cases of the Reincarnation Type (Univ. of Virginia Press): Vol. 1 Ten Cases in India (1975) Vol. 2 Ten Cases in Sri Lanka (1977) Vol. 3 Twelve Cases in Lebanon and Turkey (1980) Vol. 4 Twelve Cases in Thailand and Burma (1983) _____, Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation (University of Virginia Press, 1987) _____, "American children who claim to remember previous lives," J. Nervous and Mental Disease 171 (1983) pp. 742-748 (research paper) _____, Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect (Westport, CN: Praeger, 1997) _____, European Cases of the Reincarnation Type (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2003) _____, and Godwin Samararatne, "Three new cases of the reincarnation type in Sri Lanka with written records made before verification," J. Sci. Exploration 2, No. 2 (1988) pp. 217-238 Jurgen Keil and Ian Stevenson, "Do cases of the reincarnation type show similar features over many years? A study of Turkish cases," J. Sci. Exploration 13 No. 2 (1999), pp. 189-198 Satwant K. Pasricha, Claims of reincarnation: An Empirical Study of Cases in India (New Delhi, Harman Publishing House, 1990) _____, "Cases of the reincarnation type in northern India with birthmarks and birth defects," J. Sci. Exploration 12, No. 2 (1998), pp. 259-293 Bruce and Andrea Leininger, with Ken Gross, Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009) Research that Supports Prof. Stevenson's Findings (includes papers): Antonia Mills, "A replication study: Three cases of children in northern India who are said to remember a previous life," J. Sci. Exploration 3, No. 2 (1989) pp. 133-184 _____, "Moslem cases of the reincarnation type in northern India: A test of the hypothesis of imposed identification, Part I: Analysis of 26 cases," J. Sci. Exploration 4, No. 2 (1990) pp. 171-188 _____, "Moslem cases of the reincarnation type in northern India: A test of the hypothesis of imposed identification, Part II: Reports of three cases," J. Sci. Exploration 4, No. 2 (1990) pp. 189-202 Jurgen Keil, "New cases in Burma, Thailand, and Turkey: A limited field study replication of some aspects of Ian Stevenson's work," J. Sci. Exploration 5, No. 1 (1991) pp. 27-59 Erlunder Haraldsson, "Children claiming past-life memories: Four cases in Sri Lanka," J. Sci. Exploration 5, No. 2 (1991) pp. 233-261 Jurgen Keil, "Cases of the reincarnation type: An evaluation of some indirect evidence," J. Sci. Exploration 10, No. 4 (1996), pp. 467-486. Tom Shroder, Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence for Past Lives (Simon & Schuster, 1999) Titus Rivas, "Three cases of the reincarnation type in The Netherlands," J. Sci. Exploration 17 No. 3 (2003), pp. 527-532 H. H. Jurgen Keil, and Jim B. Tucker, "Children who claim to remember previous lives: Cases with written records made before the previous personality was identified," J. Sci. Exploration 19, No. 1 (2005), pp. 91-101 Jim B. Tucker, Life Before Life: Children's Memories of Previous Lives (New Yor: St. Martin's Press, 2005) Reviews of Stevenson's Books on Cases of the Reincarnation Type: Lester S. King, "Review of Vol. 1," J. Amer. Med. Assoc. 234 (1975) p. 978 Roger Lauer, "Review of Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation", J. Mental and Nervous Disease162 (1976) pp. 145-146 Eugene B. Brody, "Review of Vol. 2," J. Nervous and Mental Disease 167 (1979) pp. 769-774 John Beloff, "Review of Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation," J. Soc. for Psychical Res. 48 (1975) pp. 177-179. Consistent Evidence: Near-Death Experiences: Dr. Raymond Moody, Life After Life (Bantam Books, 1975) Dr. Maurice Rawlings, Beyond Death's Door (Bantam Books, 1979) Dr. Michael B. Sabom, Recollection of Death -- A Medical Investigation (Harper and Row, 1982) _____, Light and Death: One Doctor's Fascinating Account of Near-Death Experiences (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998) Dr. Melvin Morse, Closer to the Light (New York: Ivy Books, 1990) Dr. Kimberly Clark Sharp, After the Light (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1995) International Organization for Near-Death Experiences Dr. Mary Helen Hensley, Promised (Galway, Ireland: Book Hub Publishing, 2009) Consistent Evidence: Out-of-Body Experiences: Robert A. Monroe, Journeys Out of the Body (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1977) _____, Far Journeys (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1985) Dr. Janet Lee Mitchell, Out-of-Body Experiences: A Handbook (Ballantine Books, 1981) Dr. Albert Taylor, Soul Traveler: A Guide to Out-of-Body Experiences and the Wonders Beyond (Penguin Books, 2000) Edward T. Martin, King of Travelers: Jesus' Lost Years in India (Jonah Publishing Co., P.O. Box 549, Lampasas, TX 76550; 1999), pp. 200-211 Go Back to: Contents A REFUTATION OF FALSE CLAIMS AND DISTORTIONS BY KORFF REGARDING THE TALMUD OF JMMANUEL James W. Deardorff Research Professor Emeritus Oregon State University December, 1996 Updated September 2000, and April 2008 In his book, Spaceships of the Pleiades: The Billy Meier Story (Prometheus Press, 1995), Kal K. Korff makes masses of claims against the reality of Eduard Meier's contact experiences. Thus the reader who is unfamiliar with the research by Wendelle Stevens, Lee & Brit Elders, Thomas Welch, Jim Dilettoso and Gary Kinder on the Meier case, and unfamiliar with Korff's background, may mistakenly think Korff's claims are valid simply due to their sheer number. Since it requires several times the space to clearly refute a false or misleading claim as it does to make it, I can present a refutation of only one section of Korff's book here, short of writing a book of my own. This involves the document called The Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ). The Talmud of Jmmanuel: Introduction. In his book, Korff spends 6 or 7 pages trying to debunk the TJ, which was discovered by a Greek-Orthodox ex-priest and Meier near Jerusalem in 1963 in the form of ancient Aramaic scrolls encased in resin. The existent TJ appears from my own analysis to be a translation of this original Aramaic writing from which the Gospel of Matthew was derived. The TJ is extremely heretical for Christianity, however, indicating that Jmmanuel, alias Jesus, survived the crucifixion and later traveled and taught much in Anatolia and on eastward to northern India and the Kashmir region. Hence it is easy to understand the intense motivation some persons would have to discredit it and Meier at any cost. I've chosen this topic to sample in detail, without skipping any ostensibly relevant charges made by Korff on it, since my own book, Celestial Teachings (CT), investigates the same document. CT explores the matter in depth and finds some 200 reasons why the TJ was the source for the Gospel of Matthew rather than being any hoax based upon that gospel. Both the TJ and CT are available from Wild Flower Press, P.O. Box 190, Mill Spring, NC 28756; telephone: (800) 366-0264. Since writing that book, I have found additional, valid criticisms and questions directed against the Gospel of Matthew by New Testament scholars; bringing the total to over 600 verses of Matthew receiving such criticism from which the TJ does not suffer. Yet the TJ contains parallel verses to over half of these Matthean verses. This means that when the writer of Matthew heavily altered the TJ to remove its heresies and replace them with his own theology, he made many errors, inconsistencies, contradictions and awkward editorial manipulations, and many of these have been detected by scholars. These are set forth in detail in my Mt-TJ website files. On p. 36 Korff says that "Billy Meier himself wrote a book titled the Talmud Immanuel which was released in the United States by Wild Flower Press." This is not correct, however, since Meier was its co-discoverer, custodian of the translations and editor, not its author. Further, the TJ's correct spelling is "Talmud of Jmmanuel," where the reason "Immanuel" is spelled beginning with a "J" and not an "I" is explained by Meier in the TJ's introductory pages. It may be surprising to learn how strong a case can be made that Jesus' name had originally been Immanuel before he was renamed by Paul-see Celestial Teachings, pp. 29-31, 87-89. On the same page Korff says that I became "a believer and enthusiastic supporter of Meier's messianic claims." I would like to correct any misimpression this may give that I support Meier as being, or trying to be, any sort of savior figure or deliverer-a messiah of that sort. If he is in any sense an "anointed one," it is by virtue of having been singled out by certain extraterrestrials (ETs) as being their particular or primary contactee, and considered by them to be a present-day prophet. But this is what the evidence shows; the primary investigators of his ET experiences in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s (Wendelle Stevens, ) could see no way that his main UFO photographs and ET experiences, supported by many witnesses, could have been hoaxed. Their research has been open-minded, intensive and forthright, in contrast, as we shall see, with that of Korff. Part of the mission Meier has taken on for himself, at the request of his contacting aliens, is to disseminate the TJ, or the true teachings of Jmmanuel, to interested persons. In so doing, however, Meier has gone out of his way to avoid becoming a leader of a large cult, in actively discouraging persons outside of his small group of supporters at Schmidrüti, Switzerland, from promoting his story in any grandiose manner or even through public seminars. And he has long discouraged visitors to Schmidrüti from meeting him. He may be contrasted, for example, with an alleged contactee named Raël (see his The Message Given to Me by Extra-Terrestrials; see Bibliography), who has actively recruited a following of several tens of thousands despite any supportive evidence. It should be mentioned that if the ETs who contacted Meier had instead chosen a different person and allowed him some 18 different occasions to take rolls of daytime color photographs of their craft, that different person, provided he were to go public, would evoke the same desperate attempts by persons like Korff to discredit him as have been directed against Meier. Judas Iscariot. Taking Korff's claims, charges and innuendo against the TJ in order of occurrence, we start with the topic of Judas Iscariot. The TJ was allegedly written by that disciple, and in the TJ one learns that a different person, Juda Ihariot, son of a prominent Pharisee, was the one who pointed Jmmanuel out to the arresting party and soon afterwards suffered remorse and committed suicide. On pp. 78-79 of his book, Korff confuses the issue in an interview with Bernadette Brand, Meier inner-group member, by not distinguishing the two names. Because the two names sounded much alike, a chief priest, according to the TJ, was able to initiate a persisting rumor that it was Judas, not Juda, who had betrayed Jmmanuel and then committed suicide, thereby succeeding in casting doubt on Jmmanuel's teachings if one of his own disciples could not accept them, while sparing Juda's Pharisaic father of embarrassment. We don't know if Korff quoted Brand correctly when she allegedly said, "No. This is another Judas Iscariot" in response to Korff's question of whether the TJ's author was the same Judas Iscariot who the Gospels say betrayed Jesus. She might instead have said, "No; this is another, Juda Ihariot." We don't know if Korff could discern the difference between the two names if she had mentioned Juda Ihariot, or whether Brand herself for expedience did equate the two names in replying to Korff. What we do know is that Korff did not bother to state in his book the different name of the betrayer given within the TJ, and instead left the issue in a needlessly confused state for the unknowing reader. Interestingly, the TJ's matter-of-fact presentation of Judas Iscariot as the designated writer among the twelve, and a different person as betrayer-Juda, an acquaintance of Jmmanuel and the disciples-solves some five problems concerning Judas Iscariot, ranging from major to minor, that New Testament scholars have had to grapple with in the past century. (See my book, The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins, chapter 6. Or see my website file on the TJ's author.) The similarity of the two names made it easy for the rumor to be spread that it had been Judas, not Juda, who betrayed the man and soon afterwards committed suicide. Some obvious errors of Korff. On p. 78 Korff says that the TJ "can be obtained in the form of another book called Celestial Teachings: The Talmud Immanuel by Dr. James Deardorff." This is incorrect on two counts: (a) My book contains various verses and passages extracted from the TJ, but does not begin to set the whole TJ into print; and (b) the subtitle of CT is quite different from what Korff stated. On p. 78 Korff states that Jmmanuel was a Pleiadian, whereas the TJ indicates that it was Jmmanuel's father who was a Pleiadian, his mother being (earthling) Mary. Although this error is corrected in a following sentence, where it is his father who is mentioned as being the Pleiadian, Korff immediately incurs a second error by naming Jmmanuel's father as Plejos rather than as Gabriel. Instead, according to what Meier learned, Plejos was a Pleiadian leader who prepared the overall plans for Jmmanuel to be procreated. Later in the same sentence, however, Korff then corrects "Plejos" to "Gabriel." It is evident that Korff had not read the TJ; if he had, he would have had no excuse for having become so confused. It may be mentioned that a decade or so after Meier's Pleiadian contacts commenced he was told by the "Pleiadians" that (a) they are not really from the Pleiades but are only from that direction from here in our galaxy, some 80 light years beyond the Pleiades, and (b) this is in a region whose dimensions are slightly "shifted" in time. Earlier, Meier had been told only (b). They told him they could now be called "Plejarens." An irrelevancy. On pp. 78-79 Korff expounds on why the Feb. 3rd date that Jmmanual was born on, according to what Meier was told during one of his contact experiences, and the Feb. 3rd date of Meier's own birth, represents an irrelevant agreement. If this is so irrelevant, why then did Korff spend a paragraph speaking of it? Rashid's translation work done in Baghdad? On p. 79 Korff perpetuates an apparent error of Randolph Winters' book The Pleiadian Mission, though a minor error, in stating that Rashid did his translating of the TJ from Aramaic into German while living in Baghdad. Instead, the TJ's attachments imply that the ex-priest continued to live in Jerusalem while secretly working on the TJ translation until around 1970, by which time he had transferred the bulk of the translations then completed to Meier. By 1970 Meier had returned to Switzerland to raise his young family, and did not hear from Rashid again until 1974. In the meantime, Rashid's translation project in Jerusalem had been discovered by authorities, causing him to flee with the papyrus rolls, and members of his family, to a refugee camp in Lebanon. Only after they were flushed out of the camp by an Israeli aerial bombardment in 1974, which destroyed the writings, did Rashid flee to Baghdad, where, however, he was assassinated in 1976, according to what Meier was told by Semjase, his primary Pleiadian contactor, in 1976, as conveyed in Meier's Contact Reports. Were there no TJ scrolls? On p. 79 Korff states that "what ...people who espouse the Talmud Immanuel as being real ignore is the fact that there are no original scrolls." However, this is not true, because the fact that the original writings were lost or destroyed in 1974 and are no longer available is made clear in the letter-copy attachment at the end of the TJ, also in Meier's Contact Reports, and has certainly been emphasized by myself and Randy Winters in our writings and talks. This is the primary reason New Testament scholars typically supply as to why they cannot be made interested in the TJ-there are no originals of which they could check the Aramaic writing and send out to labs for radiocarbon dating analyses. And so this is an important reason why the TJ has not come to the attention of the general public. But all clues point to there indeed having been a set of original TJ papyrus rolls before their destruction. How ancient is the best Bible? Next on p. 79 Korff implies that the Bible is backed up by original, ancient texts and thus has a preferred status over the TJ, which has just the German, and later English, translations to show for itself. However, the earliest complete texts of the New Testament gospels do not date earlier than the 4th century, and only scattered fragments to the 2nd century. Moreover, patriarchal evidence indicates that the Gospel of Matthew had been the first gospel written, and written in Hebrew or Aramaic. This text never survived. All we have received, centuries later, are Greek transcriptions of earlier transcriptions that did not survive. Further, according to this patriarchal evidence, which the TJ supports, the earliest Gospel written in Greek (Mark) was itself a translation (and abbreviation) of Matthew, with the Gospels of Luke and John being still further removed. Korff needs to be informed that an original to the New Testament does not exist, and that the earliest New Testament that does exist is several centuries and many transcriptions removed from its source. The TJ, on the other hand, is in much better shape than the New Testament, having experienced only one translation leading to its 1978 version, which is still available for scholarly study from Meier in Switzerland. Later Meier gave the TJ an editorial update to correct errors and incorporate some unrevealed "code" at the behest of his ET contactors, which led to the 1992 German-English version of the TJ published by Wild Flower Press. The two versions agree in their essential content. Recently a 1996 edition of the TJ became available, in which numerous errors in the previous English translation have been corrected. Were the TJ scrolls conveniently lost? In the same paragraph, Korff states that the scrolls "have never been found," and then goes on to complain that they were "conveniently lost" by Rashid. All this is a self-contradicting denial that avoids mention of the available information. This information indicates that Rashid and other members of his family who had fled with him, while hiding out in a refugee camp in Lebanon, had to again flee for their lives after a large section of the camp was burned down, according to Rashid's letter, by the Israeli military. They barely managed to escape, but Rashid had no time to retrieve the writings from their hiding place to take them with him. So it cannot be said that Rashid simply "lost" the scrolls, especially if he was correct in stating that the particular Israeli raid in question was conducted for the express purpose of eliminating himself and the papyrus rolls rather than as punitive action against Palestinian guerillas. Thus, Korff does not begin to divulge what the story is that underlies the TJ's discovery, translation and loss or destruction. At the time Rashid wrote Meier to tell him about this in September of 1974, he didn't know if the TJ rolls had burned up in the fires raging in the refugee camp, or had been recovered by Israelis. Later, Meier was told by his Pleiadian contactors (in Contact Report #7) that the rolls had been destroyed in the conflagration. This loss was in no way a "convenience," not even to Rashid's security, as he was nevertheless assassinated two years later, from what Meier learned from Semjase, because of his having been the TJ's translator and a witness to the reality of the original writings. Thus Korff's cavalier dismissal of all this represents a total distortion. Consistent with the barbarous treatment Rashid received, one may learn that Meier himself has lived through some 13 assassination attempts since 1975. A newspaper search reveals the most probable Israeli raid responsible for the destruction of the TJ rolls, in my opinion, to have been among the series of June 18-20, 1974, in which several refugee camps in southern Lebanon were severely bombed. This was ostensibly in retaliation for a guerrilla incursion from Lebanon into northern Israel on June 13th in which three Israelis and all four guerrillas involved died. The raids on June 18th are most suspect, since they occurred first when there was the greatest element of surprise. Palestinians interviewed in Beruit had not expected the raids to last as long as three days (New York Times, June 21, 1974, p. 2), and the response does seem too highly escalated, too extensive and too long delayed (5-7 days) to have been just a retaliation for the June 13th guerrilla raid in which the guerrillas responsible had already been killed or died on the spot. Over 70 civilians were killed and another 70 wounded in these raids. The Washington Post of June 24th, 1974, stated, "Contrary to published speculation, the highest officials of the U.S. government were both astonished and outraged by the overkill of Israel's revenge last week against Palestinian bases, endangering fragile peace hopes for the Mideast." A senator who spoke out against the irrational brutality of the raids was Sen. Abourezk of S. Dakota. In the Congressional Record of June 21, Vol. 120, No. 91, he stated, "I am extremely saddened to note that the government of Israel has seen fit to conduct daily bombing raids on civilians in southern Lebanon, in the farming areas, and, indeed, in the refugee camps where the military communiques which emanate from Israel say that the bombing raids are designed to kill suspected terrorists." This report is not at all inconsistent with Rashid's statement that "Then the Israelis announced that they had undertaken a punitive action against Palestinian guerillas. However, in reality, they, together with some people from the Christian church, were after me and my scrolls." Moreover, the Israeli Information Minister, Aharon Yariv, himself offered the explanation, which would ordinarily be politically embarrassing, that they had purposely delayed their retaliatory response partly on account of President Nixon's visit to the Mideast during June 10-18 (New York Times, June 19th & 20th). If Rashid was correct, however, along with the present analysis, the Israeli intelligence on Rashid's whereabouts became available only towards the end of Nixon's Mideast trip. Thus the attack to destroy the Talmud of Jmmanuel scrolls could be conveniently ascribed to a delayed retaliation for the June 13th guerrilla incursion, and the political embarrassment for the "delay" could be gladly accepted so that the real, sinister purpose behind these particular raids could remain hidden. The political embarrassment in mind here is an admission that Israel timed its raids so as to minimize any discomfiture to the visiting president of the U.S.-their key ally and advocate for financial support. Yariv was a former Israeli chief of intelligence. Thus if certain high Israeli officials had learned that Rashid had fled to a coastal refugee camp with the scrolls, they may have taken this opportunity to eliminate their problem, while explaining it to be a new policy of vigorous pre- emptive strikes against Palestinian guerrilla organizations (New York Times, June 21, p. 1). The raids may have been prolonged for the full three days to allow many refugee camps to be attacked, so that no explanation would be needed as to why one particular camp-the one where Rashid's presence may have been determined-was bombarded. Or, possibly, Israeli intelligence may not have known for sure which one of several refugee camps Rashid had been heading for or seen at, and so many camps were attacked. These raids took place less than three weeks after Yitzhak Rabin replaced Golda Meir as prime minister of Israel and Shimon Peres succeeded Moshe Dayan as minister of defense. Another possibility for the raid in question might seem to be the earlier Israeli bombardment of seven refugee camps on May 16-17. However, this date is still further removed from the September date of Rashid's letter, and Israel's swift retaliation had come within one day of the provocation, as was customary. This provocation consisted of guerrillas holding 90 young Israeli students hostage for a day at Maalot, Israel, with eight of them plus eight adults being killed by the guerrillas before they in turn were killed. So in this case the retaliation, being prompt and not uncharacteristically escalatory of Israel, rules out this possibility. There are no other candidate raids on refugee camps between Aug. 9th and Sept. 14th, the date when Rashid posted his letter from Baghdad. So in summary, it is consistent with Rashid's letter that within three months prior to posting it there had been at least one series of Israeli raids (June 18-20th) that could have caused the destruction of the TJ scrolls and for which the official explanation for the raid is not at all convincing. It cannot be overemphasized how serious a threat the TJ was for Christianity and also for Judaism when still in the form of original Aramaic scrolls which could prove their own authenticity, and how likely it was for leaked knowledge of its existence to have provoked a violent, immoral reaction in expectation that the desired ends would justify the means. Why is the TJ heretical for Judaism as well as Christianity? One reason it is heretical for Judaism is that in it Jmmanuel teaches that the Jewish God (Yahweh or El) was not the true Creator God (the Great Spirit or "the Creation"), but was an advanced human or humanoid whom we would nowadays identify as an ET alien. This of course opens the door for interpretation of angels as aliens, sky chariots & pillars of cloud or fire as UFOs, and similar identification of other elements of Old Testament Merkabah mysticism-a scenario unacceptable to mainstream Judaism and blasphemous to it, but a well known possibility ever since the books of von Daniken have come out. Another reason is that in the TJ, Jmmanuel expresses the opinion that Israel should not be considered a chosen race, and that the land of Israel was acquired from others through abominable, unjust wars. A third reason consists of Jmmanuel's teachings on reincarnation and karma, which concepts are just as repugnant to mainstream Judaism as they are to formal Christianity (and Islam as well). A fourth reason that could well have most influenced an Israeli political leader such as Rabin, for example, is that if analysis of the TJ's Aramaic writing and radiocarbon dating of its scrolls were to be allowed that would prove its genuineness, the TJ's contents would call into question the veracity of the Bible, especially the New Testament, and undermine Americans' belief in Israel as the Holy Land, thus leading to eventual loss of U.S. support for Israel. Reasons for maintaining highest governmental secrecy about the true purpose behind the raid in question of course entail the foregoing reasons, which bear upon the very justification for Israel's existence. Also, no government officials would wish any of their more barbaric actions to be known to their people or to other members of the government. Hence such actions had to be covered up at all costs. Is the TJ worth nothing without the originals? On p. 80 Korff claims that the existence of the translated TJ is "evidence of nothing" without the original scrolls. However, one may analyze the translations, study how overwhelmingly improbable it is that they could be any hoax, and therefore find it extremely plausible that the TJ's originals indeed once existed. What Korff should have said is that, if the burden of proof is upon Meier to show beyond any doubt that the TJ is genuine, then without possessing the original scrolls he is unable to do so to most scholars' satisfaction. The TJ's uniqueness. On p. 80 Korff states that the TJ "is not unique as a document." This is false, since anyone who reads the TJ will immediately note its many unique narrations, as well as its unique yet natural solutions to scores and scores of New Testament Gospel problems, both major and minor, many of which have befuddled New Testament scholars for centuries, and others of which are brought to light for the first time by the TJ's text. Simply because the TJ supports the numerous traditions indicating that Jesus survived the crucifixion does not at all mean that it does not exhibit unique features throughout. Its narration on how Jmmanuel survived the crucifixion, for example, is unique among the 10 or so scenarios various independent scholars of the past three centuries have proposed to explain Jesus' appearances in the flesh to his disciples after his crucifixion and entombment (see my book, Jesus in India, International Scholars Publications, 1994, chapter 6). Did Jesus hide in India? On p. 80 Korff claims the TJ says that after Jesus reached India "he remained in hiding." Korff gives Randy Winter's book as the reference. (Of course, the TJ never refers to the man in question as Jesus, but rather Jmmanuel.) However, Winters says no such thing, but indicates what Meier had learned from Rashid's browsing of the end section of the TJ scrolls: Jmmanuel had continued with his teachings even in northern India and the Kashmir area, as well as having married and raised a family there. Kersten's book Jesus Lived in India. Also on p. 80 Korff mentions the book Jesus Lived in India by German author and investigator, Holger Kersten, and exclaims, "In truth, Meier had even read Kersten's book!" Here Korff is strongly implying that Kersten's investigations and rendering of the Jesus-in-India traditions gave Meier the idea of hoaxing this theme into the TJ. What Korff failed to mention, however, is that Kersten's book first came out (in German) only in 1983, whereas the TJ first appeared in print in 1978. Thus if Meier read Kersten's book it was years after the TJ was published. This is an example of a flagrantly false innuendo by Korff. On the other hand, the traditions of "Jesus" surviving the crucifixion and eventually traveling east to India and the Kashmir area data back for centuries. The anonymous Swiss scholar, Ted Auerbach. On pp. 80-81 Korff states that the "typewritten translations" by Rashid received by Meier were analyzed by several unnamed scholars in Germany and Switzerland, and that they "decided not to publish their results." Korff did not name the source of the letter that disclosed this piece of information, noting that this source wished to remain anonymous because the conclusions were negative. However, the points that Korff goes on to mention are the very same as those which Prof. Ted Auerbach of Gebenstorf, Switzerland, has discussed with me in correspondence (Auerbach ltrs. of Feb. 5, 1988; April 16, 1988; Sept. 29, 1988; Feb. 2, 1989 and March 31, 1989). In a letter of May 7, 1996, he sent me a copy of his June 23, 1980, summary report, which is what Korff quotes from in his book, and openly wrote me about its background. So there is no need now to keep Auerbach's name under wraps. The international director of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) has confirmed that Auerbach is indeed the "Swiss scientist" referred to by Korff (Walt Andrus, telephone conversation of April 19, 1996). Auerbach is or was one of MUFON's overseas consultants, and was Andrus's key advisor in Switzerland regarding the Meier case. Thus Korff obtained the information he terms "confidential" (p. 107, footnote 54) from Andrus, and Andrus from Auerbach. However, Auerbach actually did wish to have his summary report published. He had sent it to both Dr. J. Allen Hynek and to Andrus for possible publication by one or the other, though neither did publish it. On pp. 80-82 Korff leads the reader to believe that the Swiss scientist (Auerbach) was a part of a group who together studied Meier's evidence and claims. This is not the case, however, and Auerbach's conclusions from his summary report, the bulk of which are stated verbatim on Korff's pp. 81-83, represent his own individual views. Auerbach's favorable remarks. Perhaps Korff wished to keep Auerbach's name anonymous because the end of his summary report, not reproduced by Korff, mentions a piece of information favorable to Meier's credibility: One morning Meier had been driven with some members of his group to a wooded area where they witnessed a UFO light rising from behind the woods and disappearing over their heads. (This appears to have been the sighting of 16 June, 1975, by Hans Jacob and six others.) Several more documented UFO sightings connected with Meier's contacts, as witnessed by a total of eight members of Meier's group, are presented in Stevens's UFO Contact from the Pleiades: Preliminary Investigation Report (pp. 127-143). These are reported in more detail by Stevens than is the event by Auerbach. In his letters to me Auerbach has likewise indicated that he has noted realism in Meier's contacts. In his letter of Feb. 2, 1989, Auerbach wrote: "A member of our UFO club gave me G. Kinder's 'Light Years', and I finished reading it a few days ago. The book convinced me that I had done some injustice to Meier. This goes to show that one should not judge a person until all the information is at hand. I always thought that Meier's photos still were likely to be fakes. However, according to the book this is impossible. There may be some false ones among them, but the great majority of them, amounting to several hundred pictures, must be genuine. Also, I did not realize that he has had more than 100 meetings with Semjase." Korff had omitted much material like this from his anonymous source's report. Until 1988, Auerbach's knowledge of the Meier case came only from materials loaned to him by Hans Jacob, an early member of Meier's group of supporters who soon defected. (Jacob is mentioned frequently in Korff's book.) Auerbach, who never bothered to meet Meier, kept Jacob's materials for a month or two, took notes, and then returned the materials to Jacob, who had asked Auerbach to advise him whether or not to remain a member of Meier's group. He evidently advised him in the negative. Is the TJ the New Testament verbatim? On p. 82 Korff includes a portion of the summary report (by Auerbach) that states, "The Talmud turns out to be the New Testament verbatim, but with a large number of additions without much ethical value." This first part is not correct, as it is only the Gospel of Matthew that exhibits many parallel passages to the TJ, not the whole New Testament; and even about half of these passages, or more precisely, verses, are only poorly or moderately correlated with TJ verses (see Celestial Teachings, pp. 227-232, 271-290). As to the second half of the above quote, the task of Auerbach's study should have been not just to see if a case could be made that the "additions" were inserted by a hoaxer, or even by Meier himself, but also to see if an even stronger case could not be made for the opposite: that the compiler of the Gospel of Matthew had had the TJ in front of him and omitted much from it, especially everything heretical at the time, when writing his gospel. Celestial Teachings and my website consider both angles, but indicate overwhelmingly that the latter is the case. They, moreover, analyze the additions made to the TJ text by the compiler of Matthew and show how those additions have been preferentially pointed out by various New Testament scholars, who had no knowledge of the TJ, as indeed being redactions or editorial additions, with still other redactions within Matthew having been overlooked by them but made apparent by the TJ text. There is no way that Meier's limited education could have prepared him to be a literary hoaxer excelling over any known Gospel scholars, or could have allowed him to attract an unknown scholar of unsurpassed ability to create a literary hoax at all comparable to the TJ. However, Auerbach was proceeding on the assumption that the TJ had to be a hoax, and so did not consider this most important aspect of the problem. Korff in turn was apparently happy to accept and display Auerbach's negative conclusions without investigating them for himself. The TJ's new material-ethical or not? As to the TJ's "additions" not being of much ethical value, one should first notice that the compiler of Matthew had already accepted everything from the TJ's narrations (up to the time of Jmmanuel's entombment) that he found to be acceptable or ethical by early Christian standards, and thus ethical by today's Christian standards. These include some genuine TJ verses concerning the Golden Rule and the advice to notice the log in your own eye before criticizing the speck in your brother's eye. Therefore, that which the compiler excluded from Matthew, which appeared in the TJ, would almost by definition not pertain to ethical matters as seen in a Christian context. However, Jmmanuel's teachings about the human spirit and karma do have a strong ethical content apparently overlooked by Auerbach, since these teachings emphasize taking responsibility for one's actions and learning from one's mistakes. These teachings could not have been included by the compiler of Matthew. Instead, the only "spirit" he wished to emphasize was the external "Holy Spirit," whose prominence traces back to Paul. And mistakes were to be categorized as sins, from which the sinner had to be "saved" if he were to make it to heaven. Hence these teachings of Jmmanuel did not get retained and show up in Matthew. Another of Jmmanuel's ethical teachings omitted by the compiler of Matthew, and overlooked by Auerbach, is the great guilt incurred by committing suicide. Since the TJ's explanation for this involves the setback to the evolution of a human spirit that suicide causes, the compiler of Matthew omitted this also. He may have omitted it additionally because the Christian tradition of Jesus dying on the cross means that his actions, if inexorably leading to a crucifixion at which he died, were tantamount to suicide. One wonders if the prevalence of suicide in the Western world would be so great as it is today if the New Testament had contained explicit teachings against suicide. Other ethical teachings in the TJ, not in the Gospels, include the admonition to obey the natural law of Creation (true God). Thus the TJ does contain a goodly number of teachings of ethical value beyond those that managed to find their way into the Gospel of Matthew. How could the Gospel of Matthew show strong resemblance to the TJ? In this same portion of Auerbach's summary report it is stated (Korff, p. 82), "It is hard to see how the New Testament can agree word for word with the original-apart from the added passages-if the latter [the original] lay buried all the time." Again I point out that the agreement is usually much less than perfect, and this agreement is not with the New Testament as a whole but with substantial portions of Matthew. Only about 17% of Matthew's verses are very highly correlated with verses within the 1978 TJ (Celestial Teachings, p. 232). Even this degree of correlation can probably be attributed largely to the fact that Rashid, as an ex-priest, in translating the TJ into German must have had the German Bible in front of him as a guide in choosing optimal words in those TJ verses that closely resembled parallel verses in the German Bible. In addition, there are large chunks of TJ material not present at all in Matthew. To move on to the last part of Auerbach's statement above, the same question restated is: "How could the Gospel of Matthew agree with substantial portions of the TJ if the latter lay buried until 1963?" It is not at all difficult to understand how the TJ likely came to be utilized by the writer of Matthew. One need only infer that Judas Iscariot, during the 40 years or so of his later life in India, had time to transcribe the TJ scrolls as well as continue to add to them, thus making an additional set. According to what Meier learned from Rashid, after Jmmanuel's death in the early 2nd century the TJ was carried back to Palestine by Jmmanuel's elder son, Joseph, and his precious cargo would have included the transcribed copy of the TJ. (Alternatively, this Joseph may have made a transcription of the first portions of the TJ during his two-year trek from India to Palestine.) Once in the Palestinian region he no doubt released the transcription to some seemingly capable and honest person who knew of some of the true traditions concerning what Jmmanuel had taught, but eventually this transcription found its way into the hands of the compiler of Matthew in an unknown early church, perhaps the church in Antioch. The TJ's original papyrus rolls, however, Joseph had wrapped in animal skin, encased it all in resin, and buried the packet in the tombsite near Jerusalem where it was discovered some 19 centuries later. There is no shortage of possibilities of this nature on which one can only speculate, but which Auerbach either could not imagine or chose to ignore. In his letter to me of March 11, 1988, Auerbach mentioned that this whole question had "struck him" right from the beginning; it seems that his failure to have seen plausible solutions to it was a prime cause for his proceeding on the assumption that the TJ must be a hoax. The TJ and its editor's writing style. The same portion of Auerbach's report claims, "both the additions and the letter of the priest are written in Mr. Meier's characteristic style, containing all the errors in German also found in the Semjase manuscript." Only two suggested examples of such errors are given further into the report, and they are the two Auerbach has discussed with me in correspondence. One of these is "doch aber" (yet however), which occurs once in Rashid's letter to Meier and ten times in the TJ. However, hundreds of thousands of "doch aber" expressions may be found using an Internet search (with no comma separating the two words). There is no good reason why Rashid wouldn't have used the expression at least once, whether or not he knew it was an expression Meier may have commonly used in their conversations together (they had known each other for several years). However, with Meier being the editor of the TJ and having gone over it before first publishing it in 1978, some of the ten occurrences in the TJ may have been through his editing of Rashid's translation. No one has gone over the Contact Reports to check for the number of occurrences of "doch aber" there, and in relation to some standard expected number per thousand words. However, here again the exercise would be fruitless in trying to prove Meier's guilt or innocence, since all the Contact Reports were transmitted telepathically through Meier's head, and so would perforce end up in a form most understandable to him. The other example from Auerbach is "so" when its meaning, according to Auerbach, was "so that." However, Rashid's letter doesn't contain "so" in any sense that means "so that." The TJ does in some 38 places; however, in most of these places it could mean the English "so" (without "that") just as well, as in TJ 15:2 -- "Many people gathered around him, so that he stepped into a boat and sat down, and all the people stood on the shore." And the first definition for the German "so" is the English "so." But again, if Auerbach was correct on that point, it would only be consistent with Meier being the TJ's editor and the transmitter of the Contact Reports from Semjase (and other Plejarens), which reports incidentally contain Meier's end of the conversations as well. More on this below. In his letter to me of 29 Sept. 1988, Auerbach mentions that the expression "Es ist mir leid" ("I am sorry") was one of Meier's favorite expressions and occurs at the start of Rashid's letter to Meier (implying that Meier wrote it). However, Rashid's letter actually starts with "Es ist mir sehr leid" ("sehr" = "very"), and this must have been what Auerbach meant to write. Without the "sehr," this is a very common German expression. With it, it is indeed rather rare, but the circumstance Rashid was describing, of the most precious scrolls or papyrus rolls having been destroyed, could indeed call for "very" to be added. Auerbach did not disclose in what writing(s) of Meier he had frequently seen the expression "Es ist mir sehr leid." (Usually, "I am very sorry" is expressed as, "Es tut mir sehr leid.") The so-called "additional" TJ material, having no parallel in the Gospels, would have required the most editing by Meier because its content would have been strange for both Rashid and for the typist Meier employed in 1976-1977 (Frau Krauer); thus they could not have relied upon the German Bible for examples of wording. Meier, however, had been educated in many ways by his earlier contacts with ETs named Sfath and Asket, and so was prepared for the TJ's non-biblical revelations. Within his editing, some of Meier's characteristic writing style would be expected to show through, including his use of Swiss-German. There should be no surprise that an editor's writing style will show through sections of text that he edits, and Meier probably felt that Rashid's rendering of German in places left something to be desired. Such an imprint from Meier should then exhibit some positive correlation with Meier's writing style within his Contact Reports, since the latter were all channeled through his mind as he set them into typewriting. Were Meier's Contact Notes and Rashid's letter typed on the same typewriter? This same portion of Auerbach's summary report claims that "comparison shows the letter alleged to have been written by the priest in Iraq actually to have been typed on the same typewriter as the Semjase manuscript" (Korff, p. 82. In this and preceding paragraphs where I quote Korff, the italics within quotes stem from Korff.) The "Semjase manuscript" refers to Meier's Contact Reports, in which Semjase was the primary ET spokesperson. To check out Auerbach's claim, I have obtained the first four pages each of copies of the German version of the Notes of Contacts 2, 61, 76 and 150, dated Feb. 3, 1975; July 29, 1976; May 23, 1977 and Oct. 19, 1978, respectively. These I have compared against the Rashid letter-copy in the rear of the TJ, using its 1978 version. What Auerbach noticed is that both Rashid's letter and the Contact Reports (up until about 1978) were typed on typewriters having the same kind of Swiss-German typeface, which doesn't use the German double-ess symbol. (In October of 1978 he switched to a different typewriter with a much different typeface.) This identity of typeface represents an astute observation on the part of Auerbach. However from there he apparently assumed without further checking that the same typewriter was involved in both cases. Simple examination, however, reveals at least four particular distinguishing peculiarities between the two typewriters: (a) With the typewriter used by Rashid, the top of the "9" lies slightly too low, as seen in 2 out of 2 occurrences. In the three German Contact Reports, on the other hand, it lies at the proper height in all 10 instances available to me for inspection. (b) With the typewriter used by Meier, the lower-case "w" tends to fall too low-both its base and its top; see Fig. 1. Fig. 1. Example from Meier's Contact Reports. The "w" always lies too low. Judging from the position of its base relative to the average baseline of neighboring letters, in 61 out of the 89 occurrences in the three sets of Contact Reports on hand the w's base was positioned 8% or more too low; in 27 more of these 89 it also fell too low to a lesser extent (within an estimated uncertainty of 2%). In Rashid's typography, on the other hand, the position of the base of the "w" agrees with that of the baseline within a small uncertainty of estimation in 31 of 34 occurrences; it lies detectably below the baseline on only 3 of the 34 occurrences. See Fig. 2. Fig. 2. Example from Rashid's letter. The "w" almost never lies too low. This distinction is quite noticeable, and indicates that two different typewriters were involved. (c) In 3 out of 7 times where "ur" appears in the Rashid letter, the two letters lie so close together that their bases touch or merge; see Fig. 2, lowest line (arrow), for an example. This does not occur in either of the two Contact Notes I examined that Meier typed, nor in the one typed by his assistant (Contact Report #2), in all of which I counted 75 occurrences of "ur" properly spaced. A reason for this to have occurred in Rashid's letter and not in Meier's typing is that the "u" typically gets struck by the right index finger and the "r" by the left, so that inexact coordination can cause the two keys to strike too closely together in succession at times. This is much less likely to have happened to someone typing with only one hand. (d) In the typescript of the Rashid letter the left side of its "ü" is very weak 12 out of 12 times (see Fig. 2, 3rd line in German, for an example), and also the lower-left side of its "ä" 7 out of 8 times. These imperfections do not appear in the Contact Reports. After noting these differences, I obtained a report from a forensic document examiner and typewriter expert, Dr. Philip Bouffard of Mentor, Ohio. Among a few additional differences he noted is that the "F" falls noticeably too low in the Rashid letter (this occurs 13 times out of 13 occurrences); see Fig. 3 below. Fig. 3. Example of "F" from Rashid's letter (upper half), where it lies too low, and from Meier's Contact Reports (lower half), where the "F" never lies too low. On the other hand, out of the 27 occurrences of "F" in the Contact Reports I possess, the problem never occurs. This also strongly suggests that two different typewriters were involved. In summary, the charge that the same typewriter was used in typing both the Contact Reports and Rashid's letter does not hold up under close scrutiny. One does not need to be a typewriter expert, or to examine originals of the documents, to notice the differences I have discussed indicating that two different typewriters were involved. After I pointed out these differences in a letter to Auerbach, he replied on 12 July 1996 that, "You have done some real detective work on Rashid's letter. It really does seem to have been typed on a different machine from that of the Contact Notes, although the differences are very subtle." They don't seem so subtle, however, once they have been pointed out. One may also include in the comparison a typed copy of a letter of agreement between Rashid and Meier dated Aug. 4, 1963, which Meier managed to save over the years. The agreement provides for Rashid to retain custody of the scrolls, and Meier the custody of the German translations produced by Rashid. The typewriter used therein has a slightly different typeface than that used in the Contact Reports or in Rashid's letter, as is best seen by comparing the J's. Of interest is that in this 1963 agreement Rashid's signature appears readily identifiable as coming from the same hand as in his 1974 letter, though differences in detail are also apparent. In particular, the latter signature is somewhat less well articulated than the earlier signature, as is to be expected due to the increased age of the signer. A peculiar typing style. Auerbach also astutely observed (correspondence to me of 12 July, 1996) that in both the early Contact Reports and in Rashid's letter the typist consistently left no space after a comma or period, but ran the subsequent word into the punctuation. And in both, a space is left before a question mark, though this occurs only once in Rashid's letter. The lack of a space after punctuation occurs in Contact Reports prior to about mid-1976, but not afterwards. It was at about this time that Meier handed Semjase a newer typewriter he had purchased through the generosity of group member Olga Walder, and after he received it back from Semjase a month or so later, he was able to type Contact Reports on it considerably faster than before while in the trance state. The presumption is that the Pleiadians were able to tune their techno-telepathic communication system through Meier's brain to this typewriter to produce optimal one-handed typing efficiency for him. In Stevens's book ...Preliminary Investigation Report, he names some five witnesses to Meier's fast typing while in this trance state, and Stevens himself is a sixth (personal communication, Nov. 16, 1996). Stevens has also observed Meier type when in a normal, non-trance state, and has noted that he is then a slow, mistake-prone typist. When Meier switched over to a different typewriter, a change in typing style may be noticed-the use of double line spacing, whereas single line spacing occurred previously. However, the space before a question mark remains in Meier's later Contact Reports. Of key importance to keep in mind is that when typing in the trance state, Meier had no control over the movements of his right hand over the keyboard. Thus, if Meier is given the benefit of the doubt, the space before the question mark represents a bit of Semjase's programming with her automatic-typing telepathic-transmission device. Either she did not know any better, perhaps having noticed that style in Rashid's letter, or she believed that to be Meier's style, or she fed it in purposely to provide plausible deniability for skeptics who might otherwise be forced to accept the reality of Meier's contacts against their will. This latter kind of possibility is discussed further after the next main topic. One needs to ask the question, how rare is this kind of typing style -omitting the space after a comma or period? I have noticed that it occurs also in the copy of a German letter reproduced by Stevens (Preliminary Investigation Report, pp. 177-179, 460-461) from one Elsa Schroder, a German national, who described therein her accidental encounter with Semjase and her "flying saucer" in an Iranian desert in 1975. She did not wish her identity to be exposed for fear of being branded "nutty," and so her later whereabouts has remained unknown. Her letter had been typed in Antioch, Turkey, a month after her close encounter, but was misrouted within the Turkish postal system and then forwarded by an alert recipient (S. Kramer) to DUIST (a weekly UFO newspaper) in Wiesbaden, Germany, where it became known to Mrs. Ilse Jacobi of DUIST. After she heard of the Meier contactee case she informed him about it, and Meier later informed Stevens, who then acquired a copy of it from DUIST. One university professor I have queried (Clara Ubieto, Department of German Philology, Univ. of Zaragoza, Spain) has informed me that she has had students who made the same mistake of crowding in the commas and periods, when required to use a typewriter for about the first time, though she finds this is much rarer nowadays when keyboards have become so familiar. Another German professor (Jost Hermand at the University of Wisconsin) stated that the style "was quite common for a while and is in no way peculiar." This was while he taught at several different universities in Germany years ago. German ufologist Michael Hesemann has independently informed me that he has seen the same style used in letters typed by persons of little schooling. And Meier group member B. Koye has informed me that "At that time (in the Sixties) I also remember, that it has been very normal and in use-after comma or points not to let space between!" So this peculiar style of typing was not so rare after all. Whether this had been Meier's typing style as well, before 1975, is unknown. It is not a typing style found in Meier's Foreword or After-word sections of the 1978 TJ. In Schroder's letter a lack of typewriter skill is suggested by her having used but one long, two-page paragraph, and by her having typed too close to the bottom of one page, causing it to fail to scroll evenly. Rashid's letter exhibits better typewriting style, however, so it might represent an example supporting Prof. Hermand's opinion. The typeface on the Schroder letter is again the same European or Swiss-German typeface as found in the 1975-77 Contact Reports and in Rashid's letter, suggesting that it or its brand of typewriter was a rather widely used one. If, however, it is instead inferred that Meier was guilty of typing these letters and of somehow routing the Schroder letter on its tortuous path, the skeptic should bear in mind that the general style of each of them is quite different. Rashid's letter had frequent paragraphs with indentations. The Contact Reports show paragraphs of variable length, depending on how long each speaker spoke, without indentations except for spacing between the speaker's name and his/her text. And the Contact Reports Meier typed in the trance state exhibit double spacing between lines and greater spacing between different speakers, while the other two documents exhibit only single spacing. Also to be noted is that the handwriting of the signatures at the end, particularly the "E" in "Elsa" and the "E" in "Eduard," is totally different. Although these differences between the documents could have been faked in by an intelligent hoaxer, no such hoaxer would then be expected to make the more obvious mistake of reproducing the peculiar style of crowding the commas and periods. Although the quality of the reproduced Schroder letter is poor, its typewriter-key characteristics can be seen not to resemble those of Meier's Contact Notes. Though there is some similarity between its typography and that of the Rashid letter (e.g., the "ä" and "ü" coming through weakly), a difference I have noticed is that in its letter combination of "ah", the "h" lies low relative to the "a" in the Schroder letter 11 out of 12 times, being about even once, and being of quality too poor to permit a judgment in the three other instances. In the Rashid letter-copy, on the other hand, within the combination "ah" the two letters appear to lie at the same height in all 6 out of 6 instances. All in all, the Rashid and Schroder letters of 1974 and 1975 appear to have been typed on different typewriters distinct from Meier's Contact Reports. Why would Meier's ETs flatter him? Moving further into Auerbach's report, we find its mention that in the Contact Reports Semjase makes a point of bestowing lavish praise upon Meier at times. By omitting the fact that Meier just as frequently objected to this praise, which remarks were also faithfully reproduced in the Contact Reports, Auerbach was implying that Meier had inserted this within invented conversations to make himself look good. This is not to say that Meier does not indeed deserve much praise for having agreed to be the Pleiadians' primary contactee-one who would speak out-and for enduring the resultant abuse from ufologists which has occurred ever since. Extraterrestrial strategy. Also omitted in the report was any discussion of a very plausible reason why Meier's contactors would have spoken to him at times in excessively flattering terms: in order that their contacts not force unreceptive people to believe what their belief systems cannot tolerate; namely, that ETs or aliens further evolved than we exist in our vicinity, are aware of us and have been interacting with selected persons. That is, aliens purposely include speech, actions and items in their contacts that can be used by skeptics to discredit the contactee and/or partially undermine the supportive evidence he may have been allowed to accumulate concerning the alien presence. If the positive evidence supporting the reality of the contacts is ignored, the disinformation or deception fed in by alien contactors can then give critics with an anthropocentric mindset an excuse to maintain their existing beliefs without "going crazy." Although this would mean that the Pleiadians, being the ETs in consideration, are more intelligent than their skeptical human detractors and can stay several jumps ahead of them, this kind of strategy should not be so surprising if they are thousands or tens of thousands (or millions) of years more evolved than we, are ethical enough not to force any sudden mental chaos upon society, and are a bit smarter than we. However, this thought seems to be a giant stumbling block for negative skeptics-that UFO aliens would be smarter, more sophisticated and more ethical than we are-in seeing that their actions do not cause the mental health of negative skeptics to be shattered while at the same time putting across some information for those who can mentally accept it. The ethic of allowing skeptics a way to maintain a free-will choice of deniability appears to be a higher one than the ethic of never telling a lie or never being deceptive to a contactee, when the disinformation is presented within a likely context of requiring us to "sift out the wheat from the chaff." At various points within the Contact Reports, Semjase does come right out and tell Meier that they regard the individual's free will as paramount, and also that the worst result that they must not allow to happen is for their contacts with him to be turned into another religion or cult, with either them being considered gods and goddesses or Meier becoming a world renowned guru. (A person can be said to be subject to a cult, or to an unnecessary loyalty, when he unquestioningly accepts what the cult leader or guru says as truth. If a person has to question the veracity of each statement made by a source, that person obviously is not under the cultic influence of that source.) By feeding in some semi-obvious disinformation to what they told Meier, which would be incorporated into his Contact Reports and later seen by detractors as egoism or dumb invented remarks on the part of the contactee, the Pleiadians, and other ETs similarly, would be fulfilling all these objectives. The Pleiadians' causing a tree to disappear about which Semjase's beamship had very closely hovered and been photographed by Meier (e.g., see UFO...Contact from the Pleiades, Vol. II, pp. 64-66) can be considered a similar form of deception, which allows unknowledgeable skeptics a way out of their dilemma: to accuse Meier of having used a model tree as well as a model UFO. Neither Auerbach nor Korff mentions this kind of explanation involving ET strategy, though it seems evident enough in retrospect. Do detractors like Korff really think that aliens who can efficiently travel "from there to here," and make their UFO craft perform wondrous maneuvers we can only gasp at, wouldn't also be smarter, more knowledgeable, more experienced and more clever than we ourselves after studying us for many years? An ethic of providing negative skeptics with deceptive information so that they will not be forced to accept a new paradigm against their will also is consistent with the occurrence of hundreds of thousands of UFO sightings worldwide in the past half century without the ETs involved ever once hanging around so long that their presence would become confirmed beyond any doubt. The strategy does seem to indicate high levels of intelligence and ethics on the part of the aliens, along with a propensity for using their advanced technology and evolved capabilities as necessary to implement it. It seems to be a well thought out, fail-safe strategy in that negative skeptics whose belief systems cannot tolerate the alien presence and degree of advancement over us will eagerly pounce upon the pieces of deception provided by the ETs as items with which to debunk the contactee, thereby maintaining their free will. At the same time, they will not be able to accept the present explanation, no matter how well set forth, and will think of it as mere rationalization. If and when they shed their anthropocentric beliefs and see through the alien strategy, however, then that strategy will have become superfluous, which would seem to be the ultimate goal of the strategy. Have any others seen Semjase? The same report of Auerbach (Korff p. 82) then interjects the sentence: "No one, incidentally, including his wife and children, has ever seen Semjase." However, besides Meier, we have already mentioned an exception to this-the woman, Elsa Schroder (reported in Stevens's Preliminary Investigation Report, pp. 177-179). But besides this omission, consider the erroneous impression Korff's statement leaves by failure to mention that on one occasion four adults besides Meier's wife and children had a daytime sighting of Semjase's beamship. His wife's testimony to this is preserved on video tape, along with the picture that one of his children drew of the beamship craft. Until about the time that Meier's wife, Kalliope, had her sighting, she had been upset and confused or disbelieving about it all. But afterwards she told the Elders this (see UFO... Contact from the Pleiades, Vol. II, by Lee and Brit Elders, Genesis III Publishing, p. 45, as translated into English): "In June of 1976, seven people were waiting with me for Billy to come back from a contact. He came and said to us 'go with me to another point.' We went and waited. It was daylight and one of the boys told us to look up into the sky. It was our first sighting in the day. The ship was very big but got smaller as it rose, and I clearly saw the detail around the top of the ship. I saw little ports, and the whole UFO seemed to be light. The children, three other women and one man saw it, too. There are many lights going across the sky at night and I cannot be sure what they are, but this I am sure was the ship of Semjase. I didn't believe it because I had never talked about UFO's or seen one. But after this day...I believe. "Now the UFO's are secondary, the information from the Pleiadians come first. We have to learn to live together...man and woman, different countries, different races and different worlds." This information, captured on video tape by the Elders, has been available since 1983. For Korff to omit it from his book represents unconscionable reporting. Being a daytime witness to a UFO that Meier had previously been informed by Semjase she would expose to them is certainly relevant information as to the existence of the UFO's pilot (Semjase). Although Korff lists names of 21 witnesses who saw UFOs related to Meier's contacts (Korff, p. 307), and Kalliope is included, he falsely implies (p. 306) that these were all just nighttime observations "of blobs of light." Kalliope has since divorced Eduard Meier, an ordeal not infrequently suffered by a contactee or abductee. But this can indicate that she has a mind of her own and would not likely have made up the story of her sighting at her husband's request. Alien contact strategy. The same portion of Auerbach's summary goes on to say (Korff, p. 82), "The manuscript [Meier's Contact Notes] makes it abundantly clear that she [Semjase] wishes to confine her contacts strictly to Mr. Meier alone. Certainly a convenient wish." Again, the report omitted other relevant material within the Contact Reports in which Semjase explained to Meier why they had to maintain this policy, since Meier quizzed her about it several times and asked permission to bring one or two others along on more than one occasion. Her explanation for this involved their need to avoid making their contacts so well attested that many people would abruptly be forced to believe in their existence before they were mentally and psychologically prepared to do so. Failure to provide this rather evident explanation along with the facts of alien contact can create a very misleading picture. And again, the report's use of "convenient" here implies through innuendo that it was convenient for a hoaxer to have invented the contact-confinement theme, while ignoring the likelihood that it was part of the ETs' strategy. Pseudo-science. The summary report continues with the mention of various statements Meier was told by Semjase, and which therefore appear in his verbatim Contact Reports, that sound like silly science or pseudo-science, at least to most scientists. Apparently, Auerbach and Korff as well believe that what ETs tell or show their contactees/abductees has to be truth and nothing but the truth! That is quite an assumption for an investigator or ufologist to make, and as has just been pointed out, seems totally unjustified. If the ET strategy already outlined here is at all correct, the ETs would need to take special care that scientists as a whole do not catch on to the reality of the alien presence before they and the rest of the populace are psychologically prepared for it. This is because the consensual scientific view of matters dictates whether or not the news media and government bodies will accept an event as real news or as a topic deserving of being ignored or ridiculed. Thus the ETs involved need only supply their contactees and abductees with a certain fraction of pseudo-scientific nonsense, which their recipients will likely accept as true, in order that mainstream science remain oblivious to the reality of the situation. For more on this, see my paper "Possible Extraterrestrial Strategy for Earth" in the Quart. J. Royal Astronomical Soc., 27, pp. 94-101 (1986). An ET strategy of including some disinformation is an obvious alternative to the possibility that it is the contactee, or abductee, who is not always telling the truth. Yet neither Korff nor Auerbach seems to have considered it. However, it is not always possible for us to say with any certainty which statements from ETs are disinformation, and which are not but only seem so because of our highly limited scientific understanding, which frequently needs revision as science progresses. Think of how many ways our science has been updated in the past century, then try to imagine how many important further updates and totally new revisions and additions will have occurred by 50 centuries from now, assuming our civilization survives. Some ETs could be millions of years ahead of us in evolution, since other stars possessing planets formed up to a billion years ahead of our solar system. Meier's time-travel adventures. Korff then quotes Auerbach's report as saying that Meier "had had himself transported back in time to Jerusalem" (Korff, p. 83). This is in need of immediate correction: Meier did not order or request the trip; rather, it was bestowed upon him by his ET contactor at the time (1956), namely Asket, as a part of his ET schooling that he accepted. Thanks to a few respected scientists in the past decade having concluded that time travel may not be inconceivable after all, its possibility must now be taken seriously by UFO investigators and critics alike. See Science, Vol. 274 (11 Oct., 1996), p. 202, for a recent example. On the particular time-travel trip in question, Meier, along with one other, was said to have been taken close to Jerusalem, near Bethphage and the Mount of Olives, to meet Jmmanuel and some of his disciples in the year A.D. 32. This evidently relates to an occasion prior to the scene in Matthew 21:1 and TJ 22:1. Did Jmmanuel praise Meier? The report then states, "The Lord listens patiently to a great deal of religious philosophy on the part of Mr. Meier, and duly admires his high intelligence." Here, to start with, it is misleading to have called Jmmanuel "the Lord," as both at this point and in the TJ he made it clear through prophetic insight that he was not what he would come to be known by with the Christian title of "Lord," i.e., a divine person, or son of God or God. It is further misleading for Auerbach to have implied that Meier did most of the talking while Jmmanuel mostly listened. During this past-time encounter with Jmmanuel, Meier spoke 91 sentences, including many questions directed to Jmmanuel, while Jmmanuel spoke 253 sentences. This is the opposite of what Auerbach implied. Out of these 253 sentences, few relate to Meier's intelligence. One did speak of Meier as "wise" or "fast-thinking," and this was in response to Meier's recognition and commendation of Jmmanuel's precognitive abilities. In one other sentence Jmmanuel told Meier he was very educated in spirit, which is not the same, however, as mental intelligence. In another Jmmanuel told Meier that he was more discerning than he had expected, which, however, refers only to an unknown expectation. At one point he told Meier that Meier properly caught his meaning, though this is canceled by his telling Meier at another point that Meier had not interpreted him right. And once he was surprised that Meier could conceive qualitatively of how it was possible for him (Jmmanuel) to prophesy far into the future. At most, this represents only two or three sentences of "high intelligence" praise, which, however, do not seem undeserved, out of the 253, and so does not begin to justify the prominence the report assigned to it. A less biased report would have discussed some of the substance of the conversations. This actual substance included discussions of how the religion (or philosophy) Jmmanuel initiated soon went sadly astray from his actual teachings, and discussion of the degree of development of Meier's spirit relative to Jmmanuel's, a topic Meier was naturally interested in. Meier's editing errors. Finally, what Korff presents from Auerbach's summary report speaks of Meier's frequent use of characteristic mistakes in the German language. This was meant to imply that the same mistakes occur in both the German TJ and the Contact Reports and/or Rashid's letter, with Meier supposedly having hoaxed them all. Now, as noted before, the appearance of Meier's personal style should not be unexpected within the Contact Reports, since they are his own reproduction, through a rapid form of technologically channeled "automatic writing" from the Pleiadians, of his own conversations with them he had held the previous night or so during a contact. They were all expressed through his own thoughts, and were thus expressed in his own Swiss-German tongue. And they are not unexpected within the TJ, since Meier edited it. Concerning Rashid, we cannot expect that his knowledge of German, being a second or third language for him, would be independent of what German he learned from Meier. He conversed with Meier frequently in 1963. Thus in all probability Rashid learned some Swiss-German from Meier. A few pieces of this style learned from Meier might then be expected to have appeared in his letters to him, and also in his translation of the TJ, since he of course knew that Meier was its custodian. As anyone knows, parts of a foreign language learned from someone with whom you speak and whom you respect will stick with you better than what you learn from a textbook or in class. Three examples of these improprieties in language are mentioned by Korff from Auerbach's report, the first being Meier's use of "yet however," which refers to "doch aber" in the German and does not represent good German grammar. This was a perceptive observation by Auerbach. I have found this used five times in the TJ, which occurs in its verses that are distinctive from Matthean verses, and once in Rashid's letter. Assuming it is indeed an expression also used by Meier, this could be a prime example of an expression Rashid picked up from Meier and continued to use at times when expressing his thoughts in the German language intended for Meier to read. On the other hand, one cannot be sure that Meier himself did not, in giving the 1978 TJ its initial editing, try to improve upon Rashid's translation and, in so doing, insert "doch" before "aber" in some or all of these instances. Auerbach was apparently not open to either of these two possibilities, as they seem not to have occurred to him. The second example is Meier's not infrequent use of the German word "so" to mean "so that." This observation by Auerbach also seems correct, assuming the improper use of "so" did not stem from Rashid himself during translations. Again, however, it says nothing against the general validity of the TJ. The third example given is that "Olives" is said to have been written as "Oilives," regarding the Mount of Olives. However, in the 1978 German TJ it is spelled correctly (Ölberg) in both of its two occurrences, so Auerbach may have been referring to a particular Contact Report in German that I do not possess. If in there it had been spelled as "Oelberg," Auerbach may have referred to this as "Oilives" in his English-language report. The "Oel" spelling would have been used in Meier's Contact Reports because the typewriter he utilized then did not support capitalized vowels with umlauts. Thus "Öl" would have been typed out as "Oel." Interestingly, this latter error did creep into one occurrence in the 1992 and 1996 TJs (TJ 25:6), allowing us to understand it was a simple mistake that bears no connection to the genuineness of the TJ. Auerbach's report then mentions that "logical" and "forms of life" are favorite expressions of Meier (Korff, p. 83). Although the point of this is not given in Korff's book, it is clear from Auerbach's letter to me of March 31, 1989, he was concluding that the occurrence of "logic" (some 20 times) within the TJ as opposed to its non-occurrence within the Gospels means that Meier placed it within the TJ. Again, however, Auerbach was just stating a conclusion that derives from already having assumed the TJ to be a hoax, rather than examining the likelihood that a word meaning "logic" occurred frequently within the original TJ and was then removed by the early 2nd-century Christian scribe- editor as he compiled the Gospel of Matthew. One needs to ask a question not asked by Auerbach or Korff: If Jmmanuel had taught basic truths, or even learned some from the Pleiadians, is it not likely this would have involved mention of logic? Although logic per se seems to have been of little or no concern within Judaic literature of that era, it was a well developed concept within Greek literature, and even many "mainstream" New Testament scholars assume that Jesus must have known Greek. The TJ itself indicates that Jmmanuel had knowledge of at least one Greek saying, which derives from Plato in the 4th century B.C.-the saying, "Man is the measure of all things," within an extended prophecy about people of the future: "Thus they will also lose sight of the principle of the oldest wisdom, which says that humans are the measure of all things in life, because they are after all a part of the Creation." (TJ 36:25) Thus it is only consistent that Jmmanuel urged the use of logic within the TJ. One also needs to ask, Would the writer of Matthew have had reason to omit the word "logic" or sentences that express the concept, when editing the TJ and forming his gospel from it? The answer to this question is also affirmative. Consistent with other alterations that the compiler of Matthew is deduced to have made to the TJ, he is seen to have omitted TJ teachings that encourage the reader or listener to think for himself. This was apparently because followers of the new religion were supposed to obey the teachings of the church and its priests and scribes rather than to think independently. And if one uses logic, one is thinking independently for oneself. An additional reason for the writer of Matthew's omission of "logic" is that as a concept more in use in gentile lands, e.g., in Greece, than in the land of Israel, and with the compiler of Matthew being anti-gentile in his outlook (as may be seen from some 8 or 10 verses of Matthew), "logic" would not likely have appealed to him. Six of the 20 usages of "logic" occur in TJ text presenting teachings of Jmmanuel occurring well after his survival of the crucifixion, and so could not have been utilized by the compiler of Matthew for that reason alone. As to a preference by Meier for the phrase "forms of life," this has little connection to the TJ, as it appears there only once ("Lebensformen"). One needs to keep the TJ context in mind-of Jmmanuel himself being a contactee, having received 40 days and nights of tutoring under the same general ET group (Pleiadians) as those who contacted Meier, and who, having an ET biological father and being aware of that fact, consequently spoke frequently in terms of this "human race" and of Creation being the maker of the universes and of all living things. No doubt the phrase occurs more frequently within the Contact Reports, where the subject must have arisen several times in conjunction with Meier's numerous questions to Semjase and in her replies, on all kinds of topics. In his letter to me of March 11, 1988, Auerbach also pointed out that in Rashid's letter, his clause "Es ist mir leid" ("I am sorry") represents a mistake in grammar also present in Meier's Contact Reports, thus trying to imply that Meier had hoaxed the letter by Rashid. The preferred expression is "Es tut mir leid." However, this just as easily represents another idiosyncrasy Rashid picked up from Meier in 1963. On the other hand, the expression may not be so idiosyncratic after all, as the use of "es ist leid" instead of "tut mir leid" is okayed in the Cassell's 1978 German- English dictionary (see under "leid"). Other criticisms by Auerbach similarly seem based simply on the fact that much of the TJ's content is different from what is in the Bible. This also likely contributed to his initial bias that the TJ could not possibly be genuine. This is despite the fact that he found the TJ "to be a persuasive document" (in correspondence to me of March 31, 1989), and found its "Epilogue and Explanation" page to be "particularly interesting" (in correspondence of Sept. 29, 1988). In summary, although the errors and false conclusions in this section are those of Auerbach, Korff perpetuated them without applying any critical analysis of his own and without looking into the TJ for himself. Opinions of Michael Arends. Korff (p. 83) then mentions a so-called analysis by Michael Arends, a German ufologist, in which "similarities were noted between the typewriter used by Billy Meier to transcribe his 'contact' notes with Semjase and the 'Rashid' translations Meier claimed to have received from Baghdad. Arends identified specific letter characters which he found indicative that the same typewriter had been used." This claim that the same typewriter was used for both writings has already been discussed above and shown to be totally false. As an aid to answering this kind of question, it would have been very helpful if Meier had retained the rough TJ translations he received from Rashid. However, after overseeing the editing of the TJ manuscript and readying it for publication in 1977-78, Meier unfortunately did not retain them. From his viewpoint there was no need to, storage space being at a premium, since he knew as a personal fact that the TJ he co-discovered was genuine, and that if his many hundreds of photographs of Pleiadian beamships did not convince a person of the reality of his experiences, additional less direct evidence would not be convincing to that person either. And despite repeated attempts, he was never able to receive back from the typist the manuscript which he had sent her (Frau Krauer) to ready it for print. Korff goes on to state that Arends "discovered that entire passages had been embellished on and lifted from a standard Lutheran version of the Bible." This again goes over some of the same ground already covered. What Korff failed to say here in this unproven claim is that any priest or ex-priest who is well acquainted with the Gospels would find that, in translating those passages of the TJ that had been most faithfully carried over into the Gospel of Matthew, his translation would naturally end up sounding very much like what is in that gospel. The following question would then arise for him: Should he translate those sections into the words and language as he remembers them from his upbringing and training, or should he not use one particular, standard Bible as his guide, and use its language consistently for those parallel passages? The latter is an evident choice, in which case the Bible he used would have been the well known and prevailingly used German Bible (which is the Martin Luther Bible), since his translation from the Aramaic was into German. The only other alternative would be to try to cast his translation into a form that would seem fresh and never before used, such as referring to the Mount of Olives as the "Hill of Olives" or "Hill of Oval Drupes," as an extreme example of the problem that would be encountered. So Rashid evidently had the German Bible on hand and used its particular German phraseology and vocabulary in familiar passages. From the point of view not considered by Auerbach, Arends and Korff-that the TJ could be authentic-one finds that it was the compiler of Matthew who made many insertions, omissions and substitutions when utilizing the TJ as his source. And one finds a very consistent picture of the theological slant of this compiler from this viewpoint, as well as fresh and consistent solutions to the problems of Gospel priorities and interpretations of the few, terse, ambiguous sayings about the formation of the Gospels that have survived from certain early church fathers but continue to puzzle mainstream biblical scholarship. These alterations incorporated into Matthew then are what Arends refers to as "embellishments" from his standpoint of assuming Meier guilty of fraud. Thus Arends and Korff are guilty of failing even to consider the likelihood that it was the compiler of Matthew who made massive editorial alterations in rendering his source document, the TJ, into a form acceptable to the early church, namely, into the Gospel of Matthew. The interested reader may need to consult my book, The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins, or consult this file, to learn how strong the evidence is that Matthew (not Mark) was the first Gospel written, and in Hebrew or Aramaic, with Mark being second (though being the first Gospel in Greek) and Luke third, just as attested by the early church fathers: Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine, and implied by the 2nd-century bishop Papias, who was the first person on record to mention any of the Gospels by name. Underground Video and Aramaisms. On p. 83 of his book Korff also mentions a verbal attack against Meier by Underground Video (UV) of Beverly Hills, California. Their charges seem to be of the same nature as Korff's-quite unsubstantiated, with few details being presented. However, in a footnote referring to a conversation with UV's president, Korff does mention one particular charge: that UV had "discovered evidence proving that the Talmud Immanuel does not contain Aramaic!" One scarcely knows what to make of this charge. Does it mean that UV or Korff thinks that after a document is translated from Aramaic into German the translation should contain Aramaic writing? To interpret this charge in the most intelligent light, it may be that UV was claiming that the German TJ does not show any awkward language indicative of having been translated too literally from the Aramaic in places. Such indications, if present in the translated text, are called Aramaisms or Semitisms, whose meaning Korff may not have understood. However, in the 1978 German TJ there are some Aramaisms that are sufficiently evident that even a non-scholar of Aramaic, such as myself, can identify them (with the help of some textbooks). One set of such Aramaisms involves sentences of the type where "and he spoke" or similar words occur, seemingly redundantly, just following another verb having nearly the same meaning, such as "answered." It is an indication that the original text contained no quotation marks, as punctuation was not invented until a few centuries later. Thus, "and he spoke" served to notify the reader or listener that a quotation was commencing. One would search for these indications primarily in those portions of the TJ not having Matthean parallels, since the same redundancies persisted also into the German Bible, which stems from texts (Greek and Latin) also old enough not to have contained punctuation. An example occurs at TJ 28:41, which has no parallel within Matthew for reasons that should become obvious. A literal translation of its German, with the redundant phrase italicized, reads, "But Jmmanuel answered and spoke: 'Truly I say to you: You may succeed for a long time in accusing Judas Iscariot of betrayal in front of the people, but the truth will come out and be known by all in the whole world.'" Notice the two verbs "answered" and "spoke." The actual English translation by Wild Flower Press omits the redundant "and spoke," which indicates how easily such an Aramaism can innocently be lost during translation. Fortunately, however, neither Rashid nor Meier nor his editorial assistant removed this and some other redundancies from their German text. (Is Meier, with no formal schooling past the elementary levels, supposed to have known about this and hoaxed in such an indication of an underlying ancient text?) Another such instance occurs at TJ 29:27 in the 1992 German version, which is TJ 29:33 in the 1978 version. Two more occur at TJ 31:12,13, respectively, which read, literally: "But Mary asked and spoke, 'Yet he was dead and lay here dead, how can he rise?' But the guardian angel answered and spoke, 'Why are you seeking someone alive among the dead?'" Another instance occurs at TJ 31:52, and another at TJ 33:23 (1992 version; in TJ 33:21, 1978 version). Still another occurs at TJ 23:33. Two more occur at TJ 29:45,46 (1992 version; in TJ 29:50,51 in the 1978 version). With a literal translation these latter two read: "Slowly the screaming stopped, and a third time the governor asked and spoke: 'Which one of these two shall I release?' The people cried out and spoke, 'Free Barabbas!'" Two more instances occur in the subsequent two TJ verses, and another at TJ 30:6. Still another occurs at TJ 31:51. These are 13 instances that have been pointed out here; there may well be more. They indicate translation from an ancient text. Another indication that the original had been an ancient text is that nowhere in the TJ's German text is there a list of three nouns or adjectives in a row separated by two commas and an "and" (und), as in our typical "A, B, and C" structure. This is indicative of the original text having used the "A and B and C" structure, which the German text often faithfully rendered. There are many instances of this more labored structure in the German TJ text: "A und B und C," which then reflects the same structure used in the ancient text, which of course did not, until centuries later, possess or utilize commas. On the other hand, Meier in his own German writing does use this structure (e.g., see p. xx, lines 3 & 4, of the "Vorwort" of the TJ. A more distinctive type of Aramaism occurs in TJ 3:31, in the passage: "When Jmmanuel had been baptized, he soon came out of the water of the Jordan, and behold, a metallic light dropped from the sky and descended steeply over the Jordan. Consequently they all fell on their faces and pressed them into the sand while a voice from the metallic light spoke, 'This is my beloved son...'" The expression "fell on their faces" in the original Aramaic means to bow down to, or cower before, some exalted person or object. In this case the expression can be taken more literally than usual, because of the fear that a close-up UFO encounter instills in awed witnesses. A still different type of Aramaism occurs in the Sermon on the Mount at TJ 5:30, a verse not in Matthew. The verse, with a literal translation of the portion exhibiting the Aramaism, reads: "If a thought causes you annoyance, eradicate it and ban it from your brain. It is better to destroy a thought that incites annoyance and not to bring the whole world of thought into an uproar." The Aramaism here is "and not." If Rashid had been concerned to render this into better German, he would have used the common German word "als" here, which means "than," instead of "and not." And indeed, in the English translation by Wild Flower Press "than" is used, thus removing the Aramaism. It turns out that the Aramaic language lacked the ability to express this comparative sense in the manner we are used to (see M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, p. 117), not having the direct equivalent to "than," and so other language was used to put across the intended thought. More on this is given in the section on the TJ's genuineness. These examples show some of the Aramaisms and evidence of ancient origins exhibited by the German TJ. They demonstrate in as conclusive a manner as is possible from indirect evidence that the TJ is no hoax. Korff's contention to the contrary (p. 84) is seen to lack any substance. Bibliography Black, Matthew. An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, 3rd Ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. Deardorff, James W. Celestial Teachings: The Emergence of the True Testament of Jmmanuel (Jesus) (CT). Rapid City, SD: Wild Flower Press, 1990. _____. The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins: A Glasnost Approach. Mellen Research University Press (Mellen Press): Lewiston, NY, 1992. _____. Jesus in India: A Reexamination of Jesus' Asian Traditions in the Light of Evidence Supporting Reincarnation. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994; (Tel.:1-800-462-6420). Elders, Lee; Nilsson-Elders, Brit; Welch, Thomas K. and Stevens, Wendelle C. UFO... Contact from the Pleiades, Vol. 1. Genesis III Publishing, P.O. Box 25962, Munds Park, AZ 86017; 1979. Elders, Lee and Brit. UFO... Contact from the Pleiades, Vol. 2. Genesis III Publishing; 1983. Kersten, Holger. Jesus Lived in India. Longmead, England: Element Book, 1986. Kinder, Gary. Light Years: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987. Korff, Kal K. Spaceships of the Pleiades: The Billy Meier Story. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995. Meier, Eduard A., ed.; Isa Rashid, transl. into German. Talmud Jmmanuel. F.I.G.U., 8495 Schmidrüti/ZH, Switzerland; 1978. _____, ed., Isa Rashid, transl. into German, J. Ziegler and B. Greene, transls. into English. The Talmud of Jmmanuel. Rapid City, SD: Wild Flower Press, 1992 and 1996. Raël, Claude Vorilhon. The Message Given to Me by Extra-Terrestrials: They Took Me to their Planet. Tokyo: AOM Corp., 1986. Stevens, Wendelle C. UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report. UFO Photo Archives, P.O. Box 17206, Tucson, AZ 85731 (Tel.: 1-520-868-4273); 1982 (542 pp.). _____. UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Supplemental Investigation Report. UFO Photo Archives, P.O. Box 17206, Tucson, AZ 85731; 1989 (547 pp.). _____. Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 1 (and 2,3,4). Tucson: UFO Photo Archives, 1988. Winters, Randolph. The Pleiadian Mission: A Time of Awareness. The Pleiades Project, P.O. Box 386, Atwood, CA 92601; 1994. Return to: Contents A Refutation of 8 Key Arguments Claimed to Support Markan Priority The eight key arguments have been extracted from Carl S. Patton's Sources of the Synoptic Gospels (London: The Macmillan Company 1915), pp. 13-16, as presented in a web page of Peter Kirby. They are to be viewed within the framework that can be deduced upon realization of the genuineness of the Talmud of Jmmanuel, along with the external evidence. Prime elements of this framework are: (a) The author of Mark wrote in Rome or its vicinity, as indicated by external evidence from Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, and the anti-Marcionite Prologue to Luke.. (b) Besides the Hebraic form of the Gospel of Matthew, this author had a document available to him that had been associated with the disciple Peter and (John) Mark, also as attested by external evidence (Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian). Where we depart from the external evidence is in not saying that Mark (or any of the other gospels) was written by its namesake; instead, that the writing took place only in early 2nd century, probably around A.D. 120- 123. (c) The author of Mark, in Rome, was obvously interested in evangelizing gentiles. Hence he strongly objected to the anti-gentile statements within Matthew, and didn't replicate any of them. Instead, he pushed for discipleship for gentiles. This, and the document in (b) above (which covered incidents found in Mt 8-11), provided the incentive for him to write Mark. (d) In retaliation for Matthew's anti-gentile statements and denial of discipleship for gentiles, the author of Mark not so subtly altered many Matthean verses so as to portray the Jewish disciples as extra obtuse, fearful and undeserving of respect from their Lord. (e) Consistent with (d) above, and because the author of Mark was writing for gentiles deemed not to be very interested in Judaic practices and teachings, he omitted much of the latter he found in Matthew, especially if they had contained anti-gentile statements. At the time that he wrote, Hebraic Matthew did not contain the pro-gentile statements of Mt 4:14-16, 12:17-22 and 28:18-20, according to the present hypothesis. (f) To make his gospel be different from Matthew, from which he had to copy so much material, he omitted much ala (e) above, added dualisms throughout into what he didn't omit, wrote in Greek rather than in Hebrew or Aramaic, utilized some pieces from the document mentioned in (b) above, and rearranged the order of associated pericopes from what they were in Matthew (a lack of order noticed by Papias). (g) Later, only after Mark and Luke had come out, was Hebraic Matthew translated into Greek. Its translator took the liberty of making some minor changes in Matthew at this time, which included adding Mt 4:14-16, 12:17-22 and 28:18-20. The eight key points causing Patton to favor Markan priority were worded as a refutation of the Augustinian (Matthew, Mark Luke) order of the Gospels. In order, these were: 1. It is impossible, upon this [Augustinian] theory, to account for the omission by Mark of so much of the material that stood before him in Matthew and Luke. He has omitted most of the parables and sayings. He has added no narrative. He has therefore made an abstract in which much is omitted, nothing is added, and no improvement is introduced. No reason can be assigned for the making of such a Gospel by abstracting from the fuller and better Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The abstract not only adds nothing of its own, but fails to preserve the distinctive character of either of its exemplars. See (e) above. There can be no reason for this Markan editorial behavior more valid than the great distaste evangelizers of gentiles must have held for Matthew's slant that discipleship was only for the Jews. Regarding the failure of Mark to preserve the distinctive character of Matthew, see (f) above. 2. If Mark had wished to make such an abstract, it is impossible to explain why in practically every instance he follows, as between Matthew and Luke, the longer narrative, while his own narrative is longer than either of those he copied. In the story of the healing of the leper, for example, Matthew (viii, 1-4) has 62 words, Luke (v, 12-16, without his introduction) has 87, and Mark (i, 40-45) has 97. In the healing of the paralytic (Mk ii, 1-12; Mt ix, 1-8; Lk v, 17-26) Matthew has 125 words, Luke 93, and Mark 110 (Mk ii, 13-17; Mt ix, 9-13; Lk v, 27-32). In the parable of the Sower (Mk iv, 1-9; Mt xiii, 1-9; Lk viii, 4-8) Matthew has 134 words, Luke 90, and Mark 151. In the interpretation of that parable (Mk iv, 13-20; Mt xiii, 18-23; Lk viii, 11-15) Matthew has 128 words, Luke 109, and Mark 147. Many more such instances might be given. In every case the additional words of Mark contain no substantial addition to the narrative. They are mere redundancies, which Matthew and Luke, each in his own way, have eliminated. If Patton's (1) had merit and had indeed shown an impossibility of Mark having ensued subsequent to Hebraic Matthew, it wouldn't have been necessary for him to add (2)-(8). It has been noted that a copier of pieces of another's work may often add to that which he copies. This was often the case with respect to the writer of Mark, for pieces that he did not simply omit in whole. Regarding Mark's parallel to Mt viii, 1-4 and to Mt ix, 1-8, these he could more rightfully amplify due to (b) above. In the parable of the sower, there are two spots where he added his own sentence or clause, with Mk 4:13b being an instance where the added clause was designed to portray the ignorance of the disciples as perceived by Jesus, as in (d) above. Most of the other instances involve the dualisms mentioned in (f), added frequently throughout so that Mark could not be perceived as simply a "clone" of Matthew. Although changes arising from motivations such as these may seem obvious to those who are not surprised to find that the Gospel writers exhibited all-too-human behavior, they are not obvious to those, past or present, who regard the Gospel writers to have been quasi-divine pipelines from God. 3. Mark contains a large number of otherwise unknown or unliterary words and phrases. For example, scizomenous, i, 10; en pneumati akaqartw, i, 23; krabattoV, ii, 4, and in five other places; epiraptei, ii, 21; qugatrion, v, 23; vii, 25; escatwV ecei, v, 23; spekougatwr, vi, 27; sumposia sumposia, vi, 39; eisin tineV wde twn esthkotwn, ix, 1; eis kata eis, xiv, 19; ekperisswV, xiv, 31. Such expressions might easily have been replaced by Matthew and Luke with the better expressions which they use instead of these; they could hardly have been substituted by Mark for those better expressions. Here, Patton and others did not allow that, within the Augustinian framework, Mark was formed out of Hebraic Matthew, and Greek Matthew was then only formed later, apparently after both Mark and Luke had come out. Although this is quite consistent with what the early church fathers stated, it did not conform with the newer view that assumed Mark had come first (so that the problems of (c), (d) and (e) above need not be faced up to). The writer of Mark was evidently not skillful in his use of Greek. The writer of Luke and translator of Hebraic Matthew into Greek were more skillful. Within the altered framework used by Patton and later followers of Mark-Q priority, and with disregard of the external evidence, Patton's No. 3 is reasonable. It's that framework which is not reasonable. 4. Mark contains many broken or incomplete constructions; as in iii, 16+; iv, 31+; v, 23; vi, 8+; xi, 32; xii, 38-40; xiii, 11, 14, 16, 19; xiv, 49. Such constructions would be easily corrected by Matthew and Luke; they would not easily be inserted into the narratives of Matthew and Luke by Mark. This again follows from the writer of Mark not having been skillful in the use of Greek. With his gospel (Mark) being the first one written in Greek, it is no wonder that neither the writer of Luke, nor the translator of Hebraic Matthew into Greek, utilized Mark's verses of broken construction. 5. Mark has many double or redundant expressions, of which Matthew has taken a part, Luke sometimes the same part, sometimes another. Such instances may be found in Mark's Gospel at ii, 20, 25; iv, 39; xi, 2; xii, 14; the corresponding passages in Matthew and Luke will show their treatment of these redundancies. This has been explained under (f) above. A valid reason for the writer of Mark to have added them is thus apparent. Then the writer of Luke, when utilizing both Mark and Hebraic Matthew, had to choose which of the redundant expressions to utilize, when avoiding a repetition of Mark's redundancy. Sometimes he chose the part added by the writer of Mark, sometimes the other. 6. Mark uses uniformly kai [for "and"], where Matthew and Luke have sometimes kai and sometimes de. Mark's use shows him to be nearer the Hebrew or Aramaic. No explanation can be given for his substitution of this monotonous conjunction in the place of the two conjunctions used by Matthew and Luke. The variation in Matthew and Luke of Mark's one conjunction is entirely natural. Since the writer of Mark was utilizing both the Hebraic form of Matthew and the Aramaic form of the document mentioned in (b) above, Patton's remark here merely reflects this, along with the writer of Mark having been the least sophisticated writer of Greek. 7. Mark has many Aramaic words, which he translates into the Greek; see especially iii, 17; v, 41; vii, 11; vii, 34. It would be easy for these to be dropped out by writers making use of Mark's material for Hellenistic readers; but very unnatural for Mark to have inserted these Aramaic words into the Greek texts of Matthew and Luke. On the contrary, the writer of Mark could retain these Aramaic words from the two texts he utilized as evidence of originality of his gospel. He would naturally wish to explain their meanings to the gentile audience his gospel was addressing. With both Luke and Greek Matthew coming out after Mark was written, the writer of Mark was not inserting anything into Greek Matthew and Luke. 8. Mark's narrative thruout is more spirited and vivid than either Matthew's or Luke's. It would be much easier for these graphic touches to be omitted for various reasons by Matthew and Luke, even tho they found these before them in the Gospel of Mark, than for Mark to have added these touches in copying the narratives of Matthew and Luke. One may mention especially the details about the appearance and dress of the Baptist (Mk i, 6); the four men carrying the litter (ii, 3); the statement, "He looked around upon them with wrath, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts" (Mk iii, 5); the names of persons, and their relatives, unknown to the other evangelists, the description of the Gadarene demoniac, the additional details of the conversation between Jesus and the parents of the epileptic boy (ix, 20-24), and many similar items. This is well explained by (b) above. This explanation would not have been conceived, however, if it hadn't been suggested from the Talmud of Jmmanuel, as discussed here. Return to: Contents Start of this topic A REFUTATION OF FALSE CLAIMS AND DISTORTIONS BY MAURIZIO VERGA REGARDING THE TALMUD OF JMMANUEL by James W. Deardorff In his web page on the topic, the Italian ufologist Maurizio Verga started out by making the same erroneous statements as did Korff, calling Meier the 13th apostle. Instead, his primary contactor in the 1970s-Semjase-told Meier he was their prophet of our present era. And like Korff, Verga did not properly spell the TJ's unusual title: Talmud Jmmanuel, instead replacing its J with an I. Although "Immanuel" with an "I" is a proper spelling of the man's name, the "J" symbol is what was used at the start of his name in the ancient document itself, for the reason explained in the TJ's Foreword. The improper "Talmud of Immanuel" spelling stems from Korff's book, whose information on this in turn stems mostly from little known writings of Swiss scientist and ufologist Ted Auerbach. Verga referred to Jmmanuel as a "Pleiadian" although the TJ indicates that his mother Mary was of this Earth; thus Jmmanuel was half-Pleiadian, though his Pleiadian father (Gabriel) was human in appearance, as were the other Pleiadians. In fact, Verga repeats Korff very closely, without acknowledging it, in another strange allegation about the head Pleiadian in charge of Earth then, named Plejos, arranging for Gabriel to impregnate the virgin Mary so that after Immanuel was born, Plejos couild return to the Pleiades. This distorted version actually stems from a book by Randolph Winters (The Pleiadian Mission, 1994), which Meier has roundly criticized for its many errors. In turn, Korff made use of it, and then Verga. Verga fails to mention that Meier and Rashid discovered the TJ in Jerusalem, leaving the impression it may have been in Baghdad, if I properly interpret the machine translation of his Italian text. And he implies that there are problems in the TJ's venue and chronology but fails to mention what he has in mind. He again follows Korff's claim that Rashid's letter to Meier, which describes the destruction of the original TJ writing in 1974, was written in Baghdad on the same typewriter as used by Meier in Switzerland. One does not need to be an expert in typewriter keying, however, to notice the distinct differences in lettering involved. They were written on different typewriters. Again via Auerbach and then Korff, Verga claims that the stylistic expressions present in Rashid's letter to Meier are the same as ones Meier uses (see discussion), but again Verga gives no examples. Quoting a translation of Verga's text, "Meier would have been chosen by the Pleiadians as the prophet of the New Age and to guide humanity towards the year 2000 and beyond, saving it and directing it towards a more elevated spiritual existence." However, the Pleiadians have given Meier no indication that they are here to "save" humanity, and in fact the TJ itself contains a prophecy of Jmmanuel's saying that much of humanity will be destroyed in an end-of-the age cataclysm. It is through this sort of dependence upon the false writings of Korff that Verga concluded that the TJ "text is probably a false one prepared by Meier himself." Return to: Contents Debunking the TJ CURRICULUM VITAE - JAMES W. DEARDORFF 1. Vital Statistics Born: 28 August 1928, Seattle, Washington Present Position: Professor Emeritus Department of Atmospheric Sciences (College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences) Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon 97331 E-mail address: deardorj@proaxis.com 2. Education (1942-1946) - Lincoln High School, Portland, OR B.S. (1950) - Physics, Stanford University B.S. (2nd) (1951) - Meteorology, University of California at Los Angeles M.S. (1956) - Meteorology, University of Washington Ph.D. (1959) - Meteorology, University of Washington 3. Professional Employment 1951-1955: Line Officer; Special Weapons Electrical Officer, U.S. Navy 1955-1958: Research and Teaching Assistant, University of Washington 1958-1959: Acting Instructor, Meteorology, University of Washington 1959-1962: Senior Scientist, Air-Sea Interface, University of Washington 1962-1978: Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado 1974-1978: Head, Small Scale Analysis and Prediction Project, National Center for Atmospheric Research 1978-1986: Research Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University 1986-: Professor Emeritus, Oregon State University 4. Other Professional Employment 1966-1967: One year at University of Washington, teaching meteorology 1970-1971: Six-month sabbatical at UCLA working on boundary-layer parameterization 1973-1974: Seven month leave of absence at University of Stockholm, Sweden (International Meteorological Institute) to work on parameterization of effects of scattered cumulus clouds on the subcloud layer 1980-1983: Co-editor (one of several), Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 1982-1987: Assoc. Editor, Boundary-Layer Meteorology 5. Professional Affiliations, Honors or Awards 1971 - Editorial Award, American Meteorological Society 1972 - Publications Award, National Center for Atmospheric Research 1973 - Elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society 1974 - Second Half-Century Award for furthering "our understanding of turbulent processes in the planetary boundary layer through analytical studies and highly original numerical and laboratory experiments," American Meteorological Society 1978 - Rossby Research Medal, American Meteorological Society. 1986 - Was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 6. Publications in Reviewed Literature 1958: The average slope of the surface wind, J. Meteor., 15, 334-335. 1958: Vertical distribution of wind speed, temperature and humidity above a water surface, J. Marine Res. 17, 141-157 (R.G. Fleagle, J.W. Deardorff, and F.J. Badgley). 1961: On the direction and divergence of the small-scale turbulent heat flux, J. Meteor. 18, 540-548. 1961: Evaporation reduction by natural surface films, J. Geophys. Res. 66, 3613-3614. 1961: Local evaporation from a smooth water surface, J. Geophys. Res. 66, 529-534. 1962: Satellite cloud photos and large-scale vertical motion, J. Appl. Meteor. 2, 173-175. 1963: On the stability of viscous plane Couette flow, J. Fluid Mech. 15, 623-631. 1964: A numerical study of two-dimensional parallel-plate convection, J. Atmos. Sci. 21, 419-438. 1965: Gravitational instability between horizontal plates with shear, Phys. Fluids 8, 1027-1030. 1965: A numerical study of pseudo three-dimensional parallel-plate convection, J. Fluid Mech. 22, 419-435. 1965: The effect of two-dimensionality on the suppression of thermal turbulence, J. Fluid Mech. 23, 337-353 (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1965: Measurements on the development of thermal turbulence in air between horizontal plates, Phys. Fluids, 8, 2225-2229 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1966: The countergradient heat flux in the lower atmosphere and in the laboratory, J. Atmos. Sci. 23, 503-506. 1967: Investigation of turbulent thermal convection between horizontal plates, J. Fluid Mech. 28, 675-704 (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1967: Development of short-period temperature fluctuations in thermal convection, Phys. Fluids, 10, 931-937 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1967: Empirical dependence of the eddy coefficient for heat upon stability above the lowest 50m, J. Appl. Meteor. 6, 631-643. 1967: The free-convection temperature profile, Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc. 93, 166-175 (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1967: Comment on paper by G.E. Harbeck, Jr., 'A note concerning the eddy transfer coefficients of momentum and water vapor under near-adiabatic conditions,' Water Resources Res. 3, 909-910. 1967: Confirmation and renumbering of the discrete heat flux transitions of Malkus, Phys. Fluids, 10, 1861-1866 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1967: Aerodynamic theory of wave growth with constant wave steepness, J. Oceanog. Soc. Japan 23, 12-30. 1968: Dependence of air-sea transfer coefficients on bulk stability, J. Geophys. Res. 73, 2549-2557. 1968: Examination of numerically calculated heat fluxes for evidence of a supercritical transition, Phys. Fluids, 11, 1254-1256. 1968: On the distinction between 'total' heat flux and eddy heat flux, J. Atmos. Sci. 25, 521-522 (J.W. Deardorff and J.A. Businger). 1969: Laboratory investigation of non-steady penetrative convection, J. Fluid Mech. 35, 7-31 (J.W. Deardorff, G.E. Willis, and D.K. Lilly). 1969: Numerical study of heat transport by internal gravity waves above a growing unstable layer, Phys. Fluids Suppl. II 184-194. 1969: Similarity principles for numerical integrations of neutral barotropic planetary boundary layers and channel flows, J. Atmos. Sci. 26, 763-767. 1970: A numerical study of three-dimensional turbulent channel flow at large Reynolds numbers, J. Fluid Mech. 41, 453-480. 1970: Convective velocity and temperature scales for the unstable planetary boundary layer and for Rayleigh convection, J. Atmos. Sci. 27, 1211-1213. 1970: Lagrangian statistics from numerically integrated shear flow, Phys. Fluids 13, 584-595 (J.W. Deardorff and R.L. Peskin). 1970: The oscillatory motions of Rayleigh convection, J. Fluid Mech. 44, 661-672 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1970: Discussion of paper by V.H. Regener and L. Aldaz, 'Turbulent transport near the ground as determined from measurements of the ozone gradient,' J. Geophys Res. 75, 4184-4186. 1970: A three-dimensional numerical investigation of the idealized planetary boundary layer, Geophys. Fluid Dynamics l, 377-410. 1970: Preliminary results from numerical integrations of the unstable planetary boundary layer, J. Atmos. Sci. 27, 1211-1213. 1970: A forum for post-clarification of discussions at AMS meetings? (Letter to the Editor), Bulletin, Amer. Meteor. Soc. 51, 435. 1971: On the magnitude of the subgrid scale eddy coefficient, J. Comp. Phys. 7, 120-133. 1971: Comments on 'Observational studies in the atmospheric boundary layer' by R.H. Clarke, Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc. 97, 760-761. 1972: Parameterization of the planetary boundary layer for use in general circulation models, Mon. Wea. Rev. 100, 93-106. 1972: Roll-diameter dependence in Rayleigh convection and its effect upon the heat flux, J. Fluid Mech. 59, 351-357 (G.E. Willis, J.W. Deardorff, and R.C.J. Somerville). 1972: Numerical investigation of neutral and unstable planetary boundary layers, J. Atmos. Sci. 29, 91-115. 1972: Theoretical expression for the countergradient vertical heat flux, J. Geophys. Res. 77, 5900-5904. 1972: Comments on 'A comparison of circulations in transverse and longitudinal planes in an unstable planetary boundary layer' by J.K. Angell, J. Atmos. Sci. 29, 1394-1395. 1972: Computer methods for simulation of multidimensional, nonlinear subsonic, incompressible flow, J. Heat Transfer 94, 337-346 (D.G. Fox and J.W. Deardorff). 1973: Note on a paper by D.R. Caldwell, C.W. Van Atta and K.N. Helland (concerning a laboratory study of the Ekman layer), Geophys. Fluid Dynamics 4, 293-295. 1973: The use of subgrid transport equations in a three-dimensional model of atmospheric turbulence, J. Fluid Eng. 95, 429-438. 1973: An explanation of anomalously large Reynolds stresses within the convective planetary boundary layer, J. Atmos. Sci. 30, 1070-1076. 1974: Differences between eddy coefficients for instantaneous and continuous vertical diffusion into the neutral surface layer, Boundary-Layer Meteor. 5, 451-457. 1974: Computer and laboratory modeling of the vertical diffusion of non-buoyant particles in a mixed layer, Advances in Geophysics 18B, 187-200 (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1974: Comment on a paper by A.K. Betts, 'Non-precipitating cumulus convection and its parameterization,'Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc. l00, 122-123 (J.W. Deardorff, G.E. Willis, and D.K. Lilly). 1974: Stability functions for the boundary layer resistance laws based upon observed boundary layer height, J. Atmos. Sci. 31, 1324-1325 (J.W. Melgarejo and J.W. Deardorff). 1974: Three-dimensional numerical study of the height and mean structure of a heated planetary boundary layer, Boundary-Layer Meteor. 7, 81-106. 1974: Three-dimensional study of turbulence in an entraining mixed layer, Boundary-Layer Meteor. 7, 199-226. 1974: Similarity theory for the planetary boundary layer of time-dependent height, J. Atmos. Sci. 31, 1449-1452 (S.S. Zilitinkevich and J.W. Deardorff). 1974: A laboratory model of the unstable planetary boundary layer, J. Atmos. Sci. 31, 1297-1307 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1974: Reply (to Pasquill and Smith), Boundary-Layer Meteor. 7, 229-230. 1975: Comments on 'On the interaction between the subcloud and cloud layers in tropical regions' by Y. Ogura and H.-R. Cho, J. Atmos. Sci. 32, 2363-2364. 1975: A parameterization of diffusion into the mixed layer, J. Appl. Meteor. 14, 1451-1458 (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1975: Reply (to Arya and Wyngaard (1974)), J. Atmos. Sci. 32, 840 (S.S. Zilitinkevich and J. W. Deardorff). 1975: Revision to 'Stability functions for the boundary-layer resistance laws', J. Atmos. Sci. 32, 837-839 (J.W. Melgarejo and J.W. Deardorff). 1976: Usefulness of liquid-water potential temperature in a shallow-cloud model, J. Appl. Meteor. 1, 98-102. 1976: On the entrainment rate of a stratocumulus-topped mixed layer, Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc. 102, 563-582. 1976: Discussion of 'Thermals over the sea and gull flight behavior' by A.H. Woodcock, Boundary-Layer Meteor. 10, 241-246. 1976: Island wind shadows observed by satellite and radar, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 57, 1241-1242. 1976: A laboratory model of diffusion into the convective planetary boundary layer Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc. 102, 427-445 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1976: On the use of Taylor's translation hypothesis for diffusion in the mixed layer, Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc. 102, 817-822 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1977: Subgrid-scale condensation in models of nonprecipitating clouds, J. Atmos. Sci. 34, 345-355 (G. Sommeria and J.W. Deardorff). 1977: A parameterization of ground-surface moisture content for use in atmospheric prediction models, J. Appl. Meteor. 16, 1182-1185. 1977: Comments on 'The effect of variable surface albedo on the atmospheric circulation in desert regions.' J. Appl. Meteor. 17, 560 (Sherwood B. Idso and J.W. Deardorff). 1977: Workshop on stability classification schemes and sigma curves, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 58, 1305-1309 (S.R. Hanna, G.A. Briggs, J.W. Deardorff, B.A. Egan, F.A. Gifford, F. Pasquill). 1978: Efficient prediction of ground surface temperature and moisture with inclusion of a layer of vegetation, J. Geophys. Res. 83, 1889-1903. 1978: A laboratory study of dispersion from an elevated source within a modeled convective planetary boundary layer, Atmos. Environ. 12, 1305-1311 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1978: Reply to Panofsky, Atmos. Envir. 12, 2036 (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1978: Closure of second- and third-moment rate equations for diffusion in homogeneous turbulence, Phys. of Fluids, 21, 525-530. 1978: Summary of recommendations made by the AMS Workshop on Stability Classification Schemes and Sigma Curves, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 59, 1025-1033 (J.R. Hanna, G.A. Briggs, J.W. Deardorff, B.A. Egan, F.A. Gifford and F. Pasquill). 1979: Prediction of mixed layer entrainment for realistic capping inversion structure, J. Atmos. Sci. 36, 424-436. 1979: Laboratory observations of turbulent penetrative-convection planforms, J. Geophys. Res. 84, 295-302, (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1980: Cloudtop entrainment instability, J. Atmos. Sci. 37, 131-147. 1980: Comments on 'Marine stratocumulus convection. Part 1: Governing equations and horizontally homogeneous solutions,' J. Atmos. Sci. 37, 481-482 (J.W. Deardorff and J. Businger). 1980: The boundary-layer growth equations with Reynolds averaging, J. Atmos. Sci. 37, 1405-1409 (J.W. Deardorff and E.W. Peterson). 1980: Stratocumulus-capped mixed layers derived from a three-dimensional model, Bound.-Layer Meteor. 18, 495-527. 1980: Laboratory studies of the entrainment zone of a convectively mixed layer, J. Fluid Mech. 100, 41-64 (J.W. Deardorff, G.E. Willis, and B.H. Stockton). 1980: Comments on 'A numerical investigation of mixed-layer dynamics.' J. Phys. Oceanogr. 10, 1695-1696. 1981: A laboratory model of dispersion from a source in the middle of the convectively mixed layer, Atmos. Environ. 15, 109-117 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1981: On the distribution of mean radiative cooling at the top of a stratocumulus- capped mixed layer, Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc. 107, 191-202. 1981: Further considerations on the Reynolds average of the kinematic boundary condition. J. Atmos. Sci. 38, 659-661. 1982: Dependence of mixed-layer entrainment on shear stress and velocity jump, J. Fluid Mech. 115, 123-149 (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1982: Ground-level concentrations due to fumigation into an entraining mixed layer. Atmos. Environ. 16, 1159-1170 (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1982: Investigation of the frozen-turbulence hypothesis for temperature spectra in a convectively mixed layer. Phy. Fluids 25, 21-28 (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1982: Numerical study of terrain-induced mesoscale motions in a mixed layer. J. Atmos. Sci. 39, 2464-2476 (Y.-J. Han, K. Ueyoshi and J.W. Deardorff). 1982: A numerical simulation of an atmospheric vortex street. Tellus 34, 555-556 (P.H. Ruscher and J.W. Deardorff). 1982: On the dichotomy in theoretical treatments of the atmospheric boundary layer J. Atmos. Sci. 39, 2096-2098 (J.W. Deardorff and L. Mahrt). 1982: Further considerations on modeling the sea breeze with a mixed-layer model. Mon. Wea. Rev. 110, 757-765. (R.A. Anthes, D. Keyser and J.W. Deardorff). 1983: Comment on 'A potential flow model of turbulence caused by breaking surface waves'. J. Geophys. Res. 88, 2710. 1983: Authors' reply to comments on ground-level concentrations due to fumigation Atmos. Environ. 17, 1030-1032 (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1983: A multi-limit mixed-layer entrainment formulation. J. Phys. Oceanog. 13, 988-1002. 1983: Comments on 'The daytime planetary boundary layer; a new interpretation of Wangara'. Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc. 109, 677-681. 1983: On plume rise within a convective boundary layer, Atmos. Environ. 17, 2435-2447 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1983: Comments on 'A diagnostic model for estimating winds at potential sites for wind turbines'. J. Climate and Appl. Meteor. 22, 1312 (J.W. Deardorff and Y.-J. Han). 1984: On the use of an annulus to study mixed-layer entrainment. J. Fluid Mech. 142, 97-120 (J.W. Deardorff and S.-C. Yoon). 1984: Groundlevel concentration fluctuations from a buoyant and a non-buoyant source within a laboratory convectively mixed layer. Atmos. Environ. 18, 1297-1309 (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1984: Numerical study of terrain-induced mesoscale motions and hydrostatic form drag in a heated, growing mixed layer. J. Atmos. Sci. 41, 1420-1441 (J.W. Deardorff, K. Ueyoshi, and Y.-J. Han). 1985: Further results from a laboratory model of the convective planetary boundary layer. Boundary-Layer Meteor. 32, 205-236. 1985: Sub-grid-scale turbulence modeling. In Adv. in Geophys. 28B, 337-343. 1985: Comments on 'Transilient turbulence theory, Part I'. J. Atmos. Sci. 42, 2069. 1985: Laboratory experiments on diffusion: The use of convective mixed-layer scaling, J. Climate and Appl. Meteor. 24, 1143-1151. 1985: Authors' reply to 'Ground-level concentration fluctuations from a buoyant and a non-buoyant source...'. Atmos. Envir. 18, 1212-1213. 1985: Book Review of Large-Eddy Simulation: Guidelines for its Applications to Planetary Boundary Layer Research, J.C. Wyngaard, ed., Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 66 (Dec). 1986: Comments on 'Radiative cooling near the top of a cloudy mixed layer,' Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc. 112, 273-275. 1987: Buoyant plume dispersion and inversion entrapment in and above a laboratory mixed layer. Atmos. Envir. 21, 1725-1735 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1987: Turbulence within a baroclinic laboratory mixed layer above a sloping surface, J. Atmos. Sci. 44, 772-778 (with G.E. Willis). 7. Other Publications and Reports 1973: Three-dimensional numerical modeling of the planetary boundary layer, in Workshop on Micrometeorology (Duane A. Haugen, editor), American Meteorol. Society, Boston, 14-18 August, Science Press, 277-311. 1974: Rate of growth of the nocturnal boundary layer, in Proc. of Symposium on Air Pollution, Turbulence and Diffusion, December 1971, Las Cruces, New Mexico (H.W. Church and R.E. Luna, editors), 183-190. 1974: Computer and laboratory modeling of the vertical diffusion of non-buoyant particles in a mixed layer, in Turbulent Diffusion in Environment Pollution (R.N. Frenkiel and R.E. Munn, editors), Academic Press, New York/London (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1974: Physical modeling of diffusion in the mixed layer, in Proc. of Symposium on Atmospheric Diffusion and Air Pollution, American Meteorological Society, Santa Barbara, California, 9-13 September (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1974: Means by which the planetary boundary layer affects the free troposphere, in Subsynoptic Extratropical Weather Systems: Observations, Analysis, Modeling and Prediction, Vol. II, Proc. ASP/SSAPP Summer Colloquium, NCAR, Boulder, Colorado, 670-682. 1975: The development of boundary-layer turbulence models for use in studying the severe storm environment, in Open Sesame, Proc. of Mtg. at Boulder, 4-6 September (D.K. Lilly, editor) NOAA/ERL, Boulder, Colorado, 251-264. 1975: Laboratory simulation of the convective planetary boundary layer, in Atmospheric Technology 7, National Center for Atmos. Research, 30-86 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1975: Boundary layer data from a numerical integration in three dimensions; manuscript available from authors (J.W. Deardorff and Margaret Drake). 1976: Clear and cloud-capped mixed layers: their structure and growth, numerical simulation, and parameterization. In Proc. of the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts Seminar Series: Treatment of the Boundary Layer in Numerical Weather Prediction, 6-10 September, Bracknell, England. 1976: Neglect of downstream diffusion--how good an assumption for the daytime mixed layer? Preprints, American Meteorological Society Third Symposium on Atmospheric Turbulence, Diffusion and Air Quality, Raleigh, North Carolina, 19-22 October, 255-258 (J.W. Deardorff and G.E. Willis). 1976: Visual observations of horizontal planforms of penetrative convection paper for Third Symposium on Atmospheric Tubulence, Diffusion and Air Quality, Raleigh, North Carolina, 19-22 October, 9-12 (G.E. Willis and J.W. Deardorff). 1978: Different approaches toward predicting pollutant dispersion in the boundary layer, and their advantages and disadvantages, in Symp. on Boundary Layer Physics Applied to Specific Problems of Air Pollution. Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (S.M.H.I), Norrköping, Sweden, 19-23 June. 1980: Progress in understanding entrainment at the top of a mixed layer, in Workshop on the Planetary Boundary Layer, Boulder, Colorado, 14-18 August, 1978, American Meteorological Society, Boston, Massachusetts (J.C. Wyngaard, editor), 36-66. 1981: How time dependence and variable Froude number can explain more rapid entrainment of the two-layer system in annulus experiments, in Third Symp. on Turbulent Shear Flows, University of California, Davis, September 9-11, 12.1-12.4. 1981: Modeling fumigation in a laboratory mixed layer, in Fifth Symp. on Turbulence, Diffusion and Air Pollution, Atlanta, Georgia, March 9-13, American Meteorological Society, 157-158. 1982: Simulation of terrain effects using a mesoscale mixed-layer model, in Proc. 10th IMACS World Congress on Systems Simulation and Scientific Computation, Montreal, Canada, August 8-13, 195-196. 1983: Concentration fluctuations within buoyant and non-buoyant laboratory plumes, in Sixth Symp. on Turbulence and Diffusion, Amer. Meteor. Soc., Boston, March 22-25, 237-240. 1983: Dependence of laboratory mixed-layer entrainment rates upon interfacial turbulence and stability, in Sixth Symp. on Turbulence and Diffusion, Amer. Meteor. Soc., Boston, March 22-25, 321-324. 1984: Upstream diffusion in the convective boundary layer with weak or zero mean wind, in Fourth Joint Conf. on Applications of Air Pollution Meteorology Amer. Meteor. Soc., Boston, October 16-19, 4-7. 1985: Review of "Large-Eddy Simulation: Guidelines for its application to planetary boundary layer research," J.C. Wyngaard, ed., Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 66, 1552. 1987: Notice of 1986 retirement. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 68 (Oct.), 1295. 1988: Concentration fluctuations within a laboratory convectively mixed layer, 1986 in Lectures in Air Pollution Modeling, 357-384 (Chap. 8), A. Venkatram and J.C. Wyngaard, eds.; Boston, Amer. Meteor. Soc. (with G.E. Willis). 1986: Possible extraterrestrial strategy for Earth. Quart. J. Roy. Astron. Soc. 27, 94-101. 1987: Examination of the embargo hypothesis as an explanation for the Great Silence. J. British Interplanetary Soc. 40, 373-379. 1987: Extraterrestrial Communications. J. Communication 37, 181-184. 1990: Celestial Teachings: Emergence of the True Testament of Jmmanuel (Jesus). Mill Spring, NC: Wild Flower Press. 1-800-366-0264. 1992: The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins. Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press (Mellen University Research Press; see www.mellenpress.com). 1994: Jesus in India: A Reexamination of Jesus' Asian Traditions in the Light of Evidence Supporting Reincarnation. Bethesda, MD: International Scholars Publications. 2001: Opinions and comments on W.C. Levengood and N.P. Talbott (1999) 'Dispersion of energies in worldwide crop formations,' Physiologia Plantarum 111, 125. 2005: Inflation-theory implications for extraterrestrial visitation, J. British Interplanetary Soc. 58, 43-50. (J. Deardorff, B. Haisch, B. Maccabee and H.E. Puthoff) Go Back to: Top of Document Go Back to: Contents August 2009 Critical Review of Clark's Encyclopedia Article, "Meier Contact Claims," and the Initiation and Maintenance of Debunking against Meier by J. W. Deardorff August, 2008 INTRODUCTION In The UFO Encyclopedia, Jerry Clark (1998a) devotes three pages of text to a summary of Meier's experiences and ufological reactions to them, and another page to references. It is probably the most even- handed treatment of the Meier case that you will find from any "mainstream" ufologist. He presents a very nice photo showing Meier on the telephone, circa 1970, with a sketch on the wall of one of his ET contactors (who is "Asket" the alien allegedly from another universe, not "Semjase" the Plejaren or Pleiadian). He briefly mentions incidents from Meier's early youth, his contacts then with Sfath (the Plejaren leader until Ptaah took over), then with Asket in his twenties, and then with Semjase in the mid-1970s. Of the 25 references he presents, which Clark in 1998 relate to Meier's experiences in the latter period, about half are serious studies while the others are of a debunking nature. Although his article avoids unsubstantiated and slanderous charges against Meier directly from himself, Clark let his feelings on the case be known through his selection of what he did and did not report on in the text, by whom he did and did not quote from, by a certain amount of subtle spin, and by ending with a quote improperly characterizing as a "money-making machine" Meier's efforts to make his experiences and his contactors' spiritual teachings known to interested persons. Meier wrote a detailed and revealing autobiography of his early life, and from an early unpublished version of it (Meier, 2003, pp. 26-27), his detractors and Clark could selectively say that Meier's troubled youth included "serving time in a detention center on a theft charge." The investigator who reports more fairly and comprehensively would instead expand on this by mentioning, "Meier was from a very poor family, and his poor clothes and lack of ability to participate in events at school, for lack of money, set him apart from the other boys, ...he was often made the butt of pranks, and was frequently punished for things he did not do" (Stevens, 1981a). Meier has admitted he failed to openly oppose the false charges against him in his boyhood (Hurlburt and Chang, 2002). However, an impartial summary of Meier's life and experiences can hardly have been expected of a ufologist with a reputation to safeguard among like-minded colleagues. Clark was the editor of Fate magazine from 1976 to 1989, has been editor of the International UFO Reporter (IUR) since 1985, and has been an editor of the Journal of UFO Studies. Ever since the 1950s when contactees emerged into the ufological limelight, repeating silly statements they say they received from their contactors while obtaining little or no evidence to show for their alleged experiences, all ostensible contactees have been considered delusional, self-aggrandizing or worse by mainstream ufologists. This was the background out of which the Meier contactee case emerged in the mid- and late 1970s. In order that the ufological status-quo be maintained, Meier then had to be debunked even more heavily than his dubious predecessors due to the large amount of high quality photographic, sound-track and metal-alloy evidence that he was allowed to acquire, and because many of his contact experiences involved seemingly magical or incredible aspects. Scientists and ufologists alike will easily concede that aliens who are tens of thousands, if not millions, of years ahead of us in their scientific development could do things we would consider to be magic - including travel in time. However, if any contactee tells of being treated to any such technology by his alien contactors, he will be strongly opposed by mainstream ufologists even when in possession of much supportive evidence. As I see it, they believe that their credibility in the eyes of mainstream scientists would decline if they treated such a case seriously, and this would deter them from their main goal of bringing the reality of the UFO phenomenon - unearthly "hardware in the sky" - to the attention of science. The discreditation or shunning of alleged contactees by mainstream ufology continues to this day (2008), although a growing minority within "exopolitical" groups take many alleged contactees seriously despite the dearth of supportive evidence in most cases. PRIMARY EARLY MEIER-CASE DEBUNKERS Ufologists who early on set the tone for much of the subsequent debunking of Meier include Coral Lorenzen, Colman von Keviczky, Ted Auerbach, Richard Hall, William Moore, Kal Korff, William Spaulding, Walt Andrus, Ray Stanford and John Timmerman. My apologies go out to those ufologists whom I omitted but who wish they had been included; I had to draw the line somewhere. (A list of Meier-case detractors as of 2014, from the viewpoint of Michael Horn, is given here .) Coral Lorenzen, who with her husband led the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), decided by late 1977 or early 1978 that the Meier case had to be a hoax after Wendelle Stevens would not give her the earliest copies of Meier's photos he had obtained. See this 1994 video (see first 20 min.) of a Wendelle Stevens presentation. Leaders of MUFON then were predispositioned towards the opinion held by APRO. Colman Von Keviczky, a Hungarian born U.S. citizen who spoke German, could learn directly about Meier's experiences and photos from FIGU insider Hans Jacob, who by 1977 had defected from Meier's FIGU group (Korff, 1995, pp. 54-55). (The FIGU initials, upon translation, stand for "Free Community of Interests in Fringe and Spiritual Sciences and Ufological Studies" which he established in the early 1970s, centered at his residence first in Hinwil, 14 miles southeast of Zurich, then in Schmidrüti some 8 miles to the north of Hinwil; this is in German- speaking Switzerland.) Von Keviczky quickly spread misleading information he received from Jacob to other ufologists, and to his own group in New York: Intercontinental UFO Galactic Spacecraft Research and Analytic Network (ICUFON) as early as 1977 (Von Keviczky, 1982). Von Keviczky never met Meier. The role of Ted Auerbach of Gebenstorf, Switzerland, in much of this was kept confidential within MUFON although he was MUFON's consultant for that country's UFO news during the late 1970s and the 1980s. He also had made contact with Hans Jacob, from whom he similarly learned about some of the sensational aspects of the Meier case. Although Auerbach never met Meier, he at least read the first edition of the Talmud Jmmanuel. He was in close touch with MUFON's international director, Walt Andrus. More on Auerbach and Andrus later. The defector, Hans Jacob, could be mentioned above along with the other early Meier-case detractors, except that he was no "ufologist." Actually, he was in on a nighttime UFO sighting on 16 June, 1975, after midnight, while he and several others, who are also identified by name, were sitting in their two cars in a secluded nook of the hills waiting for Meier to return from a contact with Semjase (Bertschinger, 2001, pp. 33-35). This sighting by Jacob and the others was well known, so that even Korff (1995, p. 55) admitted to Jacob having had one or more sightings. Yet, after another year of Meier having engaged in many more contacts and opportunities to take daytime beamship photos, Jacob apparently grew disgusted over not being granted the privilege of seeing Semjase's spacecraft in the daytime for himself, and decided that Meier must somehow have been staging all his contact events. According to what Stevens learned, Jacob was suspected of having informed the police of one of Meier's contact rendezvous sites, after which he was asked to leave the FIGU group (Stevens, 1995, p. 101). Meier had to strictly obey Semjase in not bringing any others too near, or within viewing distance of, a contact rendezvous site, or else she would not show up. Regarding the late Richard Hall, he was editor of the MUFON UFO Journal from January 1978 through July 1983, and, as a highly respected, hard working UFO investigator, was in a good position to influence other ufologists. A MUFON journal note by Hall (1980a) debunking Meier suggests that his earliest negative opinions of Meier, if not gained from APRO, were gained from reports from Auerbach via Andrus, with whom Hall was in close contact; in 1982 Hall received negative reports from Von Kevickzky panning Meier. In an editorial in December, 1980, Hall spread the word that: The Meier hoax (no quotes necessary) is so blatant that we hope no one is fooled by this charade. Unless Meier or others who claim to believe him wish to dispute the charges against him, Kal Korff's expose should be the last word. We hope so (Hall, 1980b). Hall's editorial referred to a debunking article by Korff (1980) in the same issue. The "fix" was on - whoever took notice of, and spoke about, the evidence that showed Meier was no hoaxer could be openly called a fool. From then on it would be very "politically" incorrect to be on the wrong side of the Meier-case issue. Although refutations by Stevens (1981a,b) of Korff's accusations were forthcoming, they would be ignored or drowned out by counter charges of a spurious or nit-picking nature, or by charges that were irrelevant or would later become known to have been irrelevant (see below under "Photos from Meier's five-day space trip"). The completely independent investigation undertaken by Gary Kinder from 1983-1985, in which Kinder, almost apologetically, had to conclude that Meier was no hoaxer (Kinder, 1987a), stood no chance of being accepted by the main community of ufologists. It came too late. Kinder had bent over backwards to try not to offend the ufological community with his book, Light Years, since from his own investigations into the UFO phenomenon itself, of which he included a chapter in his book, he was well convinced that the phenomenon is real. And so it was to no avail that he wrote his open letter to the ufological community (Kinder, 1987b), at about the time Light Years was published. Andrus did his best to prevent the book from being published, and had sent a letter to Kinder's potential publisher, Atlantic Monthly Press, asking them not to publish it (Kinder, 1987b); fortunately he did not succeed at that. Andrus did get in his licks, however, following dissemination of Kinder's open Letter: Mr. Kinder is relying upon the testimony of these scientists [ones he turned to in investigating some of Meier’s physical evidence] to support his book, because the honesty and integrity of Eduard "Billy" Meier is practically nil. There is strong evidence that Gary has approached the Billy Meier Case as a competent investigative reporter, having only a minute possibility of substantiating the outlandish claims made by Eduard Meier (Andrus, 1987). This opinion on Meier's integrity and honesty could not have come from Stevens, the Elders, or Kinder, however, and reflects the opinions of incredulous ufologists who did not investigate the case or did not spend time with Meier. Just a few years later, in 1991, some 20 witnesses and close associates of Meier, including his wife, signed a statement, which could be upheld in a court of law, testifying to Meier's honesty and lack of deceit (Moosbrugger, 2001, p. 249). The Meier case was so far out of the ordinary for either a UFO "repeater witness" or a potential contactee, that Hall, Andrus and others evidently could not even consider the possibility that Meier's aliens were real and would take actions to ensure that their prime contactee would be readily debunkable, i.e., implement a strategy that includes plausible deniability for those who need it. This the aliens of course could achieve by several different means at their disposal, and several reasons for their doing so readily come to mind. However, most ufologists were not yet prepared to consider that some UFO aliens could have long studied mankind, could be smarter and more creative than we are, could be ethical, but be deceptive as well as covert in their manner of presenting themselves to us (Druffel, 1977; Deardorff, et al., 2005). From what the early debunkers had learned of Meier's experiences and photos, especially from Lee & Brit Elders' (1979) pictorial Vol. 1, they selected out the more incredible events to ridicule in 1980-82, while avoiding or misrepresenting all the validating photos and movie film segments. Only by 1982-83 did the substantiating reports of witnesses to Meier's genuine contactee status start to become readily available (Stevens, 1982; Lee & Brit Elders, 1983). I say "genuine" here because I and others have studied the reports of witnesses, the reports of both primary and Meier in 1979, showing follow-up investigators, Meier's photos and films, the prophecies and other evidence, how he held the camera. and the Talmud of Jmmanuel, far too thoroughly to pretend we think the case could It wasn't quite the same be any hoax (e.g., see Horn, 2007; Steelmark Editors, 2004). as "shooting from the hip." By reporting only what others had to say of the Meier case, Clark steered clear from personally slandering Meier in his Encyclopedia article. However, by stating conclusions stemming from Korff's writings without apparently questioning their accuracy or truthfulness, he accomplished the same goal. Kal Korff, in 1980 a teenager under the guidance of ufologist Moore, had concluded that "the beamships [UFOs in Meier's photos] were in fact small models, some supported by strings, others apparently held by hand." In Korff's earliest piece of writing on the subject, to which Clark may have been primarily referring, Korff repeated claims of Ground Saucer Watch (GSW) that Meier had used three methods of hoaxing: models suspended by a string, double exposure, and the double print method (GSW Bulletin, April, 1980; Korff, 1980). Korff relied then on the word of William Spaulding, who headed GSW, that "All of the pictures [by Meier] were hoaxes." According to Korff, GSW had analyzed "first generation copies of ten of Meier's more popularly-known photographs." It should be mentioned that in the mid-1970s GSW, under Spaulding's direction, had analyzed distant copies of the 1965 Rex Heflin photos, and had declared them to be hoaxes using a model suspended by a string. Yet earlier analyses using photos closer to the originals showed no strings were involved, and this was confirmed decades later after the originals had been returned to Heflin. As noted by Wendelle Stevens (1981b) in a thorough rebuttal of Korff's claims, GSW could have possessed Meier- case copies no closer than 5th generation to the originals -- five lens systems away from the original image itself (GSW had obtained their copies from Von Keviczky, who had photographed some of Meier's photo copies under their plastic covers within his photo albums, which Von Keviczky was allowed to look at when visiting Meier's residence in Hinwil, during an interval when no adults were around to watch him -- see this 1994 video of a Wendelle Stevens presentation). On the other hand, analyses by Stevens and his associates, primarily Jim Dilettoso, utilized internegatives only two lens systems removed from the beamship itself, and they found no signs whatever of hoax. Stevens (1981a) thus refuted Korff's claims of Meier having been a hoaxer of UFO photographs and supposedly by three different methods. (These MUFON UFO Journal references are available online.) A key claim from Korff (1980) that derived from GSW's analysis, which Stevens clearly refuted, is that "all calculations place the UFO images at distances between four and six feet." Korff & Moore (1982) also argued that, although Meier's camera in 1975-76 had its focus ring stuck at a setting just one notch short of infinity, objects as close as six feet away would still be in excellent focus. In applying such a claim to Meier's photos, however, one may examine his photo #57 to notice that the nearby tree's branches are in poor focus; the distance to its branches at the upper right is estimated, from the camera equation, to be 10 ft (judging from typical branchlet annual growth and needle length), and the distance to its lower branches, which are in quite poor focus, to be 7 ft. The beamship or UFO, on the other hand, is in very good focus along with the fir tree it was situated just in front of. This is all consistent with a depth-of-field estimate of between 12.5 ft and infinity for the 35mm camera with 42mm focal length, an f-stop 11 setting (Stevens, personal communication), a focus setting stuck at around 50 ft, and a distance of from 70 to 100 yards between camera and beamship & tree in the various photos of this series Photo #57 with left portion cropped. Arrows (Stevens, 1989, p. 378). This distance is also perfectly consistent at upper right delineate a typical branchlet on with that calculated from the camera equation for a beamship the close-up, out-of-focus tree branches. diameter of 23 ft (7 meters) as adduced from the size of a set of swirls left behind in the meadow grass following some of Meier's contact meetings (Stevens, 1982, pp. 363-377; Stevens, 1989, pp. 464-476). Although a counter response to Stevens's (1981a,b) refutations soon emanated from Korff & Moore (1982), the reader will have to sift through much angry rhetoric in the latter in attempting to separate fact from fiction, truth from distortion. In particular, it was reiterated that GSW (ostensibly through one Wilfried Falk of Mannheim, Germany) obtained 1st-generation copies of Meier's photographs. However, this contention was later rendered extremely questionable by Spaulding himself when he told Kinder that "he had no idea of the generation of the photographs he analyzed" (Kinder, 1987b). Although Korff (1995, p. 314) mentions that he possesses a letter in his files from Falk affirming that Falk had sent Spaulding some of Meier's photographs, he supplied no information from the letter as to how Falk had acquired them, whether or not Falk really knew what generation of prints they may have been, how many, or how to contact Falk. The bias that Spaulding held against the Meier case is evident from words like these he wrote Kinder (1987b): It was a pleasure talking to you on January 6, 1985, regarding the subject of unidentified flying objects and the Billy Meier hoaxed UFO photographs. Because the Meier incident is such an obvious hoax, and further publicity extended to this incident ... will only provide additional exposure to this case. We cannot involve ourselves to any extent which could further generate favorable publicity for the conspirators of the Pleiades book. Presumably the "Pleiades book" refers to the two volumes of Lee & Brit Elders (1979, 1983). The assumption had become widespread among mainstream ufologists that whoever seriously investigated the Meier case and found it could be no hoax was either inept or was in on a conspiracy. Clark did not reproduce any of Meier's beamship photos in his 3-page Encyclopedia article, perhaps because there are so many of them, and space limitations would not have permitted discussion of them. But if his intent had not been to convey the impression that the case was a hoax and its investigators' findings of little or no value, he surely would have given it more space than, say, the 17 pages he gave the Travis Walton case. His condensed version of The UFO Encyclopedia did not even include the Meier case (Clark, 1998b). It was probably the apparently magical aspects of the case as reported by the early debunkers, along with questionable aspects of the photos from his 5-day space trip (which Meier has disavowed ever since being told by Ptaah of their having been manipulated at the developer's - more on this later), which provided Clark, along with most other ufologists, with seeming justification for accepting the hoax hypothesis upon ignoring all the supportive evidence. Not to be overlooked, however, are the false claims of Meier having used models, which were quickly assumed true by ufologists who from the beginning could not accept the reality of any contactee. However, Meier never denied having made a model later for the purpose of seeing how realistic a photograph of it would look, nor denied receiving a few models from well wishers, none of which closely enough matched any of the six different beamship varieties his photos show. An exception, however, was a model that Stevens had a Hollywood studio construct for him, for testing in Swiss settings using the same make of camera as Meier used, photos of which Stevens found did not measure up to the real thing. One other exception was a model that Semjase loaned Meier during a contact and which Meier did photograph sitting on the snow before Semjase recalled it a few weeks later; he properly labeled it as a model in his Verzeichnis (Meier, 1980s; Stevens, 1982, pp. 285-290; Kinder, 1987, pp. 223-226; Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 195-199). Korff shows the photo of the latter model, but in an upside-down orientation and without mention of its source (Korff, 1995, p. 156). In the instance of the series of photos in which the beamship hovered on various sides of the tree shown on the left, the "incredible" aspect of the event was not that the craft could hover silently or be visible only to Meier and his camera, or that Meier had been the person chosen by the ETs to document their presence, but that, a couple of weeks afterwards, the tree had completely vanished. No trace of it was left behind as evidence to go along with the photographs, not even in the mind of the owner of the property on which the tree had grown. Ufologists simply ignored Stevens's finding that several days after the photographic event there had been two witnesses besides Meier of the tree, then in a dying state (Stevens, 1982, pp. 48, 126). Surely the science and technology of certain aliens, even if tens of thousands, or millions, of Meier's photo #65 from his 9 July 1975 photo session with Semjase. years ahead of us, could not be capable of causing a tree to vanish! Surely they wouldn't be capable of wiping out the memory of a tree in a person's mind (the property owner's mind)! Surely they wouldn't be implementing a strategy of not leaving enough evidence behind that would force negative skeptics to believe what they cannot tolerate, or that would bring an all-too-sudden end to the UFO coverup! Hence ufologists assumed that the incredible aspects of the case could somehow be explained away as hoaxes rather than admit the positive evidence and incur anticipated ridicule and rancor from colleagues and from scientists who might learn of the case. In this vanishing-tree instance, the hypothesis was put forward that it had been a small potted tree or artificial tree about which Meier had emplaced and photographed a model UFO (Korff, 1995, pp. 171- 193). Ignored or dismissed were the opinions of some foresters that the tree had been a mature European silver fir (abies alba), and certainly no small potted tree or model tree. Regarding this 1981 booklet and the Korff (1980) paper, I recently noticed a new suspicious problem between the two. In the 1980 paper, a supposedly enhanced version of a cropped blow-up (see below image, on the left) from one of the copies of Meier's beamship photos shows thin vertical lines throughout, GSW "enhanced" image in Korff & GSW "enhanced" image in Korff (Dec., 1980). Moore's booklet of 28 March, 1981. Notice line on front side. Compare with image on left. Easy come, easy go with those pesky vertical lines! with one of them extending intermittently upward from shortly above the center top of the UFO image (Korff, 1980, p. 5), and a prominent vertical line across the center of the UFO's front side. Korff's caption on it says, "Edge enhancement showing supporting string or wire." On this, Stevens (1981b, p. 12) pointed out that Korff had conveniently ignored all but the one vertical line segment among the various striations that surround his "enhanced" image, while noting that no such striations were observed by Stevens and his research crew using their 2nd- generation internegatives. Now, in Korff & Moore (1981, p. 14 & front cover), the same "enhanced" image is shown (above, right), except that this time the front face of the UFO is "cleaned up" and no longer shows the prominent vertical line in front of it where no support string would be. Obviously if ufologists should wish to seek out the genuineness of Meier's photographic evidence, an impartial analysis by impartial photo experts would need to be conducted, using Stevens's 2nd-generation internegatives if not Meier's remaining originals if any, with impartial, knowledgeable observers present at all stages of handling of the photographic materials to ensure that no spurious markings would be added or removed. The photo copy that Korff & Moore utilized for this derived from one of Meier's taken at an elevated site between the tiny communities of Hasenböl and Langenberg, near Fischenthal, located about 10 km northeast of Hinwil, Meier's residence at that time. On the afternoon of that day, 29 March 1976, Meier proceeded to take four rolls of beamship pictures with his 35mm camera, starting with photos of the craft when still distant and approaching ever closer; of these, two rolls were somehow "lost," but 34 pictures from the other two rolls have survived his loaning some of them out in 1976-77 (Stevens, 1982, p. 343). Meier's #179, a copy of which is shown on the right, is the one selected by GSW for their aforementioned highly A copy of photo #179, from the Hasenböl series questionable analysis. of 29 March 1976. This is the image whose 5th+ generation copy GSW and/or Korff utilized. The 1981 booklets by Korff & Moore contain an 18- page chapter of taped unsubstantiated anti-Meier statements by ufologist Ray Stanford. In it he postulated, among other things, that to obtain many of his UFO photos Meier had deployed an array of large balloons, connected to each other and the ground through tethering lines, and from which lines model UFOs were suspended. These balloons were supposed to be sufficiently high that they would scarcely show up in the photos, and perhaps be mistaken for blemishes such as tiny spots of spit that unprotected photos can acquire. In the booklet, illustrations were included of how hypothesized tethering lines might have been draped across the sky from which to suspend model UFOs. These were drawn in by Garret Moore, who has recently come forth to explain how he had been employed by Korff to do this (without pay, it turned out), using an airbrush. There was no discussion by Stanford of the problems of the logistics of transporting all the hypothesized balloon equipment to the many different photo sites undetected, setting it all up in the presence of wind or breeze and maintaining it for hours without attracting curious onlookers who would later make known both the scam and identities of the several hoaxers who would need to have been involved. As far as I know, no other ufologists greeted this balloon idea with any enthusiasm. Later Korff opted for individual, smaller helium balloons from which each of up to three model UFOs was supposed to have been suspended (Korff, 1995, pp. 220-221). Interestingly, Stanford was himself a contactee, or alleged contactee. One sees that by no means do contactees necessarily stick up for one another. Those brochures of Korff & Moore (1981) were widely distributed at subsequent UFO meetings, and received no significant skeptical comments from mainstream ufologists. That literature must have helped put across the feeling that you had better not lend support to the genuineness of the Meier case if you wished to remain in good standing among fellow ufologists. The brochure was apparently accepted uncritically by Andrus, who went on to accuse Wendelle Stevens and Lee & Brit Elders of not caring whether or not the Meier case is genuine: "After you purchase their books, they really don't care, because they have pocketed your money" (Andrus, 1986). Also displayed at UFO meetings in the 1980s, in particular MUFON UFO meetings, was a set of large posters calling the Meier case a hoax, set up on standing bulletin boards in a hotel hallway outside the hotel meeting room. As evidence for this claim of hoax, a key poster showed a cropped enlargement of a beamship whose detail and outline looked almost too clear and distinct for it to be a large object in the distance - from the Bachtelhornli-Unterbachtel photo series (Stevens, 1989). So it was declared a hoax, and a prominent diagonal red line slashed through the posted photo to nix it. A copy of the color slide it derived from is shown here (Meier's #200, scroll down to Fig. 12), along with a description of the effort and expense Stevens went to in getting a then state-of-the-art raster scan of the beamship enlargement (18 x 24- A black & white version of the poster, sans red slash, from Meier's photo #200 as raster-scanned by inch) printed out in 1978 (Stevens, 1982, pp. 339- Interrepro A.G of Basel in 1978 340). There was no mention of any kind in the (from Stevens 1982, p. 340). poster display that the sharpness of the craft's outline in the large poster was a result of the raster- scan process at 400 lines/cm onto large negative plates (in addition to the craft being in excellent focus). The craft was about 320 ft away in photo #200, judging from the camera equation and the craft's known width of about 23 ft. The individual trees on the hillside far beyond, and the skyline, show up rather sharply also, despite being farther away from the camera's central focus distance of roughly 50 ft. The special rasterizing process the photo underwent in producing the large poster was either conveniently omitted or unknown to the one most responsible for the display, namely John Timmerman of the Center for UFO Studies, once a treasurer of CUFOS. The displays of this poster, occurring over a period of several years, were probably influential in helping to persuade attendees at meetings that Meier was guilty of a giant hoax. Hence Timmerman has been included in my list of significant early Meier-case detractors. By the 1990s ufologists felt secure in their belief that the Meier case was a hoax. In an editorial in 1991, Clark could all but ignore the Meier case in writing: For years hoaxes have been relegated to a kind of UFO ghetto, and understandably so. After the collapse of the 1950s contactee movement (of which Switzerland's Billy Meier's later adventures were but a distant echo), hoaxes became something of a low level annoyance, even an object of amusement (Clark, 1991). Yet, Korff was not through with his debunking attempts. In his book (Korff, 1995, p. 206, Fig. 73) we find a particularly gross and misleading presentation of Meier's photo #164, from the same Hasenböl series discussed earlier. He started with an enlarged section from a typical image of the "sun- glint" scene as shown on the left, where, due to lack of contrast between the shaded sides of the small tree branches and the beamship's dark underside, it cannot be clearly discerned from a multi-generational print such as this whether the thin branches on the left of the craft crossed over in front of it or behind it. (On each reproduction of an original image, there is a loss of subtle color gradations although the contrast between the lightest and darkest areas increases.) However, close inspection of the print from Stevens's 2nd-generation internegative allowed him to determine that a branch or two on the left of #164 did definitely pass in front of the craft (Stevens, 1982, p. 352); similarly Tom Welch of Stevens's investigative team could A copy of a section of Meier's photo #164, discern the same from Stevens's low-generation copy of from the Hasenböl series photo #175 that Meier snapped close in time to photo #164 of 29 March 1976. - the craft was indeed on the far side of the deciduous tree (Lee & Brit Elders, 1979, p. 37). Later computer imagery analysis supports this conclusion. Continuing with Korff's treatment, he then saw to it that the scanned photo was subjected to an edge-enhancer routine in which all variations of intensity and contrast are removed except along discernible edges, which are enhanced in this case through a computer routine that brightens the upper side of all discernible edges and blackens their lower sides. That produced the image below. Through this process, it can appear to the uninitiated reader that surely the limbs should show up had they crossed in front of the craft. But of course the edge enhancing routine cannot enhance any edges that are not discernible in the first place. It is disappointing to think that no ufologist who knows something about photography and a bit about computer photo-manipulation techniques alerted Clark to this and other underhanded ploys by Korff before he endorsed the book with: "This book is the definitive exposé of the most ambitious hoax in UFO history." -- Jerome Clark, Vice-President J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies From Korff (1995, Fig. 73). (on back cover of Korff, 1995) It may be mentioned that shortly before the Korff & Moore (1981) brochure came out, Korff had suggested that the deciduous tree involved (i.e., in Meier's photos #164, 174 & 175) was a model tree to which a model UFO had been attached (Korff, 1981). That it was definitely a live deciduous tree, not a model tree, was already evident in 1979 by a photo taken of it when it had been in full leaf in August 1978 (Elders, 1979, p. 44). Too late this became evident to Korff. There is a well known rule in UFO debunkery which states that if one attempt at explaining away a UFO seems too weak or too flawed, try another one. William Moore's role in debunking Meier, and in encouraging Korff and others to do so (Moore, 1988), may well have had additional impetus than what has been mentioned above regarding ufologists in general. In September of 1980 Moore "was approached by a well placed individual within the intelligence community [called 'Falcon' by Moore] who claimed to be directly connected to a high-level government project dealing with UFOs" (Stacy, 1989). Moore cooperated with him in a campaign of disinformation against alleged contactee Paul Bennewitz. The audience that heard this confession come from Moore himself at the 1989 MUFON Las Vegas Symposium was astounded, though Moore's alliance with government disinformation agents had already been deduced by ufologist Robert Hastings (1989). Since Meier, if left undebunked, would be much more of a threat to the status quo of the government than Bennewitz ever was, and possessed much more evidence to support his contactee status, it would not be unexpected if Moore had been encouraged by Falcon or another agent to target Meier also. It may also be mentioned that after Korff wrote a later book that debunked the UFO crash of 1947 near Roswell (Korff, 1997), some ufologists started to seriously question Korff's scientific integrity. Kevin Randle, leading author of UFO: Crash at Roswell (Randle & Schmitt, 1991), found many of Korff's assumptions and omissions to be unsupportable, and his reasoning to be seriously flawed. David Rudiak, another serious Roswell-event investigator, has pointed out many distortions made by Korff (Rudiak, 1997). Since then, Korff has continued to self-destruct psychologically and egotistically; Royce Myers, a selective debunker in fairly good standing with mainstream ufologists, found it necessary to roundly debunk Korff, whom he had supported in the 1980s and '90s. Is all this pertinent to Korff's "research" on Meier? More so, I believe, than Clark's inclusion of a paragraph in The UFO Encyclopedia concerning Wendelle Stevens having to spend 1983-1990 in an Arizona Correctional Facility for an offense unrelated to his UFO interests. (According to retired Command Sergeant-Major Robert Dean (2007), who knew Stevens well and lived across the street from him in Tucson, the charge against him "was a trumped up, fixed political deal. I always suspected it was because he had spoken out openly on the [UFO] subject.") By 1998 Clark had learned for himself of Korff's egotistical and irrational behavior that includes making false accusations (Clark, Wendelle Stevens when he was a Major at the 1998), yet, as of the present date, he sees no reason why the Meier Wright Air Development Center in Dayton, Ohio case deserves renewed attention. DEBUNKINGS(?) OF MEIER'S MOVIE FILM OF PENDULUM-LIKE MOTIONS BY A BEAMSHIP MANEUVERING ABOVE A TREE TOP Off-hand, this 8mm movie-film segment may appear to show a model UFO suspended above a model or small potted tree and oscillating back and forth just above the tree's crown. Apparently, this is just what it was intended to look like, for those with no interest in taking a second and third look. The respected ufologist Bruce Maccabee was the first to carefully assess the length of suspension line, if it were a model UFO, that would yield the observed period of oscillation, and which would in turn dictate a model diameter around 1 ft and a tree height of between 2 and 3 ft. He was careful to conclude that the observations were consistent with such a model UFO without ruling out a much larger, genuine beamship and tree much farther from the camera (Maccabee, 1989, 2002). However, the titles to his write-ups tend to imply that the reader should conclude it was a model UFO suspended from an undiscernable string. Wendelle Stevens was one who looked at the film from the point of view that it might not have been a model UFO, and found some points to corroborate this view. "On three occasions the spacecraft changes its motion abruptly with no change in the tilt of the vertical axis of the ship. If it was in fact tethered, one would expect the vertical axis to tilt as the tether point above was moved" (Stevens, 1982, p. 280). I was much impressed that on one occasion the craft came to an abrupt halt and hovered absolutely motionless above the tree top for up to 20 seconds (Deardorff, 1989); a model suspended from a long pole by a 14ft string would inevitably exhibit noticeable wobbles and/or small bouncing vertical motions exceeding 5% of the model's width. Even if three accomplices were aiding in a hoax by pulling taut from opposing directions on long horizontal lines attached to the alleged model, this would not eliminate small vertical motions. Maccabee himself later pointed out that if the craft had been a model UFO, its distance from the camera, and that of the tree, would need to have been some 50 ft (Maccabee, 2002). Although he did not go into the implications of this finding, the reader who does, if he has any experience handling long poles, will likely realize the unfeasibility of the pole-suspended model scenario. To his credit, Maccabee also pointed out that on one occasion just after the craft passed very close over the top of the tree, its uppermost portion abruptly swayed over towards the craft and snapped back. Despite all this, a negative skeptic may still wish to dismiss all findings here of the unfeasibility of a hoax on the basis that surely an ET would not purposely act deceptively, and surely the ET would not be able to outwit our capable ufologists. Yet, other observations do not support such beliefs. What may at first appear in this film segment to be worthy of debunking instead becomes, upon further analysis, worthy of respect for the aliens' tactics of not forcing their presence upon those who cannot accept it. THE TALMUD OF JMMANUEL AND ITS REPERCUSSIONS My refutations of the false claims in Korff (1995) about the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) are given here. Very brief versions of some of these false claims appeared in the early debunking papers of Hall (1980), Korff (1980) and Korff & Moore (1981), and judging from the correspondence I had with Auerbach, it was of prime concern to him also that the TJ be debunked. Discussions of points he raised in a "summary report" that he sent to Walt Andrus and J. Allen Hynek commence here. Auerbach was the main source of the unsubstantiated criticisms that Hall and Korff raised against the TJ. Interestingly, Auerbach was open to the possibility that Meier had had some legitimate contacts, as he had learned from Hans Jacob of the definitive UFO sighting of 16 June 1975 he and others had witnessed and which had a definite connection to Meier as contactee. And in a letter to me of Feb. 2, 1989, Auerbach wrote: A member of our UFO club gave me G. Kinder's "Light Years", and I finished reading it a few days ago. The book convinced me that I had done some injustice to Meier. This goes to show that one should not judge a person until all the information is at hand. I always thought that Meier's photos still were likely to be fakes. However, according to the book this is impossible. There may be some false ones among them, but the great majority of them, amounting to several hundred pictures, must be genuine. Also, I did not realize that he has had more than 100 meetings with Semjase. It seems likely to me that Andrus and perhaps Hall also, in their contacts with Auerbach, had sensed Auerbach's more liberal attitude of "innocent until proven guilty," and did not want MUFON's debunking of Meier to be compromised by anything that Auerbach might say. So he/they kept confidential the "Summary Report" of 23 June, 1980, which Auerbach had mailed them (and Hynek), except for letting Korff in on it, and they probably advised Korff in his writings to keep Auerbach anonymous. In any event, Korff (1995, pp. 81, 107) did not mention Auerbach at all, and replaced his identity with "various scholars in Germany and Switzerland, three of whom had PhDs." Von Keviczky was also in on the false religious claims made against Meier, as he seems to have been influenced by certain unnamed pamphlets and circulars obtained from Hans Jacob. In his letter of response to Stevens (1981a), Von Keviczky (1982) wrote, It is true that in my analysis I called Mr. Meier the '4th disciple of Jesus Christ' because according to the enclosed excerpts of his pamphlet (and more circulars) he declares unmistakably his missionary assignment from the Embassy of the Talmud Jmmanuel alias Jesus Christ to declare to humanity the original teachings of Jesus Christ. One wonders where he got the "4th disciple" idea; wasn't John the son of Zebedee the 4th disciple, after Matthew, Mark and Luke? Further, Meier has long dissociated himself entirely from "Jesus Christ," which he considers to be a fictitious character unlike Jmmanuel or Immanuel, whose teachings he knows to have been almost totally falsified or distorted as they appear in the Gospels of the Bible. And, the Talmud of Jmmanuel was the Aramaic document whose original Meier and his ex-priest friend unearthed from the site of a mostly buried tomb in Jerusalem in 1963; it was not an "Embassy"! Meier's Contact Notes do tell of his having been taken back in time by Asket to meet Jmmanuel circa A.D. 32, and the ensuing conversations are preserved. Regarding these, one of Auerbach's statements that was made use of by Hall (1980a) and Korff (1995), is: The Lord listens patiently to a great deal of religious philosophy on the part of Mr. Meier, and duly admires his high intelligence, and that Jmmanuel unduly praised Meier. (This comes from Auerbach's summary report, a copy of which I received in his letter to me of 7 May 1996). However, this portrayal is far off the mark, as pointed out in three quantitative paragraphs here. The present web site goes much further than just dispelling the false impressions arising from Auerbach's summary report, and includes research on how the name "Immanuel" must have been altered into "Jesus" in the latter half of the 1st century, how the Gospels weren't written until early 2nd century, with Hebraic Matthew being the first one (not Mark), and how a comparison of the very numerous verses and passages of the TJ that Matthew parallels overwhelmingly indicates that the Gospel of Matthew was derived from the TJ rather than the reverse. Reputable New Testament scholars are not interested in seriously exploring the Talmud of Jmmanuel, however, because in 1974 its Aramaic originals were destroyed by fire, due to their heresies for Judeo-Christianity, and because it's a modern find amongst a considerable number of other claimed lost gospels, to name two of several reasons. Meier's Contact Reports indeed do let us know that the Plejarens regard Meier as their man - with their help the prophet of the New Age (Moosbrugger, 2004, pp. 55-58) - with the mission of bringing the true teachings to us regarding true God (Creation or the Universal Consciousness), existence of advanced human-like entities from outside the solar system (ETs), meaning and purpose of life, reincarnation, evolution of the spirit/consciousness, moral & ethical behavior, and more, just as Jmmanuel had tried to do nearly 2000 years ago. This is of course abhorred by mainstream ufologists, who prefer to assume that Meier is a megalomaniacal hoaxer, notwithstanding all the evidence to the contrary. They also regard the spiritual side of the TJ and Meier's writings as being a religion or cult rather than just the basic facts of life, and do not wish that their study get mixed up with religion. Thus, the existence of the Talmud of Jmmanuel may be a significant part of why many ufologists want to keep Meier in a debunked state. PHOTOS FROM MEIER's FIVE-DAY SPACE TRIP Other Meier-case topics subject to debunking from 1980 on include several of his photos from his 5-day space trip (Stevens, 1988, pp. 283-332; Moosbrugger, 1991, pp. 264-273). It was not until 23 years after this space trip that Meier was informed, by his Plejaren contactor named Ptaah, that his photos from that trip had been manipulated by the person (a Herr Schmid, by then deceased) he had loaned the negatives to for development at a cheaper price (there were some 700 hundred of them in all from this trip). On most other occasions in 1975-76 he had his film developed at the Bär Photo in Wetzikon. During this contact #264 in 1998 Ptaah informed Meier that MIB (men in black) were also involved in these photo manipulations. Meier then quickly disavowed the authenticity of that whole photo series, not knowing for sure if any of its photos could be trusted. Hence the earlier charges against photos from this series - including those of the Lyra Ring Nebula ("Eye of God"), the space colony or universe barrier, the U.S.-Russian spacecraft docking, and the alternate-Earth caveman, no longer apply, in the sense that Meier doesn't now vouch for those photos. At the time, however, Meier was given other explanations for some of these photos of questionable appearance (Moosbrugger, 1991, 2001), or were the ET explanations what were of questionable validity? Thus the question remains, should information supplied by an ET be assumed to be the truth and nothing but the truth (assuming the contactee is truthfully conveying the information he receives)? Nevertheless, all these space-trip photos, which Meier no longer even possesses, are no longer relevant to the authenticity of the case, since Meier himself now distrusts that he had received back the developed film from his 5-day space trip in an untampered condition. Regarding the reality of his 5-day space trip, an interesting circumstance supports it, besides Meier's word. Meier at that time, in July 1975, had no beard and shaved regularly. Upon return from this trip, he was observed by FIGU member, Jacob Bertschinger, to have grown what looked like a 5-day growth of beard, yet the trip had taken only one day by Earth time (Bertschinger, 2001, pp. 38-40). The Plejarens informed Meier that they had shifted their craft back four days in time by the end of their trip, so as to return Meier only one day after he had departed. Bertschinger had noticed that on the day Meier departed he had appeared clean shaven. This was a neat bit of plausible deniability: the negative skeptic can claim that Meier lied and didn't go on any 5-day space trip since he was away only one day, and that Bertschinger was mistaken, while the skeptic who allows that ETs can perform magic-like acts can take the beard-growth data into consideration rather than ignore it. On several occasions, according to Meier's Contact Reports, his Plejaren contactor within their beamship would similarly manipulate the time such that Meier would use up only one hour, say, of Earth time while his contact within the beamship had occupied two or three hours. There is at least one other example in the UFO literature of a man apparently being taken away by a UFO for a lengthy (5-day) period, then returned with little lapse of Earth time (some 15 minutes); upon his return he was observed to have a several days' growth of beard although having been clean shaven before going missing. This was the Armando Valdes case (UFO Casebook Magazine Issue 445), which occurred on April 25, 1977, nearly two years after Meier's experience. Valdes was a corporal in the Chilean army. When he was out on assignment with his patrol at 4:30 a.m. they spotted two bright violet lights that landed, and one approached close to them. Valdes stepped towards it, but vanished from the sight of his terrified patrol. Fifteen minutes later he reappeared, and then temporarily collapsed unconscious. The date on his wristwatch had advanced 5 days. Although this case is remarkably similar to Meier's in its time aberrations, unlike Meier, Valdes had apparently been abducted, and his entire experience erased from his mind sufficiently well that he was not aware he had been abducted. Also, there is a remarkable point that supports some truth behind the late disclosure by Ptaah of the manipulation of the photos Meier had taken on his 5-day space trip in 1975. In Ptaah's 1998 disclosure he mentioned the names of Asket and her (alien) friend Nera, whom Meier had been allowed to take a picture of on the space trip, and about their doubles or look-alikes. But in Contact #39 back in 1975 Ptaah had mentioned to Meier that Asket and Nera had doubles, who lived in the U.S.! It was 22 years later (1997) that debunkers first put forth the idea that Meier's photo of Asket & Nera was instead of two actresses/entertainers in a Dean Martin show of 1970. How could Ptaah (or Meier, if you wish) have foreseen the essence of this back in 1975, unless real prophetic capability was involved? For a report on this by ufologist Michael Hesemann click here. SUMMARY The attitude that mainstream ufologists have held towards the Meier case closely mirrors that which mainstream scientists have held towards the UFO phenomenon as a whole. That is, they leave it up to a few within their ranks to debunk the phenomenon so that the rest need not divert their attention to something more incredible than science fiction and which cannot be proven 100% true in any one case. To his credit, Clark did at one point exhibit open-mindedness towards Meier's experiences, in what he wrote Kinder (1987b): "My colleagues are going to be astounded and confused," he [Clark] wrote. "It really has been an article of faith among us (me included) that this whole business was just an exercise in heavy-handed fraud. But apparently you have shown it is rather more interesting than that. It's ironic. Ufologists forever complain that scientists and debunkers won't take an objective look at the UFO evidence. You have demonstrated, I think, that in this case the ufologists acted just like the people they criticize." This, however, was just a momentary lapse, judging from his UFO Encyclopedia article, which plays a continued role in keeping the Meier case in a debunked state that is unable to reach the attention of the mainstream media. Yet nothing in the present review should be construed as inferring that Clark's research and deductions on other UFO cases in the UFO Encyclopedia were other than thorough, capable and well balanced. REFERENCES Andrus, Walter (1986), in "Director's Message," MUFON UFO Journal, August, p. 20. Andrus, Walter (1987), "Light Years Note," MUFON UFO Journal, April, p. 13. Bertschinger, Jacobus (2001), in Zeugenbuch (The Witness book: On the Experiences with "Billy" Eduard Albert Meier, his Capabilities and Contacts with Plejaren People and their Federation, 1959-2001), Eduard Meier, ed. (Hinterschmidrüti, Switzerland: FIGU). Clark, Jerome (1991), Editorial: "High Stakes," International UFO Reporter, May/June, p. 3. Clark, Jerome (1998a), "Meier Contact Claims," in The UFO Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, 2nd Edition, pp. 615-618 (Detroit: Omnigraphics, Inc.). Clark, Jerome (1998b), The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial (Detroit: Omnigraphics, Inc.). Clark, Jerome (1998c), Email #21 of 27 Sep., in UFO-Updates Archive. Dean, Robert O., 2007, Transcription of video interview in Phoenix in May 2007, shot, edited and directed by Kerry Cassidy and Bill Ryan. Deardorff, J., B. Haisch, B. Maccabee, and H. E. Puthoff (2005), "Inflation theory implications for extraterrestrial visitation," J. British Interplanetary Society 58, pp. 43-50. Druffel, Ann (1977), "California Report: Are there mimicking UFOs?", Pt. 1, MUFON UFO Journal, March, pp. 15- 16. Elders, Lee and Brit, UFO... Contact from the Pleiades, Vols. 1 and 2 (Phoenix: Genesis III Publishing, 1979, 1983 respectively). (Pages of Vol. 1 unnumbered, here we consider the very first, title page as page 1; text of Vol. 1 supervised by Wendelle Stevens.) Hall, Richard (1980a), "New View of Pleiades," MUFON UFO Journal, No. 150, August, p. 8. Hall, Richard (1980b), "From the editor," MUFON UFO Journal, No. 154, December, p. 2. Hastings, Robert (1989), "MJ-12 facts, questions, answers," MUFON UFO Journal, No. 254, June, pp. 3-11. Horn, Michael (2007), The Silent Revolution of Truth, DVD, www.theyfly.com. Hurlburt, Dave, and Phobal Chang (2002), Eduard 'Billy' Meier's Contacts with Asket of the Dal Universe: A reconstructed History (Tucson: UFO Photo Archives). Kinder, Gary (1987a), Light Years: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press). Kinder, Gary (1987b), "Light Years: An open letter," MUFON UFO Journal, No. 228, April, pp. 3-8. Korff, Kal K. (1980), "The Meier incident: The most infamous hoax in ufology," MUFON UFO Journal, No. 154, December, pp. 3-6. Korff, Kal K. (1981), "The Billy Meier hoax," Frontiers of Science, March-April issue, pp. 31-33,44. Korff, Kal K., with William L. Moore (1981), The Meier Incident: The Most Infamous Hoax in Ufology (Fremont, CA: the author). Korff, Kal K., and William L. Moore (1982), "'Contact from the Pleiades' in fact and fiction," MUFON UFO Journal, No. 173, July, pp. 3-8. Korff, Kal K. (1995), The Billy Meier Story: Spaceships of the Pleiades (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books). Korff, Kal K. (1997), The Roswell UFO Crash: What They Don't Want You to Know (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books). Maccabee, Bruce (1989), "Pendulum from the Pleiades," International UFO Reporter 14, No. 1 (Jan./Feb.), pp. 11- 12, 22. Maccabee, Bruce (2002), Internet article, "Pendulum-like motion of an unidentified object (UO) filmed by Billy Meier." Meier, Eduard Albert (1980s), Verzeichnis: Authentischer farb-photos (Record book: Authentic color photographs), (Hinterschmidrüti, Switzerland: FIGU). Meier, Eduard Albert (2003), From the Depths of Outer Space...: Contacts from the Plejadians/Plejarians, Transl. Marianne Schmeling (Hinterschmidrüti, Switzerland: FIGU). Moore, William L. (1988), "Who stands behind Billy Meier?", North American SETI Magazine, Vol. 1, issue 1, August. Moosbrugger, Guido (1991), ...Und sie fliegen doch! (And Still They Fly!) (Munich: Michael Hesemann, publisher). Moosbrugger, Guido (2004), And Still They Fly (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark). Randle, Kevin D., and Donald R. Schmitt (1991). UFO Crash at Roswell (New York: Avon Books). Rudiak, David (1997), Emails in UFO-Updates Archive, May 3 #13, May 8 #19,20, May 28 #6, June 5, 1997 #2. Stacy, Dennis, "The 1989 Las Vegas Symposium", MUFON UFO Journal, No. 256 (August), pp. 3-12. Steelmark Editors (2004), Through Space and Time: A Photo Journal of "Billy" Eduard Albert Meier (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark LLC). Stevens, Wendelle C. (1981a), "Kal Korff and the Meier 'hoax': A Response - Pt. 1," MUFON UFO Journal, No. 164, October, pp. 3-5. Stevens, Wendelle C. (1981b), "Kal Korff and the Meier 'hoax': A Response - Pt. 2," MUFON UFO Journal, No. 165, November, pp. 11-14. Stevens, Wendelle C. (1982), UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report (Tucson: UFO Photo Archives). Available as an ebook, see under "Special Collector's Item #1". Stevens, Wendelle C. (1988), Message from the Pleiades: The Contact Notes of Eduard Billy Meier, (Vol. 1) (Tucson: UFO Photo Archives). Vols. 1-4 available as ebooks. Stevens, Wendelle C. (1989), UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Supplementary Investigation Report (Tucson: UFO Photo Archives). Available as an ebook, see under "Special Collector's Item #2". Stevens, Wendelle C. (1995), Message from the Pleiades: The Contact Notes of Eduard Billy Meier, Vol. 4 (Tucson: UFO Photo Archives). Von Keviczky, Colman S. (1982), Letter: "Response to Stevens," MUFON UFO Journal, No. 169, March, pp. 16- 17. Go Back to: Parent Page Contents ufowatchdog.com A NOTE ON "CAPTAIN" KAL K. KORFF [by Royce J. Myers III] 19-JAN-07 NOTE: After posting this, I was informed Korff has now posted a bit saying that ufowatchdog.com has "Selective and Uneven 'Standards of Credibility' ". I suppose if you consider anyone who won't accept a couple of photos as proof to have uneven standards, then I'm guilt as charged. It'll take far more than a couple of photos of a guy in a cowboy hat waving his finger around to prove anything. Something about a kettle comes to mind... As usual, I'll make this short and get to the point: I am not associated with, do not work with, nor do I endorse Kal K. Korff. To put it bluntly, my opinion is that I think Korff is completely full of shit. Huh? What? Yeah, I said the same thing. While I think Korff did some good work on his earlier Meier UFO stuff, I have to say I have some serious conerns as of late. Korff has recently been making the rounds via the Internet and on radio making some pretty fantastic claims. Some may have heard Korff refer to a "small group of people" he was disappointed with because of some criticism he was receiving. I can tell you it was far beyond criticism because I was part of that group. Korff later referred to this group as "the penis gallery." I won't speak for the other folks involved, but I will say this: I think Korff is full of shit. Okay, I said that already. Here's why: Since the summer of 2006, I have been corresponding with Korff having initially contacted him about obtaining a video relating to his Billy Meier book. During this correspondence, Korff extended me an invitation to be in a project he claimed would be on television and available on the Internet and that I would "get some of the profits." Korff said the productions would focus on exposing UFO "personalities" and that one part of the production "has two hot Czech chicks in it..." For those who know me, and I've made this clear elsewhere, my UFO interest does not involve a profit margin - never has, never will. I've offered ufowatchdog.com absolutely free for the last 6 years and plan to continue doing so. I told Korff I wanted to maintain my independence and that I would not be interested in his television project. Korff told me he wanted me to contribute to a peer group and I told him I'd be interested in that. This group never came to fruition and I have to say that I am glad it didn't, as the continuing correspondence with Korff started raising some serious red flags with me. Korff began telling me his life story and how he fights terrorism as a Captain in something he referred to as the Special Secret Services or S3. Korff even sent me a picture of himself in a uniform as "proof" of what he does (see photo at top left). A picture, as we all know, doesn't prove anything. If you think along those lines, that a photo is proof positive, then I guess Korff must also accept that all Billy Meier UFO photos are real. But I digress. These are some of the claims Korff has made to me: Is going to have Alien Autopsy film producer Ray Santilli prosecuted for consumer fraud and that the FBI and Department of Justice were involved. He was going to "nail" Billy Meier and his promoter having them both prosecuted for conumer fraud. Said a Meier promoter was going to be taken into custody by the United States Secret Service. Korff expressed a desire to personally "slap the handcuffs" on this person. Said he was going to sue a Meier promoter for "libel and slander." Claimed all these alleged legal actions were "official." Had psy-ops working on a Meier representative and had this person pegged and was playing him based on this supposed psy-ops info. Wanted to get Bob Gimlin "under oath" and have him put under "cross examination." Is the director of a nanotechnology project and had a forensics project in the Balkans. Korff also claimed he would have a chip implanted in him for his "ops" for a reality tv show showing "Captain" Korff fighting terrorism and taking down UFO frauds. Was a consultant to the OJ Simpson criminal prosecution team and an expert witness for the defense in the OJ Simpson civil trial. Said he had cutting edge technology that he wanted to share with me for use on the Internet. Korff claimed to have created this cutting edge technology. Has a $25,000,000 budget to work with to pursue UFO frauds. Is going to be publishing a 24 volume series exposing the Billy Meier case and has a 500 book deal. Yes, you read right, five-hundred, 5-0-0. Is a Captain in the Special Secret Services and works in anti-terrorism as a SAPSTOE (Special Activities Planning Strategies Tactics Operations Execution). Korff even offered to provide me with the name of a Sheriff here in Oregon that would confirm Korff's claims. I could go on and on with everything that Korff provided me, but it would be pages. So, I decided to ask for some proof and wrote Korff the following: -----Original Message----- From: Royce J. Myers III [mailto:ufowatchdog@msn.com] Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 3:39 AM To: Korff Kal Subject: RE: From Kal, Some of the Legal Muscle Involved :-) http://www.xzone-radio.com/20061229_21.htm I'd like to hear your side of this, Kal. I'd also like to hear more about your status as a Captain in an organiztion that I can't find any reference to anywhere, which I'm finding odd since you claim it has international jurisdiction. In response, Korff claimed that he needed permission to do this and earlier had mentioned needing to address these issues through his "handlers" and there were people at the US Embassy in Prague who were exclusively asssigned to handling all inquiries about Korff. Korff claimed that he was going to visit the US Embassy and this would prove everything he had claimed, that this trip would vindicate him and that I'd be eating crow. Click here to see this so-called evidence Korff sent me. Some photos of Korff running around in Prague with a cowboy hat, a camera, a backpack, some military metal anyone can buy off e-Bay, and some captions in the photos proclaiming this to be the truth. Huh??? Yeah, that's what I said. I sent this to Korff: ----- Original Message ----- From: "UFOWATCHDOG" To: "Korff Kal" Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 3:05 PM Subject: Re: From Kal, Very Important Images of Santilli/Horn/Gimlin FIRST LEGAL MEETING :-)) Kal, You can't even come up with a name? Why did you even bring this supposed sheriff up if you weren't prepared or willing to give me a name? Surely you knew I would ask for that name...? You're going to lengths to prove things and provide reassurances to people, but I am not at all convinced and it will take far more than some photos with captions, a few calendars regurgitating your previous work, and a headshot photo with you in camo. I'm done with this entire and very tiresome affair...period. --Royce Korff responded with more 'evidence', sending an article he writes for a free newspaper in Prague telling readers he would come to their homes and cook for them: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Korff Kal" To: "UFOWATCHDOG" Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 4:32 AM Subject: More Evidence.... :-)) Hi, Here's my latest column. I can just see the "skepticism" now... He isn't REALLY going to go into people's homes and cook Americandinners for people is he? Well, yes, I am. Today, in response to my column, I now have over 405 invitations! :-) This is yet MORE evidence that I AM who I claim to be. And this morning, a three letter agency came by to establish new security screening proceedures for this, and if you REALLY want to "test" me....come to Prague, ask me to come cook for you, and once my security people vet you, it can be arranged! Obviously, they would NOT exist if I was not who I claim. As I have hinted it is actually much more. I can't wait to share with you the org charts for CriticalThinkers. When you see how many are involved,...Well.... :-) Send you all much more relevant stuff next week. Have a good weekend, I am going to go meet the female I alluded to earlier, get her ready for her next assignments. Best, Kal Yep, cooking for people who read your column...wow, I'm just completely stunned at the amount of incredible 'evidence' Korff has presented me with regarding his counter terrorism activities, his covert activities, and his prosecution of UFO frauds. Korff later sent an e-mail about the alleged resignations of eight sheriff deputies here in Oregon, something about a "female jail snitch", and how Korff was going to have his name in the news here in Oregon because he was running an 'op' in a jail here to expose corruption. Uh, okay. With that, I will say it again: I think Kal K. Korff is full of shit and I'll have nothing to do with him. Korff wrote in one e-mail to me, based on my disbelief of his claims, that I "officially have egg" on my face now. That his appearance on a radio program and the pictures of him at a US embassy were proof positive that he indeed is who he claims to be. About his visit to the US embassy and showing of his material about Meier and Santilli, Korff wrote, " They were shocked to see how this clever mix of daring doo has every enemy taking it "not seriously" and the wrong people not trusting it. Naturally, I WANT my enemies to take me "not seriously"." By golly, mission accomplished. I don't think anyone is taking Korff seriously, I certainly am not - especially after the many disjointed, wanna' be cloak and dagger e-mails from Korff. The only person here with egg on their face is Korff for expecting anyone to accept a few photos of him in Prague wearing a cowboy hat as proof positive that he is indeed an officer in some counter-terrorism organization. Unfortunately, those who gave him credit for past deeds will also have egg spatter on them and Korff's previous work on the Meier case will surely suffer. Korff wrote the following in an e-mail addressed to those he referred to as the "penis gallery" about anyone doubting his claims: " At this rate, I may very well order any party that might get thrown taped, just so I can nuke the next "colleague" of mine who dares to question the obvious. " Yep, I dared question international man of mystery "Captain" Kal K. Korff. Indeed, I made the mistake of asking for evidence and made the much larger mistake of doubting Korff's claims. Beware all who dare question "Captain" Korff. I am not Korff's "colleague", have not worked with him on any project and I never will. KLICK HERE FOR SOME KOMMENTS FROM KAL When the Apple Tree Crackles written by Herbert Runkel in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 175-76 a liberal translation by J. W. Deardorff, June 2011 On Wednesday, the 17th of August (1977), Englebert, Hans and Koni (Konrad), Jacobus and I were standing by the garage in the evening, around 21:00 hours. We were observing Semjase's ship moving high in the evening sky, along with Billy, who obviously [and strangely] felt bad and looked quite distressed. After the ship had nearly disappeared from sight, we stood talking together, when suddenly from the front side of the kitchen we heard a loud crackling noise. If we could trust our ears, somewhere some wood had been splintered. Naturally we now no longer watched the sky, and very soon had success in seeking the source of the noise. The old, small apple tree [for its location, see map, No. 10], whose trunk had once served as a test target for Billy to take a shot at with a ray-pistol [loaned to him from a Plejaren], had in some unexplained but noisy way, had its crown broken off. Billy could only assume that for some unexplained reason Semjase had caused this damage. He had been expecting her for a Contact. It was a week after the event that Semjase gave him an explanation, on Contact No. 80 of 24 August 1977. She explained to Billy that she had, with her ship, actually smacked into the top of the apple tree at the very moment when she quite unexpectedly caught a very strong external pain impulse from him. For that reason she did not then appear at the Contact as intended, but quickly decided to turn to Quetzal in order to discuss the incident with him. During this Contact conversation with Billy yet another mystery was solved, namely why some of us, between the 12th and 20th of August 1977, had been inflicted with very strong flu-like symptoms, and felt sick and very distressed. This had to do with a praying-mantis-like insect, which Billy observed on August 12th in the vicinity of the old apple tree (which in the meantime has been renamed "the Semjase tree"). According to Semjase's explanation it involved an artificial insect which, purely and simply, served the purpose of spreading a mutated bacillus that causes a certain sickness unknown on Earth, of which Billy had already become infected when Semjase in her beamship was struck by his mentally outgoing pain impulse. In the meantime the Pleiadians not only had the spreading of this bacillus under control, for they had developed a remedy for it, but before the Contact meeting on the 24th they had also located the bacillus source or nest, which the artificial praying-mantis insect had created for itself. It was located in an upper part of the Semjase tree. During this contact Semjase allowed Billy to operate the on-board instrument that wiped out this bacillus nest, as evidenced by a large surface burn on the tree's trunk [see photos on pp. 179-80 of the Zeugenbuch]. In the early afternoon after Billy's Contact we naturally promptly inspected this burned area. It turns out that the Gizeh-Intelligences [a rival Pleiadian group] once again were behind the whole incident, along with recent renegades from the Pegasus region. One of the Pegasus renegades, who have very large eyes and are totally unknown to us on Earth, had been seen by both Billy and Renato Ventura on the Center grounds on the evening of August 16th. The technique for the manufacture of the artificial praying-mantis insect stemmed from the aliens, who in the meantime were captured by Ptaah [or Quetzal] and sent back to their homeland. Added here: An Excerpt from Contact No. 80, Wednesday, 24 August, 1977, 12:01 hours From Wendelle Stevens, Message from the Pleiades, vol. 4, pp. 138-39 Semjase... 1/You have been hurt [distressed] because during the last time I made no contact with you. 2/But this, my dear friend, is in keeping with justified reasons, which I want to explain to you now. 3/When I was here last Wednesday, the 10th [correction: 17th] of August, I first announced myself; thus some of you could see my ship suspended high above in the night sky. 4/Then I came back while you all were still waiting according to my order at the dugout [garage] of the vehicles. 5/According to your wish I wanted to leave then at that tree, where you tested the beam-pistol, a sign for all of you, but which doing thoroughly failed for me. 6/This happened so: 7/I was just floating above the top of the tree, when I registered such strong impulses of pain from you, that I was shocked, and pressed down in a reflex moving of the steering means of the ship, which doing caused by that, with the under side of the ship I destroyed the whole top of the tree, and pressed it down. Meier... This we have heard, because there was quite a loud crash. Semjase... 9/Surely, and after that I moved away very fast and analyzed the event, where I found, you being heavily sick and radiating uncontrollably strong headaches, when you wanted to make contact with me. 10/Your pains were so strong, that you sent them out in full strength and could no longer control them., for which reason I by no means expected such, and was fully hit by your impulses of pain. 11/Unused to such events with you, it was at once evident to me that some matters had to exist, which were not right. 12/From somewhere thus you had to be subjected to an influence, about which you were not able to control. 13/But so as not to disturb you, I just went away without a word and consulted Quetzal. 14/During several days then I explored together with him for a reason for the occurrence, during which we also caught up different thoughts from you, which we regarded very peculiar. 15/But as well the catching-up of your uncontrolled thoughts was uncommon for us, because they witnessed about a hitherto still never appeared uncontrolledness in you. 16/So this all had to have a reason, for which we followed your ways of thought and found your observation of the 12th of August, where you stood in thoughts at the mentioned tree and had observed a great insect, which would not have been allowed to exist there, because this sort of insect is no more existing elsewhere in your region, and moreover is fully abnormal at a size of 14 cm. 17/Thus something here had to be incorrect. 18/So Quetzal researched the event in the past, and found drawn, by help of an area-analyzer, on the screen the enlarged insect: a praying mantis. 19/From the pictures, still a routine work for him, it showed that he was dealing there with an artificial insect, which had a complicated body construction that housed a mutated bacillus. 20/When now this artificial insect flew two times around you and the tree, by remote control, it diffused from an outlet-opening a small part of the mutation bacillus, which at once attacked you and infected you with an unknown to you disease, which at circumstances could have caused very heavy consequences, if Quetzal had not interfered. 21/He and some other ones meanwhile had elaborated a means, which since yesterday he diffuses throughout the atmosphere, because meantime the bacilli have spread themselves, and threaten to spread themselves throughout the planet. 22/Especially menaced were all those persons who have stood at the Center during the last days, because most of them were attacked directly by the bacilli. 23/By the artificial insect namely, as we realized less than 20 minutes ago, a seat was established inside the tree, in which the mutated baccilli are breeding and propagate themselves. 24/Now I am here to destroy this wicked seat. 25/Further on, I am here to clear up some other facts which are still evident to us, as for example the event of the 16th of August when you sighted a figure which had extraordinary large organs for seeing. 26/It is... Meier... Yes, that thing owned lanterns as great as mats. They also did fluoresce. The figure was about as tall as Herbert, as Renato also noticed. [The contact conversation contains 40 more sentences from Semjase.] [Seven photos of the tree and its wounds are shown in Zeugenbuch, pp. 177-180. Later, the tree died.] Letter from Elsa Schröder in Wendelle Stevens, UFO...Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1982), pp. 177-79; 460-61 Antakya, Turkey 8 March 1975 Dear Sir: Please excuse me for writing to you without knowing you personally. I obtained your address from a German who asked me to write you since you might be interested in my experience. However, first, I want to tell you who I am: I am a German national 35 years old. For the last 4 years I have been hitch-hiking all over the planet, because I wanted to see something happening one time in my life. In doing this, one often encounters very strange things, which normally one would never experience. I experienced this strange event just 17 days ago. It was in the Persian desert nearly 2 miles outside the village of Zahedan on a clear morning. My friend, Peter, and I had put up our tent, intentionally outside the village in order not to be disturbed by the villagers, which happens occasionally there. About 07:00 a.m. we were awakened by a strange noise, however we could not see anything unusual from our crouching position in the tent. We finally decided that the noise came from behind a sand dune about 50 yards away. Peter thought there might be laborers doing some special work there, and reentered the tent to go back to sleep. But I was interested and went to see what the laborers were doing. Walking around the sand dune, I suddenly came upon a woman of nearly my age. Strangely dressed, she reminded me of the astronauts I had seen in pictures. Obviously this woman too was startled when she discovered me, and she immediately stopped working with the strange apparatus with which she had dug into the sand. Now, quite amazed, I went up to her and asked her in English what she was doing there. She answered that she was looking for something fallen down here, which she was trying to dig out of the ground. She then went back to her digging, and after some minutes, actually found the thing she was looking for, a somewhat odd spiral-like cylinder, which she put into her strange machine standing there. Then, as she prepared to depart, she told me goodbye. In a strange manner I was attracted to her, and I quickly asked her to stay some minutes, which, after some hesitation, she finally did. I introduced myself to her and asked if she lived in Zahedan. However, she laughed and said that this place was too unfriendly, and that she had come from far away. She said her name was Semjaze or Semjase, if I got it right. After some talk about people in Persia she said that she had to leave. We said goodbye to each other, and she worked with her strange machine for a moment. Then, to my amazement, the whole thing rose up and hovered before she walked away and disappeared behind another sand hill. As soon as I recovered from this surprise, I ran up the hill around which the woman had vanished a moment before. But when I arrived at the top was struck spellbound, because what I saw now could not be true. About 100 meters away, there was a strange thing about which I used to laugh when people talked of them -- a Flying Saucer! I could not believe it and thought I must be crazy. However it had to be true, because I now saw how this woman, together with her machine vanished into the bottom of the ship and a door closed behind her. Then the Saucer went up without a noise and flew almost in my direction as it passed overhead. Suddenly, something like an unseen force pressed me down, and I fell and rolled down the sand dune. Still a little hazy, I got up again and beheld the Flying Saucer rising straight up slowly, then shooting away at a fantastic speed and vanishing into the blue sky with an odd sound. Really amazed, I remained in that place for some time before returning to the tent. On the way to it I suddenly felt very strange and overheard a voice inside my head apologizing to me several times. Later, I told everything to Peter who only laughed at my story and said I had got the "desert craziness." For that we started to quarrel and some hours later he left me for good. He told me he did not want to stay with a mad girl and it would be better for each of us if we would stay alone. However, I know I am not mad at all, and I know what I saw and experienced. I even remember that this woman said that she had a very good and dear friend in Europe. And I know exactly that I saw her, as well as her odd digging apparatus and the Flying Saucer. I am not mad at all, and have experienced all the facts I am describing to you. In the meantime, I found a new friend and told him everything, and he said that such things could exist, and that I should write the story to you, which I have done herewith, since you work with this subject. He had read about you in a newspaper. However, I do not want my name mentioned when you tell this to somebody else. It is enough that I get called crazy after having told the story to other people, and when I will return to Germany, I do not want that people would point at me saying that I am the "crazy girl" who had seen, in Iran, the Flying Saucer, the odd digging machine and the Lady from the stars. Please understand that and do not mention my name. Therefore I do not tell you more about me, no address and so forth, because as said before, it is enough that I was called mad everywhere I told my story. In Germany I might be taken to a madhouse when people know who I am and I return to my home town. Please do understant that. I am sending nice greetings and remain yours, s/Elsa Schröder Sighting Report by M. Sengel in FIGU Special Bulletin #68 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Aug. 2012) Liberal Translation by J. W. Deardorff, Sept. 2012 It was Saturday, April 28th, 2012 when I, as a passive member at the Semjase-Silver-Star-Center, was at two very interesting talks presented by Bernadette and Stephan. Then in the evening from 7 to 10 p.m. there was the "Study Group," in which I also took part. When this was over, I chatted with three other passive members at the Biotope parking lot. After we said our goodbyes around midnight, I remained still longer at the parking lot and observed the night sky. It was just half past 12 on Sunday, then, the 29th of April, 2012, I saw a bright, white, luminous object floating along from the east, of about the size perhaps of a tennis ball. The object was with certainty neither an airplane nor a hot-air balloon, because it floated absolutely silently and quite slowly there, namely exactly over the Semjase-Silver-Star-Center. Consequently I could closely observe it during some minutes, until it disappeared in the west. Since it was with certainty no airplane and also no balloon, it could probably only have been a flying object, which is generally called a UFO. There was no noise from an engine, and no known sound of hissing/heating from a gas burner as used with a hot-air balloon. Naturally I was happy over this nighttime sighting, and I remembered that I had already been alerted by different passive members to the fact that often such sightings can be witnessed at the Semjase-Silver-Star-Center. This time I also had the luck to be able to observe such an event, which for me is a proof of the fact that, within the expanse of the universe, we Earth humans are not the only human forms, which kind may also have been involved here. Then shortly after these thoughts and the observation of the flying object, I lay down and had a restful sleep. A Special Sighting Liberal Translation of Write-up by Silvano Lehmann in FIGU Bulletin No. 29 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Sept., 2000) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 It was Saturday, the 20th of May, 2000, at 17:35. A busy sunny day with scattered, tilted clouds in the sky. I had just finished my dinner and wanted to go stretch my legs a little in front of the house. I saw Billy standing next to the garage [see map, No. 11]; he was listening to some unknown bird singing as I came up to him. High above us two gliders soared in circles. Briefly we looked at them, but soon our interest was directed back to the bird. We were puzzling over what kind of well known song bird it could be, when Billy interrupted the conversation in mid- sentence and suddenly seemed to look through me into the distance with an absent gaze, apparently listening to something. A mannerism I knew of him when he received a telepathic call, which was clearly the case right now -- probably a telepathic call from the Plejarens, which was soon confirmed by the recognition it was the Plejaren Florena. For Billy suddenly raised his head and said: "There, look up, a ship is hanging between the clouds -- Florena." Immediately I looked up in the sky but saw only clouds at first. Eagerly I looked among the banks of clouds and around their edges for a metallic sparkle that I was already almost familiar with. It was not long before I spotted, at the edge of a cloud, a roughly 8-10 m [estimated] large, disk- shaped, silver shining object that was illuminated in quiet flight by the evening sun's bright rays as it moved in its course along the big cloud. After a few minutes of quiet observation we called the people who sat in front of the house -- and within a few minutes, our group of two had grown to a proud 17 persons. The first Aahs and Oohs came already soon after telling them to search the sky. Freddy Kropf immediately rushed up with his camera and began to photograph with the device, which was equipped with a 500 mm telephoto lens. The Aahs and Oohs became still more intense when, a little later, I could make out a second object of almost the same size to the right of the big cloud and pointed out this observation. The sighting lasted from 17:40 to 18:10, so all of 30 minutes, before the two flying objects disappeared far in the east. During this time, we often lost sight of the two high flying, disk-shaped ships whose flight path was from west to east, but someone from our observing group would soon discover them again at the edge of a cloud. The altitude of the two distinct, high flying, silver discs was very high and difficult to determine on the basis of the clouds. All the while they were in constant movement and flew at times in and out and around the clouds in their slow journey. The witnesses to this event were: Louis Memper, Switzerland; Daniela Beyeler, Switzerland; Christian Frehner, Switzerland; Andrea Grässl, Austria; Günter Neugebauer, Germany; "Billy" Eduard A. Meier, Switzerland; Freddy Kropf, Switzerland; Patric Chenaux, Switzerland; Simone Holler, Germany; Natan Brand, Switzerland; Barbara Harnisch, Switzerland; Atlant Bieri, Switzerland; Philia Stauber, Switzerland; Pius Keller, Switzerland; Robert Waster, Austria; Michel Uyttebroek, Canada; and Silvano Lehmann, Switzerland. The TJ's Spiritual Teachings It must first be made clear that "spiritual" and "spirituality" here refers to the human spirit -- one's own spirit -- as a real entity. It does not refer to the religiosity within the dominant religions, such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism. In the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ), Jmmanuel often talks about, and teaches of, the individual human spirit. This occurred in places that may be familiar to the reader who's aware of the Gospel of Matthew, since that gospel's writer usually did not alter the TJ's geographical context or its order of events, and only lightly edited its healing events. He only altered what was heretical for him and the early church, or was otherwise unacceptable to a Jewish scribe converted to Christianity in the early 2nd century. Most of Jmmanuel's teachings do fall in this category, however. Jmmanuel's teachings on spirituality commenced after he was returned by his contacting aliens to the land of Galilee after having been instructed by them for forty days and nights. However, even before then he already had acquired firsthand knowledge of his spirit and spiritual power, due to having spent many years in India, studying under their masters, during his youth and early manhood. His teachings about the human spirit accompanied his healings, which began after he acquired his first four disciples: Peter, Andrew, and the two Zebedee sons. At his Sermon on the Mount, he taught, among many other things, that it is good to be rich in spirit, to be spiritually balanced, and to continue learning throughout life. Doing the latter is essential so that in the course of many incarnations -- reincarnations -- your spirit can approach the perfection of Creation itself, which created your spirit in the first place, and with which your spirit will eventually reunite. He taught that one's spirit grows in power as it becomes more and more knowledgeable through continued learning converted into wisdom. Also in the Sermon of the Mount, he gave an example of how to pray to one's spirit. This prayer then was altered into the Lord's Prayer by the writer of Matthew. At this time Jmmanuel also taught that although one may receive answers to prayers even if under the influence of false teachings or religions, it is better to receive out of knowledge of the actual truth. In the same sermon he mentioned that fasting can be good for the expansion of your consciousness and spirit. But the need to concern oneself with increasing the knowledge of one's spirit -- spiritual evolution -- received his greatest emphasis. Frequently Jmmanuel advised against accepting false teachings, which he did not hesitate to identify, as such teachings hinder or prevent the growth of one's spirit. In the same sermon, Jmmanuel included some admonitions having karmic overtones, as in Mt 7:2 -- "...the measure you give will be the measure you get." In a more pointed admonition, he warned his disciples that some of them might fail to recognize the wisdom of his teachings and would end up spreading falsehoods; those disciples he prophesied would experience difficulty in "finding the truth in coming incarnations" (TJ 20:28). In an especially harsh prophecy, Jmmanuel foresaw that not only the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees, but also their followers would long suffer an onerous karmic burden "like a heavy stone of the seven great ages, and whoever falls upon this stone will be smashed to pieces, but whomever it falls upon will be crushed" (TJ 22:48). In a later teaching (TJ 26:52-63) the act of suicide, whether done to escape from the consequences of guilt, mistakes or tragedy, is deplored, as in so doing proper responsibility is not accepted, and the karmic process towards perfecting the soul is thereby delayed. (However, the TJ never makes use of the word "karma.") When healing the leper, after the Sermon on the Mount, Jmmanuel mentioned that the cure was effected through "the power of the spirit and the wisdom of knowledge." In the healing of the paralytic, Jmmanuel told him that it was through his trust in the power of Jmmanuel's spirit and in his spiritual wisdom that he was helped. In the cure of the woman with the continuing hemorrhage, Jmmanuel told her that her faith or confidence had helped her. In that instance, the writer of Matthew did not need to alter the TJ's text, since he could allow "faith" to mean faith in Jesus as savior, whereas in the TJ the woman's faith was her confidence that she would be cured. In the case of the blind man and two mutes (in Matthew it is two blind men and one mute), it was their trust in his wisdom and in the power of his spirit that allowed them to be cured. At Jericho, the sight of the two blind men was restored after Jmmanuel ordered, "Be it done to you as you believe," because they believed that the power to do so stemmed from Creation (TJ 21:6-9). Throughout all these healings, Jmmanuel continued to preach about learning the laws of nature so as to unlock the secrets of Creation and allow spiritual growth. He instructed his disciples to teach the same, saying, "The laws of nature are the laws of Creation, and the power of the Creational spirit within humans embodies life." Jmmanuel taught that he had incarnated at that time not in order to bring peace to earth, but to bring the sword of knowledge of the power of the human spirit. His teaching about who John the Baptist was, is that he had been Elisha (not Elijah) in a past life. In his teachings through parables, his illustrations involved the realm of the human spirit rather than the kingdom of heaven. In the explanation of the parable of the sower, words of truth spoken about the human spirit and Creation's laws are likened to seeds that are sown-some persons cannot understand them, some cannot retain them long enough to benefit, some forget them after becoming preoccupied with worldly pursuits, but some can adjust their lives accordingly towards seeking and finding further truths. The parable of the mustard seed is seen from the TJ to be interpreted as indicating the gradual growth of the human spirit in knowledge and power. The parable of the hidden treasure likens the joy over discovering the existence and/or power of one's own spirit to finding a hidden treasure in the field; this discovery is personal and cannot be proven to others, so it is like the treasure in the field remaining concealed after its discovery. In the parable of the precious pearl, that is what the kingdom of the spirit is likened to-the thing of greatest value. In the parable of the fish net, the TJ interpretation seems to be that the fish represent knowledge gained from learning, with the fish that are retained representing the useful knowledge that will turn into wisdom. All of the parables have to do with the spiritual life of people. During the episode of Jmmanuel walking on water, with Peter joining in briefly, Jmmanuel teaches that such is possible through not doubting in the slightest in the power of your spirit. He goes on to mention that among those who come out of space ("Weltenraum" in the German) there are ones who have greater spiritual power than he. But at this point he explains to his disciples that these particular ones are human like we are, but are not comparable in spiritual power to Creation, which is omnipotent. One of Jmmanuel's most extensive teachings about the human spirit occurs at the point where the writer of Matthew substituted the Transfiguration for it. The essence is that a human spirit starts out ignorant in its first lifetime "until it has gained knowledge through thinking and inquiry" in lifetime after lifetime. This involves making mistakes and learning from them. In it he again emphasized the laws of Creation and of nature. It was many centuries earlier that the celestial sons had decided that mankind was ready to start learning ideals of enduring value, so they then instituted a procedure of periodically causing the various prophets' spirits-primarily Jmmanuel's-to incarnate among the Jewish people in order to bring the laws of Creation into human awareness. However, these laws did not get propagated without distortions or mistakes, as was to be expected. At the point in Matthew where a child is brought before Jesus to demonstrate how to become great, the actual teaching of Jmmanuel was to become like the children, who eagerly search for knowledge, if one wishes to become great in spirit. Those who prevent others from seeking truth and knowledge, or who follow false teachings, or who don't bother to search and find, are the ones who would be better off "with a millstone hung around their necks and drowned in the deepest sea." One of his most definitive teachings about reincarnation occurred when he was questioned hypothetically by the Sadducees about which surviving brother would get the widow as his wife in their next lifetimes. (In Matthew, this was strongly altered, with "resurrection" being substituted for "reincarnation" or "new life.") His reply included the straightforward statement that in their next lives they would all be strangers, not remembering their past lives, with no law saying then or now that some man deserves some woman as a wife. He added that only the true prophets, who live in wisdom by following the laws of Creation, can remember their former lives. Jmmanuel's teachings on reincarnation do not include being subject to reincarnating within a lower animal life form, and differ in this and other respects from Hindu concepts. In more teachings about the immortal human spirit, Jmmanuel taught that it stems from Creation itself, being a tiny piece of Creation's spirit, and that each time the body dies the spirit lives on in the beyond, where it continues to gather wisdom out of its accumulated knowledge, before reincarnating. According to the extent of this wisdom, the spirit itself determines its future incarnation and subsequent activities (TJ 23:45-46). These teachings are quite consistent with what one finds in modern studies on reincarnation. In Jmmanuel's farewell speech to his disciples, some months after the crucifixion, much spiritual advice is given. This includes being aware of the presence of Creation in everything you do. In one talk after setting out for the land of India, Jmmanuel taught about the evolution of the human spirit, and how in its eventual return to Creation as a perfected spirit it contributes its share to helping Creation perfect itself. He also discoursed on two-is-one philosophy at this time; an example is the unity of the human being, comprised of both body and spirit. A fitting summary to his spiritual teachings is as follows: "There is no eye equal to wisdom, no darkness equal to ignorance, no power equal to the power of the spirit, and no terror equal to the poverty of consciousness." "There is no higher happiness than wisdom, no better friend than knowledge, and no other savior than the power of the spirit." (TJ 26:27-28) Eduard Meier received much spiritual teaching from his ET contactors. It agrees with the essence of the spiritual teachings of the Talmud of Jmmanuel, and complements them. Some of these teachings are available at the FIGU website. Some of the above is contained in my article, "UFO Contactee: The Meier Case and its Spirituality," published by Wildfire Magazine in 1989. Return to: Contents FROM WENDELLE STEVENS, CIRCA 1989 Having spent 8 years on this case, 7 trips to Switzerland and 81 days on site, interviewing 29 eyewitnesses, 5 photographers, 4 recorders of the spacecraft sounds, and dozens of observers, I feel that I am as qualified as anybody in these United States to draw some conclusions from what I have learned. Somebody not of this Earth is indeed visiting Switzerland, and those extraterrestrials were contacting Eduard "Billy" Meier living in Hinterscbmidruti. The possibility that Eduard Meier alone, or even with confederates, could have hoaxed all the phenomena we have seen and faked the hundreds of excellent photos of the spacecraft, UFO photographs of every kind and style we have known, landing tracks of several different kinds, recorded the highly peculiar sounds of the alien ships, and the other evidence we have examined and tested to our satisfaction, is as unbelievable as the basic premise of visitation by extraterrestrial human beings itself, perhaps even more so. Meier is handicapped both physically and materially in such a way that for him to carry this out alone would be patently impossible. He could have had confederates and financing sufficient to pull off some of the events, but it would have required a great deal more than that to stage some of the other phenomena observed and recorded. Yet, in all this time, we have found no evidence of collaborators or financiers of any kind anywhere. Meier has certainly made no money on this, his fame is not positive, and he has survived more than a dozen attempts on his life because of what he says is happening to him -- not an enviable position at all, and certainly not one anybody would seek and then retain. The results of our testing of the evidence, though not conclusively in the affirmative, have not been conclusively negative either. We have found no evidence of deliberate deception or fraud on the part of Meier or any of those friends and associates around him there in Switzerland. We do not demand, nor do we seek to persuade, anybody to accept our views on this case, nor does Eduard Meier. He has his truths and we have ours, and we are satisfied with our positions regardless of that of anybody else. We know that we have been followed and used by one intelligence group after another in our investigations of this case, and so has Meier. Imagine, then our surprise to just recently hear from one of those "spooks", now retired, who has contacted us and offered some information answering a lot of our questions in the past. I have decided to remove the writer’s name and address and publish a reduced Xerox-copy of that letter here for you to see for yourself. this is obviously a man on the go, used to dictating his letters to somebody else to finish up and put in proper form, a man used to thinking faster than he writes, who gets ahead of himself when forced to slow down to writing speed and makes simple mistakes in form and use. The message, however, is clearly there to read and interpret as you like. I have added a number of appendices exhibiting significant data to this report. This is the letter from our friendly "spook" that was received at Munds Park, Arizona, in early February 1989. LETTER FROM A SECURITY AGENT: BELOW: THE FRIENDLY “SPOOK’S” LETTER To Wendelle C. Stevens Lt. Col., USAF (Ret) Care of: GENESIS 3 Publishing Inc P.O. Drawer JJ, Munds Park.AZ 89017 Dear Mr Stevens A friend of mine, Tom Farr, dropped off a copy of MESSAGE FROM THE PLEIADES. I found it very Interesting. Tom had previously given me another book about Billy Meier, which was also interesting. The following is information you might find interesting. The American Government did what could be called an extensive soft touch investigation of Billy, when he first attracted public attention to himself, to find out if the contact was in fact for real. The Decision was in his favor. It was extensive investigation, because of the unusual features in Billy’s case. Billy, as an individual, and a citizen of another country, had an American intelligence gathering organization look him over from ass hole to appetite. He passed the inspection rather well, but has not gone off the deep end, as predicted by the personality profile done on him. It of course goes without saying that he had the intelligence gathering community of his own country look him over. The American investigation was of the light touch vanity (forfenglighet), meaning use no force, make no scars, and leave no traces of the investigation. Which is to say play tourist, pack a camera, and take a lot of pictures, tell a lot of lies, and ask a lot of questions. Host countries intelligence systems get pissed, if they catch you screwing off on their turf. So do not accuse us of any break-ins, and that type of thing, because it happened back in the days when Billy was in fact liberal with what he gave away. Your book indicates that he has up graded his record keeping sense [since] the early days. In the other book on Billy there was a big deal about the films, and having them tested. In one specific incident the film tested was believed to be a copy, and not the original negative as Billy thought. Sorry about that. The way we got copies of Billy’s pictures was by paying off the man who handled the film processing for Billy. The man simply ordered a second set of pictures for us, and a second copy of the negatives, at an attractive profit, and the man often had copies made for himself. In a couple of cases we took the original copy of the negative, for the type of lab checks that you wanted to make. We also sent some garbage film through to the same processing company by the same store, under Billy’s name, to keep the boys doing the film processing honest. We did establish that there was a little hankey pankey going on at the processing plant, and/or in the mail some place. Someone else was getting off with the first copy of the negatives most of the time. Several times, according to the experts, our copy of the negative would be about the fifth one. All intelligence communities are well aware that vast volumes of bull shit comes and goes in the UFO contactee game, as part of turf (dekke) but pictures make strong evidence, which is almost impossible to fake. Because pictures are the quickest way to find who in fact is telling the truth, they often get stolen. Or, why screw around with the bullshit, when the proof is in the film. The Intelligence gathering people are also aware of how to intercept mail, and bribe store owners. When the bribe was set up we did not know how agreeable Billy was going to be about passing out samples. In the book you touched on one of the most important of all things about UFO’s, and may not have realized the true importance, to the history of UFOs, in what you said. Page 219; "The visitor anticipated and they immediately associated them with the Anti-Christ, of Christian literature and wanted nothing more to do with the situation." The problem that Billy had with Karl Veit of Wiesbaden, is the key to understanding most of the American Government and Western Europe Government’s approach to UFO’s. In 1945, when it was first proven that UFO’s were real from space, operated by intelligent being, most of whom where human in form, the American Government did a soft touch check to see what the great unwashed public would say, and how the public would respond to UFO’s, and space people, if the President informed the public over National radio. The results of the investigation would truly frost a thinking mans’ balls. The public’s response was all bad. 97% of the public took one of two approaches. Shot first and ask questions later. Or call the UFO’S agents of the devil, the prince of the power of the air, the anti-Christ, and set up an even worse situation, where UFOs would became a real negative religious issue. What was surprising was the response of the Religious leadership, which was by far worse than the general public’s response. It could only be called grim news. The science community showed no leadership at all, just a super case of stupidity, and prejudice. As you might guess, the original investigations were by military men, under orders from General Marshal, under the direction of the President. And if you know your military men, finding one who wants to get into a fight with the preachers, over what is, or is not the Anti-Christ, when neither the military man, nor the preacher know a hell of a lot of factual information. About either the Ant-Christ, or the UFOs, would be a lot like sending a blind person out to spot UFO’s. Just as soon as the blind man spots the first UFO, the military will get into the fight with the preachers over the Anti-Christ. To say that the military seriously avoided the potential conflict with the religious community would be an understatement. To say that the military community successfully avoided a fight with the religious community over UFOs, would be an accurate observation. To say that the military was real damned sneaky about how they informed the public about UFOs, would also be an accurate observation. The military mind will draw conclusions that the religious mind will not. The military mind quickly figured out that if the UFO’s wanted to take over the world, they had the speed, science, and fire power to do so Hence, the military concluded UFO’s were working by other rules. The general nature of the rules the individuals in the UFOs would be working under, could be projected. based on previous contact records, how ever skimpy the records. In other words, the military figured it was a safe assumption that the UFOs would not radically change their actions in modern times, but would stick with the casual and miss system of the past. The military mind drew one conclusion. The single most important thing to do in the situation it was in, namely sitting on some hot, highly controversial information, was to keep the general public from a bad response, by controlling the public’s response to UFOs. In other words keep that damned religious mentality out of the issues involved, as long as possible. But, do not ever say that the military never did anything about informing the public about the existence of UFO’s. That will mean you have not figured out the methods used by the Government to spread the word about UFOs. You might say the military took the Bible’s advice about not to let the left hand know what the right hand is doing. The Military pulled the very same trick that Moses pulled, when he did not like the attitude of his troops, after crossing the Red Sea. He took the time to grow a new batch troops, who’s response and thinking was more to his liking. And that is what the military did about UFO’s. The military also found a problem as bad, or worse, than the religious mind. Have you have ever noticed, Scientist are about as bad as the preachers, when it comes to UFO’s? Especially in the old days. What you missed is the little detail that Scientist, of the old pre-UFO school got their basic concept of the Universe from an insane preacher. A Catholic Pope. That basic concept is the idea that man is alone in the Universe, and the only intelligent life in the universe. Going into the dark ages all societies leaving records, in any amount, left some kind of UFO record. Those that left verbal histories left verbal records of UFOs. In effect it was known prior to the Dark Ages that man was not alone in the Universe, that other intelligent beings were out there screwing around. Even the damned cave and rock drawings show UFO activity. The Greeks and the Romans also knew that the world was round. The Greeks had even tried to measure the size of the earth using wells and sun light. The insane Catholic Pope decided that he was the most important thing in the Universe, and that the Universe revolved around him. The basic idea that the world was flat was imposed upon the world by an insane Pope, which in effect made the earth the Center of the universe.. That Pope also expanded on the powers of the Pope, in effect saying that he was not only at the center of the Universe, he was all that was good, smart, and holy at the center of the Universe. That Pope also pitched the idea that man was alone in the Universe. That of course left the Pope the smartest man in the Universe. When the Science-Religion fight of the early science days started, science in general won out. The one idea that the Scientist took from an insane Pope, which they loved as an idea, and used as where very own idea, was the idea that man is alone in the Universe. The idea that man is alone in the Universe, if valid, would the make Scientist the smartest, and best educated beings in the Universe. The Science community’s response to the coming of UFOs, and the possible drop in status from the smartest thing in the Universe, was some what worse than the religious communities response to UFOs. UFOs rather obviously, put the modern scientist in the position of being a backward person in knowledge, on a backward world. And farther insulted the scientist, by not bothering to make any contact with him. Few, if any of the scientist involved gave up their status, as the smartest and best educated beings in the universe willing. Most of the older ones died with that idea in their head. The idea man was the only intelligent life in the Universe. The existence of UFOs truly lowers the status of the religious and scientific leaders of the world. They resisted such a lowering in their status, particularly the scientist. And here I should clear something up. Mention the word intelligence gathering community, and most people go into some kind of potty training shock, and think they have gone back to messing their pants, and are about to be caught at it. Doing what is called spying on people is an expensive and time consuming operation, generally involving a lot of people. It is surprising how many people think that they have some kind of secret, that makes them worth spying on. Casual surveillance, or simple information gathering, can be done much cheaper. The total amount of information needed, to make a high degree of accuracy decision, about some one like Billy, is in fact not as much as a person would imagine. In effect, in the early days, if you showed up at Billy’s place, knowing enough about good manners, to bring as much food as you eat, wash as many dishes as you get dirty. and just help around the house, or yard a bit. It was possible to get all the UFO information desired from Billy, and be treated as a respected guest. Looking into Billy with a professional eye will quickly show that there are a couple of things, which are not "totally normal" for this type of contact. The screw ball hours, and the many changes in location, make it some what different from most contacts, which generally proceed on a casual, but regular bases, with some consideration for the contactee. Billy probably holds the record for more bad weather contacts than any one else. His case has some screw ball features, but it had some very good pictures. In a shared UFO information pool with other Countries, including India, it was noticed that Billy got his contacts when ever a woman, the Indians were watching, was missing. It was speculated that Billy’s female contact could have been one of two women that the India authorities were watching. One was a tall dark haired woman with a very fair completion who, according to what the Indians could find out had been working an area for about 200 years. The other woman was a short, some what dumpy blond, with kind of a flat face. Every time the dumpy blond left India, Billy had a contact. Because the Indian surveillance was of the soft touch type, and far from complete, nothing was ever established. But, for a period of about 2 to 3 years there was a one to one relationship between the blond leaving India and Billy having a contact. And there is something else you might figure out, or work on. It is Billy stumbling on to Military men looking at his contact sites. For all their science, the clowns in the UFO do not always work out every thing to perfection. As a military officer you were exposed to a few classes in physics. As the book says about the rocks and the gold, the physics are the same, this world, or some other. That means that what is known, about physics here, will also apply up there. The UFO is has a power source, which is obviously related to gravity, and electro magnetic properties of physics. That is all packed into a small space and effects the world around it. Add to that some cloaking device, and a few stray things, and you have a ship, which will give off a few things in the line of radiation. If the dogs can spot the UFOs, then use dogs, which we did around some military and science bases In the early days. If the TV flutters when one comes by, start from there for making a detection device. It logically follows that about the time that the Governments got into the business of knowing about, they also got into learning how to detect the things, when they flew by. And it was a dog, who’s action told us that flying saucer had clocking devices. It did not turn out to be all that hard to make a detection device. The Swiss Government has such devices and obviously uses them. The last time I had anything to do with such devices, which was a long time ago, and the devices where physically very large because their radios had vacuum tubes, they could be rigged to do several different things, and the American Government was screwing with a model that would give the general direction the UFO was traveling. By now they could be the size of a pack of smokes, and give direction along with the make and model of the UFO. In the late 50s we could differentiate between about four types of UFOs based on how they effected our devices. If I remember some of the information coming out of Billy’s area, the DALs would normally send out a couple of other ships to scout the area, some time several days in advance, before the contact ship showed up. At that time the devices the Swiss had could tell the difference between the two types of ships normally used. It could also tell the difference between several of the small, ball shaped probes that might be sent out. I know it to be a fact that the Swiss Government has contact with Space people. But. like all such contacts, the restriction, on who knows about it, comes from space. The Swiss in fact probably have the best contact of any country in the world. But, that is speculation on my part. And here I might should add something. Within the Governments of the world, how many I do not know, but based on the patterns, probably most of the reasonable governments, there has been contact from space. But, within any government there will exist two possible sets of information. Those who study UFOs, from the ground looking up, and trade some types of information, some times, and those who are in the direct contact position. The two are not necessarily the same person, or department. I know it to be a fact, having talked to a man who made the trip with him, that Ike had dinner on a space ship. I also know that the Queen of England has been on a space ship, once for medical treatment. You mentioned something in passing that was interesting. It was your being "spied" on. I have no idea as to who is doing what to whom in your case. But, I do know that there was once a proposal put out to step on UFO investigators, and contactees a little bit, to keep the field from expanding to much, so the real contacts would not be lost in the pure bull shit. As some one who has been in government, you can probably spot the conflicting, and over lapping authorities, that tend to keep showing up in cases like your self. You never out right ask the question, "what the hells Naval Intelligence doing in UFOs, but if you do, they were the "initiating authority" in the solution to the problem of the old FOO Fighters of WW2, and the boys who proved UFOs were from space. Once an Intelligence gathering community gets the initiating authority status in a field, especially if the job is dumped off onto them, they are damned hard to pry out of that field. Within the structure of the American UFO community there are a lot of stories running around. If you ever have the time and the chance, or inclination, you might look up the one piece of semi hard evidence about a crashed UFO. It is the Brownsville, Texas saucer, which was a very old case. Dating back to right after WW2. That ship came wobbling by Army Air Force base going about ten miles an how’. They first picked it up on radar, when It was about 40 miles away, which gave them vast amounts of time. Then with field glass as It approached, and finally as a visual. They had enough time that they were able to get a chase plane up in the air to follow the saucer to where it crashed, about ten miles deep in Mexico. Their first action was to get a parachute rigger into a plane, and jump him out over the crash site with a stencil and a can of Red Paint, to mark USAAF on the side of the saucer, so we could claim it was ours - in case the Mexicans showed up. That ship was dragged back to the US by a cat. It left one hell of a skid trail. From the ground the skid trail can not be seen, because the government paid some Indians $5,000.000 to replant the ground. and hid all traces of that drag trail. But it can be seen from the air. If seen from the air, it will be a very straight line that is almost due North and South. At the South end of the skid trail, there is an East-West gully, and just South of the Gully is a small ridge, or very little hill. The small hill has a north south ridge on it. The saucer came to rest on the East side of that ridge up against the slope of the hill, or at the base of the very little hill. Because the drag trail could be seen from the air the Indians were hired to make other trails on the ground, as a confusion factor. The true drag trail is the only straight one in the group. This letter is long enough. Lots of luck with what you are doing. Respectfully .....................(name deleted) Excerpt from Contact Report 106 A translation from Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 4, pp. 391-92 (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1995) by Wendelle Stevens Meier Let us go to another theme: Do you perhaps know a magazine by name of GEO? As I realize here from my note, it should deal with a geographical magazine about culture, which is edited by the Heinrich-Bauer Edition of Hamburg, Germany. Quetzal... 40/This is not known to me, but why do you ask? Meier... In the autumn of last year, I believe it was in September, in one number of this magazine should have been a picture by a painter, who painted San Francisco in future form after its destruction by the earthquake. Now look at these pictures here, which I got during our journey to Frisco, when you brought me into the future. These pictures here now should correspond very exactly to parts of that picture, which this painter of the Bauer-Edition produced. Like that at least it was explained to me yesterday. This is meaning, when indeed this picture exists by this painter of the edition, that once more I will get placed for being a liar and a cheater, while another time more will be told, that I would only have taken pictures from that other picture for purpose of evidencing some things. Quetzal... 41/Your question has some background. 42/Something must have happened, that now you ask me about this. 43/And from where have you known about this picture now, which really exists? Meier... Oh, I see, but so; yesterday this was told me. Kurt [Stadlin] had gone to a restaurant in Zurich, where just somebody was reading this magazine, and there he saw the picture, because there it was reproduced. Now of course he came and explained to somebody behind my knowings, that likely I would have made photgraphs from parts of this picture. Quetzal... 44/This is very much regrettable. 45/I did not know that this picture, which got transmitted towards this man inspirationally, already had got published. 46/Here must have happened an accident because first in the autumn of this year, it should have reached the public. Meier... Yes? This will be a pity for me, and a much lousy one, because now again I keep the same theater, like then by the picture of the universal door [another misunderstood event]. But who did actually transmit this impression towards that painter? Quetzal... 47/This have done the Baawi-Intelligences, who work together with us here on the Earth, and who are responsible for many inspirational transmissions. 48/But they must have suffered a mistake in respect to the publication of the picture, because first in connection with certain coming events, the picture should reach publicity in the autumn of this year. 49/I myself considered, when you had asked me for this journey, this then could just get connected to your photos. 50/But under these circumstances it is likely better, to protect you from further attacks, that I take the pictures, as well as the negatives of the film, too. Meier... But these I don't have, because I have given them to the photographer, so that he can produce new reprints of them for me. Quetzal... Then I will destroy them, or take them with me. 52/Where have you given them to? Meier... To Bar [Bär Photo] at Wetzikon. But each time he sends them to Wadenswil to a great laboratory. Quetzal... 53/That is sufficient for me. 54/I will take the material and store it. Meier... And what should I tell to the people? I have but to tell the truth. Quetzal... 55/You tell the truth Recordings of Spacecraft Sounds Witnesses' Reports by Wendelle Stevens in UFO...Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1982), pp. 448-50 On Good Friday in 1976 [April 16], Eduard Meier and other witnesses recorded the sounds of the Pleiadian spacecraft for the first time. As usual, Meier was guided to the contact site telepathically. He rode his Mo-Ped ahead of the others travelling in a car. Meier went into the forest preserve outside Hinwil, signaling them to wait at the forest edge. They waited for more than an hour before Meier came riding from the woods and told them to follow. He led them across the preserve to the other side and turned into a dead-end road. Again they were advised to stop and wait while Billy went forward about 100 meters and stopped. They could see him standing in the middle of an edge-grown clearing sloping down in its center. Here Meier stopped and positioned his tape recorder and then held the microphone into the air. Above where Meier stood, from about 30 meters in the air, came a strange whirring, humming sound which changed frequently. The sound was similar to a jet engine or a lathe working a piece of metal with much variation. Then Meier raised his arm above his head and correspondingly the sound increased and went down again. The two frequencies, the lower and the higher, continuously inter-mixed together and then separated again, clear and loud. The tones reached us clearly with just occasional scattering by the wind. "I was very much amazed by the tones from the air, and could not understand this," Hans Schutzbach said. The sounds lasted ten minutes and then stopped. "By now we had unexpected visitors," Schutzbach added, "A VW 'Beeetle' stopped behind my 2CV. Its two passengers looked toward Billy with great interest. One of them even had field glasses. A moment later, from another side, a man walked up with a sheep-dog on a leash. From another direction two motorbike drivers arrived. All of them were interested in the clearing where Billy stood, above which hung the stirring sound. They seemed to appear from nowhere. The two men in the car turned out to be Forest Rangers and the man with the dog was a canton policeman in civil dress." "This sudden appearance of humans was surprising because when we arrived there was nobody around but ourselves. I believe Mr. Meier is shadowed when he leaves his house, because many people of Hinwil seem to be interested in UFOs and want to see something with the help of Billy. These people do not come directly to us but they seem to respect Billy," Schutzbach added. Normally Meier does not hear so much of the sounds of the spacecraft, and lasting so long and so loud, but only a short stirring upon reaching the spacecraft or upon its preparation for departure. This extensive demonstration was intended especially for tape recording and Billy was advised in advance of the proposed event and was invited to bring selected witnesses to the demonstration. Scutzbach said that the tones were caused by the rotation of the outer parts of the ship in air, which produces the observed noise. When the velocity of rotation is changed the tone of the sound changes correspondingly. This can only be heard if the ship is not screened, as in this special case. In this event, only a small channel toward the ground was opened and the ship was not visible from the sides. The ship can be made visible or invisible by sectors. Meier, from his position directly under the ship, could see it and he estimated its height to be more like 50 meters. Another effect was noticed by Meier from beneath....as the tone went up the scale to higher key the ship became more transparent, and as it came down the scale it became more dense-looking to him. "Two days later," Schutzbach says, "we undertook an examination. We took the recorder back to the place, and there played back the tape recording at full power. This time the tone seemed to come from the ground, and was rather weak in power, and certainly came from the speaker. It was so weak we had to come more than half way closer to the recorder to hear the tone with the same loudness as on Good Friday. I looked for evidence of loud speakers hung from trees or suspended from a balloon to produce this effect and could find none. All of these things had to be checked out before conceding the reality of the experience." The sound might best be described as a sort of metallic sounding humming whine with a whirring swish and a variable tone. This sound has been heard by several of the other witnesses around Eduard Meier and has been recorded on five separate occasions. The Vanishing Fir Tree Witnesses' Reports by Wendelle Stevens in UFO...Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1982) From pp. 126-7: One of these witnesses reports his experience as follows: "Last Saturday, 3 April 1976, I was with Mr. Meier in Hinwil. At the same time there was a small group of other people who often meet with him. Since the weather was good, Mr. Meier suggested that we visit some of the places where he had met Semjase during his contacts. He took us to the site of a remarkable occurrance when Semjase flew her spacecraft around an old Weatherpine tree [on 9 July, 1975, and the tree has been identified as a European fir (abies alba)], which later was found to have damaged the tree. The cosmonaut circled the tree close enough to the trunk to separate the branches as the ship passed through, about 1/5th the way down from the top. The branches in close contact with the spacecraft withered and began to die. It looked dehydrated and turned brown. Another strange effect noticed was that the upper part of the tree glowed in the dark after this incident." Ms. Margarite Rufer went back to the site later with Jacob Bertschinger, and they noticed that the whole tree was dead. They went back again 3 days after that and found the tree had disappeared completely. There was no hole in the ground or any other evidence that the tree had ever been there. When Meier's pictures of this contact first came back from the developers, one of Meier's friends went out to the site and located the very spot from which the pictures were taken. From p. 48: He found that the grass here was 20 to 30 centimeters higher than the other grass around. The whole tree itself had just disappeared without a trace. And from p. 333: One of the strange effects observed -- the top of the tree glowed in the dark for some time after the photo was made. No radiation measurements were ever made for lack of equipment. One of Meier's friends who examined the tree estimated it as 28 meters tall by 33 centimeters through the trunk as high as he could reach. It is a hermit species and does not grow in clumps. It is also less conical in shape than most pines [firs]. On a subsequent trip to the site the tree was found to have disappeared, leaving no trace of its former existence. When Meier asked about this, he was told that it still carried some harmful radiation and was removed. He was later given a demonstration of how the tree was removed [See references in Table 2 under 17 July 1976]. BRIEF SUMMARY OF JMMANUEL'S BASIC TEACHINGS Reincarnation and evolution of the individual human spirit Existence and omnipotence of Creation (Universal Consciousness) Connection between the individual human spirit and Creation Distinction between Creation and advanced humanoid gods (or God or ETs) Concerning God, the (ET) ruler of human races in the Mideast, to the north and to the east False teachings eventually to give way to truth Importance of seeking truth and knowledge Natural laws of Creation The ignorant state of the human spirit at first, which gradually evolves toward wisdom The healing ability of the evolved human spirit The eventual merger of the very highly evolved spirit with Creation The immortality or timelessness of Creation and the human spirit The evolution and increasing perfection of Creation itself The gentleness of the yoke of spiritual development The human as master over the Sabbath On recall of past lives by true prophets On the deplorability of suicide On the unities of apparent opposites Strive to: be spiritually balanced recognize truth live according to the laws of nature and Creation maintain a clear conscience exercise justice according to the laws of Creation exercise love and understanding in accordance with the natural law of Creation and with logic collect treasures in one's spirit and consciousness learn to recognize your own mistakes learn from your mistakes Advice: Always be aware of the presence of Creation Offer love wherever it is warranted, but exercise punishment when the laws of nature demand it Give to those who ask of you sincerely Choose your words carefully and with natural logic When praying, pray to the power of one's own spirit Don't amass great treasures on Earth Take care of your physical needs for tomorrow Do not judge falsely If you use the sword without need you will perish by the sword Take the log out of your own eye before looking for the splinter in your brother's eye* Don't waste your spiritual treasures on the unworthy Ask..., seek... and knock...* Do to others as you wish they would do to you* Never doubt in the power of your spirit Beware of false prophets* Avoid swearing or oaths* Avoid sexual intercourse except with one's spouse Avoid adultery, fornication, male homosexuality Avoid acting as the scribes & Pharisees say, or as they do The spiritual kingdom or realm: includes both good fruit and weeds is like a mustard seed...* is like leaven...* is like hidden treasure...* is like a priceless pearl...* is like a fish net... cannot be grasped by the ordinary coarse senses is inside of you and outside of you Prophecies: His (Jmmanuel's) teachings will be falsified Peter will be one who is guilty of falsifying Jmmanuel's teachings Many of the people of Israel will never find their peace Judas Iscariot will be unjustly accused A new prophet will emerge in two thousand years Jmmanuel will have to suffer in Jerusalem Friends from the land of India will help Jmmanuel escape from the tomb on the third day The woman in Bethany who anointed Jmmanuel will be remembered for a long time to come* Before the rooster crows Peter will deny Jmmanuel three times* A prophet named Mohammed will arise in 500 years For a long time to come mankind will forget about Creation and its laws Note: * indicates the teaching made it into the Gospel of Matthew virtually unchanged. For a greater in-depth presentation of the TJ's teachings, see D. Rothe's website. Go Back to: Contents Theological Commitment in Early Christianity and its Role in Shaping Present Scholarly Consenses concerning the Gospels James W. Deardorff Introduction 1. The Approach 2. Papias, via Eusebius, on Matthew 3. Papias on Mark 4. Clement of Alexandria on Mark 5. Motivations for the Gospels 6. The Continuing Hold of Theological Commitment Endnotes It is apparent within modern New Testament scholasticism that the historical Jesus was a far different person than the figure portrayed within the Gospels. As expressed by one liberal scholar, whose views on this can perhaps be taken to represent a majority of the Jesus Seminar scholars, "The gospel of John is highly symbolic and essentially not historical. Even the material in the synoptic gospels is the product of a long process of development, shaped by Christian communities during the time of oral transmission, and further redacted by the evangelists... [Jesus] did not speak or think of himself as 'the Son of God,' or as 'one with the Father,' ... or as the savior of the world."1 Such findings, which conflict so obviously with the orthodox Christianity espoused since the time of Paul, imply one of two possible interpretations. The first is that the real Jesus did not have any particular mission other than a desire to help the poor and downtrodden, or have much to say other than a few cynical or impractical teachings.2 The second is that he did have a definite mission involving extensive teachings, and since any such teachings are largely unknown they must have undergone extensive alteration, suppression or both by mid-second century, by which time the Gospels are known to have been formed.3 Sufficient Gospel quotations from Justin, Tatian and Irenaeus exist to indicate that already by then the content of the Gospels was not much different from today's best accepted Greek texts.4 The first interpretation has received much scholarly discussion while leaving many issues unresolved, as we shall show. The second has received almost no discussion, due to fears of violating theological commitment, but shows great promise of resolving these issues. The questions that arise with this second possibility, then, concern: (a) the evidence, if any, to indicate that extensive teachings of the real Jesus once existing in written form that were redacted into the first and subsequent Gospels, (b) when and how this would have taken place, and (c) what such teachings could have involved that would require their suppression and redaction. 1. THE APPROACH The assumption is thus tested here of a written source once having existed out of which the first Gospel was formed and upon which subsequent Gospels were dependent, directly or indirectly. The chief support for this assumption is the first-hand detail displayed within certain Gospel text. A prime example, noted by J. Goodspeed, is the detailed series of instructions to the disciples of Mt 10:5-14, which would not have been written if they had been the original composition of a scribe some time after 70 C.E., when the interest was in instructions for the church rather than in outdated instructions for the Twelve.5 More generally, the detail within many of the healing pericopes and even nature miracles suggests a historical basis, though allowance must be made for frequent but minor redactions to exist within them, and for an occasional such pericope to be wholly redactional.6 One reason why the possibility has not been strongly pursued that the Gospels are based upon a written source is that neither Matthew nor the other Gospels contains narration specifying who the respective Gospel writers were, or that any particular disciple had been designated as writer. However, we should consider the likelihood that a disciple had been so designated, but that there were reasons, presently unspecified, why it was undesirable for him to be given credit for having written the source document that provided impetus for the first Gospel, and why this source did not appear on the scene until early second century, by which time this source was viewed as being largely heretical by the particular clerics who were aware of it. If the Gospels had appeared as early as the end of the first century and been written by the men whose names are attached to them, surely Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, would have made some mention of them. Some scholars see a literary dependence between pieces of Ignatius's epistles and some nine verses, or pairs of verses, within the Gospel of Matthew, and so they assume that Ignatius made use of Matthew. Other scholars, on the other hand, believe the similarities can be explained through oral tradition known to both Ignatius and the writer of Matthew.7 A further possibility is that some or all of these apparent parallels may be explained as being later interpolations placed into Ignatius's epistles, as definitely occurred with the "longer recension" of his epistles, which are replete with such additions.7.1 It might be, however, that one or two of these parallels were formed by the writer of Matthew having utilized his knowledge of Ignatius's epistles, because it is plausible that Matthew was written some years after Ignatius's death. If its writer was familiar with Ignatius's epistles, then, he might possibly have been the man who had served as a scribe for the bishop during the latter's journey towards martyrdom, in which case his name was Burrhus.8 Burrhus was a deacon in the church at Ephesus whom Ignatius respected. However, this seems unlikely in that Ignatius did not believe in the continued practice of Judaism as did the Messianic Jews, with whom we may identify the writer of Matthew. The present study begins to explore the above questions and the role of theological commitment therein, as well as its role in discouraging debate on this topic even now as well as in past centuries. It should be evident that any use of theological commitment is incompatible with free inquiry for truth. As noted by E. P. Sanders, "I have been engaged for some time in the effort to free history and exegesis from the control of theology; that is, from being obligated to come to certain conclusions which are pre-determined by theological commitment."9 The present approach, which attempts to follow Sanders's aspiration even for unsuspected past theological commitment, might be described as "coverup criticism," to be added to source criticism, form criticism and redaction criticism as tools to be used by the New Testament exegetist. However, the approach is not entirely new, in that the consideration of likely motivations of the evangelists for having made particular editorial alterations in transforming their sources into their gospels has long been a part of redaction criticism. The new aspect is that unsavory incentives associated with a past covering up of undesired information, not just virtuous or inoffensive motivations, are taken into consideration. Again, the impetus for this expanded approach to redaction criticism is the great disparity between the "real Jesus" emerging from modern scholarship, varied though it may be, and the orthodoxy espoused in the Gospels. We must face up to the likelihood that instead of Jesus having had very little of substance to say -- those few Gospel sayings that pass the muster of some segment of today's scholarship -- he had very much more to say, some fraction of which had become heretical or unsanctionable by the relatively late time of formation of the Gospels. A supplemental reason why this possibility needs to be explored is that Paul himself knew essentially nothing of Jesus' teachings,10 or if he did know a little from firsthand experience, did not care to espouse it, perhaps because of his pre-conversion disposition, associated with his Pharisaic background, to strenuously persecute the earliest followers of Jesus. Thus one can scarcely utilize his Epistles, though they greatly predate the Gospels, in assessing anything about the historical Jesus or the reliability of the Gospels. In so analyzing the situation, however, we must allow for the likelihood that modern Gospel scholarship, which essentially ignores the Epistles, may nevertheless contain serious errors due to reliance upon past scholars of the Gospels who were not as free as might be thought from the influence of theological commitment. Hence in this study we examine the role of theological commitment not only in early centuries C.E., but in the last two centuries as well, as far as space permits. It is to the witness of Papias, via Eusebius, that we must first turn for fresh insights using coverup criticism. Although his testimony has received much past debate, the present approach has apparently not heretofore been applied to it. 2. PAPIAS, VIA EUSEBIUS, ON MATTHEW As is well known, two terse statements from Papias that relate to the formation of Matthew and Mark have survived. The one concerning Matthew is: "Matthew put together the oracles [ta logia] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could."11 One interpretation of this has been that after the disciple Matthew wrote or composed his gospel it was known for a while as the Logia.12 However, it makes better sense for the Logia to have referred to the source of the evangelist's compilation, not the fruits of it; if it had referred to the important gospel named after Matthew, one would not expect Eusebius to have used "ta logia" but to have used "ta euaggelion" to describe it, as he did five sentences previously in referring to the second evangelist's work as a gospel. Further, the five expositions written by Papias about the Lord's sayings seem to refer to the same sayings source, "ta logia," and do not refer to the Gospel of Matthew.13 Hence another interpretation, apparently first due to F. E. D. Schleiermacher, is that the Logia were a relatively extensive source writing out of which the Gospel of Matthew was formed.14 However, this interpretation lost favor in the past century and a half because it (along with "in the Hebrew language") tends to imply that Matthew preceded Mark when for other reasons, to be discussed, Marcan priority came to be desired. The second part of the sentence from Papias has been equally difficult to interpret uniquely. Burnette Streeter, for example, took "and each one interpreted them as best he could," to mean that "there is no authorized translation" of the first evangelist's work, which he accepted as having been written in Hebrew or Aramaic.15 However, Papias's "ermeneusen," as restated by Eusebius, can just as well be rendered as "interpreted" as "translated," suggesting some problems with interpreting the Logia in a Christian sense. Streeter's suggestion is improbable on two other counts. First, there could have been no shortage in the Palestine-Syria area of church scribes who were fluent in both Greek and Hebrew or Aramaic, and therefore not likely any serious problem in translating from Aramaic into Greek. Second, if the typical problem associated with translating -- attempting to replicate both meaning and literary structure or style -- was what was involved, it is very unlikely Eusebius would have found this worthy of mention two centuries later. Modern scholars, in not accepting that Matthew was first written in Aramaic or Hebrew, thus have no sensible interpretation whatsoever of this part of Papias's statement. In addition, as noted by Bernard Orchard, there have been so many inconclusive interpretations of the writings of Papias over the centuries, that "there is today a great skepticism about its value as evidence, and this has resulted in a general aversion to considering it at all."16 If, however, one applies coverup criticism to this citation, we see, first of all, the likelihood that the Logia actually constituted the source document -- one that was largely heretical, judging from the numerous and extensive redactions existent in the Gospel of Matthew.17 That explains why other unnamed evangelists, after the first evangelist had finished forming his gospel out of it (compiling it), had difficulty extracting anything further from the Logia and rendering their content sanctionable ("interpreting them"). Second, one then surmises that the Logia, once acquired by the first evangelist, were under his strict control or that of his priest, and were not made generally available or they would have survived within the churches, just as Paul's epistles did, if they had been of an orthodox character. In fact, one may conclude that the Logia scrolls were sufficiently heretical that they were not later made available to any others besides those very few who each experienced great difficulty in trying to "interpret" them for use within their own gospels; hence these scrolls did not survive any more than did any of the five treatises written by Papias about them. Although the above reasoning makes use of the argument of silence, it is entirely befitting that coverup criticism do so, since the first defense against disclosing any embarrassing fact is to remain as silent as possible about it. One then suspects that Papias had written much more about the origins of the Gospels still available to Eusebius that he did not wish to believe or that theological commitment did not permit him to reveal. The same argument explains why Eusebius couched this short declaration about Matthew in such ambiguous language -- so as to minimize any damage to the church that it might otherwise cause. One knows that it was well before the beginning of the fourth century that theological commitment had come to demand that the Gospels have been written by the men whose names were attached to them.18 Hence Eusebius's rendition of Papias's words would of theological necessity indicate that the Gospel of Matthew had been written by the disciple Matthew;19 whether Eusebius actually believed that remains an unknown in this study. We infer here that Papias did not, because the title of his own works, The Expositions of the Lord's Sayings, did not mention either the disciple Matthew or the gospel accorded to him.20 It may further be significant that before presenting this tiny bit of information about the formation of Matthew, Eusebius went to the pains of downplaying Papias's intellect by discussing a few selected pieces extracted from his five treatises that would tend to invite ridicule, and then calling him a "man of exceedingly small intelligence."21 This is a common tactic employed by a commentator to put his reader into a desired negative frame of mind before reluctantly and briefly presenting other information he desires the reader to treat similarly through association. In so doing, Eusebius mentioned Papias's interest in "miraculous happenings" and "certain strange parables and teachings of the Saviour, and some other things of a rather mythical character," which he had mentioned in his expositions about the Logia.22 The fact that these were strange teachings for Eusebius, which he did not accept, then lends support to the present thesis that the Logia were a heretical source of the Gospel of Matthew rather than constituting that gospel itself. As to whether Papias himself ever saw these Logia scrolls or only learned about their content from one or two others who had had first- or second-hand access to them before they came into the custody of the compiler of Matthew, remains quite uncertain. It is very likely, however, that others would have read parts of these scrolls before Matthew's compiler acquired them; this could well have spawned the intense Gnostic movement of the second century. That is, the Logia may have included spiritual teachings of a Gnostic flavor, which receptive individuals propagated orally, though often in distorted form due to the Gnostics' lack of organization and unity. This likelihood reopens the thesis of Walter Bauer that the second-century "heretics" were an outgrowth of Jesus' true teachings, with Christian orthodoxy constituting the actual heresy.23 That possibility has been minimized largely because it did not explain why the Gnostic movement waited until the second century to flourish.24 However, the relatively late appearance of the Logia on the scene would explain both this and the late appearance of the Gospels. With the present interpretation it is not clear if Papias's "in the Hebrew tongue," as relayed by Eusebius, referred to the Logia, or to the Gospel of Matthew, or both. However, it should be kept in mind that the first evangelist "was a Jew writing for Jews,"25 a Jewish Christian,26 who likely had once been a rabbi.27 He was clearly not writing for gentiles, as seen in some nine Matthean passages that denigrate gentiles and consider them unworthy of discipleship.28 Thus the internal, as well as most of the patristic evidence (statements of Matthean priority from Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine), are consistent and plausible in agreeing that he wrote Matthew in Hebrew or Aramaic. As for the Logia, if it were written by a disciple-writer, Aramaic was its most plausible language. Thus, "in the Hebrew dialect" could refer equally well to either document. On the other hand, the present scholarly consensus that Matthew was instead first written in Greek achieves its desired result by arguing that "in the Hebrew language or tongue" means "in a Jewish style [though written in Greek]."29 This contention, by making it easier to further assume that Matthew is based mainly upon Mark, tilts in the direction obligated by theological commitment. That is, it avoids discussion of the likelihood that Matthew's numerous redactions were prompted by numerous heresies within the compiler's source document. 3. PAPIAS ON MARK His noted statement here, via Eusebius, is somewhat lengthier: "Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to avoid anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements."30 Here, there is a definite suggestion that the writer of Mark did act improperly by setting down certain events in an incorrect order. But what is the reference order from which this writer deviated? It had to be the order occurring within some written document considered more primary than the Gospel of Mark, since oral tradition alone, outside of songs or chants, is scarcely capable of recalling all relevant events, much less of recalling their proper order. The most evident reference document for this role is the Gospel of Matthew itself, and perhaps also the Logia if Matthew's order essentially followed that of the Logia. In that case, Papias's statement suggests that Mark's order of the events within Mt 8-11 was improperly scrambled, as this is the only Matthean section where an ordering of Mark against Matthew indicates great disarray in Mark's order. Since this line of reasoning goes against Marcan priority, it is a further reason why modern scholarship desires to dismiss Papias's statements. Regarding the role of Peter, it would seem that either theological commitment or vagaries of oral transmission caused any part he played in the creation of the Gospel of Mark to become highly distorted. Certainly nothing in Mark suggests that Peter was its source, and it has been noted that Mark's gospel treats Peter relatively negatively.31 Mark follows Matthew so closely from Mt 12 on, except for omissions and numerous pleonasms, that in no way could it consist of Peter's teachings independent of Matthew. Consequently most scholars have logically refused to accept that Peter was Mark's source. If he had been, surely its writer would have named his gospel after Peter. Yet one finds other patristic evidence, to be discussed next, indicating that Peter, while in Rome with (John) Mark,32 did play some role in the creation of Mark's gospel. Upon application of coverup criticism, a plausible explanation for both Peter's role and the irregular behavior of Mark's writer noted by Papias will emerge. 4. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA ON MARK Regarding Mark, Eusebius relayed the following from Clement of Alexandria. "And in the same books Clement has set down a tradition which he had received from the elders before him, in regard to the order of the Gospels, to the following effect. He says that the Gospels containing the genealogies were written first [or openly published],33 and [but] that the Gospel according to Mark was composed in the following circumstances -- Peter having preached the word publicly at Rome, and by the Spirit proclaimed the Gospel, those who were present, who were numerous, entreated Mark, inasmuch as he had attended him from an early period, and remembered what had been said, to write down what had been spoken. On his composing the Gospel, he handed it to those who had made the request to him; which coming to Peter's knowledge, he neither hindered nor encouraged. But John, the last of all.... composed a spiritual Gospel."34 To make sense out of (a) Peter's role here as also espoused by Papias and inferred by Justin (in his Dialogue with Trypho, chap. 106), and (b) the fact that the Gospel of Mark is not any writing of Peter, it has recently been postulated that the writing in Rome was not actually Peter's memoirs but was a very short, original gospel possessed by him but written by the true disciple-writer.35 The aforementioned comparison of the orders of Matthew and Mark, allowing for the likelihood of Matthean priority, would then indicate that Peter's "memoirs" consisted mainly of the contents of Mt 8-11. A plausible scenario to account for this is that the original disciple-writer started setting down events of Jesus' ministry upon joining the Twelve soon after the Sermon on the Mount, but that at a point corresponding to about Mt 12:1 his writing was stolen -- probably by a Pharisee at the urging of a chief priest who was seeking evidence of blasphemy. Some years after the crucifixion, Peter was able to recover this writing, since it no longer held any value to the Jewish priesthood, and later took it with him to Rome, with John Mark either accompanying him or joining him there. Mark, who was literate while Peter the fisherman was not, then became the custodian and distributor of this recovered short gospel, possibly translating it into Latin or Greek. Meanwhile, the original disciple-writer, when situated in a less insecure environment, composed his lengthy gospel, which included most of what he had written earlier though in slightly different wording; much later yet this original gospel, or hearsay from it, came to be known to Papias as the Logia. This hypothesis, which can be called the stolen-writing hypothesis, is consistent with our previous use of coverup criticism because it explains why Peter did not encourage Mark to circulate the recovered stolen writing (which will be called Ur-Marcus for short),36 even though its dissemination may have been limited to those believers in Jesus who pleaded for it. That is, Ur-Marcus must have contained certain attributes that did not agree with what Paul had been preaching, if it mirrored a part of the contents of the later, heretical Logia that the compiler of Matthew could not accept without first redacting it excessively. It is understandable that by mid-first century Peter would not dare, even with Ur-Marcus in hand, to strongly challenge the view already made dominant by Paul that God had offered his Son "as an expiation by his blood" for the sins of those having faith in Jesus the Christ.37 Peter had probably learned better than to challenge Paul after having confronted him in Antioch, where Paul considered Peter to be one who did not follow the way of truth and who caused others to act insincerely (Gal 2:11-14). This reasoning is consistent with the fact of Paul having fallen out with John Mark (Acts 15:37-40), and with the third evangelist having ceased all mention of Peter after Acts 15. Peter had become an embarrassment, until after the Gospels appeared and Ur- Marcus was retired from sight. With this hypothesis, then, Ur-Marcus languished in Rome for many decades, for one reason because neither John Mark nor later scribes there had the audacity to render it sanctionable until after Matthew's gospel appeared. Then it became apparent how such editing could be accomplished -- through rendering the resulting gospel, which would be named after Mark, theologically consistent for the most part with Matthew. A second reason is that Ur-Marcus was missing all the important events of the Passion and most of the teachings, and so did not in itself begin to constitute a complete gospel. The stolen-writing hypothesis can also explain precisely what Papias may have had in mind in saying that Mark did not maintain a correct order of events. After Matthew appeared, a key scribe in Rome who was proficient in Hebrew and Aramaic recognized that Ur-Marcus contained the very events described within a section of the new Gospel of Matthew. This scribe -- the second evangelist -- apparently perceived that by adding onto Ur-Marcus much necessary material from Matthew, he could construct a complete gospel of his own for use by gentiles, which would in part be more original than the Gospel of Matthew. In so doing, however, it is not implausible that this scribe would have scattered or transposed most of the contents of the short Ur-Marcus section into the longer sections he had copied from Matthew, for the purpose of legitimizing his whole gospel. As a result, many of the Ur-Marcus events that paralleled Mt 8-11 became placed in incorrect order. But he seems to have taken care to include almost all of those events, as noted by Papias. (An apparent exception is the healing of the centurion's servant, which might, however, have been omitted from his source by the writer of Matthew and later reinstated by the one who translated Matthew from Hebraic into Greek.) As already noted, Eusebius would perforce refer to this scribe as Mark himself. Again, the motivation for the compiler of Mark to have made this rearrangement of pericopes would have been to create a distinct gospel for the Roman church. Otherwise, his result would have consisted of only the short Ur- Marcus section preceded and followed by longer sections that had been tacked on whole from Matthew, except for omitted portions and added pleonasms, and it would then obey Matthew's order unceasingly and look like nothing else than an abbreviated form of Matthew. He seems to have been so successful at thus making his gospel have a different appearance from Matthew that future analysts would even opt for Marcan priority over Matthew. There are too many outstanding Gospel puzzles that this hypothesis plausibly solves, besides making sense of the witness from Papias and Clement of Alexandria, to present here. However, one that should not go unmentioned is the greater detail and vividness of many of Mark's healing pericopes relative to Matthew's, despite Mark being much the shorter of the two gospels. This is a well known feature,38 which is to be expected if Ur-Marcus was a current chronicling of Jesus' ministry while the same disciple's lengthy later writing (Papias's Logia) was set down from his memory only years afterwards. What Donald Guthrie noted in comparing Matthew with Mark is then fully explained: "Matthew [i.e. its compiler] has had time to reflect upon the events that he records and give more attention to their significance than to their vividness."39 Two other features simultaneously explained are Mark's more primitive, less polished Greek form and its Semitic style:40 the writer of Mark was writing his gospel for gentiles and therefore in Greek, while translating from a Semitic Matthew in heavily utilizing that gospel. This gave his Greek a somewhat Semitic character. That is, Matthew was not translated into Greek until later, after Mark, Luke and John had appeared. Probably also Ur- Marcus, as utilized by the compiler of Mark, was still in Aramaic and so had to be translated into Greek by the second evangelist before he could make use of its more vivid pericopes. It is practically certain that the compiler of Mark would have noticed that the pericopes within Ur-Marcus contained greater detail and color than the parallel pericopes within Matthew (Mt 8-11). It is likely, then, that he therefore would have sought to incorporate this feature into his annexations from Matthew, so that the Gospel of Mark would have a similar or uniform style throughout. However, this would often lead to fictitious additions that were superfluous, an example of which is the "green grass" of Mk 6:39 in comparison with the "grass" of Mt 14:19. There was no need whatsoever to mention the color of the grass, which may actually have been sparse or more brown than green. With the use of coverup criticism, Mark's pleonasms, which are both numerous and pervasive,41 are also seen to be a part of the compiler's procedure of inserting his own style throughout so that the resulting Gospel of Mark would have its own appearance and identity, distinct from that of its main source, Matthew. With this solution to the formations of Matthew and Mark, we see that it was appropriate that the two relevant statements from Papias did not state that either one held priority. Although those relatively few pieces within Mark that stemmed from Ur-Marcus did hold priority, the rest was secondary to Matthew. 5. MOTIVATIONS FOR THE GOSPELS The use of coverup criticism permits logical motivations to be assigned to the (late) appearance of each of the Gospels. As already noted, the compiling of the Gospel of Matthew is seen as motivated by the appearance of the Logia on the scene in Palestine, and by its wealth of information, however heretical it may have been. The Gospel of Mark was then motivated by the appearance of Matthew, combined with the early holding by the church in Rome of the Ur-Marcus document that John Mark had once tried to promote. As will be discussed shortly, it was apparently additionally motivated by the need for a gospel in Rome that would extend discipleship in no uncertain terms to gentiles, which Matthew did not. Following the bulk of the patristic evidence, Luke was third, and was motivated primarily by the need for a "universal" gospel, since Mark omits so much from Matthew that was of interest to Christians of Jewish background. Thus Luke was written for both gentiles and Jewish Christians, while including the many pericopes of uncertain origin -- Luke's special material -- which this evangelist wished to insert. What coverup criticism can add here is that this evangelist appears to have been one of those referred to by Papias who had had some access to the Logia, while the compiler of Mark in Rome would not have been. The third evangelist would then have known what the first evangelist omitted from the Logia and altered, and likely would not have gone along with some of Matthew's contents. This would explain Luke's different or complementary nativity narrative, for example, and its different post-entombment appearances. Most important for 20th-century scholarship, it can explain what may seem like improbable editorial behavior on the part of the third evangelist as to the manner in which he incorporated material from Mark and Matthew, to be discussed briefly. 6. THE CONTINUING HOLD OF THEOLOGICAL COMMITMENT Several reasons have already been expressed why New Testament scholasticism came to realize that adoption of Marcan priority along with the Q hypothesis would lead to a much smaller violation of theological commitment than would the continuation of the previous Augustinian (Matthew-Mark-Luke) order of gospel priorities. Unfortunately, these are reasons that can be aired only upon acceptance of coverup criticism. An additional reason not yet addressed here concerns the "less reverential" treatment within Mark of the disciples than within Matthew. Relative to Matthew, which we see as having appeared first, one must face up to the likelihood that the second evangelist in multiple spots purposely portrayed the disciples as less comprehending, sometimes as disrespectful to their lord, and sometimes as being treated disrespectfully by him.42 With the use of coverup criticism, one sees that these "unflattering warts" within Mark, as they for example are referred to by Eugene Lemcio,43 were probably inserted to show that the Jewish disciples were not very competent; by comparison, then, gentiles would be seen as making better disciples. This was part of the second evangelist's theme that discipleship should be extended to gentiles. Since Matthew strongly implied that discipleship should not be extended to gentiles,44 however, it may be even more probable that the second evangelist's subtle alterations against the Jewish disciples were designed to inflict a bit of literary retribution upon the first evangelist for his gospel's anti-gentile barbs. Since the preceding reasoning is quite manifest and entirely plausible, it must be concluded that only theological commitment or fear of ostracism has prevented it from being presented openly heretofore. Otherwise, the embarrassments for the church to be found within the foregoing statements by Papias and Clement of Alexandria would long ago have been linked together in a similar manner to that presented here. Another reason why Marcan, rather than Matthean, priority came to be desired is that it became theologically inconceivable to suppose that the writer of Mark would have omitted Matthew's Sermon on the Mount and most of the parables. Canon Streeter expressed this by saying that the writer of Mark would have had to be a "lunatic" for omitting these portions from Matthew, if Matthew had come first,45 and his views were very influential in shaping the present consensus of Marcan priority. However, the Sermon not only contains a significant number of Judaisms that could have been considered non-essential for gentiles,46 but its frequent pacifistic theme (an emphasis upon humility, not becoming angry, making friends with your enemy and loving him, and not resisting an evil person) appears to have been unappealing to the second evangelist.47 Again, this is evident in hindsight, but absent from available scholarship due to the pressures from theological commitment. The fact that Mark does contain some seven verses that lie within Matthew's Sermon on the Mount by itself suggests that the second evangelist extracted them from Matthew rather than the first evangelist having constructed a sermon around them from Mark.48 As to the second evangelist's omission of the parables, it is entirely logical that he wished to utilize no more than absolutely necessary from Matthew so that his church's Ur-Marcus material would not be totally swamped within the greater mass of Matthean material. Another reason could be that the parables were not easy to understand -- even today different interpretations exist for most of them, and when Mark was being formed there had not yet been time for the clergy to debate the meanings of the parables within Matthew. So he could dispense with them. There is a further basic explanation why early 20th-century scholarship no longer wished to maintain the Augustinian order of Gospel priorities. It had become well known that Luke closely follows Mark's order (and content) in sections where Mark's order of pericopes deviates strongly from Matthew's order, while often striking off on its own or introducing its own special material in sections where Matthew and Mark agree in order. Also, those passages of Luke that have parallels in Matthew but are absent from Mark do not follow Matthew's order very well. If the third evangelist had based his gospel upon both Mark and Matthew, then such editorial behavior on his part did not seem to make sense. As Streeter expressed it, the writer of Luke would then have to be considered a "crank" for taking Matthean passages not in Mark out of order and placing them into inappropriate places within his own gospel.49 Streeter's opinion here helped the Mark-Q priority hypothesis gain supremacy, since Luke could then be assumed to have been written independently of Matthew. Even though a wealth of studies before and since have indicated Luke to be multiply dependent upon Matthew and Q to be non-historical, theological commitment could not tolerate the thought that Luke's writer might have to be considered a "crank." This consideration has also played a large role in explaining why supporters of the Griesbach hypothesis desire to place Luke second and Mark third.50 With the use of coverup criticism, however, we can understand that the third evangelist not only supported and approved of Mark for its theme of discipleship for gentiles, he disapproved of Matthew for its anti-gentile tone. For example, in Acts 10-11 the writer of Luke/Acts set forth pericopes that would provide gentiles with equal justification to become disciples as the Jews had. In giving his writing a mid-1st-century setting, he noted in Acts 10:28 that it was considered unlawful "for a Jew to associate with or to visit any one of another nation [i.e. a gentile]." It could only have incensed him earlier to see that the first gospel was written by a late holdout for this anti-gentile position, which would still try to exclude gentiles from discipleship. 51 Thus the prevailing consensus of Mark-Q priority, though being forced to admit a dependence between Matthew and Mark, and between Luke and Mark, continues to postulate that the writer of Luke did not know Matthew. As already mentioned, the third evangelist could also express his distaste for Matthew's gospel by correcting that gospel in places from his first-hand knowledge of the Logia. However, because of the latter's heresies this was dangerous ground to tread, so for the most part he accepted Matthew's solutions as to the omission or alteration of Logia material. The preceding explanation for the third evangelist's editorial behavior is not meant to detract from the good points of his character, which include his tendency to have been a conciliator (as between antagonistic Petrine and Pauline groups). He also corrected numerous minor errors within Mark and improved upon its text by eliminating pleonasms. This process generated a considerable number of minor agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark.52 However, the fact that these agreements are referred to as minor reminds us that he greatly preferred Mark over Matthew. While giving some credit to the third evangelist, we may acknowledge the first two also, in that the compiler of Matthew did at least recognize the value of the Logia, outside of its heresies, rather than trashing it altogether. And the second evangelist did stick rather closely to his two sources (Ur-Marcus and Matthew) without adding any large segments of his own and omitting few pericopes from Ur-Marcus.53 From the present analysis of exposing fresh solutions previously unconsidered due to theological commitment dating back to the second century, we see that the basis of present-day New Testament scholarship is in dire need of a complete reevaluation. To summarize some salient points, the numerous and evident redactions within the Gospel of Matthew that prevent it from being a unitary document are best explained as the result of editorial additions and alterations made to the Logia rather than to Mark. Mark's great dependence upon Matthew, its out-of-order sections, its "warts," and its literary style all become very understandable. The reason why Q is so "incongruous" and its character "formless and invertebrate,"54 is because it is nothing more than those portions of Matthew that the writer of Mark omitted and which the third evangelist reinstated within Luke. However, much of these and related topics lies outside the scope of the present study. Finally we return to a question posed initially as to what the Logia may have contained that caused it to be considered heretical and caused the knowledge of its existence and contents to be almost completely suppressed. For answers, I believe we must reanalyze Matthew with the fresh perspective introduced here while reconsidering what elements of truth may have lain behind various Gnostic beliefs.55 If in the process theological commitment can be totally abandoned without abandoning the important clues from both the internal evidence and the patristic evidence, great progress can be expected in uncovering a remarkable story lying beneath the veil that presently obscures the origins of the Gospels. ENDNOTES 1. Marcus J. Borg, "Me & Jesus: The Journey Home," Fourth R 6 (July/August 1993): 3-9. See also "The Jesus Seminar: Voting Records," Forum 6 (March 1990) 3-55. 2. Burton Mack, A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988); Richard Horsley, Sociology and the Jesus Movement (New York: Crossroad, 1989). For summaries, see Marcus Borg, "Portraits of Jesus in contemporary North American scholarship," HTR 84 (1991): 1-22. 3. Arthur J. Bellinzoni, "The Gospel of Matthew in the Second Century," The Second Century 9 (1992): 235-256. 4. Bellinzoni, "Matthew in the Second Century," 239-254. 5. J. Goodspeed, Matthew: Apostle and Evangelist (Philadelphia: John Winston Co., 1959), 90-91. This is not to infer that redactions designed to imitate the style of such original text are not also prevalent within the Gospels, that the section of Matthew just cited is devoid of all redactions, or that Goodspeed was necessarily correct in assuming that the disciple Matthew wrote the gospel accorded to him. 6. An example of the latter is the feeding of the four thousand, relative to the feeding of the five thousand. See Francis Beare, The Gospel according to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981) 347. 7. Bellinzoni, "Matthew in the Second Century," 206-207. 7.1. ANF, vol. 1, p. 47. 8. See the ending sections of Ignatius's epistles to the Philadelphians and to the Smyrnaeans, and Section II of his epistle to the Ephesians. 9. E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 333-334. 10. C. M. Tuckett, "1 Corinthians and Q," JBL 102 (1983): 607- 619. 11. Eusebius, Ecumenical History (EH) 3.39.16. The translation of the Greek here and subsequently is from A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, eds., Ante-Nicene Fathers (ANF), vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956). 13. Eusebius, EH 3.39.1. 14. See William R. Farmer, The Synoptic Problem, 2nd Ed. (Macon: Mercer University Pres, 1976) 15. 15. Burnette Hillman Streeter, The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (London: Macmillan and Co., 1964) 19. 16. Orchard and Riley, Order of the Synoptics 170. Although we refer frequently to their study because of their in- depth presentations, we cannot agree with their conclusions that stem from forcing the last of the synoptic gospels to have been written before the death of Peter. 17. E.g., see Beare, Gospel according to Matthew, 62ff. 18. It was already the practice by the late second century, since Irenaeus spoke of the Gospel names as being their writers. See Beare, Gospel according to Matthew, 7, regarding modern scholars' perpetuation of the name Matthew as author being done "only for convenience." 19. Although we have argued that the original source document, the Logia, had been written by a disciple, it was evidently not brought into view until some time in the early second century, some decades after the disciple-writer would have died. If the disciple Matthew had been this writer, however, there is no good reason why that fact would not have been brought out within that gospel and brought out in more definite terms by Eusebius and others. For a discussion of the identity of this writer consistent with coverup criticism, see my book The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins (San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992) 63-73. 20. Papias is also cited by Eusebius (EH 3.39.4) as preferring the verbal testimony of the elders or presbyters over written testimony from books. This implies that he was aware that the newly composed gospels did not closely reflect the contents of their original source. 21. See Orchard and Riley, Order of the Synoptics, 171, 185, as well as Eusebius, EH 3.39.8-13. 22. My discussion is not meant to imply, however, that Papias's views here were necessarily correct or that Eusebius rendered them accurately. 23. Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), xxii. 24. Thomas A. Robinson, The Bauer Thesis Examined: The Geography of Heresy in the Early Christian Church (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988), 199; Michel Desjardins, "Bauer and beyond: On recent scholarly discussions of Airesis in the early Christian era," The Second Century 8 (1991) 65-68. 25. Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 3rd Ed. (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1970), 25. 26. Michael D. Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London; SPCK, 1974), xiii, 5-6, 13-27, 70. 27. Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 43-44; Ralph P. Martin, New Testament Foundations, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975). 28. These are Mt 5:47, 6:7, 6:32, 10:5, 10:18, 15:24, 15:31, 18:17 and 20:25. The main passage to the contrary, Mt 28:19- 20, appears to be a late addition to Matthew; see George Howard, "A note on the short ending of Matthew," HTR 81, (1988): 117-120. 29. Orchard and Riley, Order of the Synoptics, 190. 30. Eusebius, EH 3.39.15. 31. Pierson Parker, "The posteriority of Mark," in New Synoptic Studies, W. R. Farmer, ed. (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1983), 85. 32. Although the present study does not absolutely require that John Mark of Acts 12:12 be the man whom the Gospel of Mark is named after, he is here taken to be him to avoid confusing the Gospel with the man. 33. A strong case has recently been made that "first" in the sense used in the Greek "pro" meaning "before" actually meant "before the people," rather than "before" in time; i.e., Matthew and Luke were early set forth before the people but Mark was not. See Carlson, Stephen C., "Clement of Alexandria on the 'Order' of the Gospels," New Testament Studies 47 (2001) 118-125. This new interpretation fits the context better than the old one. 34. Eusebius, EH 6.14.6-8. 35. Deardorff, New Testament Gospel Origins, 23-62. This document I had called Urmarcus, though proto-Mark may be a more appropriate name if it suggests a shorter document. 36. For a discussion of the history of the Ur-Marcus hypothesis, see Farmer, Synoptic Problem, 38-43, 88-95. 37. See Rom. 1:4 and 3:24-25. 38. E.g., see Gunther Bornkamm, Gerhard Barth and Heinz Joachim Held, Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963), 166-167. 39. Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 42. 40. Streeter, Four Gospels, 297. 41. C. M. Tuckett, The Revival of the Griesbach Hypothesis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 20. 42. See Parker, "The posteriority of Mark," 82-84. 43. Eugene E. Lemcio, The Past of Jesus in the Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 49. 44. Mt 5:47, 6:7, 6:32, 10:5, 10:18, 15:24, 15:31, 18:17 and 20:25. 45. Streeter, Four Gospels, 158. 46. Some 30 of its 111 verses fit into this category. 47. For a discussion of some 10 Marcan deviations from Matthew that point to the second evangelist as having been of a more militant disposition and desirous of portraying Jesus in a more royal fashion and as more aggressive, see Deardorff, New Testament Gospel Origins, 86-87. 48. These verses are Mt 5:13 = Mk 9:50, Mt 5:15 = Mk 4:21, Mt 6:14-15 = Mk 11:25b-26, Mt 7:2 = Mk 4:24, Mt 7:22 = Mk 9:38-39, Mt 7:29 = Mk 1:22. 49. Streeter, Four Gospels, 183. 50. Farmer, Synoptic Problem, 211-215. 51. Horne, Thomas Hartwell, An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, H. Alford, ed. (London, 4th Ed., 1823), vol. 4, p. 285. The works of Horne, being old and out of circulation, may be difficult to acquire. His quotation is more easily found in John Wenham's Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1992), p. 3 and its footnote 8. 52. Deardorff, New Testament Gospel Origins, 104, 134, 140-148, 165, 168-170. 53. The contents of this Ur-Marcus are have been fairly well deduced; see Deardorff, New Testament Gospel Origins, 57-62. 54. H. G. Jameson, The Origin of the Synoptic Gospels (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1922), 44. 55. Not only did early Christian leaders consider the Gnostics as enemies, but similarly various Gnostic authors spoke of Christians as heretics; see Birger A. Pearson, Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), chap. 12. See also Deardorff, New Testament Gospel Origins, 185-201. Go Back to: Top of Document Go Back to: Contents THE AUTHOR OF THE TJ SCROLLS The TJ's author. When Isa Rashid started reading into the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) scrolls, he soon learned that Judas Iscariot was listed as the author. This must have taken him very much by surprise, but with the aged Aramaic scrolls in front of him, he was in no position to doubt its truth. Further in the TJ, Rashid could translate that Judas, who was the only one of the twelve disciples who could read and write, had been assigned the task of writing down Jmmanuel's ministry and teachings as well as being their treasurer (as indicated also in the Gospel of John). The TJ relates that Judas, who probably joined the group of disciples after the Sermon on the Mount, soon started chronicling the events of Jmmanuel's ministry. However, this writing was stolen from Judas's belongings at a point in time only a little later than when Jmmanuel and his disciples had walked through the grainfield on the sabbath, plucking and eating ears of grain (Matthew 12:1). The theft caused Judas to postpone writing any more until he could find a secure place to do it, which did not occur until two or more years after the crucifixion, after Judas joined Jmmanuel, his mother and Judas-Thomas in Damascus. Then, although he had to write it all over again from memory, Judas Iscariot (not to be confused with Judas-Thomas, one of Jmmanuel's brothers) could tap Jmmanuel's memory on many items. So for his later, more complete writing, Judas learned from Jmmanuel and Mary all about his genealogy and nativity, with which he could begin the TJ. I suspect that Jmmanuel re-dictated the Sermon on the Mount to him, and that only after that point could Judas rely to some extent on his own memory. He continued his writing of events as they transpired in India, also, until his death. Then the writing was taken over by Jmmanuel's oldest son, who carried the scrolls, plus their transcription, along the Silk Road back to the West after Jmmanuel died in the early 2nd century. Thus, the TJ and the Gospels (and also the Gnostic writings) had a late start, since the TJ was not completed until after Jmmanuel's death. The summary of highlights from the latter portions of the TJ scrolls/rolls that never survived for translation was made known to Meier later in 1963 by Rashid, after he had made an initial read-through of them. How was it, then, that Judas did not commit suicide? What the TJ relates, which of course did not get carried over into the Gospel of Matthew, is that the person who pointed Jmmanuel out to the arresting party with a kiss, on the night in which he was betrayed, was a young Pharisee by the name of Juda Ihariot, who had been an acquaintance of Jmmanuel and the disciples. But after he saw the beating Jmmanuel received and heard that the Sanhedrin had given him a death sentence, he suffered remorse and went off and committed suicide. But this is only half the story. It occurred to one of the chief priests, who had been trying to undermine Jmmanuel's credibility and authority (as suggested even in Mt 21:23 and 21:45-46), to initiate a rumor that it had been Judas Iscariot who had betrayed his lord and soon after committed suicide, not Juda Ihariot. With the names being so similar, it was especially easy for him to initiate this rumor, circulate it within the synagogues, and let it gradually become tradition. Doing this also spared Juda's father some embarrassment over his son's suicide, as he was an important Pharisee. Many decades later, after the TJ scrolls had been delivered back to the west and the transcription had reached the hands of the writer of Matthew, this writer must have recoiled to see that Judas Iscariot was stated to be its author. Since the writer of Matthew had no doubt himself been a Pharisee and probably a scribe as well, before converting to Christianity, he would have known of the tradition that Judas Iscariot had been a traitor. Thus it is perfectly understandable that this writer could not have put Judas Iscariot's name onto his gospel, which he instead attributed to the disciple Matthew. Subsequent gospel writers would follow suit and attribute their gospels to others also, but with the name Matthew used up, there were really no credible names left for them to utilize. It also becomes more understandable that the writer of Matthew would have no qualms about editing his source document very heavily, since it was written by the detested Judas Iscariot; perhaps he did not even believe that Judas had written it and instead trusted the false tradition that he had committed suicide. Gospel clues that support the TJ story. There are a number of important clues: (a) Some scholars have long wondered why one of Jesus' disciples would betray him for just a relatively small amount of money. It didn't make much sense. (b) The Last Supper conversation in which Judas supposedly asked Jesus "Is it I, Lord?" regarding the betrayer, and received a positive response, has often been criticized. Why didn't the other disciples immediately become upset and attempt to restrain Judas? Or, if the conversation were whispered, how did it later become known to a gospel writer, what with Judas and Jesus both supposedly dead soon? With the TJ's story, one can realize that the writer of Matthew not only altered the TJ's "Juda Ihariot" into "Judas Iscariot" at this point, but also invented an altered supper conversation to accompany it. The invented verses weren't quite well enough thought out to be free from later objections, however. (c) The kiss by which the betrayer pointed Jesus out to the arresting party doesn't make sense if it had been bestowed by Judas Iscariot, so soon after having supped with his lord. Instead of allaying any suspicions Jesus would have had that foul play was afoot, it would only have intensified those suspicions. But the kiss having been given by Juda Ihariot, as the TJ indicates, and in a pose of reconciliation, does make sense, as he would not have seen Jmmanuel for some days or weeks. There is only this one kissing event in the Gospels that might give rise to a supposition that Jesus had been kissed out of reverence. (d) Paul did not seem to know that Judas Iscariot was a betrayer or had committed suicide. He doesn't discuss suicide, using Judas as an example, when he might well have done so. (The Communion litany in 1 Cor 11:23 is believed by many analysts to be a later addition.) He never mentions "the eleven" (disciples), and when he once mentions the twelve (1 Cor 15:5) it was in the temporal frame of being very shortly after the crucifixion. At the early time of his writings, it is extremely doubtful that "the twelve" had already become a synonym for "the apostles," however many their number. Thus, Paul possibly never knew about the rumor that Judas Iscariot was a betrayer and had committed suicide, or more likely knew for sure who had been the betrayer but was honest enough after his conversion not to spread a false rumor. There are several Gnostic writings that also seem unaware of Judas's supposed role as a betrayer who committed suicide, as they also mention "the twelve" or "the twelve disciples" after the crucifixion when only eleven would have been appropriate according to the tradition. These occur in the Gospel of Peter (14:2), in the Coptic manuscript "Sophia Jesu Christi" (2nd verse), in the title to the tractate "The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles," in the Apocryphon of James (2:14), and twice in the Ascension of Isaiah. It is also found in the primitive Hebrew text of Matthew translated by George Howard [The Gospel of Matthew according to a Primitive Hebrew Text (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987; 28:16)]. Thus it very much seems as if the rumor/tradition of Judas being a betrayer and having committed suicide shortly before the crucifixion did not become widely known until it was placed within the first Gospel. More on the naming of the Gospels. Modern scholars tend to believe that the Gospels did not receive their names or attributions until close to mid-second century. This is because of all the writings by early Christian fathers up to that time, none mention a Gospel by name. Actually, no writing even definitely cites Gospel verses, even without naming a Gospel, until around A.D. 135 (the possible exception of Ignatius is discussed in my home page). However, the same scholars mostly tend to believe that the Gospels were nevertheless written within 1-3 decades after A.D. 70. They can then argue that if the Gospels had been given their names back then, it would be inconceivable that this wouldn't have been mentioned in the appropriate Christian literature. More conservative scholars, following Martin Engel, have argued that it would be unthinkable that the Gospels could have circulated without names for some six decades, and then suddenly show up with names attached. And if their names had been attached late, as the modern scholars deduce, why would such improbable names as Mark and Luke, who were not even apostles, have been chosen as their authors, unless they actually had been their writers or had been closely attached to the gospels' formation? Both arguments are extremely convincing, within their assumptive frameworks. Yet the TJ provides the solutions to this dilemma. Since the TJ didn't arrive on the scene in the Palestinian or Anatolian area until a decade or two into the 2nd century, and only soon after that was the first Gospel written, this explains why the Gospels weren't mentioned by name before then. This voids the key point of the above arguments by both the modern scholars and the conservative scholars. And as to why the writers of the Gospels chose inappropriate names to attribute the authorship to, they could not have used Judas, as already mentioned. The writer of Matthew had already substituted the name of the disciple who had been a tax collector to attribute his gospel to. Since Mark (John Mark) had been in Rome with Peter, so the external evidence says, and they had had some written document with them (which could have been the stolen writing, recovered later by Peter), that writer attributed his gospel to Mark. The writer of Luke didn't know of any other disciple who could read and write to attribute his gospel to, and so chose Luke the physician, a friend of Paul, whose views the writer of Luke seems to have favored. (His gospel may well have been written in Antioch, the abode of Luke according to tradition). The writer of the Gospel of John apparently felt it was more important to attribute his gospel to one of the twelve disciples than to be concerned about whether the disciple could read and write. In summary, there are very compelling reasons why the TJ's story of Judas Iscariot being its author needs to be treated very seriously indeed. Go Back to: Contents The TJ's Heresies for Judaism as well as Christianity It is easy to understand why the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) is so heretical for Christianity, as it indicates that: (a) Jmmanuel survived the crucifixion and was not resurrected, (b) resurrection is thus a false concept, but reincarnation is a true one, (c) Jmmanuel did not come to save mankind from their sins, (d) Instead of teaching God's forgiveness of sins, Jmmanuel emphasized learning from one's mistakes, (e) he was not the Son of God or divine, and (f) his true name had not even been Jesus. But it may not be as clear why the TJ, in the form of its original Aramaic scrolls, was treated as being heretical for Judaism by high Israeli officials who had been informed about it. Here are some of the reasons as I see it, listed in order of importance: (a) The TJ indicates that Jmmanuel's teachings were quite distinct from those of the Old Testament, the latter having been fed into the first Christian Gospel by the writer of Matthew, who had been a Jewish scribe before converting. Hence the reverence that Christian religions place upon the Hebrew Scriptures -- the Old Testament (OT)-- would conceivably be totally undermined if the TJ's authenticity and content were to be made public. If this occurred, Americans' sympathy towards Israel as the seat of its Christian religious heritage would vanish, along with their political and economic support for Israel. Such a situation would be intolerable from both Jewish and Christian viewpoints. (b) In the TJ Jmmanuel teaches that the Jewish God (Yahweh or El) is not the true God, or Universal Consciousness, but rather was an advanced human or humanoid. Nowadays many of us would identify such an entity as an ET alien, but two thousand years ago this could not have been understood. This in turn opens the door to interpreting angels as aliens, sky chariots and pillars of cloud or fire as UFOs, and similarly identifying other elements of OT Merkabah mysticism. All this is truly blasphemous to mainstream Judaism, and was the true reason, not expressed in the Gospels, why Jesus' teachings were considered blasphemous by the high priest. (c) In the TJ, Jmmanuel expresses the opinion that Israel should not be considered a chosen race, and that the land of Israel was unjustly acquired from others through abominable wars. This of course goes against everything that Zionism stands for. (d) Although the TJ does not contain the many allusions to OT verses that Matthew does, it nevertheless contains some scriptural citations, and some of these indicate that the OT version is inaccurate and incomplete. The implication is that the ETs who planned Jmmanuel's mission knew what they or their predecessors had implanted into the minds of some of the OT prophets, especially Isaiah, and imparted this information to Jmmanuel also, during his 40-day period of intense learning under the tutorship of his contacting ETs. The implication that the Hebrew Scriptures contain inaccuracies and gaps would not be acceptable to Jewish fundamentalists. (e) Jmmanuel's teachings on reincarnation would be just as repugnant to mainstream Judaism as they are to mainstream Christianity. For these reasons, one sees that leaders within both Christianity and Judaism who had become informed of the TJ and its heresies would have had reason to team up together against this common threat, as indicated in Rashid's letter to Meier. Although at the time the TJ was discovered, the discovery site, being on the West Bank, was under Jordanian authority, it was well after the 1967 war, when Israel took control of the area, that knowledge of the TJ somehow reached Israeli authorities. It is not known just how news about the contents of the TJ leaked out, however. But some time prior to mid-1974 it apparently did leak out, perhaps due to the difficulty for Rashid to keep his translation activities a secret for so long, since his wife, for one, must have known what he was involved with. Rashid may also have confided in a friend or two in Jerusalem about the TJ, or perhaps have occasionally consulted experts in the Aramaic language at Hebrew University as to how best translate this or that word. The existent TJ translation is no threat to Judaism or Christianity, however, since definite proof of its Aramaic origins is lacking (though the German version does show some Aramaisms and many signs of deriving from an ancient document). Anyone who might feel threatened by it has only to claim that it was composed by a literary hoaxer. Go Back to: Contents Translation of Letter from Rashid to Meier Page 297 of the 2nd edition of the Talmud of Jmmanuel, Wild Flower Press Page 267 of the 3rd edition of the Talmud of Jmmanuel, Wild Flower Press Page 236 of the 4th edition of the Talmud of Jmmanuel, Steelmark LLC Baghdad, September 14.9.1974 Poste Restante Head Post Office Baghdad IRAQ Dear Friend Billy: I am sorry, dear friend, for not having written so long and for not being able to send you additional translations of the rolls of writing ["schriftrollen" in German]. That has its reason in my fears which unfortunately have come true now. As I always told you, I was prepared that one day I would be persecuted on account of the discovered rolls of writing. That has happened now. Just barely was I able to flee from Jerusalem with my family. Now I am staying with good friends in Baghdad where, however, I cannot stay long and must move on soon. Where to, I don't know yet, but I will notify you as soon as possible. I have been persecuted by two different groups, both Christians and Jews, which was to be anticipated, because the rolls are not favorable towards either religion. After my lucky escape a misfortune struck me, which cannot be made undone. First I fled from Jerusalem to Lebanon and stayed there at a refugee camp with my family. But there the Jews located me and, with their military, attacked the camp, which resulted in many deaths. With great difficulty my family and I escaped the massacre and we were able to flee once more. But unfortunately all rolls of writing got lost and they are no longer in my possession. I believe they all burned when the Jews destroyed the homes by fire, but maybe they fell into the hands of the Jews? Then the Israelis announced that they had undertaken a punitive action against Palestinian guerillas. However, in reality, they, together with some people from the Christian church, were after me and my scrolls. By means of the alleged punitive action they were now able to cover up and falsify the actual reason and purpose of their venture. And because of the disappearance of the original rolls, any proof is missing that the New Testament of the Bible is an outrageous lie whereby mankind is condemned. Dear friend, unfortunately these are the latest bare facts and I do hope that you and your family will not meet with the same fate as I. After all, you do have 36 chapters of the Talmud Jmmanuel and they do represent an immense danger to Christianity, the Jewish faith, Islam and other religions. Therefore be very cautious and see to it that those few existing teachings of Jmmanuel will not get lost. They are really too valuable. I for my part do withdraw from the whole matter because I cannot endanger my family even more. Therefore keep my name and everything else a secret on the occasion of publication. I entreat you to do so. I know that I can always rely on you and thank you for it. You will hear further news from me on occasion and I am sending you my best regards, also from my family. [signed] Isa Rashid [Note: Meier did go ahead and publish Rashid's actual name, which is a common one, but only after learning of his assassination and that of his family in Iraq.] Go Back to: Contents ORIGIN OF THE WORD "TALMUD" One instinctively associates the word "Talmud" with either the Jewish Talmud of Jerusalem or the Babylonian Talmud. Its root Hebrew meaning is "teachings received by a disciple," according to the Encyclopedia Judaica. These two aforementioned talmuds date roughly to the late 4th and 5th centuries A.D., respectively. Thus the Talmud of Jmmanuel, or TJ, apparently predated them by some two or three centuries. (Hopefully my use of the abbreviation "TJ" in the present writings will not be confused with the same abbreviation for the Talmud of Jerusalem.) According to a faculty member of the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations at the University of Chicago, the word "talmud" probably predated the Babylonian Talmud by several centuries. This predating is understandable because the Hebrew and Aramaic word "talmid," which means "pupil" or "one who learns," was used at least a century earlier still, as it occurs in the Old Testament's 1 Chr 25:8. Thus there was ample time for its oral meaning to be augmented from "talmid" and "pupil" into "talmud" or "teachings received by a pupil" by mid-1st-century A.D. The distinction shows up in Aramaic and Hebrew words because, despite vowels not being fully invented at this time, their writing did sometimes make use of the letter "yod" to represent the "i" sound and "vav" to represent the "u" sound. Hence, "talmid" and "talmud" were distinguishable. It turns out that words with a vowel sequence of a,i, such as "talmid," tend to refer to a characteristic of something (e.g., a person with the characteristic of learning, or a pupil). Words with the vowel sequence a,u, as in "talmud," tend to refer to a passive or abstract noun (e.g., that which is learned). It remains a question as to why the word "talmud" was scarcely used in the two centuries preceding the Talmud of Jerusalem. (It was used during this era in the Kohelet Rabbah, a Jewish midrash (commentary) on the book of Ecclesiastes.) Is it possible that the TJ was partly responsible? I.e., was the TJ's circulation within Palestine so brief, before it fell into the hands of the compiler of Matthew, that its title word did not become known and had to re- evolve? Or, were the TJ's heresies for both Judaism and Christianity so severe that for a few centuries after its appearance in the Palestinian area no writer wished to refer to it or entitle his own writing, if of a "talmudic" nature, a talmud? Go Back to: Contents MEIER'S RECOLLECTION OF THE TOMB SITE Around 1960 Isa Rashid was prompted (by the same ETs who later contacted Meier) to locate the tomb site where the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) lay buried. However, from what Meier later learned, Rashid didn't then take any action to explore the site or dig his way into it, and soon forgot just where it was. In 1963, however, when Meier was visiting him and they were walking along outside and south of Jerusalem's Old City, Meier was himself prompted to look out at the hillside and notice a small dark cleft or hole up on the slope, partially obscured by bushes. According to Meier's recollection in August 1997, this hole was about 30 cm, or a foot, on a side. He reached into his packsack for his flashlight and peered into the hole to notice that it continued inwards. So he proceeded to dig away rocks and earth until the hole was large enough that they could crawl inside. (Meier remembers that a shrub growing next to this entrance was a "Meramie" plant.) After more exploring inside the tomb site, they noticed something buried underneath a flat rock, and it turned out to be the TJ scrolls, along with a few small artifacts, wrapped in animal skin encased in resin. Meier's Foreword within the translated TJ document continues the story from there, but gives no description of the tomb, which Meier learned later had been the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, which is mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew. To the best of his 34-year-old recollection, Meier drew the sketch below of a plan view of the tomb. A member of his support group (F.I.G.U.) labeled it in English. The tomb is recollected to have been 3.5 to 4 meters in length; the outside slope of the hill is labeled as having been covered with rock, dirt and bushes. In the rear of the tomb there was a narrow tunnel leading out to what had once been a second entrance, long since blocked with earth. This smaller, second entrance would have faced out onto the slope around a bend from where the tomb's main entrance had been. This was the entrance/exit through which Jmmanuel received medical attention from Joseph and some Hindu friends he had sought out, and from which they exited very early in the morning three days later, according to the TJ. This picture is consistent with guards actually having been posted at the tomb, as in Matthew 27:65-66, to safeguard it from any who would enter in and steal the "body." The TJ indicates that this posting of the guards occurred a day or two earlier than in Matthew (more in keeping with the Gospel of John's timing), and so did not occur on a sabbath when chief priests and Pharisees would have been reluctant to send a deputation to Pilate to ask for the guards. It is not inconceivable that those who helped Jmmanuel recover within the tomb could slip into the secret entrance on the side without being observed or suspected of anything by the guards. Apparently this tomb site has not yet been explored by archaeologists. Ufologist Michael Hesemann of Düsseldorf, Germany, editor of Magazin 2000plus, explored the general area where the tomb was located in July, 1998. He retraced the route that Meier and Rashid had traversed in 1963, to the best of Meier's recollections, while in contact with Meier by cellular phone. It is located along the south slope of the Hinnom Valley not too far from its confluence with the Kidron Valley, and within the Akeldama tombs area, south of the Old City of Jerusalem. This had been a burial ground for foreigners, and Joseph of Arimathea likely was a foreigner to Jerusalem, if Arimathea is equated to Rathamin, which is located some 20 miles northwest of Jerusalem. According to an article by Gideon Avni and Zvi Greenhut in Report #1 of the Israel Antiquities Authority, "The Akeldama tombs" (1996): "The confluence of the Kidron and Hinnom Valleys, south of the Old City of Jerusalem, contains one of Jerusalem's richest concentration of rock-hewn tombs. This area, located in the periphery of the village of Silwan, was one of the main burial grounds of Jerusalem... the use of the south part of the Hinnom Valley as burial grounds for foreigners is mentioned by Antoninus Martyr who visited Jerusalem in about 560 CE." Apparently, years after the Potter's Field was renamed "the Field of Blood" (Akeldama), it became enlarged to encompass adjacent areas of preexisting tombs, including the tombsite of Joseph of Arimathea. The Akeldama site is mentioned by that name in Acts 1:19. From what Hesemann learned, Meier had been informed by one of the Pleiadians/Plejarens (Florena) in June of 1998 that sometime after 1963 the Plejarens had caused a landslide to occur down and over the hillside containing the tombsite. Contact Report #213 of Dec. 2, 1986, clarifies that it was Quetzal who carried out this "landslide" operation. This is very consistent with the Plejaren strategy of ensuring that they do not force truth upon people who are not in any way prepared to accept it, and one way of doing this is to allow original evidence to be destroyed while allowing truth in the form of secondary evidence to be available. According to Quetzal, the reason for destroying the tombsite was to forestall the development of a new Christian cult that would otherwise have occurred. Hesemann believes he located the landslide/rubble ravine, within the Akeldama tombs region, which marks the approximate location. The photograph below (courtesy of Michael Hesemann, July 1998) indicates this area, with the probable site lying a little below the heavy arrowhead, with a question mark situated above at the top of the photo. The photo looks due south, and was shot from just outside the present south wall of the Old City. A second site of lesser probability lies some 50 yards to the right of the first, far underneath a thinner arrowhead and second question mark inserted at the top of the photo. Arrowheads and question marks emplaced by Michael Hesemann Hesemann was impressed that although Meier has not been back there to view the region, the site he described over the cell phone contained the landslide/rubble ravine. It would seem futile, even if permission could be gained, to attempt to detect what is left of the tomb site underneath the rubble, as all the artifacts inside it had been removed in 1963. Go Back to: Contents International Association for Ladakh Studies 11th colloquium Leh, 21-25 July 2003 Douglas 1895 in Ladakh by HJ. Trebst Erlangen, Germany Abstract Prof. J.A. Douglas is a key person for the assessment of the alleged finding by Notovitch of the Issa manuscript in Hemis, relating a sojourn of Jesus in India. Douglas interviewed the abbot of Hemis Gonpa in 1895 resulting in a complete denial of Notovitch's assertion. In this paper the role of political influences and the government, the relation between representatives of the Christian Church on one side and Buddhism on the other side, special personal situations and the important role of Douglas' interpreter are described. They provide the background for Douglas' interview and could have been influential on his results. In 1894 Nicholas Notovitch, a Russian traveller, published a book with a story of a sojourn of Jesus in India, which he maintains to have got from a book in the Hemis Gonpa. His allegation was much objected to by Christian scholars; a crucial basis for the objections is the statement made by Prof. Douglas. The chain of events starts with the renowned Prof. Max Müller, who questioned whether Notovitch had actually been in Ladakh. Next one of the Moravian missionaries at Leh, Fr. B. Shawe, wrote a letter to a newspaper stating that Notovitch had not been in Leh. Before that the missionaries will have read a brief report on Notovitch's book in a newspaper, so they will have known only little. The other missionary, Br. Weber, went to Hemis and asked the head lama whether a Russian traveller had been there and if they had a Tibetan book on the Christian religion. Both were answered in the negative to the best knowledge of the lama: he had not realised Notovitch's nationality and neither the missionary nor probably he knew the year of Notovitch's visit; and it is only our knowledge of a development which, guided by St. Paul, transformed a natural person called Issa or Jesus to Jesus Christ, the son of God, and a story of Issa to a religious book. To the lama this did not apply. Yet this was the first step which pushed him into a particular position. Notovitch had attempted to counter the accusation that he has not been there, by referring to Dr. K. Marx, the physician and missionary at Leh. Notovitch did not know that in the meantime Dr. Marx had died. The newly installed physician at Leh was an Indian Christian, who wished to clarify the Notovitch story. He investigated the papers of Dr. Marx in the hospital and found them to be very detailed, but without any mention of Notovitch. This seems to speak against Notovitch. But we should take into account an extraordinary situation of Dr. Marx at this time. He had run into difficulties which culminated in his dismissal from the service in the mission. Perhaps he had initially laid too much stress on medical success with resulting requests for more money for the hospital, and he is described as having become mentally disordered. A few days only after Notovitch's visit he had to leave Leh and it is very likely that he carried out no orderly medical practice in the days before, and that he neglected the files. (Nearly one year later Dr. Marx was again admitted to the mission.) Continuing his search for a trace of Notovitch the new physician asked the British Joint Commissioner to write to Hemis. From the statements of other people involved, we can deduce the topics dealt with in this letter. He will have asked, whether the lamas at Hemis violated the order, in case of injury or sickness of a (western) visitor to inform the government at Leh and bring him to Leh, whether the lamas assisted a Russian? The above mentioned report in the newspaper had wrongly suggested that Notovitch had spent a long time with a broken leg in Hemis, whereas he had already left it after two days. So the lamas were quite right in answering the first question in the negative, irrespective whether they remembered Notovitch or not. But for the missionaries this strengthened their conviction of the falsehood of Notovitch's report. Douglas discusses the question as to whether the lamas could have known of Notovitch's nationality, and answers with "no". They will have seen every European visitor as an Englishman. Although on a photo Notovitch does not look very British, he could have come from any European country. But the question was tricky. In this time the British and the Russian struggled for influence in Central Asia, including several reconnaissance actions; this was known as "the great game". The Indian physician repeated the rumour, Notovitch was arrested as Russian spy at Shimla. This is not true as we know from a letter from Shimla, but it illustrates the overall atmosphere. In effect, the lamas had to defend themselves against the double suspicion of having worked against the government: to have violated the order how to treat injured visitors and to have supported a spy. In the meantime the missionaries may have learned the year of Notovitch's visit and found an entry in their logbook from 1887 which briefly mentions him. Thereupon they stated that Notovitch had been in Ladakh and visited Hemis, but his story is pure nonsense and fraud. All facts they knew supported that. At those times, at the summit of colonialism, the Europeans felt superior to all other people and of course Christianity superior to other religions. Christianity has the tendency to expand among people of other religions, as does Islam. "It was a well known fact that missionaries had ever been to the front in entering new countries with the Gospel, and by their peaceful operations had made the way for trade and civilisation to follow." Some of the affected might add that also soldiers and rulers followed. Prof. Max Müller wished to help the mission by his work of translating and making known the holy scriptures of the East. One spoke of an "exceedingly corrupt form of Buddhism", a "religion of blank despair". The missionaries in Ladakh stated: The power of Buddhism is great in this country, the people are sunk in superstition, service of false gods and demons, subjugated by the priests who govern their whole life and suppress the thinking of the people by 'making religion' for the ignorant people, who also direct every detail of their ordinary life and anxiously try to keep out everything new or foreign. Although the missionaries did much for the benefit of people in Ladakh, they despised Buddhism and felt compelled always to fight against it. Of course this evoked opposition in the proponents of Buddhism, even hatred. They struggled against the actions of the missionaries, e.g. they disturbed and hindered their school, they tried to get a law which would interdict any conversion. Every convertite was banned, lost his house and property. One of those converted was Samuel Joldan, who acted as interpreter for Prof. Douglas. Joldan, the Tibetan postmaster in Leh, is a Christian of spotless reputation. Everyone places unlimited confidence in his integrity and truthfulness, and his religious sincerity has been attested by many sacrifices. He is a Ladakhi, and the family property was at Stok, a few miles from Leh. He was baptised in Lahaul at twenty-three, his father having been a Christian. He learned Urdu, and was for ten years mission schoolmaster in Kyelang, but returned to Leh a few years ago as postmaster. His ancestral dwelling at Stok was destroyed by order of the wazir, and his property confiscated, after many unsuccessful efforts to win him back to Buddhism. Afterwards he was detained by the wazir, and compelled to serve as a sepoy, till [the missionary] Mr. Heyde went to the council and obtained his release. His house in Leh has been more than once burned by incendiaries.2 The law of Kashmir did not allow a native Christian or a European to own a house or fields. This explains, in the words of the missionaries, how hopeless is at this time the situation for those natives who become Christian. The state laws as well as the representatives of the Buddhist and Islamic erroneous belief, supported by the prejudices of a slavishly obeying crowd, strive to suppress a native Christian, to cut off his ability to earn a living like everybody else In this large family Samuel is the only one earning an income. For many years Br. Heyde did not shrink from training him so far that he would be qualified for the position of a small functionary. And here in Ladakh, where a Christian can possess neither house nor land and therefore has little possibility to earn anything, the missionary had striven to obtain him the position as postmaster. In the course of years the postal business increased and the management became more complicated and difficult. Then Samuel was no longer able to perform his duties, he made mistakes and in consequence received reproaches, warnings and fines, so we [the missionaries] feared he would lose his position But in addition to the problems mentioned above he had sometimes kept money from the post office for some days. .. We had warned him, but debts pressed him so hard, that in August [1894] he took 200 Rs. to pay them, hoping to return them in a few days. But he was already under suspicion and legal actions were taken against him. He was taken by two soldiers to Srinagar to the court and sentenced to one month or a fine of 50 Rs."3 Douglas discusses thoroughly the problem of a suitable Tibetan interpreter. He explains how well Joldan is suited for this job, quite contrary to Notovitch's interpreter. This will be right concerning Joldan's intellectual abilities. But let us now regard the situation when Douglas was at Hemis in 1895 interviewing the head lama with the help of Joldan. This was already the third time after Br. Weber's inquiry and the letter from the British Joint Commissioner that Europeans asked about Notovitch and a book on Jesus or Issa. There was the question whether the lamas had violated the order about dealing with injured visitors and the suspicion that they had supported a hostile spy. They had already been manoeuvred into a certain position by answering these questions as well as they could when answering in the negative. Prof. Douglas investigated much more thoroughly. The lamas may now have remembered Notovitch and the events related to him. But they had learned that this topic excited the Europeans and could lead to unpleasant problems. Douglas was for them a follower of the hated Christianity with the British government backing him. He was apparently ignorant of these problems and pleased by the politeness of the lamas. Another missionary stated, referring to Hemis, "they know here very well that we are the open enemies of their religious system, but in a sort of chivalrous politeness they treated us honourably."4 Accompanying Douglas and directly talking to them was Samuel Joldan, whom they despised as a traitor to the creed of his ancestors and who in addition had just scarcely escaped jail. And a visit of the British Joint Commissioner at Hemis was also expected. The head lama of Hemis answered all of Douglas' questions about Notovitch and the existence of the Issa manuscript negatively. Now, does that mean that he really knew nothing, that there was nothing? Or could it perhaps mean only that he did not want to get involved in any way in those topics? The answer to this question remains open. But if in 1895 the lamas at Hemis denied Notovitch's story from fear of complications, this would remove an important argument against Notovitch's story about Jesus in India and would increase the interest in the quest for the Issa manuscript from Hemis. References 1. Articles in English newspapers on missionary Annie Taylor, 2. Isabella L. Bishop: Among the Tibetans, Oxford 1894; pp. 101-102. 3. Missionsblatt Bautzen, 57. Jahrgang, 1893, pp. 84, 216, 219-220, (a magazine of the Moravian Church, based on the annual report of the Moravian Mission at Leh, kept at the mission archive at Herrnhut). 4. A.H. Francke: "Ein Besuch im buddhisitischen Kloster Hemis," in: Globus, Illustrierte Zeitschrift f. Länder- u. Völkerkunde, Braunschweig, 1898, 1-7. Photo looking directly through the hole in the tree. From Ref. 9, p. 168. The Meier UFO Contactee Case and Ufology Billy Meier's first UFO sighting, followed by contacts from an elderly alien named Sfath, occurred as a child. As a young man they were superseded by further contacts under the tutelage of an alien woman called Asket, in the 1950s and early '60s. It was during this period that he was first told he would acquire a document of Jmmanuel's ministry and teachings; then later, at an appropriate time in 1963, he was prompted telepathically to be the co- discoverer of the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ). Only a dozen or so of the nearly 300 photographs he took during this period, many of them showing the aliens' spacecraft, have survived. These are shown in Wendelle Stevens' UFO Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report (1982), in his Message from the Pleiades: The Contact Notes of Billy Meier, vol. 4 (1995, click here regarding availability), and in Meier's own photo collection (F.I.G.U., CH-8495 Schmidrüti ZH, Switzerland). One of them is shown on the left. During 1963-64 he worked at various odd jobs to earn his keep while traveling through the Near East and Asia. He spent about eight months Photo by Meier on 3 July 1964 of the ashram working at the Ashoka Ashram in Mehrauli, India, near New Delhi, and showing Asket's UFO. Meier's photo #136 in his Photo Verzeichnis. Courtesy of E. Meier and learning Buddhist meditational practices from its leader, the late V.B. M. Hurley. Click on the photo for full-size view Dharmawara, of the saucer craft with brightness enhanced. who was also known as Ananda Mahatma. The Buddhism he taught Meier there is from the oldest existing Buddhist school dating back to the 3rd century B.C. An interview of Meier on his UFO experiences up to 1964 appeared in The Statesman of Sept. 30, 1964-the Delhi, India, newspaper. Extensive videotape testimony from two eye-witnesses affirming Meier's UFO contacts with Asket in India during 1963-65 may still be available from the website of the International UFO Congress (1999; “The Reopening of the Billy Meier UFO Contactee Case”). A summary of the account of the key witness, Phobal Cheng, is given here in the report by ufologist Michael Hesemann, and a transcript of her full account here. Meier's photos from this time period were all confiscated by the secret police Photo of Meier in 1963 at the ashram, of Jordan when traveling with monkey which befriended him. From FIGU Bulletin No. 29 (Sept. 2000). through there circa 1965, but much later he managed to obtain copies of a few of them from friends to whom he had given some of them at the time. A passport photo of Billy at age 26, taken in 1963, is shown on the left. Meier as a UFO contactee did not gain the attention of ufologists (UFO investigators) until after 1975, when his Swiss contacts commenced and he was allowed to take many "beamship" photos and 8mm movie-film segments of them, upon Passport photo of Billy's visa for Jordan issued by the Swiss consulate in Amman in 1963. From FIGU Bulletin No. 29 (Sept. 2000). abiding by the conditions laid down by these ETs. These conditions included not bringing anyone else along too close to where his contacts or photo-sessions took place, and not photographing these aliens themselves-restrictions designed to cause Meier to be more easily debunked by skeptics. Wendelle Stevens, and collaborators Tom Welch and Lee & Brit Elders, were the first to explore the matter seriously and in depth, and their investigations extended from late 1976 through 1981. (Stevens had been alerted to the case by the late Swiss ufologist, Ms. Lou Zinsstag.) Soon after, Japanese ufologist Jun-Ichi Yaoi Meier at the F.I.G.U. Center also spent much time looking into Meier's experiences and photo in 1977. From FIGU Bulletin evidence, and interviewing witnesses. No. 29 (Sept. 2000). In 1978 Stevens brought Jim Dilettoso in on the Meier case to head their computer- Meier during interview by related photo analyses. His summary of being involved in the investigation is given here. Nippon TV in 1979. From Genesis III "Beamship: The Movie Footage." Later, historical author and attorney Gary Kinder investigated the case, from 1983-1985, documenting his findings in the book Light Years. There is an interesting, lengthy open letter that Kinder wrote to the ufological community explaining why his book about the Meier case needed to be published. A comprehensive content summary of his 1987 book, which one may search using a key word, is available on line, courtesy of J. Jansen. After some discussions with Wendelle Stevens, Lee Elders and Gary Kinder, I traveled to Switzerland in 1985 to very briefly meet Meier for myself, interview a few of the witnesses who could not deny the reality of his extraterrestrial (ET) experiences, and notice their sincerity. I could only agree with the forenamed investigators, and the experts they had consulted, that there was no way the case could be any hoax. My own further examinations of some of his photographs, films and videos of "beamships" disclosed only further reasons why the case was genuine and no hoax. A schoolteacher from Vienna, who became a good friend of Meier's since 1976, and who learned all about Meier's experiences and contacts, sometimes from having been in close proximity to the latter, wrote his own book about it all; this is Guido Moosbrugger. And in the 1990's, the case was re-investigated by German ufologist Michael Hesemann, who was impressed by all the evidence indicating its genuineness, and since then by Michael Horn, who became the U.S. media representative for the Meier contacts. Of course, both the Swiss and U.S. intelligence agencies investigated Meier early on, and this fact quickly became known to both Billy Meier and Wendelle Stevens. It was confirmed to Stevens by an interesting letter he received circa 1989 by a security agent: the Friendly Spook’s Letter. Stevens collected statements from many witnesses in 1976-1980 who had observed the beamship, usually at night but once in the daytime, mostly in connection with their having accompanied Meier to secluded spots close to where he had been told to proceed alone a considerable distance further and wait either for a beamship to land or to be "beamed up" for a contact. Even in 1998, Hesemann was able to still locate and interview 14 witnesses whose observations and latter statements strongly support the reality of Meier's contacts during 1975-1987, and also 1963-64. Reproductions of some of Meier's UFO photos can be seen at the FIGU web site which members of Meier's (FIGU) support group maintain, and in Michael Horn’s website. Horn is Meier’s representative in the U.S. for advancing awareness of his UFO experiences and mission as the primary contactee of the Plejarens (Pleiadians). For other Meier-case evidence, including film and video segments, look further into Michael Horn's website. Or, “The Billy Meier Chronicles” made in 1986 might be available on the Internet. For Hesemann's conclusions on the Meier case, read this letter and this article. Unfortunately most of Wendelle Stevens's books on the Meier case are out of print. However a summary of his book UFO Contact from the Pleiades, A Preliminary Investigation Report (1982), is found at the website of J. Jansen. The book by Moosbrugger, And Yet... They Fly, whose German version came out in 1991 and English version in 2001, includes color photos of "beamships" taken by Meier as well as much other information. A still later English version, called And Still They Fly, came out in 2004. Eduard "Billy" Meier 1980 In Meier's photo series below, taken on 9 July 1975 between the communities of Fuchsbüel and Hofhalden, near Click on thumb- nail to view enlargement Wetzikon, Switzerland, the beamship, as it is called, posed for him on all sides of the tree. In this series, 11 photos of which have survived, there are several indicators that force the skeptic to conclude that the beamship was an actual craft at a considerable distance from the camera. First, in the left-hand photo, one sees that the tree on the right is in poor focus because it is just a few meters away. The UFO and the tree adjacent to it are in very good focus, being many meters away. Consistent with this, Wendelle Stevens found that the focus setting on Meier's camera, with which he took his pictures in 1975 and 1976, was stuck just one notch short of infinity; thus he could not take clear close-up shots, but objects at distances of some 30-300 meters were in very good focus. Equally important is the fact that one may take these photos, including the one best showing the tree's trunk (the 2nd one from the left), to experts in forestry and ask them to identify the kind of tree. Those with any knowledge of fir trees in western Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere will probably inform you that it is an abies alba, i.e., a European silver fir, or at the least, a mature conifer. It is no potted "baby" tree and no model tree. If you look closely at the trunk you will see two protuberances where limbs had once grown before being shed or pruned off. These facts can be determined from these photos even though the ones displayed here are much-handled copies of copies. In the first four of these photos, counting from the left, three or four nearly square "portholes" can be discerned, regularly spaced around an upper circumference of the craft. Since the craft posed on all sides of the tree, and cannot have been a small model if the tree was a mature fir, the evidence pointing towards the tree's maturity deserves more analysis. Therefore much more is discussed, shown and analyzed about it here, with the inescapable conclusion being that this UFO or IFO was real-a beamship. Remaining photos of Meier's 35-mm photo-series shown below were taken on 8 March 1975 at Ober- Sadelegg, southeast of Schmidrüti. View left to right Click on thumb- nail to view enlargement The originals of these copies of copies were taken by Meier around 5:30 pm as the craft slowly moved from right to left, except to the right and farther away for the last picture. In the first of them, the "logpile scene," the camera is looking towards the south. In the second and third pictures, the camera was pointing southeast and an unfinished roadside incinerator shows up in the lower foreground. In the remaining pictures the camera was pointing east and northeast. More on this photo series is shown here, where one may read of a failed attempt at debunking one of them by J. Ritzmann. In the summer of 1975 at a nearby site at Ober-Sädelegg, Meier took 8mm movie footage of the beamship in the distance while he climbed up a path towards it, in view of the tripod-mounted camera. Here it is shown that if he had used a model UFO, in order that the length of a supporting pole not exceed 20 ft the model would need to be as small as 1 inch in diameter. Another of Meier's filming opportunities also resulted in strong evidence that the UFO or beamship was a large object in the distance and no model, without requiring that the original film be checked by experts. This was his photo opportunity on 8 March, 1976, at Bachtelhörnli-Unterbachtel, in which he took 8mm movie footage of a beamship while it jumped from one location to a neighboring location with essentially no lapse of time, after which the craft moved close to the brow of the hillside Meier was standing on until it became partially eclipsed behind the brow of the hill; then it moved upwards. The evidence is shown here that this positional jump could hardly have been due to hoaxers moving one or two model UFOs around, stopping and restarting the movie camera, and later cutting and splicing the movie film; it's also shown that at one point the brow of the hill did indeed eclipse a portion of the craft. Still another of Meier's beamship-photographing sessions is entirely consistent with the conclusion of genuineness. On the right is the most famous of the Hasenböl 35mm photos of 29 March 1976, during which occasion Meier took many other photographs of the beamship, of which 33 still survive. The analysis and discussion may be accessed here and the highlights here. Included are thorough refutations of Kal Korff's claims that the photographs must be a hoax. On the same date and location Meier had his movie camera with him also, and shot two short reels of super 8 movie film. These also show features that make the scene impossible to have been hoaxed, short of having constructed a Hollywood-like edifice from which to manipulate a high- tech UFO model. Cropped section of Meier's photo #164, taken March 29, 1976. Acquired from A sound track of the noise one of the beamships can W. Stevens's 1990 calendar photos. produce was taped by Meier and several others on July 7, 1980, at a location near Ober-Sädelegg. The craft was hovering invisibly overhead, apparently about 70 meters up. There were 15 known witnesses (Stevens, UFO Contact from the Pleiades: Supplementary Investigation Report, pp. 459-461). Sound specialists later found the recording to be unique in several respects, and well beyond the capability of contemporary state-of-the-art sound equipment. There were some dozen other occasions in 1975-76 on which Meier was summoned telepathically by his ETs to collect his camera equipment and travel on his moped into the hills out east of his home in Hinwil and wait for his contactor and her beamship to show up for photographing, provided no one else had followed him there or was in the near vicinity. After that, until late in 1980, he was not permitted to have more photo opportunities, since Semjase, the Pleiadian/Plejaren most involved in his contacts at this time, apparently felt that the hundreds of photos Billy had already been allowed to take of their beamships should have sufficed. But since they were assumed to be photos of model UFOs by most ufologists, by October of 1980 he was able to convince Semjase that he needed more. So on Oct. 22 of that year she came out with the so-called wedding-cake variety of beamship. The photo on the left shows it hovering down low in front of the F.I.G.U. Center at Hinterschmidrüti that Wednesday morning when no one but Meier was around; Meier has lived at the Center since 1977. He snapped the picture, along with at least 10 more, with a Ricoh Singlex TLS camera, focal length 55mm, which he had acquired by then. This particular craft is believed to be a later version 7m-diameter ship of Semjase's, and exhibits the utmost in gaudiness Brightness-enhanced copy of Meier's photo #799, and fine-scale structure. It would seem to be such taken by him on Oct. 22, 1980. a complex structure that a hoaxer could scarcely have fabricated any such monstrosity. Certainly a one-armed hoaxer would not be able to, and consistent with this, no model of this sort was ever discovered around Meier's residence or elsewhere-it was far too complicated a structure for any acquaintance of Billy to attempt to replicate in model form and give to him as a souvenir; and no hoaxer has been discovered or has come forward to claim credit. As we discuss the various wedding-cake craft further, we shall see several "smoking gun" indications of their genuineness, along with charges of fraud from negative skeptics that just don't stand up to scrutiny. It turns out that there is no way that the spectacular "wedding-cake" craft seen in the photos could have been a small, model UFO positioned close to the camera. This much is absolutely clear even without having access to the original camera film, through analysis of the reflections in the spheres in relation to the geometry of surrounding structures. Meier's ETs seem to have been just as careful as other aliens to ensure, through covertness and other means, that some measure of plausible deniability be provided to those skeptics who would be devastated if confronted with absolute evidence of the alien reality. The conditions Meier had to follow in order to be allowed to shoot the photos (to be alone, not to photograph the aliens themselves) constitute but one set of these measures of plausible deniability. Ufology and its Relation to the Meier Case Anyone who studies the Meier case will need to investigate the UFO phenomenon as a whole to see how this case fits in with it. There is much reading to be done of UFO case studies and reports of sightings, much interviewing of UFO witnesses and abductees, and much attending of UFO meetings before one gains a comprehensive view of the phenomenon overall. Nowadays, thanks to the Internet, much of this can be done quite conveniently, using due caution and discrimination to weed out false claims. A web site that gives a comprehensive overview of the history of the UFO phenomenon, along with many outstanding cases, and a very extensive chronology of cases, is that of NICAP. An excellent web site for learning about UFO sightings in the U.S. is that of Peter Davenport: National UFO Reporting Center. For the most recent sightings check the MUFON website or the website of B. J. Booth: the UFO Casebook. Still another, with worldwide sightings and an extensive set of archives, is that of George Filer. For keeping up on related UFO phenomena, visit the website of Linda Howe. Visit the website of a leading ufologist, Bruce Maccabee, to learn of the details of particular cases, such as the Trent UFO sighting/photos of 1950 near McMinnville, Oregon. Accounts of UFO events from particular countries worldwide are also available, such as reports from British Columbia, from Italy, from the Hispanic world, and from Australia. A list of 82 useful UFO websites from 32 different countries is presented here. For some 80 of the better UFO photos taken by camera, during the past 72 years, check here. UFO photos taken recently may also be viewed here. There is also an excellent web page detailing the UFO sightings by astronauts. For learning about alien abductions, visit this web site, and to learn most specifically of the travail experienced by many UFO abductees, view the web site of Dave Jacobs. An excellent website regarding the Roswell case is that of David Rudiak. To learn of another well researched UFO crash, one near Kecksburg, PA, in 1965, visit this website. For evidence of many other UFO crashes the reader is directed here. To learn about the many cases where UFOs have left behind physical traces of their presence, see Ted Phillips's web site. Visit here or here to view crop-circle formations. Much supplementary information on them is also available. At Grant Cameron's website you may read comprehensive research into the level of UFO awareness of the U.S. presidents since 1939 - their interest and knowledge on the subject, past sightings if any, briefings received, and more. Alternatively, visit here. To view paintings from past centuries in which UFOs are seemingly depicted, click here. In comparing the Meier case against any or all of the rest of ufology's cases, one finds that it is entirely unique. The amount and quality of the UFO evidence he was allowed to gather-photographic, UFO sounds on tape and unearthly metal samples, exceeds anything that occurred before or since, as of this writing update in 2004. However, this was upsetting to most ufologists who valued their reputations as leaders in their field. They went along with those who pronounced the Meier contactee case to be a hoax despite all the evidence to the contrary, largely because they assumed all contactee cases to be non-genuine, and also because the quality and quantity of "beamship" photographic evidence Meier was allowed to acquire, seemed to be too good to be true. So they assumed the case to be a hoax by assuming all investigators of this case who concluded otherwise to be incompetent, without arriving at valid explanations of how any or all of it could have been hoaxed. By taking this stance they could bolster their own reputations as hard-nosed ufologists who were doing their best to attract mainstream scientists into treating their field seriously. However, it has only been since the mid- 1980s that these ufologists have been forced to treat UFO abductions as worthy of study, due to the large number of such cases that had surfaced by then and due to their traumatic character. Before then, most ufologists dismissed alien abduction cases as being imaginary or psychotic in nature. Since contactees are treated more humanely than abductees by the ETs involved, contactees are still all dismissed by these ufologists as being self-aggrandizing or self-deluded hoaxers. Such a sweeping assumption actually makes no scientific sense; i.e., aliens or ETs need not all be assumed "bad," when the possibility exists that some could be diverse in character and some neutral or quite moral in their ethical levels. Rather, Nature teaches us that we have to stay prepared for all kinds of animal behavior, and the UFO/ET phenomenon seems to be trying to teach us that the same carries over into the realm of extraterrestrial intelligence. There are other web sites that deal with other contactees or alleged contactees, for example, George Adamski. Both Meier's identity as a contactee, the uniqueness of his experiences and evidence, and their elements of plausible deniability have of course caused ufologists to debunk the case. The debunking attempts by Kal Korff in his 1995 book are refuted here, here, and within other sections of this website. An informative debunking attempt by a highly respected ufologist, Bruce Maccabee, is refuted here. However, it is tough to debunk the eye-witness accounts of up to 90 witnesses to 107 events in Meier’s life and at his residence in Hinterschmidrüti, Switzerland, each of which indicates he is a genuine contactee of certain UFO aliens. The TJ's UFO Connections The Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) describes several occurrences involving what we today would place within the UFO category. The "angel" who speaks to Joseph in a dream to tell him to go ahead and marry his betrothed, Mary, had been present in person, not in a dream. He was a "guardian angel," or ET, sent by Jmmanuel's ET father, Gabriel, to inform Joseph not to leave Mary. The "star" of Bethlehem is instead a "bright light with a long tail" (i.e., a UFO) that hovers over the birthplace. A voice from this UFO craft had earlier informed the magi to commence their travel. Afterwards, this voice from the UFO (not within a dream) warns them not to return to Herod. It is Gabriel, the celestial son, and not just "an angel of the Lord," who tells Joseph in person (not in a dream) to flee to Egypt with Mary and the infant, and who later advises him it is safe to return to the land of Israel. It is a "metallic light" in the sky (UFO), not a spirit like a dove, that descends over the Jordan after the baptism. Jmmanuel departs in it and is not then seen again for 40 days. The angel at the tomb is a guardian angel, who arrives in a "radiant light" that descends noisily from the sky. He is responsible for stunning the soldiers at the tomb into becoming temporarily like dead men. He is the one who speaks to the two Mary's at the tomb. After Jmmanuel's last talk with his disciples, a "great light," having a metallic glitter in the sunshine, comes down from the sky and takes Jmmanuel aboard, ascends (the Ascension) and transports him to Damascus. Thus, Jmmanuel was a very special contactee of these aliens. He is reported, in the TJ, to have received much instruction from them during the forty days he was taken with them (not with the devil!) before he was returned to Galilee. Now, nearly 2000 years later, we find that Eduard Albert Meier, born in 1937, is also a contactee of aliens of this same group. Return to: Contents Three Sightings at the SSSC Write-up by M. Uyttebroek in FIGU Bulletin #35 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., Sept., 2001) Liberal Translation by J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 At the Semjase Silver Star Center (SSSC), Friday, 11 May 2001, 23:15 hours It was 23:15 approximately. Harry Dicker and I, Michael Uyttebroek, stood in the parking lot at the flat-roof garage [see map, No. 11] in the SSSC. We observed the beautiful, clear, star-laden southeast sky. Everything was calm, and there were no aircraft flying over to hear or see. Suddenly, I was startled by a bright flash out of the corner of my eye. Both Harry and I turned to look in the direction it came from, which had been in a southernly direction. Immediately I saw a moving light (much like a moving star), which traveled away from us on a northerly course. As I followed its movement, a second flash occurred near to, and back to the right of, where the first flash appeared. Then I noticed a second "moving star." Then there was a further flash, which seemed to come from this second "moving star," and then one further flash. It is interesting to note that there was an irregular time interval between the flashes, which occurred along a northward directed line. After a somewhat longer pause without flashes of about 5 seconds, there was one last bright flash along the trajectory, a little further to the north. After these events we searched the night sky still longer for more abnormalities. After about 15 minutes, Harry went to his tent. At around 23:45 I decided to stay for the night, and started to leave the parking area. Just then, I had the urge to look to the southern sky, and immediately saw a very unusual, quickly flickering, moving light. Within a short travel distance -- two centimeters at arm's length -- the light flared about ten times per second, like a strobe, and then abruptly disappeared. In a subsequent interview with Harry Dicker two days later, he stressed the point that to him, the most notable thing about our sighting was that the flashes were of a completely different nature than the flashes you normally see coming from an airplane. These unusual flashess were very short and very intense. SSSC, Tuesday, 15 May 2001, 22:27 hours After I, Michael Uyttebroek, had been sitting for some time in the newly constructed shelter at the parking lot, I decided to go out to observe the night sky. I was hoping to see something. And so it happened that within a few minutes I caught sight of a moving light, which came from the south and moved northward. It was moving faster than the high flying aircraft that one usually sees in the area, and it stood out brighter than the stars. Also, it seemed to be as high as the "moving stars," which we refer to as satellites. Its flight was completely silent. No aircraft were to be seen or heard in the area. When I saw it approaching in my general direction, I asked, mentally, if it could signal me with its light. This would confirm that it was a ship. As an afterthought, it would also confirm that the person controlling the ship was fully aware of my current location and was telepathic. Also: should that not be the case, then the space traveler would not be aware of my intention to see a ship before it had appeared. I kept a sharp eye on the object as it approached my position, while it remained high in the sky. In fact, it seemed to be slightly higher as it flew closer. It glided along still silent until it was almost directly over my position. Then, at the exact moment the light was directly above me, or in a very short distance from that position, there was a sudden emission of a yellowish-white light from the ship, which continued flying along on its course without stopping. As I watched, my immediate response was to give the traveler an exuberant but well meaning "Thumbs up," and a warm "Thank you and Shalom" for the almost perfect and very special light signal. After I had watched the ship continue to fly along to the north and then die out from sight, I moved quickly into the kitchen (in the Center) to see how late it was and whether anyone was present to whom I would relate my story. No one was there, and the clock read 22:28. Although I was tempted to continue observing the night sky for further activity, I decided that I had had enough and that it was time to get some sleep. This is an experience that I will not so quickly forget. Multiple lights over the Semjase-Silver-Star Center Saturday, 19 May 2001, around 22: 30 hours Around 22:00 hours, I was sitting on the cement block wall of the built-up parking lot to observe the clear night sky. During the next two hours, I saw many "self-propelled stars" as well as aircraft. On one occasion, however, I observed something quite unusual. As I thus sat, and looked up high in an easterly direction, I observed, at almost the same time, two moving lights, which traveled towards the west in a parallel flight pattern (at arm's length approximately 5 cm apart). Quickly, I saw a different, smaller light, which appeared in the background of the first two lights. This one moved along a different trajectory, roughly from southeast to northwest. Their close proximity was unusual. Again, when I held my fist at arm's length, I could completely cover my view of what was happening. Just to make sure that I did not imagine anything, I counted the lights again. I cannot say the exact time that passed, because I did not keep track of it. For Strangers, Inconceivable... He Comes Back as if Grown out of the Ground! by Englebert Wächter in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 276-78 a liberal translation by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 Scarcely was I on the under-construction roof of our new henhouse, on Monday, the 21st of September 1981, in order to work on some rafters with chisel and saw, when I saw Billy as he was striding straight across the meadow of Schmidrüti towards Sitzberg, departing on a new contact in the direction of the "siren meadow" [towards the northeast; see map, No. 16]. Quickly I yelled out a friendly greeting to him, to which he replied with a smile and handwave, before disappearing into the forest. Only a few minutes later, around 19:20 hours, I heard the unmistakeable, harsh "siren" of a beamship over the fir trees. It was Quetzal -- Billy had been contacted. For a good minute long the "singing energy" of Quetzal's ship oscillated through the high valley, until suddenly growing softer and fading away. I worked further on the roof, drove in the last nails and concluded, allowing that the work for the day had been productive. So I cheerfully sat myself down "on my work" and lit a cigarette, pondering again the further work needed for the roof construction. Pleasurably I drew in a bit of nicotine and tar -- which could so deliciously set one's mind at rest -- into my lungs (which have already been blackening for a long time), and observed with open senses the darkening bit of meadow in the twilight -- our "siren meadow" -- just beyond which lay the border of the forest. My eyes now glanced up at the gigantic fir trees, only to gaze down again over the meadow. Just at 19:59 hours I suddenly heard, only softly, the siren [or whirring sound] of Quetzal's beamship, and then I saw it! Suddenly as if growing out of the ground there stood Billy in the middle of the meadow, where he now with speedy steps came back across the meadow pathway toward the house. For the stranger, inconceivable -- yes, a sensation, yet for us almost an accustomed everyday occurrence -- a dear human suddenly standing in the middle of a meadow. He is suddenly simply there! Where a fraction of a second before there was nothing other than an empty meadow, there suddenly stands a human being. And although we often live with "such," we are nevertheless deeply impressed each time with the very high technology of our extraterrestrial friends, who make such things possible. In order that this "documentation" of quasi-"higher keepers" be enriched somewhat, I append an extract of the Contact meeting beginning with Billy's request to allow himself to be "transported" onto my rafter. Extract from Contact #152 (or #148 by different accounting) Monday, 21 September 1981, 19:21 hours Translation by Benjamin Stevens Quetzal: This is clear, but now, you should go back because I still have to do something, with which I am time- bound. Billy: Of course - ah, do you see Engelbert down there? How would it be if you'd let me appear down there in the middle of the beam [rafter] on which he works - so right in front of his nose? Quetzal: That is too dangerous, my friend. Just think of the incident in Winkelreit in Wetzikon, when you materialized in the middle of the peak of a weather fir. Billy: Nevertheless, that was really funny and, so to speak, an emergency landing. Quetzal: For your sense of adventure, certainly, but not for us. I will set you down in the middle of the meadow and handle it in such a way that Engelbert will immediately see you in the materialization, if you are so eager to surprise. Billy: Thanks... Then let me exit now. Quetzal: You do, indeed, know your own method of exiting very well - just drop into the void - probably for the thrill. Billy: How right you are. I'm just waiting for the moment when the dematerialization machine fails once and I whistle as fast as a stone down to the Earth. Then, I would like to see how quickly you'd react and how you'd make it that I don't slam hard into the ground. Quetzal: Your humor is often very difficult to understand, not in the least because you know very well how to intertwine humor and reality just like now, because you joke and, at the same time, actually hope for such a situation. But I'm sorry to tell you in this regard that it would be impossible for you to jump into the dematerialization hatch if this could fail, but that will certainly never be the case. An energy field would hold you back before the opening. Billy: Aha, but now, if even that would fail? Quetzal: You are relentless, but that is absolutely impossible. Billy: Really… absolutely? Quetzal: Absolutely. The Great Perplexity by Englebert Wächter in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 158-60 a liberal translation by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 The following event took place in the beginning of the construction of our Semjase-Silver-star-Center in Hinterschmidrüti. The year 1977 was -- as also the year before -- when we few stalwarts in a sense "occupied" the busy streets of Hinterschmidrüti -- for all of us a hard and labor-intensive time. The surroundings and premises offered a pitiful sight, and the few individual trees that we were able only with much effort to retain on the completely boggy meadow slopes, fought with their last power against approaching death from rotting. Everywhere you looked, improvements and renovations had to be considered; and so also with the decrepit carriage house [see map, No. 8]. So it happened that Billy, on Tuesday, the 31st of May 1977, allowed the inescapable renovation of the carriage house to be initiated. With the help of Jacobus, Mitscho, Renato and me, the first new rafters were prepared for further assembly. First, the roof, which had been criminally neglected by the previous owner, and which only here and there blocked the water when it rains, was taken under attack, and we four obeyed Billy's extended-arm instruction, so to speak, which ordered us up onto the roof. The ridge-piece rafter, as well as the two side-roof rafters, and thus the beams that were anchored in piecewise rotten construction timber, and also the outside beams that support the roof's eaves, had to be removed with great care to avoid an accident. The middle of the day had long since passed, and the hours ran out on us like an activated whip. My preparatory work, however, was already sufficiently advanced that I began to fit the beam, accurately pre-cut at different angles on the ground, onto the existing support rafter. However, my wrist watch showed, with empty-stomach accuracy, that it was somewhat after 20:45 hours, a time that would soon mark the end of the remaining daylight. High up on the ridge-piece rafter I stood, in order to deal with the final position adjustments before the installation of the heavy beam, when Billy shouted: "Carpenter [Englebert], set yourself down outside the roof, for from there you can much better pound in the nails." This advice was tempting; nevertheless I hammered away in the wind, for in order to mobilize such vast conciousness power as to be able to stand simply in the air without a solid foundation high over the nearby roof, would truly require still some centuries more experience and wisdom than I carry on my shoulders -- to say nothing of the fact that I still haven't the slightest idea of the application of such gigantic forces in my present state of evolution. Nevertheless a completely unexpected event happened a few minutes later. It must have been around 21:00 by the clock -- before it happened. Just as my feet reached the narrow board lying underneath me, which served us in the work as a scaffold, Billy, after brief eye contact with me, and supple as a panther behind me, pressed against me in order to move next to me on the other side of the board. Yet when I looked around at him, he was gone without a trace -- simply so -- a quick pressure on my back, and he was away. My first thought: he could perhaps have fallen from the roof into the material underneath, I immediately discarded, for on the one hand I had heard no noise, and on the other hand my working colleague next to and underneath me in any case did not notice the slightest indication of any headlong fall or bodily descent. It had the appearance of Billy all of a sudden dissolving into the air. Immediately a hunt for him commenced inside and outside of the remaining carriage house, unsuccessfully despite intensive search and loud cries. About a half hour had passed, and we had taken up our work again, when all at once Billy came strolling quite cheerfully across the carriage-house parking lot and returned to his working place, as if nothing had happened. Our inquisitive questions -- where in the world he had been -- he received with a suggestive smile and explained that he had been beamed up into Ptaah's ship, as usual, via a tele-transmitter. That explained Billy's sudden disappearance from our working group, where he had actually simply dissolved into the air. Excerpts from Contact No. 77, 31 May, 1977 commencing at 21:07 From Wendelle Stevens, Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 4, pp. 73,77 Meier... You have granted me a request I have kept for a long time. For some time I have been eager to be standing in the middle of some members of the group and then simply to disappear without leaving a trace. Getting taken away like this for a contact is a nice alternation. I hardly believe anybody having seen me disappear suddenly from the middle of the group, and brought to here by a teletransmitter, or whatever this means is called. Ptaah... 1/In fact, nobody saw anything of this, but I haven't taken you here because of that, but for other reasons. 2/Menara has told me your desire concerning the meditation center Ptaah... (41 sentences later) ...43/But now I want to let you return, because down there they are all of light excitement. 44/Your friends meanwhile have noticed you suddenly disappearing without leaving a trace. 45/Let yourself slide into the pit. 46/Farewell, and be attentive. Meier... Ha, again you give me fun, Ptaah. There down below the pit are menacing some hundred meters of depth. Ptaah... 47/They are less than 900 meters -- or, do you suddenly fear? Meier... Dear, no. I only have a joke, as evidently you have not conceived. Tchys then, dear friend, and do greet them all kindly.-- 900 meters, oh man. Then let us do... Ptaah... 48/But your funniness is.... Postscript by Meier: By regret I did not get completely the last sentence of Ptaah, because already when he started to speak, I walked into the escape pit and fell into emptiness, to be standing at the same moment in the same place on the scaffolding again, from where Ptaah had taken me, about 38 minutes before. [Note: The discrepancy may be noted as to the spot where Meier was returned to. Since Englebert's account was first written some 23 years after the event, the Contact Report excerpt is probably to be preferred.] Who is skulking about at this nighttime hour? (abridged) by Englebert Wächter in Guido Moosbrugger's And Yet... They Fly (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark LLC, 2001), pp. 160-64 and in And still they fly! (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark LLC, 2004), pp. 134-38 ...since this was also a great honor for me to drive our "boss" around through the area under the cover of night, and fog, if possible. After the last preparations had then been made, Billy and I drove away from the house around 7:30 p.m. I had often accompanied Billy to his contact sites as a companion or driver. This time I drove along at a moderate speed, following instructions Billy continually received by telepathic means from Semjase. Apart from the directions indicating the way, only little or nothing at all was said. In the beginning we traveled in the general direction of Tablat - Saland, along the "lowlands" on good, broad roads. Shortly before we reached the buildings of Wittwe AG, a prefabrication company in Saland, we suddenly took a hard left and drove uphill on a very narrow roadway. Shortly afterward, we passed a small farming village. The good Ford continued its tortuous path uphill and its dependable purring was only interrupted by Billy's brief indication of direction. To the right, left, straight ahead, right, etc. So around 7:45 p.m. we reached a sort of high valley (Säcklen) which, as I was just able to make out on this "cow night," bordered on the even darker edges of the woods to the left and right. The headlights of our car skimmed ghostlike over the bushes and along the roadway. Then the lights got lost in the murkiness far ahead. "Pull in here," said Billy, sounding really chipper and full of pep. "Yes, here. Stop! You can just turn." He did not say a thing about parking, so I got ready to drive off in the opposite direction. "Stop - stop!!!" That is just the point! With Billy you often do not know what to expect! It could happen that a driver left in the dark would not quite know what to do or not to do. I automatically assumed that we had somehow taken a wrong turn; it would not have been the first time... But we had not taken a wrong turn and destination XY had been reached. Impressive as ever, Billy swung out of the car and glanced towards the woods, following the stirred-up jingling apparently coming from a nearby cattle pasture. Glowing, small lights became visible and disappeared again. Well, all right, cattle eyes also just happen to shine in the night. While I was trying to neatly park the car so we could drive away without difficulty at the end of the contact, Billy briefly said good-bye, but not before casting a confirming glance at the stars, at his stars. Without a sound he disappeared under the cloak of an ever-darker night. I could still see him for several meters, and then I was alone. An almost eerie stillness enveloped me, which was interrupted now and then by an increasingly calmer jingling. Suddenly I felt the cold, which mercilessly reached for me through my thin jacket. So I then got back into the car, let the cassette tape play and provided a little warmth with the heater blower. I then leisurely lit a cigarette, enjoyed its taste and kept watch like a lynx for possible pursuers. But nothing stirred. About thirty minutes must have passed before I stepped out of the car again to stretch my legs that had become icy-cold during this guard duty. Then I unexpectedly had the feeling or the notion of having seen something glimmer to the right of me, halfway between the roadway and the edge of the woods. I placed my entire attention on full alert, quietly hastened back to the car and searched among all the junk in the glove compartment for the Russian hatchet (throwing ax). I carefully laid the hatchet on the seat, left the door open with the light switched off and fully concentrated on the "hot spot" again. Indeed -- I then heard heavy steps rustle through the wet and almost 20 centimeter (8-in.) high grass. From all indications, it could only have been the steps of a grown man. Every now and then, a strange sort of light began to glimmer. The rustling steps became louder, and sounded as though two croppers were taking turns at cutting the wet grass some distance away. The light reflections were now easier to recognize in the light of the stars. A real feeling of warmth enveloped my heart with the thought that ...but that is certainly impossible ... How do I come up with such ridiculous thoughts? Where is this strangely peaceful feeling coming from? Could it be...? Oddly enough, I had absolutely no feeling of uneasiness or danger.So it could not have meant danger for Billy or for me. Certainly not! It was probably just the farmer wanting to look after his cattle. But that strange looking rain gear? Odd -- and at that time of night? As a precautionary measure, I checked the position of my weapon again while the brisk steps moved along close by the edge of the woods. You just wait, farmer boy, I'll give you a proper fright. You see, it was suddenly clear to me that the halogen headlights were quite capable at this relatively short distance of abruptly illuminating a "night bird" like this one in the brightness of light. Quickly checking the direction of the car to determine the aim of the floodlight surprise -- another double-check glance into the night. Man alive! I cautiously seated myself behind the instruments and looked again through the windshield. Can I see anything at all through the glass? You bet I can see... It just began to glimmer again. This all happened within seconds and with extreme intensity. Wonderful how this unsuspecting "bird" is groping his way right into my snare of light. Only a few more meters. I feverishly fumbled for the ignition. The key was inserted. My halogen light is nothing without turning the ignition key. The glimmering man was drawing ever closer to the destination point I had set. Only a few seconds now. The ignition key was already warm and moist. Now by turning the ignition lock and switching on the halogen-light at the same time, I "opened fire" with a virtual flood of light. A broad beam of white light flowed around a man clothed in a silvery shining "cloak." His step only faltered for a moment. Another two or three steps and he reached the border of darkness. Away! And that was supposed to be a farmer? I quickly let the motor roar, shifted gears, and then turned the car so I could capture his appearance in the headlights again. I just managed to catch a glimpse of the man retreating into the woods. Several branches cracked, and the spooking was over. Only a few minutes later, Billy suddenly sprung up in front of the car from out of nowhere. He grinned at me, amused, and then startled me by asking if I always took pleasure in frightening harmless hikers. Had it not been for my neck, my lower jaw would certainly have dropped to the ground. When I asked him how he knew all of that, he only smirked. As for me, I did not know what to think. Billy then continued the conversation. "Have you truly no idea to whom you gave such a fright?" Of course I had a vague notion. But knowing the great precautions our Pleiadian friends take when moving about on our planet, I did not dare utter a word. I, too, have become very careful with my remarks, especially with respect to our friends, since how easily could... Well, now, "it" truly had been our friend Quetzal, and Billy had monitored the situation on the screen [inside the craft]. At this point before continuing his account, Englebert Wächter inserts an extract from Contact Report #135 of October 9, 1980, which commenced at 7:44 p.m. Most of the extract is an official FIGU translation, and part from the translation of Benjamin Stevens. Billy first speaks with Quetzal near the landed ship, where Semjase is apparently located. Billy: This is but a short visit, Quetzal, if you want to go again before I'm actually right there. Quetzal: 1. I have only taken a short walk and want to end it now. 2. Menara* waits for me a few hundred meters away with a herd of cows. 3. We also have our ship in the vicinity there. Billy: Oh, I see, then you are probably the reason why the cattle are so restless up there on the southeastern slope of the forest. Quetzal: 4. That may very well be, because Menara is with the cows, which have done this to her and with which she is gladly occupied. Billy: That, too. Then be careful, however, when you go up there because Engelbert waits not too far from that place in his car. Your silvery rain cloak just isn’t good, despite this rainy darkness. Quetzal: 5. That is correct, but I will be directed according to your words. [Billy is now inside the ship with Semjase, while Quetzal and Menara are outside. After 47 sentences from Semjase the contact conversation resumes here.] Semjase 48 One moment, Quetzal is calling me over the communicator. Quetzal: 9. I just had quite a scare. Billy: That's quite clear to see [on the ship's viewing screen], but look there, girl, the guy is grinning again. What's the matter with him? Semjase 49. One moment and he will tell us. Quetzal: 10. (Visible on the communicator screen.) Like any other hiker, I was walking through the night to get to Menara. 11. I had reached the high edge of the woods unchallenged, just several meters away from the pasture fence where Menara was waiting for me by the cows, when I was suddenly standing in the glare of two light beam devices. 12. Looking around, badly startled for a moment, I saw two auto headlights belonging to Engelbert's vehicle, as was determined by my analyzer. 13. He must have observed me despite the dark night and thought that some stranger was roaming around who could possibly waylay our friend. 14. That is my assumption. Billy: Quetzal, didn't you pull off your silvery shining cloak? Quetzal: 15. No, my friend, I did not find it necessary, as I assumed that Engelbert could not observe or see me in the darkness. Billy: Then you thought too little too late, my son. Quetzal: 16. That is correct. 17. On the next occasion, I shall take better care. Billy: Well, the world won't go under because of it. Engelbert certainly had his fun watching you run into the hammer even if he supposedly did not do this on purpose, he had no way of knowing that it was you and not some wretched night scoundrel or other earthling. Quetzal: 18. Certainly not, and that is why I did not feel assaulted or otherwise threatened. 19. It was simply a momentary scare, which made me uncertain. 20. In any case, you should explain the facts to him and extend to him my greetings. 21. Good-bye. Billy: So long. --- [now speaking directly to Semjase] It really got to him. I would have liked to have seen his face. Semjase: 50. That surely would have been quite a funny sight. Billy: Quetzal must have been more than 100 meters (330 ft.) away when he ran into the headlight beam. Why he did that at all is still not clear to me. And can anything happen to you from the vibrations of the earthlings at this distance? According to my knowledge, you can come within 90-100 meters (297-330 ft.) of the earth people without protective equipment and not expose yourselves to any type of vibrational danger. Semjase: 51. The last part of your assessment is correct, but in the second part [first part], you made a mistake in your reasoning: 52. Quetzal, with certainty, did not run into a beam of light from a headlight but must have suddenly been caught by it in the midst of the darkness. [Wächter now concludes his account:] As we [Billy and Englebert] drove the car off the branched road and started home, the halogen headlight beam skimmed along the edge of the woods. The beam was indecently bright, and Quetzal, who had reached the dark- skinned beauty, Menara, was once again immersed in bright light. Standing peacefully beside each other at the pasture fence, they vanished from the beam of our homeward bound car into the darkness. Dear readers, there are not enough words to portay my feelings about such an experience. *Menara is a dark-skinned woman from the Lyra system. She belongs to one of the races befriended by the Plejarens who were stationed on Earth for eleven years (1975-86). She often acted as contact person in place of Semjase or Quetzal. And Again the Most Superior Technique in the Game 16 July 1977 by Englebert Wächter in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: 2001), pp. 172-3 translated by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 In the same space of time as the noteworthy event on the roof of the carriage house, a still further incident was replayed, of which I may describe. It began with Billy apparently having something important to show or tell me. So he guided me in true comradely fashion in the direction of his working room. Arriving at the office door, he briefly consulted his enormous key ring, unlocked the door and entered the room, while I followed him shoulder to shoulder like a shadow, in a manner of speaking. With leisurely footsteps Billy navigated along to his desk, and in the same moment there occurred the same thing that first happened to him on the roof of the carriage house. Although I stood with Billy in clear sight, he was suddenly no more to be seen. He was simply gone, out of sight, not present any more. Where a fraction of a second before Billy stood before me, there now was only a solitary desk. After I had strictly inspected the entire office to the last hideout and did not discover the slightest trace of the missing person despite utmost care, I left the familiar space somewhat indecisively, although with mixed feelings. But then I remembered suddenly again the memorable incident on the roof of our carriage house, marched straight into our kitchen and approved that which I wanted beforehand anyway -- a good hot coffee. As became apparent a short time later, it was Semjase this time who had fetched Billy from before my eyes, using a tele-transmitter, to a contact in her spaceship. Whether Billy once again wanted to show me how fast a man participating in a very superior technique could disappear, escapes my knowledge. I have never yet asked him. Brief Extract from Contact #79, Saturday, 16 July, 1977 at 15:37 hours From Wendelle Stevens, Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 4, p. 104 Meier... Dear girl, This is a bit of a surprise, that you take me directly from out of the office. I was just starting to write some letters. But, girl, I am extremely much delighted to see you again... Semjase... This is a very dear welcome, and I offer my thanks to you for it... [She says nothing about having beamed up Meier from his office, and in the presence of Englebert Wächter. There follow 282 sentences from Semjase and 162 from Meier.] Typing with the Speed of Light Liberal Translation of Write-up by K. Wallen in FIGU Bulletin #53 (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., 2005) J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 It was during the first watch on May 29th, 2005, when I made my round of the main building and passed by the window of Billy's office. It was unusual that the window curtain was not closed; as a result I could see into the office, where Billy sat at his desk. Completely unobserved by him, it pleased me to see his completely peaceful posture, as he fondly and very cozily sat there and obviously enjoyed his activity as he worked in his famous speed- of-light manner on the computer. He sat comfortably, yet concentrated heavily at his desk, while his hand very nimbly scurried over the keyboard, and so quickly that I could not follow his hand and finger movements. Scarcely trusting my eyes, I saw how, with unbelievable speed, his hand and fingers rushed through the air and over the keyboard, somehow so spookily fast that I saw the back-and-forth flickering hand just as a fleeting shadow, which, it actually seemed to me, skipped over the keyboard at the speed of light. Incredible and fantastic -- never have I witnessed anything like it, never until now observed how a person can so quickly type on a keyboard. Only by my own observation can I now understand what has become a legend, which is often told by core group members, who themselves have observed with what tremendous speed Billy writes on the keys of his machine or computer, and actually generates with just one hand around 1200 strokes per minute. Really fantastic, even if people don't want it to be true who didn't have the good fortune and joy to be able to see Billy's "speed-of-light writing." [This witnessing occurred about a year before Meier agreed to allow a video to be taken of his rapid typing.] View video clip. Great Lighted Flying Object Liberal Translation of Write-up by Karin Wallén in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., 2001), pp. 399-400 J. W. Deardorff, April 2011 The night was still half dark when, in the early morning of March 13, 1999, I left the house in order to drive my friend, Christian Krukowski, to the airport at Kloten. It was around 06:20 hrs. As I stepped out of the house, my attention was immediately attracted to a bright light in the sky, which at first was shining like a lamp. Somehow it then came to me, however: How could a lamp shine in the sky? Such a thing was impossible. Then I noticed that the light, which was about three times bigger or brighter than the brightest known star -- Venus, moved along slowly and completely silently towards the east and approached us. Symmetrical, bright and big, it remained flying in a straight flight path. Continuing to watch this radiant object, I went over to Christian, who stood in front of my car at the parking place [see map, southeast side of house, No. 9, and Karin's map below] waiting for me. And he had quite plainly seen the silent moving radiant object, for he motioned to me enthusiastically and pointed up to the sky with high outstretched arm. Upon reaching him we observed the object together, which now high over us flew farther to the east. Coming from the west above the Semjase Silver Star Center on the hill, it drew out individual feelings in us that somehow were known to us and gave witness to friendliness, as was once the case already, when Christian and I, Karin Wallén, in the night of 16/17 July, 1997, shortly after midnight from a ferryboat harbor region in Frederikshavn, Denmark, plainly saw a similar bright foreign object. After all that Christian and I had experienced during the last year, we did accept that it perhaps could have involved a Pleiadian/Plejaren spacecraft, for the whole appearance of the light looked just like it. And apparently our thoughts were in no case mistaken, for I came to learn in the Center at Hinterschmidrüti, that Billy on that very morning had had a Pleiadian/Plejaren visit, and indeed from Ptaah, who before taking up the contact with Billy, for some time flew around the region with Florena, a spacecraft pilot, and actually flew around until Billy woke up and went into his office, where the contact took place. Therefore, in our belief we had not been misled, whereby the observation of the high flying bright object, or Pleiadian/Plejaren spacecraft, became a very special joy to us. UFO Sightings 8 and 9 August, 1996 Liberal Translation of Write-up by Karin Wallén in Zeugenbuch (Schmidrüti, Switzerland: F.I.G.U., 2001) by J. W. Deardorff, May 2011 I wanted it known in advance that one of my characteristics is to continually carry my head up, my gaze directed towards the sky. Anyway, that was the case when I was a little girl, for my mother pressed my head often with the flat of her hand and said: Hold your head just so and look forward. Still today I hold my head up that way, when I am contented. For me, the clear blue of the sky is always more interesting and fascinating than the gray asphalt. For this reason, already in younger years I've been able to observe much before I understood what it was I actually saw. My first conscious memory of an extraordinary sight in the sky goes back to the beginning of the 1980s. Since then I have been able to observe many impressive optical phenomena. After I had established contact with FIGU, I told my mother quite a few things about the Pleiadians/Plejarens and the Pleiades. As a result, this recounting reminded her that my deceased father had always reveled in that small star cluster and had always sought its sight in the night sky. Perhaps my fascination for the sky above was inherited from my father. On August 8th, 1996, at 10:30 in the evening, I stood outside at the Semjase-Silver-Star-Center and smoked my last evening cigarette. As usual I was gazing at the bright night sky above, immersed in my thoughts. Suddenly a bright light appeared above the southwest horizon, about twice as bright as the brightest visible star, and moved towards me. This movement broke into my thoughts and now demanded my complete attention. The light maintained its steady flight path and came ever closer to me, apparently; in any case I had a lengthy view of it without my shifting about. After about a half minute I had to lift my head in order to continue to follow the very bright, yellowish radiant object. Then it was directly above me, as my head already lay back entirely on my neck. Gradually I turned myself around in order to still be able to observe it further, until it finally disappeared after about 90 seconds behind a tree on the northwestern horizon. I looked quickly at my watch; it was 10:44 pm when I lost sight of the object. My feeling was that it flew across the sky at a height of only about 700 meters, silently and producing no noise. The spectacle of a silent and unchanging radiant object passing overhead awakened in me the impression of a beautiful familiarity. Somehow, during my observation, I felt safe, calm and very peaceful. On the next morning at breakfast I told about my observation, and I never dared to hope that this day fortune would smile on me once again. In the evening, at 11 pm, I spoke with another passive member (Christian Krukowski) at the bench at the Biotope [an ecologically preserved pond, see map, No. 2]. By chance during our conversation I was looking towards the southwest when I suddenly noticed a very bright movement between the trees. From the same direction in which I had seen the bright radiant object the foregoing night, the same object, apparently, again moved across the sky. It was as if I were to see an old friend again, and within me there arose a feeling which said, "Ah, beautiful that we meet again, just this morning I spoke about you." This time also the light again had the same color and the same brilliance. It moved just as slowly and in the same direction across the sky, in my opinion, as in the previous night. Because our location this time was significantly more unfavorable and allowed us less open visibility, we could only observe the bright traveling star with substantially greater difficulty, so that we could only follow a quarter of its flight path. Therefore the bright object soon disappeared already behind the trees of the opposite northwestern horizon. As I remarked about the light to my conversation partner, around 11:18 pm, he had already noticed it, and also was astounded and very delighted over the size and brightness of the object. Together we enjoyed the spectacle, which permitted us to see the unknown. It was moreover special that in the northwesterly direction there was a cloud bank in the night sky, and throughout the sighting the moving object was clearly visible under the clouds, thus again at a relatively low height. The whole thing seemed unusual to me, that on two consecutive nights, with a time difference of little more than a half hour, I could observe the same radiant light. The size and brightness of the light did not especially astonish me, since already in Sweden I had had a spectacular sighting. In my country the land is flat and the sky domed very high above it -- wonderfully suitable for observations. The Wedding-Cake UFOs The event of Oct. 22, 1980. Around 11:30 that morning the gaudy, extravagant looking craft seen in the photo on the left, Fig. 1, came and hovered very low over the parking place at the F.I.G.U. Center in Schmidrüti, Switzerland. From what Meier was told, this was one of a new series of ships that the Plejarens had recently developed. Because of its three tiers of decorative spheres, it has become known as the wedding- cake UFO, or WCUFO. In taking the pictures, Meier stood with his back to a structure called "the carriage house" (see Fig. 2), whose image shows up reflected from the attached sphere-like structures (see enlarged version of Fig. 1). It might at first be thought that these highly reflecting structures around the craft's perimeters had perhaps been Christmas-tree ornaments on a model UFO. However, the reflecting convex surface on the far left in the middle tier of "spheres" is seen to be a hemisphere, not a sphere. The carriage house seen in the reflections is located 90 ft (27.5 m) and more from the main residence. If Meier was standing just in front of the carriage house, with his back to it as he took this picture, then the camera equation indicates the craft was about 25 ft (7.7 m) away if 3.5 m in diameter, or 12.5 ft away (3.8 m) if half that Fig. 1. Wedding-cake craft hovering diameter again (1.75 m diameter). Thus his own image doesn't show up in the spheres' reflections, as it might have if he had been situated some at the F.I.G.U. Center. Photo #800. 3 ft away from a small model UFO. Meier's Verzeichnis doesn't mention the diameter of the craft, and from what he learned from his entire Click for enlarged version. series of photo ops in 1980-81, his contactors used three such craft of identical appearance at different times, of diameters 3.5 m, 7 m and 14 m. However, as we shall see, this may have been an instance when they utilized a fourth one - a small, remotely controlled craft only 1.75 m (5.7 ft) in diameter. A view of the area from above is shown in Fig. 2, taken from part way up the hillside overlooking the Center in August of 1981. The main residence is on the right, and the structure on the left is the converted carriage house. Fig. 2. The Meier residence in 1981 viewed from overlooking hillside. The carriage house is on the left, and faces northeast. From a FIGU postcard. Meier's location when taking photo #800. On this particular morning in 1980 no one else was around but Meier, and there were no cars parked in the open area between the two buildings. Judging from the reflection of the end of the carriage house on the spheres of photo #800, Meier was located with the carriage house behind him. He didn't show up in the reflections because of the dark background of the carriage house. How close was he to the carriage house? From the photo, Fig. 1, one can find his approximate location, which shows a close alignment with the edge of the curved, low rock wall and with the right-hand edge of the main residence. (The latter is barely eclipsed by the curving edge of the low rock wall.) This location was checked out by Christian Frehner of FIGU to be a spot close to the center of the wall of the carriage house. Accordingly, a plan-view drawing of the layout is shown in Fig. 3 below. In it, the upper of the four green lines connects the camera location with a point directly underneath the left-hand corner of the overhanging eave, which is seen in photo #800. Fig. 3. Approximate plan view of the carriage house, camera location, main residence and the low rock wall. Lower windows of the main residence, seen in photo #800, are accented in blue. Position of superimposed UFO is discussed below. Geometry and draftsmanship by J.P. Lagasse. The lower of the four green lines aligns the camera location, the curving edge of the low rock wall and the right-hand side of the main residence, as seen also in photo #800. The two distances from the two corners of the carriage house to the two points shown of the main residence are depicted in orange; they were measured by Christian Frehner of F.I.G.U. using a 20-m tape measure, along with the widths and lengths of the carriage house and main residence. These measurements allowed the main residence to be positioned quite accurately relative to the carriage house. Its northeast wall as it appears today is shown in Fig. 4. In Fig. 3 the wedding-cake craft has been drawn in so that only a small piece of its northern edge extends past the uppermost green line, in accordance with photo #800. The edge of its south facing rim lines up with the green line joining the camera to the right-hand side of the 2nd window, also as in the photo. Without more information, however, its distance from the camera or the carriage house, as positioned between these lines, is undetermined. We have two independent estimates of how far from the far corner, or north corner, of the carriage house Meier was when holding the camera, such as to give the near alignment in photo #800 of the edge of the curving rock wall with the right-hand edge of the main residence. The estimate by Frehner, as noted, places it near the center of the carriage house wall, about 15 ft from its north corner. The other, by another F.I.G.U. member, places it about only 4 ft from this corner. In the diagram of Fig. 3 above, a compromise distance of 10 ft has been taken. From photo #800 (Fig. 1) we may derive an independent estimate of how far away Meier was from the main residence by using the camera equation and knowing the dimensions of a lower window, say. The heights of these windows (their glass or window opening) was measured by Frehner to be 120 cm. Let us focus upon the 2nd narrow window (80 cm in width) past the two wide windows (or windows with shutters), which shows up just above the right-most sphere in the UFO's lowest tier in the photo. The camera equation is: Fig. 4. Recent (2006) photo of the NE end of refurbished D = (f/h) x H, where carriage house shot from near the SW corner of the main residence. Photographer Michael Horn. D = Distance from camera to object in question; f = focal length of camera = 55mm; h = length of object's image on the 35mm film; H = length of actual object = 120 cm. My copy of photo #800, obtained in the mid-1980s, has a width of 132.9 ± 0.3mm, while the window height on this copy measures 6.3 ± 0.5 mm. Therefore, relative to the 36mm box width of the 35mm film, h is 1.71 ± 0.14 mm. Then D from above is 38.6 ± 3.1 m, or 126 ± 10 ft, with the 8% error due primarily to the uncertainty in the estimate of window height in the photo. From Fig. 3, the distance from camera to the window in question comes to 116 ft; if the estimated error is subtracted from the 126ft figure we do get 116 ft. Since Meier was outside the building's wall, this result suggests that he was right up against the wall. Hence the camera position in Fig. 3 has been set as close as possible to the northeast wall of the carriage house - just 1 ft away. Distance of the wedding-cake craft from the carriage house. Using the ray-tracing technique, one may obtain a fair estimate of this distance. The camera level was about the same as that of the lower tier of spheres in photo #800, so that one may examine the image of the carriage house - its width - as it appeared at or near the "equator" of one of the closest spheres. The rays from the two sides of the northeast wall have already been drawn into Fig. 3, where they reflect from the closest sphere back to the camera. This is shown in greater detail in Fig. 5. The two incoming green rays reflect back to the camera along the two inner blue lines, respectively, which gradually converge towards the left. The two red lines through the center of the sphere are the normals from which it can be seen from the orange labels that the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. The width of the image seen on the sphere (or barely inside the sphere) has been indicated, along with the diameter of the sphere. Their ratio is R = 0.1783 units / 0.4576 units = 0.39 (or 0.3896) ; the 3rd and 4th digits are not significant, of course. This figure, 0.39 ± 0.02, is the same ratio as the width of the image of the carriage house to the sphere's diameter estimated from examination of photo #800. That is, the position for the wedding- cake craft in Fig. 3 was chosen such as to give R this particular value. (In so doing, it was noted that, at this approximate distance, a 10% increase in distance produces a 5% decrease in the ratio R.) The asymmetry in the shape of the images of the N.E. end of the carriage house in photo #800 is seen from Fig. 3 to be explained by both Meier and the wedding-cake craft having been located closer to the north corner than the east corner. From Figs. 3, 5 and photo #800, then, we find from ray tracing that the wedding-cake craft was between 13 and 16 ft away from the camera and carriage house. From the geometry of Fig. 3, its diameter then is between 5.5 and 6.9 ft, given the above uncertainty in distance. The possibility mentioned earlier, that the craft might be half again the size of the 3.5m craft, thus seems possible. If the camera equation is applied to the relative width of the craft on photo #800 assuming a distance of 14.6 ft, we find a diameter of 6.6 ft., in general agreement with the above. (If we instead assume a distance from the camera of 36 ft, say, then the Fig. 5. Close-up of ray diagram at the closest sphere on the lower tier. craft's diameter would be found to be 16.3 ft.) Draftsmanship by J.P. Lagasse. These 5.5ft to 6.9ft dimensions rule out the hypothesis of a model UFO craft of 1 to 3ft diameter proposed by various skeptics. For a hoaxer to secretly move a complicated 6ft model around on various occasions, keep its surfaces clean and highly reflective, and keep it hidden when not in use, seems out of the question. It might be thought that another method could be used in estimating the craft's distance from the carriage house: the textbook equation for a spherical mirror. The basic equation for a convex spherical mirror is: 1/D + 1/di = 1/f, where D is the distance from the surface of the mirror to the object in question (the carriage house), di is the distance (reckoned negative) from the surface of the mirror to the object's image inside the mirror, and f is the mirror's focal length (reckoned negative) equal to one-half the mirror's radius of curvature. A second equation is the magnification (or diminution) equation: |di|/D = |wi|/wo, where wo is the size of some feature of the actual object, and |wi| is the size of the image of that feature (carriage house). Upon choosing a sphere of 1 ft diameter (results are not sensitive to this choice), and the feature of interest again to be the width of the end of the carriage house, we then have |wi| = 0.4 ft, from any of the more prominent spheres of Fig. 1. (I.e., the image of the carriage house's width occupies about 40% of the mirror's diameter.) The width of the carriage house, measured by Frehner, is 29 ft. Given the two equations and two unknowns, D and di, I then find that D = 17 ft (about 5.2 m). This large overestimate with respect to the results of ray tracing (6.2 ±0.7 ft) is probably attributable to spherical aberration associated with the large angle subtended by the image and its large distance from the mirror relative to the mirror's diameter. In textbook usage, the object lies close to the mirror and is not large in comparison to its radius of curvature, allowing the image to lie close to the focal point. What does Meier say about this finding? By Meier's recollection, in 2006, the craft was not nearly so close to the carriage house, but rather, was about 11 meters (36 ft) away. At that distance, the present ray-tracing analysis indicates that the width of the carriage-house images in the spheres would be only about 0.24 of their diameter, not 0.39. And the wedding-cake craft's diameter would then be about 4.8 m (15 ft), unless the above analysis is seriously in error. Material added Jan.-Apr., 2013. From a Google-Earth-map's aerial view of Hinterschmidrüti not available just a few years ago, I have noticed that the plan view of the carriage house and main residence of Fig. 3 above is very substantially in error. Relative to the carriage house, the main residence should have been positioned roughly 25 ft farther to the SE, and should be rotated clockwise roughly 15 degrees. This non- end-on view of the carriage house would then be seen reflected in the craft's spheres, which could better explain the asymmetry of its reflected image. The craft would then need to be positioned farther away from the carriage house and closer to the main residence, in order that the ray-tracing technique yield a ratio R as small as observed. Then the size of the craft would be found to be correspondingly greater than that deduced above, perhaps as large as 11.5 ft (3.5 m) in diameter. Hence any repeat of a ray-tracing analysis like that above needs to be done using a corrected plan view. In March of 2013 a fresh and more thorough analysis was made by Rhal Zahi, in which a correct (from Google Earth) plan-form for Meier's residences was used, plus "Blender" software, which keeps track of all reflections on mirrored surfaces including spheres. From this he found that the WCUFO in photo #800 was some 3 m in diameter and 6 m distant from Meier's camera. In a second study, using a physical model of Meier's property and taking pictures of a reflecting sphere at various scaled distances from the model carriage house, Zahi found the WCUFO to be a little over 3 m in diameter and some 7 m distant from the camera. He further found that Meier and camera indeed had been located right next to the carriage house, as in Fig. 5.5 on the left. In both cases he proved that a model WCUFO of diameter like 1/2 m was far too small and would have had to be located too close to the carriage house to explain its size in the reflected images from the spheres in Meier's WCUFO photos. See Zahi's analysis. The event of 26 March 1981. Early in the morning on this day Billy drove out in his little tractor to the near vicinity of Dürstelen, some 5 or 6 miles southwest of his residence at Schmidrüti. Behind his tractor he pulled a small van, which he had by then also acquired, in which he could carry his camera and video equipment. Fig. 5.5 Location of the WCUFO and of Meier & camera within his property during his taking of photo #800, according to Zahi's analysis, in which He had a mental-telepathy appointment for another photo opportunity of Semjase's this is his Figure C6. The WCUFO is depicted by the red circle. beamship of the "wedding-cake" type. He then took a few pictures with his Ricoh camera and also took some videotape footage, but in haste, because joggers were already starting to come by. One of these photos is shown in Fig. 6 on the right. So Semjase soon departed, but then Billy found he could not start up his little tractor; it had become too highly affected, magnetized apparently, by the close proximity of the ship. The videotape he had shot was also rendered useless, though his ordinary film survived. Through telepathy with Semjase he explained the situation, whereupon she arranged to have another Pleiadian/Plejaren- Quetzal-come out with equipment with which he, Quetzal, would try to cure the problem. A couple hours later Quetzal showed up with some special equipment with which he fixed the tractor after a half hour, though not without three interruptions occurring when joggers approached; this caused him to "beam up" into his own craft hovering invisibly somewhere overhead before resuming work. This information comes from Meier's notes, which he published in his photo-log, or "Verzeichnis." The photo of Fig. 6 first gained international attention when published in Vol. 2 of UFO...Contact from the Pleiades, the 1983 photo-album book of Lee & Brit Elders. Now if you examine the lighter stripes encircling the front side of the craft in a well focused photo of it, you find that the width of each strip is only about 20% of the width of an adjacent darker band. However, in the present photo, this ratio has expanded to about 80%, showing that the near edge of the craft is severely out of focus. Yet, if you follow the outer edge of the craft around to its rear side, next to where its view is blocked by the protruding underside structure, you find that this far edge is in good focus, as is the van, which for a height of 1.83m is estimated to lie about 26m away from Fig. 6. Wedding-cake craft hovering in front of van. Brightness-enhanced copy of photo in the FIGU website. the camera. This can only mean that the craft was large, and not any small model. If it had been a small model close to the camera, its far edge would also be strongly out of focus, when the focus setting is much greater than a few feet as it would have to be to put the van into good focus. We don't know, however, if this particular wedding-cake craft was of the 3.5m- or 7m- diameter variety, we don't know the f-stop setting Meier used at the time with the Ricoh camera, and we don't know the distance to best focus with much certainty. Hence we cannot estimate the depth of field with any certainty. But for a 3.5m craft, the camera equation indicates it was situated about 9.25m from the camera, with front edge about 7.5m away and rear edge 11m away. Then with parameters of: focus set at 15m, f-stop at 2.8, and the known focal length of 55mm, a depth-of-field formula yields good focus between 10.6m and 25.6m. This would leave the front edge of a 3.5m craft a couple meters too close to the camera to be in good focus, but would leave the rear edge in very good focus, and the van not in quite as good focus. This accords with the appearance of the photo. However, if the craft had been a small model with a diameter of a typical garbage-can lid (22"), for example, its distance from the camera would be 4.7 ft, to produce an image occupying 62% of the width of a 35-mm film, as does the wedding-cake UFO. Then if the camera's focus is set at 7.0 ft, in order to bring the rear of the object into fairly good focus, and with the known focal length of 55mm, no f-stop setting will leave the front of the object in poor focus while leaving the van in rather good focus. For example, upon feeding these parameters along with an f-stop of 2.8 into the depth-of-field formula, one finds the nearest distance of good focus to be 6.6ft while the far distance of good focus would be 7.4 ft-giving a narrow depth of field, as expected. This would yield the front side of the assumed lid, which would be 3.7 ft away, in poor focus as desired, while leaving the rear side, 5.6 ft away, in good focus, also as desired. However, the van, which is some 75 ft away, would then be hopelessly blurred, lying far beyond the far distance of good focus. If the f- stop is increased to 11, then the depth of field only ranges between 5.7 ft and 9.0 ft, which would again leave the van hopelessly blurred. Pictures of the craft between treetops. On 3 April 1981, Billy was allowed to take more photos (see Figs. 7-8 below), this time while he was on board Quetzal's Plejaren wedding- cake craft, according to Meier and his Verzeichnis. The photos are of a smaller but otherwise nearly identical wedding-cake type of craft. This was early in the afternoon, at a location some 15km SSW of his residence at Schmidrüti, hovering just above a section of a forest. Meier used just his Ricoh camera on this occasion. Fig. 8. Similar shot less than a minute later, No. 838. Fig. 7. Wedding-cake craft between two treetops Arrow denotes a secondary treetop shoot whose connec- (lower center). Meier's photo No. 836. tion to the trunk lay below the photo's lower edge. Apparently he could not have obtained clear photos had he been inside the craft. For the picture of Fig. 8, Quetzal's craft with Meier atop it had moved up right next to the nearer treetop, while the craft pictured had moved a little to the right, compared with Fig. 7. Before ignoring previous evidence to the contrary and assuming this to be a small model UFO, the skeptic should first consider that in the photo on the right (Fig. 8) the same nearer tree top is slightly out of focus while the wedding-cake craft and the same treetop behind it are in good focus. This suggests that the craft was situated an appreciable distance away from the nearer treetop. We now use the camera equation and check this conclusion and Fig. 8 for consistency with the camera's depth of field. First we notice that the rear treetop is obviously of a mature conifer full of dense, multi-branched growth, and is in rather good focus for its small branches to show up so well; we estimate its outer diameter at the base of the photo in Fig. 8 to have been 5m, with branches extending out about 2.5m on each side. The camera equation then gives it a distance of 28.2m. If the hovering craft were of 3.5m diameter, its distance from the camera would be 24.9m. The slightly out-of-focus nearer tree's distance is found to have been 4.2m upon taking the longer cones of the Norway spruce to have a length of 7 inches. This places the 7m-diameter craft Meier was perched on very close to the nearer tree top, and locates the craft in the photo at a point just in front of the distant tree top. Upon utilizing the same depth-of-field formula as previously, we then find, for a focus distance of 10m and an f-stop of 11, that objects will be in good focus at distances beyond 4.8m. Hence, the far treetop, along with the wedding-cake craft, would both be in good focus, while the nearer treetop should be in somewhat poor focus, as observed. Thus this wedding-cake craft could indeed have been the 3.5m-diameter craft that Meier was told was remotely controlled. In his Verzeichnis, Meier refers to this craft as "a second ship," the first one being Quetzal's ship, on which Meier was situated. If, instead, the pictured craft in Fig. 8 had been a model UFO of some 22-inch diameter, its distance from the camera would have been about 4m. With that as the distance of focus, the depth-of-field calculator predicts good focus for objects only between 2.8m and 7.0m distant, again using an f-stop of 11. This result, as well as those using any other f-stop setting, place not only the postulated model UFO but the nearer tree top both in good focus, but places the distant treetop in poor focus, again in contradiction to what is observed. Although one would wish that Meier had pointed his camera downwards and had taken some pictures showing the forest as viewed from above plus the edge of the wedding-cake craft he was sitting on, it seems more likely that he was not permitted to do this than that he simply didn't think of it. However, in Zahi's analysis, it is shown conclusively, from the reflections in the spheres, that Meier and camera, and the WCUFO he photographed, were at treetop level. A peculiar event occurred soon after Meier took these pictures and Quetzal had taken the craft down for Meier to dismount. Quetzal took his ship back up and, accidentally or not, rammed it into the nearer tree of Figs. 7-8, causing the tree to break off some 25m up, and causing its uppermost two meters to break off also. Meier realized the downed tree was the same one whose top he had just photographed, which the 3.5m craft was on the far side of (in Fig. 7). Considering this to be evidence that would substantiate the event, he mentally contacted Quetzal to ask if he, in his craft, could drag the downed portion of the tree to the edge of the forest where he could photograph it, and Quetzal obliged. After the wedding-cake craft had departed, Meier then took several photos of the downed tree, and especially of its uppermost portion, which he hauled back with him to his residence. Upon comparing Fig. 9 with Figs. 7-8, one can see that it is indeed the very same treetop in all three images. However, the treetop is not the conclusive evidence Meier would have liked it to be, as the skeptic who ignores all the other supportive evidence could just claim that Meier had hacked off the treetop after the tree itself had been, for whatever reason, downed, and then stuck the treetop into the ground atop a hill to photograph along with a never- discovered UFO model dangling from a line just behind the treetop, using a distant treetop as background. Yet the downed tree does add suggestive supportive evidence for several reasons. First, Meier's photos #851-854 (see #851, #852, #853) show the broken-off ends of the downed tree, and they show the bright fresh tan color of a recently Fig. 9. Top of the tree rammed by Quetzal's ship. opened healthy tree at the breaks and rips where it had indeed broken off; it definitely hadn't been sawed or chopped off. Forest in background. Meier's photo #862. It takes tremendous force to break a tree off like that. Second, a hoaxer would have needed to be creative enough to have inserted a second, smaller treetop in the ground right next to the first one in order to simulate the complications of nature (see red arrow in Fig. 8). This secondary top shoot does not appear in Fig. 9, as its base lay some unknown meters below the upper break point. Third, it would not be at all simple for a hoaxer to locate an appropriate hilltop where he could erect a broken-off treetop such that no foreground grass or brush, and no background trees or hills, except the sky and a second treetop, would appear in the photos. Nevertheless, the negative skeptic, upon ignoring the depth-of-field considerations and these other considerations, can claim that Meier and unknown assistants set up the broken tree top at the proper distances from the camera to achieve the pictures of Figs. 5 and 6. Thus one suspects it was no accident that Quetzal rammed his craft into the tree at appropriate spots. Otherwise, the skeptic would have been left with almost nothing at all to back up a desire that the episode be a grand hoax. A final consideration, however, is that no clever hoaxer, if arranging to have the top of a tree cut off for use in a hoax, would then show pictures of the severed tree top used in the hoax! Wedding-cake craft partially eclipsed by large fir tree. Only after the English version of Meier's Fotobuch came out did I become aware of his photo #850 as published in Through Space and Time: A Photo Journal of "Billy" Eduard Albert Meier (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark LLC, 2004, p. 114). (Meier's "Verzeichnis: Authentischer Farb-Photos" gives the date as 4 April, 1981, apparently in error.) See Fig. 10. This was in the hills in the general vicinity of the villages/towns of Auenberg, Egg, Girenbad and Hinwil, some 15 miles ESE of Zurich. Meier shot it around 2:30 pm, April 3, 1981 while standing on the top of his van, according to his 1999 Verzeichnis. One can see 5 or 6 separate main branches of the tree eclipsing most of the right- hand side of the craft, with more of its branches extending out to the tree's left side above the craft on up to the tree's top. According to Dr. Edward C. Jensen, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Elizabeth P. Ritchie Distinguished Professor, Forest Ecology and Natural Resources Education, Oregon State University: "The portion of the tree above the potential UFO appears to me to be in the range of 6-10 feet. Although it's pretty fuzzy, there appear to be 5 or 6 whorls of branches with an average growth (and this is just an educated guess) of 1-2 feet between whorls." (March, 2006) This 6-10 ft estimate of the height of the portion of the tree above the craft then translates to a height for the craft of 4 to 7 feet, and a diameter of 8.8-15.4 ft, or from 2.7 to 4.7 meters. This suggests that it was the same 3.5m craft as shown in Figs. 5 and 6 above, and hovering very close behind the tree. Another opinion on the tree in question comes from Professor Emeritus Doug Brodie of the College of Forestry, Oregon State University. Fig. 10. The small wedding-cake craft partially eclipsed "The tree is one of the European true firs -- Abies species. The picture has only a portion of the top of the crown 10 to by fir tree. Cropped from Meier's photo #850 in Through 15 feet. There could be anywhere from 10 to 50 feet of tree bole below the picture." (March, 2006) Space and Time (Steelmark, 2004). Image enhanced using Paint Shop Pro X to bring out contrast between foreground fir and background forest. Zooming in on the craft in front of a distant tree. On the same day of 1981 (3 April, according to FIGU's video of it), and near the same place, Quetzal arranged to have his remotely controlled craft hover in front of an isolated Norway spruce (picea abies) estimated by Meier as 15m in height. That day, again in the early afternoon, he utilized both his Ricoh camera and his Saba video camera. Fig. 11 on the left shows one of the Ricoh camera shots. Figs. 12 and 13 below show the scene from a different viewing angle and from video-camera frames when the zoom lens was not employed and when it was fully employed, respectively (focal length of the video camera going from 12 to 75 mm). The videotaping lasted about six minutes, and the time for the lens to advance from no zoom to full zoom was between 3 and 4 seconds. This zooming, and Figs. 12 & 13, indicate that the hovering craft and the tree are both at about the same distance from the camera, and that this distance must be appreciable. From Fig. 12 below one may notice that to the right another tree top shows up, with its lower portion eclipsed by the same ridge that eclipses the lowest part of the central tree, much of which is shaded from skylight by the hovering craft. From the estimate of tree size, one may then estimate the size of the wedding-cake craft. Now, according to Professor of Forest Management, J. D. Brodie of Oregon State University, who gave me his opinion in 1986, the tree's height was only 3 to 7 meters (10-23 ft) tall. On the other hand, if the annual top growth is a typical 0.3 to 0.4m (12 to 16 inches; see Fig. 8), the tree's height comes out to be 5.5 to 7.3m, (plus whatever portion of the lower trunk Fig. 11. Meier's photo #843. lies unseen below the brow of the ridge). Hence a 7m height seems reasonable for the tree. Fig. 12. Wedding-cake craft in front of tree. Fig. 13. Similar shot when full zoom was employed. Brightness enhanced. No zoom used at this time. Brightness enhanced. From FIGU's "Ausschnitte-Reportage" videotape. Then the diameter of the craft turns out to be 3.5m, which agrees with previous estimates for the smaller, remotely controlled craft. Its distance away, from Fig. 11, is then suggested to be about 70m (230 ft). When viewing the video, one may hear the sound of the zoom mechanism cranking the lens out; Meier zoomed in and out on the craft twice. This video was presented by Michael Hesemann at the 8th Annual International UFO Congress, 1999, and a videotape of its projection, entitled "The Reopening of the Meier Case" is available from the conveners. From it and its sound track one can be certain that it was a continuous video-taping not interrupted by any shut-downs & movements of the camera equipment; i.e., the two zoom-ins-and- back were genuine, and could not have been staged through shutting down the video-tape, moving six times closer to the tree, turning it on again, etc. At one point in the tape one may observe Meier off to one side, to use his photo camera, while the tripod-mounted video camera ran unattended. According to Meier, Quetzal was standing behind him at the time, and for a while one can hear Meier speaking to him. The translation goes as follows, thanks to Christian Frehner of F.I.G.U.: "Ja, isch guet." = "Ja, ist gut." --- Yes, fine [it's good]. [In the background you hear a chain saw.] "OK" --- "OK" "Ganz? Ja." --- "(The) whole (distance)? Yes." [meaning: zooming away] "Ich hole die andere Kamera." --- "I go and get the other camera." "Siehst du, jetzt kommen die auch noch." --- "Do you see, they are coming also." [meaning: the Swiss Army jet fighter plane that is heard passing over them.] "Was meinst du, hält der Bleimantel? Wir werden dann sehen." --- "What do you think, does the lead sheeting hold? We will see." "Aber weisst du, wenn du ein bisschen rund um den Baum drehen könntest. So steht es immer am selben Ort." --- "But you know, if you could turn a bit around the tree. In this way it remains at the same location all the time." "Geht nicht? OK." --- "That's not possible? OK." "Testen wir erst mal, ob es klappt mit dem Bleimantel." --- "Now let's test whether the lead sheeting is working." "Ich nehm's nochmals her." --- "I take it in again." "Ja, weisst du, herzoomen." --- "Yes, you know, zooming in." "Ja, weisst du, wenn du rüber gehen könntest, ein bisschen ..." --- "Yes, you know, if you could move [it] to the side, a little bit ..." "Was, schon wieder!" --- "What, again!" "Da kommt jemand!" --- "Someone is coming!" [It could be Billy saying this, or Quetzal. When I asked him, Billy didn't know for sure either.] So the video-taping ended at this point, and unfortunately Meier did not get to tape the departure of the craft. It is seen above that he twice tried to persuade Quetzal to move the remote-controlled craft while the video-tape camera ran, but Quetzal never did. This may have been part of the Pleiadian/Plejaren strategy of plausible deniability, so that skeptics who can't accept the reality of the UFO phenomenon could have something to be suspicious about. This might allow such a skeptic to assume the UFO was a large model somehow attached rigidly to the tree. The above mention of lead sheeting pertains to some sort of lead shielding that Meier had constructed around the video camera to protect its video-tape, after the tape used on March 26th had been rendered useless by the close proximity of the similar craft. Evidently the shielding was sufficient for the considerable distance they were away from this craft. It is not known or understood by what means Quetzal could control the wedding-cake craft remotely. An enlarged view of the craft as photographed from the location where both Meier and Quetzal were standing, using a high resolution photo scanner in 2013, is shown here. Wedding-cake craft photographed at night. An especially eerie feature of this craft is that it can be made to exhibit a gold coloration all over, possibly self-illuminated. This occurred on two occasions. The first was on 2 August 1981 (Fig. 14), Fig. 14. A wedding-cake craft, with auto below, Fig. 15. Picture taken about a minute later. both behind a tree. Meier's photo #999. Meier's photo #1000. around 02:18 in the night. At this time Meier was away from home, in Altmatt; the auto is on the main street headed SSW towards Rotenthurm, a town some 15 km SE of Zug, Switzerland. Meier was informed that this was a 14m diameter craft, although it appears to be virtually identical to the 7m and/or 3.5m diameter craft we have already viewed. If 14 m in diameter, the camera equation indicates it was 50m (165 ft) distant. The auto, which seems not to have been moving though on the main street and containing a driver, is estimated to have been nearly 30 m distant (97 ft) if it was 17 ft long. A nearer tree in leaf eclipses a portion of both the wedding-cake craft and the car (its trunk). If this tree's width extended 8 ft, it was then some 60 ft distant. The squiggly line in the upper left of Fig. 14 was made, Meier was told, by a tiny, very rapidly maneuvering "telemeter" disc associated with the craft. To maintain his sanity here, a negative skeptic must ignore the three previously discussed cases evincing genuineness, and assume that the tree is a tiny toy tree very close to the camera, the auto a toy car placed a few feet behind it, and the wedding-cake craft a model UFO suspended a few feet farther away. He might then assume the squiggly line to be an irregularly bent wire. About a minute later, according to Meier's Verzeichnis record, he shot the photo of Fig. 15; his notes inform us that this was a different craft, a 7m craft. The touch of light green at the top is a tree branch too close to be at all in focus. The car is now 11.6 m (or 38 ft) distant; if the 7m diameter for the craft is correct, it was some 16.5 m (54 ft) away. Meier had evidently advanced nearly 60 ft closer to the car and road after taking photo #999. This suggests that the low hanging tree-branch tip is part of the same tree as in photo #999. A tiny bit of the edge of the 14m craft appears at the same time in the upper left corner of another photo in this series taken at about the same time (see photo No. 24 of And Yet...They Fly or photo No. 26 of the German edition, ...Und Sie Fliegen Doch, which best shows it). Considering the relative degree of focus of the car in the two photos, it seems likely to me that Meier mistakenly reversed the identity of the two craft in photos #999 and #1000, with the former one being of 7m diameter and latter one 14m diameter. If so, the above estimated distances to the craft would need to be altered accordingly: in #999 the craft would then be only 15 ft closer than the car, while in #1000 it would be 70 ft farther away than the car. This car was believed by Meier to be a Mercedes, but a 2-door Rolls-Royce Camargue of late 1970s vintage looks to be a better fit to me. The second such photo occasion for Meier occurred three nights later, again in the middle of the night, right over the parking area in front of Meier's residence at Hinterschmidrüti. The craft was hovering low, and Meier recalls having taken the picture from partway up the hill just south of the residence and adjacent parking area. A total of four pictures survive from this occasion. The craft at night has taken on a totally different color, uniform throughout, except mainly for the ring of red "crystals," as W. Stevenshas called them. Interestingly, despite this, its many spheroids and flat circumferential surfaces still reflect light specularly. As usual, we do not know the purposes of any of the detailed constructs it exhibits, unless one purpose is to provide ornamentation allowing skeptics to claim it is a model composed of household artifacts, so that they not be forced to believe what may be totally unacceptable to them. Although there seems to be nothing in this photo to indicate the craft's size, a recent (2012 or 2013) scan-up of its original film using higher resolution reveals more: Fig. 16. Here and below, one of the wedding-cake craft at night, at Meier's residence, 5 Aug. 1981. Photo #873. An analysis by Rhal Zahi reveals a pole and its shadow at the base of the hillside, along which appears to be a footpath: The pole and WCUFO arein the same good focus. These features are consistent with Meier's report that the craft was hovering over the Center's paved parking area, and hence was a large craft. Debunkers' attempts. The primary claim that would-be debunkers have made against this series of photos is that the lower body of the wedding-cake craft is comprised of a garbage-can lid of the type that is used at the FIGU residence in Hinterschmidrüti. This strong resemblance (compare Figs. 14 and 15) was noticed some time in the 1990s. The garbage-can lids utilized there at the FIGU Center have several evenly- spaced thin lines running around the circumference, and two protruding ledges on opposite sides, as handle grips. The real craft exhibit features that appear identical to this (see also Photo #799. Given the irrefutable evidence that the WCUFO was of very substantial size and no model, and given the perceived need for the Plejarens to build elements of plausile deniability for skeptics into their presentations to Meier, this is probably one of them and no coincidence. From examining the Meier case as a whole, it becomes clear that the Plejarens do have the capability of carefully placing an idea, even a detailed design, into a selected person's head, unknown to him. Where the resemblance to the lid ends, however, is that there is comprehensive structure on the craft's underside (see Fig. 8), obviously not present on the garbage-can lid. There is an outer circumferential ridge around the top of the garbage-can lid (see Fig. 17, where the visitor's right thumb and forefinger straddle the ridge), not present atop the wedding-cake craft (see Fig. 16). There's also a flange around the bottom base of the craft, not present on the garbage-can lid. The negative skeptic must assume that someone somehow snugly attached a flange to the base of the plastic lid, somehow smoothly filled in and leveled the top of the lid, before adding arrays of complicated adornments on top, and then also assume that all the camera depth-of-field considerations can be ignored. These are unreasonable assumptions in view of either the great difficulty for any hoaxer to achieve the result seen, or the several points of undeniable reality brought out by the daytime photos and videotape of the wedding-cake craft we have already viewed. In addition, the garbage-can lids are made of black plastic whereas the wedding- cake craft were a reflective silvery color in Meier's daytime photos and a reflective golden color at night. Thus, the garbage- can lid hypothesis fails to fit the data on far too many important points. As far as FIGU members are concerned, they only had to point out that they had not purchased that make and style of garbage can until several years later than 1980-81. A strong suspicion exists, however, that around that time one of the Pleiadians/Plejarens implanted the design of the garbage-can lid into the mind of a garbage-can manufacturer whose product would later be sold in cities near Schmidrüti. If so, this would be another example of alien "damage control" to ensure that the Meier case, with all its photographic evidence, would not by itself cause a premature rupture of the UFO coverup. From what Meier has reported being told in his contacts, the Pleiadian/Plejaren ETs can, if desired, either remotely implant or erase selected memories within selected persons' minds; and from many UFO abduction cases we know that other aliens can also Fig. 17. A visitor (Philip McAiney) at Meier's implant or cover up memories within the mind. Meier's Contact Report #22 (28 May 1975) makes especially interesting residence holding up garbage-can lid, circa 1998. reading where Meier was told by Semjase that they could apply this capability to him, whereupon he objected most strenuously if they were to attempt that. The other main attempt to debunk the wedding-cake craft has been by Korff (Spaceships of the Pleiades, pp. 215-217). One of the photos of 22 Nov., 1980 (see also plate #21 in Moosbrugger's And Yet...They Fly), seems to show an irregularity, which Korff implied was "warpage" of a model UFO. The "warpage" appears just below the lowest tier of spheres and about 30 degrees around from the front-center to the right, but it does not seem to show up in the two photos from this series that I possess (Fig. 1 above, and Photo #799). In Fig. 1 it appears that the shading reflected by the carriage house just behind the camera may have caused an apparent deviation in circularity of the "rim" just underneath the lowest tier of spheres. No warpage. It is not clear if this seeming deviation is an asymmetry in design or an effect of the discrete shadowing. No such asymmetry or "warpage" shows up in the photos of wedding-cake craft taken a half year later under daytime or nighttime lighting conditions; e.g., see the other photos above. However, the rest of the craft is not totally symmetric, with a couple of the "spheres" in the lowest and middle tiers looking different from the others. We cannot just assume that all particular aspects of an alien craft must be perfectly symmetric, when we don't know what purposes these particulars may serve. It is especially important not to make this assumption when the aliens have good reason to provide negative skeptics with needed bits of plausible deniability. If we ignore this precaution we are, in essence, assuming that surely any aliens visiting Earth, though possessing far superior technology, would not be smarter than we are and not have a strategy for dealing with us that involves covertness and some accompanying deception. This line of reasoning also takes into account the numerous instances of UFOs in the past 40 years that have been reported to have changed their shape or appearance while being observed. For example, see Georgina Bruni's You Can't Tell the People, (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 2000), p. 72, regarding the Rendlesham Forest case. Or in Google search for "UFO change shape" for thousands of cases. Somehow the technology thousands or millions of years more advanced than ours is capable of achieving this kind of "magic," which, in the case of the Plejarens, could render it a simple matter for them to temporarily alter the outward appearance of their craft, when desired. Korff went on to suggest that the circumferential band between the 2nd and 3rd tiers of spheres was a bracelet, and that protrusions extending out from between some of the spheres below it were carpet tacks. He presumably did not even consider that he had been duped by an alien strategy of plausible deniability, and did not point out any of the several convincing points of reality shown on this web page, which show that the width of the wedding-cake craft was at least an order of magnitude greater than that of a garbage-can lid. He also did not seem to be aware that by 1980-81 Meier was using the Ricoh camera, whose focusing mechanism worked properly unlike that of the Olympus camera he had used in 1975-76. If we check out Korff's model claim against the camera's depth-of-field for that photo series, we find it doesn't work well. Let's take a diameter of 3 inches for the claimed bracelet, which being about one quarter the diameter of the claimed model, gives the latter a one-foot diameter. From the camera equation and the photo in Fig. 1, we then find the claimed model would have had to be very close to the camera-only 1.7 ft away. Then, because it's in excellent focus, we choose a focus distance of 1.7 ft. For an f-stop setting of 11, which gives a maximal depth of field, we then find the depth of field to lie between 1.58ft and 1.75 ft, which is extremely limited as one would expect for any such close-up. Thus Meier's residence in the distance would be rather far out of focus, being about 100 ft away. However, we see that it is only a little out of focus, with the windows and their edges showing clearly. This indicates the object was significantly larger than Korff imagined and situated farther away from the camera. Since these early attempts to debunk the "WCUFO" photos, other attempts have come along. These have been well refuted by Michael Horn in his website and blog and by others. Go back to: Previous file Contents THE TALMUD OF JMMANUEL's U.S. PUBLISHER Up until May of 2004, the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) and also Celestial Teachings (CT), had been published by Wild Flower Press, an imprint of Granite Publishing. As of spring of 2004, however, both the TJ and CT were out of print and awaiting publication of their next editions. The new publisher is: Steelmark LLC 8086 South Yale, Suite 173 Tulsa, OK 74136 Tel: 918-827-6453 Fax: 918-827-5561 Go Back to: Contents Page MEIER-CASE WITNESSES & EVENTS UP TO 2012 KEY TO EVENTS1 B clean-shaven Meier departs & returns a day later with a many-day growth of Beard, after a (5-day space-trip) contact, D had a Daytime sighting of a beamship or related craft, E caught sight of one of the ETs, such as Quetzal, Ptaah or Asket, F saw the Fir tree that Semjase posed her ship on all sides of after it was damaged, glowed in the dusk and later disappeared, G saw and/or photographed a crop-circle like pattern in the Grass or in ice soon after a contact, H Heard the sound of a beamship, or its loud noise made during a tape-recording session, or a related UFO sound, Hm Heard the voice of a Plejaren or Plejaren associate speaking to Meier, L witnessed Billy receiving or sending a teLepathic message, as confirmed by an immediately following event, N had a Nighttime UFO sighting associated with one of Billy's contacts or with a night "UFO demonstration," Nm had a Nighttime beamship sighting while Meier was aboard the craft and in radio communication with the witness, P Passed PSE (Psychological stress evaluation) test, Ph took photo(s) of the craft/beamship while witnessing it Ph* image of Plejaren-type craft discovered later on the photo Q viewed Billy's dozen or so photos of how San Francisco would look after a future devastating earthQuake, R saw Billy suddenly Return or appear after a contact, T viewed the disappearing Tree demonstration, V noticed Billy (or one of his contacting ETs) suddenly Vanish (just before a contact), W Witnessed Billy rapidly typing out a Contact Report the day or so after, at a speed much faster than is normal for him. Table 1. Witnesses listed alphabetically by last name (Links updated March 2011) Descriptive No. of different Photo of Events statements days on which First name Last name References (see below) witness, Nationality (see KEY) signed, or event(s) in KEY see: on video were witnessed 12,p.132-33; 19; 27,p.330-32; 01 (Mr.) Altensperger† G,L,N German 1 33,p.88-90 02 Anton Bachofen (N) 30b; 33,p.417; X 33,p.417 Swiss 1 03 Hildegard Bachofen (N) 30b; 33,p.417 Swiss 1 04 Rüdiger Bässler H 33,p.173-75 German 1 05 Jan Bayer L,N 53b Czech Republic 1 3,p.83;17b; 25,p.85-89; 06 Edith Beldi N,(Ph-D) X 25,p.85 Swiss 3 30b; 33,p.387-88 07 Adolf Berroth† V/R 33,p.186f Swiss 1 B,(D),F,G,H,Hm,L, 12, p.126-31f; 2,p.45; 3,p.136f; 08 Jacobus Bertschinger X 25,p.75; 49 Swiss 26 N,Nm,P,R,T,V 19; 21; 24; 33,p.33f 09 Jakob Bertschinger† Sr. G,H,R 12,p.154-55; 33,p.145f Swiss 2 10 Daniela Beyeler D 29b; 33,p.413-15 Swiss 1 Bhante† 11 Samdach Vira D,E 28; 33,p.9-23 15 Indian many during 1962-64 "Dharmawana" 12 Atlant Bieri D,L,N 3,p.83; 29b; 33,p.348f 25,p.75; 49 Swiss 2 13 Eva Bieri D,H,Hm,N,(Ph) 2,p.44; 21; 25,p.84-85; 33,p.253f X 15 Swiss 4 14 Hanna Bieri Hm,N 33,p.288 X 33,p.288 Swiss 1 2,p.45; 3,p.186f; 12,p.154f; 24; D,H,Hm,L,N, 15 Bernadette Brand 25b; 29; 30b; 33,p.128f; 37b & 37b'; X 15, 49 Swiss 11 P,Q,V/R,W FIGU Spec. Bull. 19; 46b; 49 16 Natan Brand D,N 23b; 25b; 29b; 30b; 32b; 33,p.401f 25,p.94 Swiss 4 17 Madeleine Brügger Hm,(N) 33,p.352-54 X 25,p.75 Swiss 1 18 Patric Chenaux D,L,N 23b; 29b; 30b ; 33,p.401f; 53b X 33,p.401 Swiss 4 19 Phobol Cheng D,E,N,(V) 14,p.19-26; 15; 24; 33,p.9-23; 49 X 14,p.23; 15 Cambodian many during 1962-64 20 Harry Dicker (D) 04b; 18; 33,p. 369-70 X 33,p.369 Dutch 1 21 Fritz Egger (N) 30b; 33,p.415-16 Swiss 1 22 Claes Elmberg L,N 53b New Zealand 1 23 Adrian Fischer L,N 3,p.83; 33,p.348-49 Swiss 1 3,p.152-53; 12,p.127-29,134-35; 24 Margreth Flammer† L,N,T,V/R X Swiss 6 19; 33,p.35f 25 Christian Frehner D,(N),W 29b; 30b; 32; 33,p.413f; 49 X 25,p.75 Swiss 3 26 Claire Frei V/R 33,pp.186-87 Swiss 1 27 (Mr.) Fuchs L,N,G 12,p.132-33; 19; 27,p.330-32 German 1 28 Christina Gasser D,L,N 3,p.83; 24b; 33,p.348f X 25,p.75 Swiss 3 29 Andrea Grässl D 29b; 33,p.413-15 25,p.75; 49 Austrian 1 Gruber- 30 Elisabeth D,Hm,L 3,p.159-60; 33,p.282f X 25,p.75 Austrian 1 Schwaighofer 31 Anton Hahnekamp L,N 53b Austrian 1 32 Stefan Hahnekamp L,N 53b Austrian 1 33 Barbara Harnisch D,(N),(Ph-D) 29b; 29b'; 30b; 33,p.413f; 35b; 49 X 25,p.75; 49 Swiss 4 34 Marcel Hirt† (N),V/R 33,p.186f Swiss 2 35 Simone Holler D 29b; 33,p.413-15 25,p.75 German 1 36 Maria Ivancevic V/R 33,p.186-87 Yugoslavian 1 37 Milivoj Ivancevic N,R,V 33,p.151f Yugoslavian 5 38 Hans Jacob (L),N 31,p.54-55; 33,p.35 Swiss 1 FIGU Spec. Bull. 62, 38b P. Kalista (N),N German 2 FIGU Spec. Bull. 63 29b; 30b; 33,p.413f; 35b; 50b; 39 Pius Keller D,E,(N) X 25,p.75 Swiss 5 FIGU Spec. Bull. 59 40 Thomas Keller Hm,N 3,p.164-66; 33,p.303f; 46b X Swiss 1 41 Ernst Keller-Muller N 12,p.158-59; 29 X 29 Swiss 1 42 Bernard Kellner (D-Ph)* 23b; 33,p.389-92 German 1 43 Rita Keoughan (D)* 23b; 33,p.389-92 25,p.89 Canadian 1 3,p.164-66; 20; 24; 33,p.297f; 49, 44 Brunhilde Koye E,Hm,N X 15, 49 German 3 51,pp.115-16 7; 23b; 24; 24b; 25b; 29b; 29b'; 32b; 45 Freddy Kropf D,Hm,L,N,Ph X 15 Swiss 8 33,p.325f,401f; 37b; 37b' & 37b" 46 Christian Krukowski H,L,N 3,p.101; 33,p.173f X 33,p.173;33 German 3 47 Hans Georg Lanzendorfer N,R 5; 24; 32b; 33,p.323f X 15, 49 Swiss 4 6; 16; 23b; 24; 29b; 29b'; 48 Silvano Lehmann D,G,Hm,L,N,Ph X 15 Swiss 7 30b; 33,p.251f; 37b & 37b' 49 Philip McAiney (D)* 23b; 33,p.389-92; 34 X 25,p.89 Canadian 1 2,p.44; 3,p.136f; 12,p.142-44; 50 Atlantis Meier D,G,H,N,T X 2,p.44 Swiss 9 16; 24; 30; 33,p.68f, 49 51 Eduard "Billy" Meier Almost all Almost all X 17,p.46; Swiss 100s 2,p.44; 3,p.157-59f; 52 Gilgamesha Meier D,G,H,Hm,N,T X 3, plate 3 Swiss 9 12,p.142-44; 33,p.37f D,E,G,H,Hm,L,N, 2,p.44; 3,p.136f; 53 Kalliope Meier-Zafiriou X 17,p.46; ... Swiss 17 P,T,R,V,W 12,p.142-44; 21; 33,p.108f 2,p.44; 3,p.136f; 54 Methusalem Meier D,G,H,N,T X 15 Swiss 8 12,p.142-44; 24; 33,p.101f 55 Louis Memper D,(E),Hm,N 16; 24; 25b; 29b; 33,p.303f X 25,p.75 Swiss 3 56 Elisabeth Moosbrugger (D),N 04b; 33,p.352f X 33,p.367 German 3 G,Hm,L,N, 3,p.94f; 12,p.134-42; 57 Guido Moosbrugger X 19, 49 Austrian 7 Ph,R,T,V 19; 24; 33,p.73f; 49 58 Elsi Moser (H),Hm,(N),V/R,V 19; 29; 30; 33,p.186f X 2,p.44; 29 Swiss 4 59 Erwin Mürner D,(L),N 24; 30b; 33,p.284f X 33,p.129 Swiss 5 60 Günter Neugebauer D 29b; 33,p.413-15 25,p.75 German 1 61 Piero Petrizzo L,N FIGU Spec. Bull. 39 Italian 1 62 Harold Proch G,H,(L) 9,p.33,41f German 2 63 Margreth Rose (H),N 33,p.199f German 2 64 Margret Rufer† F,L,N 12,p.126,333; 19; 33,p.33f X Swiss 3 G,H,L,N, 3,p.114; 9,p.218; 12,p.149f; 65 Herbert Runkel X 30 German 10 Q,T,V/R 19; 30; 33,p.117f 66 Karin Schell-Proff Hm,N 33,p.303-05 German 1 67 Elsa Schröder D,E 4,p.336; 12,p.177-79; 33,p.28-33 X German 1 68 Andreas Schubiger N 23b; 30b; 33,p.354f; 35b 25,p.75 Swiss 5 D,G,H,L,N, 3,p.142f; 12,p.127-31f; 69 Hans Schutzbach X Swiss 16 P,Ph,T,V/R 16; 19; 19'; 33,p.44f 70 Konrad Schutzbach G,N,Ph,T,V/R 3,p.142f; 12,p.132-33; 19; 33,p.73f X 26,p.187 Swiss 8 71 Kurt Stadlin Q 3; p.171-72; 33,p.200-202 Swiss 1 72 Eric Stadtlein (D,N) 12,p.168 Swiss 2 73 Philia Stauber D 29b; 33,p.413-15; 49 25,p.75 Swiss 1 74 Päuly Steiner (L),N 33,p.35f Swiss 1 D,G,H,(L), 3,p.152f,p.157-59; 12,p.127f; 75 Amalie "Amata" Stetter X Swiss 9 N,T,V/R 16; 19; 24; 33,p.35f 76 Wendelle Stevens Q,V 14,p.383; 23, p,492-96; 32 X 2,p.45; 15 U.S. 2 77 Mr. Suraj† D,E 33,p.16 33,p.22 Indian several 78 Michael Uyttebroek D,L,N 29b; 33,p.413f; 35b; 35b'; 35b"; 53b 33,p.430 Canadian 5 79 Mariella Ventura V/R 33,p.132f Swiss 1 80 Renato Ventura N,V,V/R 33,p.132f Swiss 3 81 Aroona Wächter D 24b; 33,p.403-04 25,p.75 Swiss 1 82 Conny Wächter (H),Hm,N 16; 33,p.303f X 25,p.75 Swiss 2 2,p.45; 3,p.117f; 12,p.154 83 Engelbert Wächter E,H,Hm,N,P,Q,R,V X 15, 49 Swiss 13 21; 24; 33,p.145f, 49 84 Maria Wächter D,H,Hm,N 2,p.44; 3,p.136; 21; 24b; 33,p.135f X 25,p.75 Swiss 4 85 Rolf Wächter (H),N 25,p.84-85; 33,p.199f Swiss 2 3,p.152-53; 12,p.127-29,134-35; 86 Olga Walder† L,N,T,V/R X Swiss 6 19; 23b; 33,p.35f 87 Karin Wallén (N),W 33,p.380f; 53b X 33,p.380 Swedish 3 88 Robert Waster D 29b; 33,p.413-15 Austrian 1 89 Klaus Wenz (D)* 23b; 33,p.389-92 25,p.89 German 1 12,p.132-33; 19 90 Wolfgang Witzer G,L,N X German 1 27,p.330-32; 33,p.88-93 91 (Mr.) M. Yasuda G 12,p.156-57; 33,p.251 12,p.157 Japanese 1 Notes: † Deceased ( ) Indicates the connection to Meier may involve a degree of uncertainty Table 2. Witnesses and events listed chronologically Event References Date of event Name (See KEY Location (See below) above) 1938-on "Billy" Eduard A. Meier All Switzerland; India;... Nearly all Phobol Cheng D,E,N,(V) 14,p.19-26; Samdach Vira Bhante† 1962-1964 Mehrauli, India 15; 15'; 28; Mr. Suraj† 33,p.9-23; 49 Billy Meier ←Ph 4,p.336; 12,p.177-79 19 Feb. 1975 Elsa Schröder D,E near Zahedan, S.E. Iran translation; 33,p.28-33 Billy Meier L Jacobus Bertschinger Margret Flammer Hans Jacob near Hermatsvil and 33,p.33-35 16 June, 1975 Margret Rufer N Ravensbühl, Switzerland translation Päuly Steiner Amata Stetter Olga Walder Gilgamesha Meier 3,p.160; Summer 1975 Kalliope Meier (N) Hinwil 33,p.37-38 translation Billy Meier Jacobus Bertschinger Mid-July 1975 F Fuchsbüel-Hofhalden 12,p.126-27 Margret Rufer 3,p.242-43; Jacobus Bertschinger 17-18 July 1975 B Hinwil 33,p.38-40 Billy Meier translation 3,p.155-56; Jacobus Bertschinger 14 March 1976 L,N Hinwil 12,p.129-30; 19; Billy Meier 33,p.45-48 Hans Schutzbach 19; 27,p.191-94; 27/28 March 1976 Jacobus Bertschinger L,N Hinwil-Wetzikon 33,p.51-55 Billy Meier Hans Schutzbach Jacobus Bertschinger Margret Flammer Hinwil-- 12,p.126-29; 19; 3-4 April 1976 Margret Rufer L,N Natural Forest Preserve 33,p.56-64 Amata Stetter Olga Walder Billy Meier Hans Schutzbach Atlantis and Methusalem Meier 3,p.134-35; H Gilgamesha and Kalliope Meier 12,p.448-50; 16 April 1976 near Hinwil Amata Stetter 23,p.455-56; L 33,p.64-70 Billy Meier curious villagers Hans Schutzbach 12, 131-32; 19; 23 April 1976 Jacobus Bertschinger L,N near Linz, Austria 33,p.71-73 Billy Meier Guido Moosbrugger Konrad Schutzbach 3,p.141-45; Hinwil/near Dürstelen, 16/17 May 1976 Jacobus Bertschinger L,N 33,p.73-80 Switzerland Kalliope Meier translation Billy Meier Wolfgang Witzer Hans & Konrad Schutzbach Jacobus Bertschinger 19; 27,p.330-32; 7/8 June 1976 at a forest near Hinwil Mr. Fuchs L,N,G 33,p. 88-93 Billy Meier Guido Moosbrugger (later) ←G Guido Moosbrugger ←Ph Margret Flammer 3,p.152-54 Konrad Schutzbach ←Ph 12/13 June 1976 near Winkelriet & Hinwil 12,p.133-42; 19; Amata Stetter L,N 33,p.93-99 Olga Walder Billy Meier ←Ph Konrad Schutzbach Harold Proch 3, Figs. 37-38; 23 June 1976 Herbert Runkel G near Winkelriet & Hinwil 9,p.33-34; Guido Moosbrugger ←Ph 25,p.15 Billy Meier Guido Moosbrugger ←Ph Margret Flammer Hans and Konrad Schutzbach 26/27 June 1976 near Winkelriet & Hinwil3,p.154-55; Amata Stetter (N) 33,p.99-100 Olga Walder (Billy Meier) ←Ph 2,p.44; Hans Schutzbach 3,p.157-59; Amata Stetter 12,p.142-46; 19; D,G 28 June 1976 Kalliope and Gilgamesha Meier near Hinwil 23,p.472-73 Atlantis and Methusalem Meier 25,p.46; Billy Meier 33,p.101-14 Guido Moosbrugger ←Ph Hans and Konrad Schutzbach Margreth Flammer Amata Stetter 3,p.241-42,137-39; Olga Walder 3, Figs. 53-54; 17 July 1976 near Hinwil Herbert Runkel T 12,p.149-52; 19; 33,p.117-22 Jacobus Bertschinger Kalliope and Gilgamesha Meier Atlantis and Methusalem Meier Billy Meier ←Ph Hans Schutzbach ←Ph 3, Figs. 31,32; 29 Sept. 1976 Konrad Schutzbach Ambitzgi, Wetzikon G 25,p.34 Billy Meier Harold Proch nearly a 1-hr drive Winter 1977 Jacobus Bertschinger L,H 9,p.41-42 from Hinwil Billy Meier Milivoj Ivancevic Kalliope and Gilgamesha Meier 3 Feb. 1977 (N) over Hinwil 33,p.133 Atlantis and Methusalem Meier Billy Meier Jacobus Bertschinger Nm, ←R 3,p.118-19; Kalliope and Gilgamesha Meier 7 Feb. 1977 Ottikon and Hinwil 12,p.150-54; 19; Atlantis and Methusalem Meier N 33,p.136-39 Billy Meier Englebert Wächter Jacobus Bertschinger 12,p.154-55,243; 20 Feb. 1977 Jakob Bertschinger, Sr. H,R near Horgen-Hirzel 19; 33,p.145-47 Bernadette Brand Billy Meier Hans Schutzbach Jacobus Bertschinger 25,p.42; 23 May 1977 G Hinterschmidrüti Herbert Runkel 33,p.154-58 Billy Meier Englebert Wächter Jacobus Bertschinger 33,p.158-60 31 May 1977 Milivoj Ivancevic V Hinterschmidrüti translation Renato Ventura Billy Meier Jacobus Bertschinger Herbert Runkel Hans Schutzbach Milivoj Ivancevic 33,p.170-72 13 July 1977 Kalliope Meier L,N Hinterschmidrüti translation Atlantis Meier Amata Stetter Billy Meier Bernadette Brand and ~20km away Englebert Wächter 33,p.172-73 16 July 1977 V Hinterschmidrüti Billy Meier translation Christian Krukowski 33,p.173-75 July/Aug. 1977 Rüdiger Bässler H Hinterschmidrüti translation Billy Meier Herbert Runkel Hans and Konrad Schutzbach Engelbert Wächter 33,p.175-80 17 Aug. 1977 N Hinterschmidrüti Renato Ventura translation Jacobus Bertschinger Billy Meier Herbert Runkel Hans and Konrad Schutzbach Engelbert Wächter Bernadette Brand Renato and Mariella Ventura Jacobus Bertschinger Milivoj and Maria Ivancevic 3,p.118; 4 Sep. 1977 Adolf Berroth V/R Hinterschmidrüti 33,p.186-87 Elsi Moser translation Olga Walder Claire Frei Margret Flammer Amata Stetter Marcel Hirt Kalliope and Billy Meier Billy Meier ←Ph 3, Figs. 35,36 23 Nov. 1977 Hinterschmidrüti his family G 3,p.112 Guido Moosbrugger 3,p.125-26; half-hour drive from 4 Jan. 1978 Jacobus Bertschinger L,V,R 33,p.196-98 Hinterschmidrüti Billy Meier translation Bernadette Brand Elsi Moser Margreth Flammer Engelbert and Maria Wächter Conny and Rolf Wächter 33,p.199-200 18 Feb. 1978 (H) Hinterschmidrüti Jacobus Bertschinger translation Oma Rose Gilgamesha Meier Atlantis & Methusalem Meier Billy Meier Bernadette Brand 3,p.204-05; Englebert Wächter 9,p.218; Herbert Runkel 18 Mar. 1978 Q Hinterschmidrüti 14,p.391-94; Kurt Stadlin 32; 33,p.200-01; Wendelle Stevens a summary Billy Meier Bernadette Brand Englebert Wächter Jacobus Bertschinger 3,p.219-21; 18 June 1978 P Hinterschmidrüti Hans Schutzbach 12,p.161-73 Kalliope Meier Billy Meier Ernst Keller-Muller near Wila/ 1 Aug. 1978 (N) 12,p.158-59; 29 Billy Meier Schmidrüti Wendelle Stevens Jacobus Bertschinger L 33,p.213-14 6 Aug. 1978 Elsi Moser Hinterschmidrüti-Elgg V-R translation Kalliope Meier Billy Meier Kalliope Meier 33,p.227-28 3 Feb. 1979 E,V Hinterschmidrüti Billy Meier translation Silvano Lehmann Jacobus Bertschinger 2,p.52; Jakob Bertschinger Sr. 9,p.155(facing); 15-16 June 1980 Herbert Runkel G Hinterschmidrüti 12,p.155-57; 19; 25,p.38; Mr. Yasuda 33,p.251-53 Kalliope Meier and others Englebert and Maria Wächter Jacobus Bertschinger 3,p.135-37;>21; 23,p.459-61; Eva Bieri near Sädelegg 18 July 1980 H 24; 33,p.253-56; 49; Kalliope and Gilgamesha Meier and Schmidrüti beamship sound Atlantis and Methusalem Meier Billy Meier Englebert Wächter 3,p.160-63; 9 Oct. 1980 E,R near Sächler Billy Meier 33,p.259-63 Bernadette Brand 3,p.94-96; 22 March 1981 Billy Meier W Hinterschmidrüti 33,p.266-69 Meier's family members Eva Bieri 25,p.84-85 1 June 1981 Rolf Wächter H,N near Hinterschmidrüti 33,p.274-75 Billy Meier translation Englebert Wächter 33,p.276-77 21 September 1981 H,N,R Hinterschmidrüti Billy Meier translation Elisabeth Gruber 3,p.159-60; 23 April 1982 Bernadette Brand D,L Hinterschmidrüti 33,p.282-83 Billy Meier translation Silvano Lehmann 33,p.283-84 Spring 1982 Eva Bieri D Hinterschmidrüti translation Kalliope and Billy Meier Erwin Mürner very low & directly over 33,p.284-85 5 June 1982 D and others Hinterschmidrüti translation Hanna Bieri 33,p.288 1 Aug. 1982 Margreth Rose N Hinterschmidrüti translation other FIGU members and friends 33,p.297-99 1-2 Oct. 1982 Brunhilde Koye E Hinterschmidrüti translation, 51,p.115-16 Guido Moosbruger Englebert Wächter Maria Wächter Bernadette Brand Eva Bieri Kalliope Meier Thomas Keller Jacobus Bertschinger Hanna Bieri Elsi Moser 3,p.129-30; 5 Mar. 1983 Hm Hinterschmidrüti Louis Memper 33,p.301-03 Madeline Brügger Conny Wächter Elisabeth Gruber-Schwaighofer Gilgamesha Meier Silvano Lehmann Freddy Kropf Hans Benz Karin Scheil-Proff Brunhilde Koye Brunhilde Koye Thomas Keller Englebert & Maria Wächter Conny and Rolf Wächter Jacobus Bertschinger 3,p.164-67; 8 April 1983 (N) Hinterschmidrüti Karin Bertschinger 33,p.303-06 Louis Memper Kalliope and Gilgamesha Meier Atlantis and Methusalem Meier Billy Meier 33,p.314-15 30 Sep. 1983 Brunhilde Koye (E) Hinterschmidrüti translation Erwin Mürner 33,p.318-19 1 Aug. 1984 Billy Meier N Hinterschmidrüti translation plus others 33,p.320 Summer 1985 Marcel Hirt (N) Hinterschmidrüti translation Erwin Mürner 33,p.321 July 1986 (N) Hinterschmidrüti plus others translation Erwin Mürner 33,p.322 June 1987 Billy Meier (L),N Hinterschmidrüti translation plus others 24; directly over Aug. 1987 Hans G. Lanzendorfer (N) 33,p.323-24 Hinterschmidrüti translation 25,p.98; 19 Aug. 1989 Eva Bieri (Ph) Hinterschmidrüti 33,p.328-29 Christina Gasser Edith Beldi 3,p.83; Atlant Bieri 28 April 1990 L,N Hinterschmidrüti 33,p.348-49 Adrian Fischer translation Christian Krukowski Billy Meier 33,p.349-50 26 July 1990 Englebert Wächter (N) Hinterschmidrüti translation Christian Frehner Madeleine Brugger Elisabeth Moosbrugger 33,p.351-55 2 June 1991 (N) Hinterschmidrüti Andreas Schubiger translation Jacobus Bertschinger Kalliope and Billy Meier 33,p.356 Sept. 1991 Freddy Kropf (N) Hinterschmidrüti translation 33,p.366 29 June 1993 Christina Gasser N Hinterschmidrüti translation 33,p.367-68 5 Sept. 1993 Elisabeth Moosbrugger N Hinterschmidrüti translation Harry Dicker 04b; 04b-trans; 14 May 1994 (D) Hinterschmidrüti Elisabeth Moosbrugger 33,p.369-70 Bernadette Brand 33,p.370-72 1 July 1994 L,N Hinterschmidrüti Billy Meier translation Karin Wallén 33,p.380-82 8,9 Aug. 1996 (N) Hinterschmidrüti Christian Krukowski translation 17b; 17b-trans; Edith Beldi 22 April 1998 (Ph-D)* Luino, Italy 25,p.85-89; (Billy Meier) 33,p.387-88 Bernhard Kellner (←Ph-D)* 23b'; 23b'-trans; Phil McAiney 9 May, 1998 Schmidrüti 25,p.89,92: Rita Keoughan 33,p.389-92 Klaus Wenz Karin Wallén 33,p.399-400 13 March 1999 Christian Krukowski N Hinterschmidrüti translation (Billy Meier) Patric Chenaux Silvano Lehmann Freddy Kropf 23b; 23b-trans; 28 May 1999 N Hinterschmidrüti Natan Brand 33,p.401-03 Andreas Schubiger Billy Meier Christina Gasser Maria and Aroona Wächter 24b; 24b-trans; 1 Aug. 1999 D Hinterschmidrüti Freddy Kropf 33,p.403-04 Billy Meier Bernadette and Natan Brand 25b; 25b-trans; Louis Memper D 12 Sept. 1999 Hinterschmidrüti 25,p.93-94; Billy Meier 33,p.404-10 Freddy Kropf ←Ph Freddy Kropf 29b; 29b-trans"'; 14 May 2000 L,N Hinterschmidrüti Billy Meier 33,p.411-12 Billy Meier ←L Silvano Lehmann Louis Memper Daniela Beyeler Andrea Grässl Gunter Neugebauer Christian Frehner Patric Chenaux 29b; 29b-trans; 20 May 2000 Natan Brand D Hinterschmidrüti 33,p.413-15; Simone Holler Barbara Harnisch Atlant Bieri Philia Stauber Pius Keller Robert Waster Michael Uyttebroek Freddy Kropf ←Ph Erwin Mürner 27 May 2000 Fritz Egger (N) Hinterschmidrüti 30b; 30b-trans' Anton & Hildegard Bachofen 33,p.415-16 29b; 29b-trans"; 3 June 2000 Barbara Harnisch (D),Ph Schwarzwald, Germany 33,p.417-18 Silvano Lehmann ←Ph 29b; 29b-trans'; 6 July 2000 Hinterschmidrüti Billy Meier L,D 33,p.419-21 Pius Keller Natan & Bernadette Brand Edith Beldi Silvano Lehmann Patric Chenaux 30b; 30b-trans 16 Sept. 2000 (N) Hinterschmidrüti Andreas Schubiger 33,p.422-25 Barbara Harnisch Christian Frehner other FIGU members Billy Meier 32b; 32b-trans; 4 Feb. 2001 Hans Georg Lanzendorfer N Hinterschmidrüti 33,p.427-30 Pius Keller Michael Uyttebroek 33,p.431-32; 12 May 2001 (N) Hinterschmidrüti Billy Meier 35b"; 35b"-trans a couple others 33,p.432-33; 15 May 2001 Michael Uyttebroek (N) Hinterschmidrüti 35b; 35b-trans 33,p.433-34; 19 May 2001 Michael Uyttebroek (N) Hinterschmidrüti 35b; 35b'-trans 33,p.434-35; 6 July 2001 Pius Keller (N) Hinterschmidrüti translation Niesen, Berner Oberland 33,p.436-38; 15 Aug. 2001 Freddy Kropf (D),Ph Switzerland 37b"; 37b"-trans Barbara Harnisch 33,p.438-39; 18 Aug. 2001 (N) Hinterschmidrüti Andreas Schubiger 35b; 35b-trans Freddy Kropf ←Ph 33,p.451-55; Bernadette Brand 26 Aug. 2001 Hinterschmidrüti 37b; 37b-trans Silvano Lehmann N & 37b'; 37b'-trans Billy Meier 10 June 2003 Pius Keller (N) Hinterschmidrüti 46b; 46b-trans Bernadette Brand 29/30 June 2003 E,N Hinterschmidrüti 46b'; 46b'-trans Billy Meier 23/24 May 2004 Pius Keller (N) Hinterschmidrüti 50b; 50b-trans Bernadette Brand FIGU Spec. Bull. 19; 17 Feb. 2005 Hm Hinterschmidrüti Billy Meier Spec. Bull. 19-trans Stefan Hahnekamp Anton Hahnekamp Jan Bayer 14 May 2005 Micheal Uyttebroek L,N Hinterschmidrüti 53b; 53b-trans' Claes Elmberg Patric Chenaux Billy Meier 29 May 2005 Katrin Wallen W Hinterschmidrüti 53b; 53b-trans Christian Frehner 16 April 2006 W Hinterschmidrüti 50 Billy Meier 25 & 28 May 2006 Billy Meier W Hinterschmidrüti 49 (movie clip) Piero Petrizzo FIGU Spec. Bull. 39 27 May 2007 L,N Hinterschmidrüti Billy Meier Spec. Bull. 39-trans Pius Keller FIGU Spec. Bull. 59 30 Oct. 2010 E Hinterschmidrüti Billy Meier Spec. Bull. 59-trans FIGU Spec. Bull. 62 25 April 2011 P. Kalista (N) Hinterschmidrüti Spec. Bull. 62-trans P. Kalista FIGU Spec. Bull. 63 25 June 2011 N Hinterschmidrüti Billy Meier Spec. Bull. 63-trans FIGU Spec. Bull. 68 29 April 2012 M. Sengel (N) Hinterschmidrüti Spec. Bull. 68-trans References Please excuse the gaps in the following sequence of reference numbers. 1. Although the above two listings make heavy use of the Zeugenbuch (Ref. 33), they omit data from its accounts of Meier's psychic powers, of assassination attempts against him, of sightings of UFOs not compellingly connected to the Meier case, of strange footprints, and such. 2. Elders, Lee and Brit, UFO...Contact from the Pleiades, Vol. 2 (Phoenix, AZ: genesis III publishing, 1983). 3. Moosbrugger, Guido, And Yet---They Fly! (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark, 2001, German version 1991). 4. Stevens, Wendelle, Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 1 (Tucson, AZ: Privately Published (UFO Photo Archives), 1988). 04b. http://www.figu.org/ch/files/downloads/bulletin/figu_bulletin_04.pdf (in FIGU Bulletin No. 4, Aug. 1995), or 04b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/1995/nr-04 04b-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Dicker_Sighting-report.htm (translation) 9. Kinder, Gary, Light Years: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987). 12. Stevens, Wendelle, UFO Contact from the Pleiades: Preliminary Investigation Report (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1982). 14. Stevens, Wendelle, Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 4 (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1995). 15. In http://www.tjresearch.info/witness.htm. 16. http://www.rense.com/ufo2/heseman1.htm. 17. Elders, Lee; Nilsson Elders, Brit; and Welch, Thomas, UFO...Contact from the Pleiades (Phoenix, AZ: Genesis III Publishing, 1979). 17b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/1998/nr-17 17b-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Lanzendorfer_1998_Beldi_photo.htm (translation) 18. http://www.tjresearch.info/Harry's_Sighting.pdf 19. The witness is named and his/her experience described in written testimony at http://www.tjresearch.info/witnessa.htm. 20. http://lanzendorfer.ch/Artikel_Daten/vortrag_6c.htm (not available as of March, 2011) 21. http://theyfly.com/PDF/UFOSoundRecordings.pdf 23. Stevens, Wendelle, UFO Contact from the Pleiades: Supplementary Investigation Report (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1989). 23b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/1999/nr-23 23b-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Chenaux_My-first-ufo.htm (translation) 23b'. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/1999/nr-23/eine-ueberraschung 23b'-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/McAiney_A-surprise.htm (translation) 24. http://galactic-server.org/rune/semjeng13.html 24b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/1999/nr-24 24b-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Gasser_Sighting-report-1-Aug-1999.htm (translation) 25. Whelan, Mike; Juliano, Marc and Steele, Jason, Through Space and Time: A Photo Journal of "Billy" Eduard Albert Meier (Tulsa, OK: Steelmark LLC, 2004). 25b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/1999/nr-25 25b-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Brand_Sunday-surprise.htm (translation) 26. Stevens, Wendelle, Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 3 (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1993). 27. Stevens, Wendelle, Message from the Pleiades, Vol. 2 (Tucson, AZ: UFO Photo Archives, 1990). 28. International UFO Congress, Inc., IUFOC, 3116 S. Mill Ave., Tempe, AZ 85282; Phone: 480-302-2147 or 1-877-836-0110: 1999 Video tapes: "The Reopening of the Billy Meier Case." 29. Interview in "Contact," a videotape documentary by Larry Savadove, 1986 (Genesis III Publishing). 29b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/2000/nr-29 29b-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Sighting.htm (translation) 29b-trans'. http://www.tjresearch.info/Flying_Weather2.htm (translation) 29b-trans". http://www.tjresearch.info/Harnisch_UFO-report-June-2000.htm (translation) 29b-trans"'. http://www.tjresearch.info/Kropf_Surprise-in-the-night.htm (translation) 30. Interview in "The Meier Chronicles: The True Story of the Swiss Contact Case," 1986 (Intercep, and Genesis III Publishing). 30b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/2000/nr-30 30b-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Brand-Keller_Northern-lights.htm (translation) 30b-trans'. http://www.tjresearch.info/Muerner_We-are-not-alone.htm (translation) 31. Korff, Kal K., The Billy Meier Story: Spaceships of the Pleiades (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995). 32. International UFO Congress, Inc., Feb. 26, 2006, Video tape: Wendelle Stevens' and Christian Frehner's presentations. (See Ref. 28 above for address.) 32b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/2001/nr-32 32b-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Lazendorfer_Special-encounter.htm (translation) 33. Zeugenbuch: zu Erlebnissen mit 'Billy' Eduard Albert Meier, seinen Fähigkeiten und Kontakten mit Menschen der Plejaren und ihrer Föderation, 1959-2001 [Book of Witnesses: To Events involving "Billy" Albert Eduard Meier, his Capabilities and Contacts with Plejarens and Beings from their Federation] (Hinterschmidrüti: FIGU, 2001). 35b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/2001/nr-35 35b-trans. http:/www.tjresearch.info/Harnisch_Sighting-report-2001.htm (translation) 35b". http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/2001/nr-35/sichtungsbericht-0 35b"-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Keller_Sighting-report-May-12-2001.htm (translation) 37b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/2001/nr-37 37b-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Kropf_A-bright-shining-object-2001.htm (translation) 37b'. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/2001/nr-37/strahlschiffsichtung-0 37b'-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Brand_from-Contact-Conversation-2001-Billy&Sudor.htm (translation) 37b". http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/2001/nr-37/ein-druaner-schiff 37b"-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Kropf_A-Druaner-ship.htm (translation) 46b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/2004/nr-46/sichtungsberichte 46b-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Keller_Nighttime-greeting.htm (translation) 46b'. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/2004/nr-46/sichtungsberichte (also) 46b'-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Brand_Nighttime-observations.htm (translation) 49. DVD: The Silent Revolution of Truth, (2007); www.theyfly.com 50. Email from Frehner to Deardorff on 21 January 2008. 50b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/2004/nr-50 50b-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Keller_Night-watch.htm (translation) 51. Meier, Eduard Albert, From the Depths of Outer Space...: Contacts from the Plejadians/Plejarians, English translation, by Marianne Schmeling (Hinterschmidrüti: FIGU, 2003). 53b. http://www.figu.org/ch/verein/periodika/bulletin/2005/nr-53 53b-trans. http://www.tjresearch.info/Wallen_Billys-typing.htm (translation) 53b-trans'. http://www.tjresearch.info/Chenaux_sighting-report-5-14-2005.htm (translation) Go Back to: Previous level Contents Testimony from some Meier-case witnesses Following is an English translation of the witness-testimony section of the article by Michael Hesemann in Magazin 2000plus (Oct. 1998, vol. 10, pp. 64-71) entitled "The Meier Case: UFO Contactee Revealed?" It was extracted from the FIGU (Meier) web site. The Eyewitnesses speak out Photos can be faked, experts can make mistakes. But consider the testimonies of more than 40 individuals whose UFO experiences, in conjunction with the “Meier Case,” changed their Michael Hesemann lives. MAGAZIN 2000plus spoke with Meier eyewitnesses: Meier's son Methusalem [born in 1973] speaks out for the first time in MAGAZIN 2000plus MH: Cross your heart-what do you think today of your father's UFO contacts, now that you have moved out of your parents' home? And: Did you ever have your own doubts? My opinion of my father's contacts has never wavered over the years. I am just as convinced now as I ever was that his contacts are real, and this is a logical consequence resulting from my own experiences. After all, even as a small child I already had opportunities to attend sightings, at which my mother and occasionally also my brother and sister were present. These sightings have always stayed in my memory because they were so impressive for us all. I actually never had any doubts although I have extensively and intensively pondered Papi's contacts, which seems to me only natural. After all, I had to associate everything I experienced and heard with my surroundings, and for this reason I inevitably probed everything I was experiencing and hearing. Were you ever witness to UFO sightings or any unusual incidents which convinced you that your father was actually having contacts with extraterrestrials? In an earlier answer I already mentioned that I had various opportunities to witness sightings, even as a small child. Several of these sightings are still very clear in my mind. They have imbedded themselves indelibly in my memory because of the surrounding circumstances. As far as unusual incidents and the like are concerned from which one could conclude that my father actually maintained contacts with extraterrestrials-I have plenty. The earliest experience I can still vaguely remember was a sighting in June of 1976, when I was not even three years old. We were with my mother, my brother and sister, Hans Schutzbach, and Amata Stetter in a nature reserve in Hinwil. I can still recall that it was a sunny, warm day and that Hans Schutzbach began running around very excitedly when large silver disk was departing. He photographed it nervously, but by then it was already quite far away. We watched with great interest for a long time as the disk flew off. In the summer of 1980 I was present in the Sädelegg when we were given an opportunity to record the whirring sounds of Semjase's beamship. I was standing next to Mami, in view of my father, when the whirring sounds began. They were so loud that even neighbors who lived about 4 kilometers [2.4 miles] away came to see what was going on. Mami was with her recorder in such an advantageous position to the source of the sounds that she was able to make the best recordings of all. One year later in early August, together with several others, I observed at night a formation of six light objects on the horizon above the Bühl in the Töss Valley. Based on their unusual flight maneuvers, there was no way they could have been regular airplanes. The "show" lasted for more than half an hour and in addition to my mother, my father, my brother Atlantis and sister Gilgamesha, several other people observed the display too. The ships performed various formation flights and very unusual flight movements before some of them simply disappeared; we could still watch the others until they blended into the darkness. Later on, in September 1982, when I was barely nine years old, I was standing next to my father when a small footbridge was being cemented across a drainage ditch at the driveway of the shed. As soon as the work was completed we left the construction site to bring material for cordoning off the area to protect the freshly cemented footbridge. Silvano, who had gone ahead of us, suddenly came dashing around the corner of the shed and called out to my father, because in the meantime someone had actually stepped into the fresh cement. Papi [Billy] griped and ran to the construction site where we noticed, only at second glance, that the imprint of the shoe was exceedingly large, namely more than 42 centimeters [16.5 inches] long. Methusalem Meier (right) with Wendelle Stevens, 1999, from Ed Martin's book Have you ever experienced or seen anything that would indicate that you father King of Travelers wanted to deceive others? No. I have neither experienced anything like this nor were there indications that he had faked something. It is not his nature to fabricate anything for other people or to cheat them. I am certain that my father is telling the truth in regard to his contacts, and this also coincides with my own experiences. What do you personally tell those people who accuse your father of being a fraud? There is an old saying-one can learn how to lie from hearsay. This applies to most of those people who call my father a fraud. Very few of them have ever convinced themselves of the situation by going to the actual locations or delving seriously into these matters. And if they have actually done so, they often showed their jealousy because they couldn't handle the fact that another person can experience something that didn't happen to them. My father withdrew from the public eye over the years partially because of my mother [Kalliope Meier] but also to give her a chance at playing top fiddle. By letting her have her way in this manner, he was able to satisfy her urge to be "top dog." In keeping with his character, he certainly didn't mind this at all, because by doing so he could avoid some people fawning over him since they looked on him as the great master, a guru or something special. However, he finds such idolization repugnant and extremely unwelcome. For this reason he continues his life withdrawn from the public. Thank you, Methusalem Through my association with Billy I had several nighttime sightings when we were walking around in the courtyard and he pointed out the [space-] ships. In August 1987 three ships came from the west in the middle of the night. They flew over the [Meier farm-] house, hovered above it, jumped back and forth for several minutes, and finally sped high into the sky. Hans Georg Lanzendorfer (36), sociology teacher Hans in 2000 At the very beginning, just as we were taking possession of the farm, the basement was full of water which had to be pumped out. When the job was done, Billy walked down there to see whether everything had really dried. Shortly afterward he returned and said: “There are footprints down there!” Of course, I didn’t believe him and thought that it simply could be anything; but I decided to look for myself and even photographed the imprints. When I got the photos back from the store, one could see the head and neck of an extraterrestrial on one of the pictures. I was present during a contact in Schönenberg near Einsiedeln. We were waiting for Billy when suddenly he stood before me. That night it had been raining cats and dogs, but we could see how the Bernadette in 2000 first few drops had just then fallen on Billy’s jacket, while we were totally drenched since the rain was coming down so hard. He was completely dry during those first moments he was standing there in the pouring rain! He explained to us that he had been beamed down directly from the ship. Another time we observed a night formation of six ships-one more of an entire series of UFO sightings we experienced with Billy. Bernadette Brand (49), lithographer/supervisor I have experienced quite a few emotional moments. Once I was building the chicken coop when I observed Billy as he was walking away from the Center on the field path. I figured he was going to a contact. Shortly afterwards I heard a loud, dynamic whirring sound and thought: They must have just beamed him up now. About half an hour later I felt compelled to look toward a meadow for a short while and suddenly, without warning, Billy stood there as though someone had pulled away a curtain that had kept him hidden from my eyes-he simply was there! He often took me along to his contacts as the driver. Before the contacts he always received commands from elsewhere: "More north, a bit more south, another 20 meters and then go Wächter in 1998 east," and these messages he passed on to me. I have often seen the beamships as bright lights at night, which slowly traveled across the horizon. Once Billy requested that I accompany him because he wanted to go to a contact. We were driving in the car and Billy constantly gave me instructions. Suddenly he said, “Now you can stop.” He climbed out of the car and I waited. It was still pretty cold. Then he disappeared onto a path in the forest. I was just looking around when I suddenly saw the glint of something approximately 100 meters in front of me, in the direction of the forest. At first I thought that this could possibly be an extraterrestrial. But then I had my doubts and figured it was more likely a farmer who was looking after his cows. When I was once again sitting back in the car, I saw this glinting once more. Now I simply had to investigate this matter. I pointed my car toward the point where I had last noticed the glinting and turned on the Halogen lights-and there, in front of me, smack in the center of my car's high beams, was Quetzal, one of the extraterrestrials! That was the first time I had seen an extraterrestrial. He appeared to be a tall person wearing a cloak and a shimmering space suit. He abruptly stood motionless and then he ran from the light beam. I reversed the car and suddenly he was gone. When Billy returned from the contact he grinned and jokingly asked me why I was terrifying harmless hikers-and then told me that it had been Quetzal! Engelbert Wächter (66), printer I was present when four assassination attempts were made on Billy. That really made me think quite a bit. Once, in 1982, Billy called me: “Come, there is a ship hovering in the clouds.” We could plainly and distinctly see it just as it appeared on his photos-in bright daylight around 4 o'clock in the afternoon! The ship was visible for about one or two minutes, then an airplane approached. At that moment the ship veered into the clouds and was gone! Silvano Lehmann (37), waiter Silvano in 2000 As an attendant I was present at many contacts. I can still recall how we saw the beamships, and how we later visited the various contact sites and found the landing marks. I was still very young in those days, but I remember how I stood outside the doorstep one day and glanced across the scenery, when suddenly I saw a ship in the sky. It was hovering there for about 10 or 15 seconds and then it simply disappeared. At the time I made a watercolor drawing of the ship. This remains very clear in my memory. And it was in broad daylight! Atlantis Meier (28) [born in 1970], auto mechanic Together with Billy I have seen UFOs in the night sky several times and in June of 1980 I heard the whirring sounds of the beamships. That afternoon all of those who happened to be present had driven into the Sädelegg. Billy stood about 150 meters/yards away from us to make some tape recordings of the whirring sounds for himself. We were standing on the path and heard the sounds, which were so loud that they attracted curious farmers and pedestrians in the area. A few years ago, together with Billy, I once saw a rather large object which was flying in a zigzag pattern in the night sky. Eva Bieri (43), secretary Eva in 2000 One night I almost ran into an extraterrestrial. Suddenly I felt a type of vibrating wave, which seemed to bid me to step back. I sensed the wave becoming stronger the closer I got there. That was very impressive and I reflected for a long time what this could have been. Finally I asked Billy. He explained to me that this was an invisible protective shield of a female extraterrestrial visitor. These protective shields are necessary for them because they cannot tolerate our vibrations, which are so different from their own. Louis Memper (48), chemist Around 5 p.m. on April 8, 1983, I glanced up to the sky while working. It was near dusk and there were many clouds in the sky when I noticed a light that was moving towards me one moment and then away from me again; it moved to the right and then to the left. I thought that this wasn’t normal, so I ran to get my binoculars which, by chance, I happened to have in my car. In the meantime Billy and several other FIGU members came out and were also observing this dancing object of light. Another time [30 Sept. 1983], while visiting Billy, I stayed overnight in the RV. In the middle of the night I heard steps in the court yard. I went out to investigate the sounds but I could sense something like a “Stay were you are!” command within me and I stopped walking. I could, however, peek around the corner and saw a tall, white-haired, bearded figure. Billy’s hair was still dark in those days, so it was not he. I felt an incredible joy in me Brunhilde Koye in 2000 that was truly special. The figure wore a white outfit and seemed to be surrounded by light. I felt such a warm glow! Later I asked Billy about this, and he told me it was Ptaah, one of the extraterrestrials. Brunhilde Koye (64), ret. export merchant I was repairing the pavement at the Farm and wanted to briefly cordon off the freshly cemented area so that nobody would accidentally step into it. But when I returned I noticed the imprint of a gigantic shoe in the cement. At first I thought somebody had tripped into it because the person hadn’t seen the wet cement, but then it was clear to me that no human being had such a large shoe size. Billy found out later that an extraterrestrial called Danel, who is 2,48m [8'15"] tall, had made the imprint so we would have another piece of evidence. Some time ago, when Billy still drove the tractor, we had hitched a small trailer to it and were driving into the valley toward Hinwil. After the first turn I saw that Billy wasn’t even holding the steering wheel in his hands-we all saw that the tractor moved all by itself. On this entire curvy Freddy in 2000 stretch Billy guided the tractor all the way into Hinwil, purely with his spiritual powers. He never once touched the steering wheel. Freddy Kropf (38), chef While in Betswil, above Bäretswil, I was allowed to come to a contact with Billy. He instructed me to wait by my car until I got more detailed directions. I was rewarded for the long waiting period: Through the trees I could really nicely see the ship rise at the horizon, then it darted with incredible speed directly toward me. That was a spectacular show-and at night, no less! And then they [the ETs] undertook some energy burning that resulted in a shower of sparks, a splendor of color that couldn't have been more beautiful. Jacobus Bertschinger (48), chauffeur In 1976 I saw Billy Meier's photographs for the first time, and from then on I wanted to know all Jacobus in 2000 about them. I asked whether I would be permitted to visit him, and then one weekend I came to see him, still in Hinwil at the time. When I was preparing to leave again, Billy invited me to stay a bit longer since he had the feeling that something was about to take place that night. Shortly afterwards I had my first UFO experience. In total I was present during three nighttime demonstrations, two of which I was permitted to photograph. I have also inspected and photographed various landing marks. I was present when Billy was beamed into our midst; I was a witness when a 5-meter tall fir tree was eliminated; I was listening in when Billy spoke by radio with two extraterrestrials-I was standing right next to Guido in 2000 him at the time. And then one time he gave me precise instructions via radio transmission when he was in Semjase's ship, which was hovering about 700 meters/yards above the Center. We were just pounding the fence poles into the ground, and we did this crookedly, intentionally, to see if he'd notice-and he corrected us accordingly. Guido Moosbrugger (73), ret. school principal Here are additional witnesses we know by name, some of whom we have interviewed: Elisabeth Gruber, Thomas Keller, Madeleine Brügger, Christina Gasser, Herbert Runkel, Maria Wächter, Conny Wächter, Hans Zimmermann, Billy's daughter Gilgamesha Meier, and in 1989 Kalliope, Meier's ex-wife, in her own words. The Swiss Air Force and Meier Another Meier witness is UFO researcher Erwin Mürner from Zurich. He stated to MAGAZIN 2000plus: "I have known Billy Meier since 1976. At that time I visited him in Wetzikon with a group of people. Together with him we went to the landing sites and conversed with him. This intrigued me. Shortly afterward I sighted a UFO with my parents and my wife just when I was about to take them to one of those landing sites. The object was round. Suddenly it shot into the air. Then it stopped, dashed off sideways and then it came back to the center before disappearing in a downward motion, like a falling leaf. Billy gave me several of his photos. The picture that impressed me the most was of a UFO and an Air Force Mirage fighter plane. I made serious efforts to uncover the truth about it. Then the following occurred: A UFO convention was being held at the Zurich Mürner in 1998 Novotel, where I met a man who was with the Air Force. We entered into a conversation, and when he told me he was with the Air Force, I asked him about the photo. He confirmed the photo was authentic and that they knew everything about the contacts. I met with the man several more times, during which he said he was part of the Army’s Special Services. At our next meeting he carried a black briefcase, from which he removed a portfolio, a dossier, which he allowed me to read . . . and on page 3 was the story about the Mirage! In brief, the article stated that those who have knowledge about this case must keep it a secret for the rest of their lives. Thereupon I asked my acquaintance what he thought of Billy Meier, and he told me the military knew that everything was true but the people aren't allowed to know about it." Later Mürner was even able to glean the name of the Mirage pilot, and he contacted him. The Air Force officer confirmed the incident without revealing any details. Does the Swiss Air Force have additional information about Meier's contacts? It is certainly not coincidental that years ago the Swiss Army seized the elevated area above the Meier Farm as a site for a rocket launching ramp; today it is only used as an observation post. Evidence exists which demonstrates that the Swiss Air Force could very well know about the authenticity of Meier's contacts. As we reported in the May 1998 edition of MAGAZIN 2000plus No.127, an official of the Swiss Military Airspace Safety Monitoring Unit informed Swiss ufologist Luc Bürgin and the MUFON-CES research group about recorded data pertaining to radar sightings of unknown flying objects in the Swiss air space. According to their information, 236 UFO radar sightings took place in the airspace above the land of the Swiss confederates between the 25-month period from April 1, 1993 to April 31, 1995. Particularly noteworthy were the clusters of UFO radar positions above the Zurich highlands-precisely in the area where Billy Meier has his contacts. The Chief Witness In October 1996 the International Humanistic Society and the UN's SEAT team invited me, Michael Hesemann, to present a talk to their group at the Headquarter of the United Nations. The lecture was held in the format of a small conference where Carlos Diaz, Madeleine Rodeffer, and Colonel Colman Von Keviczky also spoke. After the event a lady approached me and introduced herself as a member of the UN delegation of a South-East Asian country. She asked me whether I knew Billy Meier, and I confirmed this fact of course. She wanted to hear my opinion of him, and I replied I was convinced of the contacts' authenticity. Her friendly face literally lit up and then she revealed her story to me: She had known Billy Meier when he lived in India. Between April and September 1964, Meier had taken one of his trips around the world. As a young man he visited 42 countries, mostly as a hitchhiker. He arrived at the Ashoka- Ashram in Mehrauli near New Delhi to study Buddhism. The Ashoka Mission there, founded by King Ashoka in the 3rd Century B.C., is the oldest Buddhist school. Its leader today is the highly respected V.B. Dharmawara, who recently celebrated in California his 109th birthday in good health (but died in 1999). In the monastery Meier befriended the Dharmawara’s grandchildren who had previously fled to India when civil war broke out in their own country. One of these grandchildren was the lady who approached me in New York. She is now an esteemed diplomat. [But as of 2003 she is retired from her diplomatic post, has married and is living in New York City.] And, incidentally, her brother was the one who taught Meier how to catch snakes. So this, too, was true! Until this time I had always smirked a bit when Meier claimed he had performed hundreds of jobs on his trips-among them that of a snake catcher. During an elaborate Indian dinner, to which she had invited me, The chief witness [Phobal Cheng] with her grandfather, V.B. Dharmawara, and her younger brother, circa 1967. All three were the lady recounted: “In those days all of us at the Mission saw witnesses of Asket with Meier, and Asket's UFOs, in 1964. the spaceships” and Meier was in contact with their pilots. Additionally, she had seen him “walking across the court yard of the Ashram accompanied by a woman with long, brunette hair, dressed in a type of spacesuit.” Her grandfather also had been provided with opportunities to speak with the extraterrestrial visitors. I listened to this lady with baited breath and made a promise to her that I would keep her name confidential and would not mention her homeland to anyone. She simply did not want the publicity due to the sensitive nature of her diplomatic position. Her important rank in her country's UN delegation was later confirmed to me by friends who were UN colleagues of hers. Also, the lady came across as lucid, ethical, cordial and honest. I found out, too, that she had previously revealed the identical information to U.S. researcher Wendelle Stevens after one of his lectures in New York. Because she wished to renew her contact with Meier, I provided her with his address. Meier’s contacts in India were actually investigated on location by one of the world’s most renowned UFO researchers, Timothy Good, an English violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra, which was performing in Delhi at the time. During his stay there, by chance, a local newspaper The Statesman reported Meier’s contacts. “Not only have I seen objects from space, I have also photographed them and flown inside them,” the Swiss man had stated to the newspaper and continued with, “I have an assignment to fulfill.” Good later drove to Mehrauli and met people there who were aware of Meier’s contacts “with the girl from space.” They described him as being “ethical and full of enthusiasm.” Interestingly enough, it was this young woman from space, named Asket according to Meier, with whom the UN diplomat had seen Meier walking around! A video tape of her presentation of this plus further information, taken on Feb 23, 1999, at the 8th Annual International UFO Congress in Laughlin, NV, along with presentations of Wendelle Stevens, Michael Hesemann and Methusalem Meier in the session entitled "The Reopening of the Meier Case," is available from: International UFO Congress 3116 S. Mill Ave., Tempe, AZ 85282 USA Telephone: 480-302-2147 or 1-877-836-0110 For a rough transcript of Phobol's 1999 talk, click here. Summary of witnesses and events, as of 2010 A list of some 85 Meier-case witnesses whose reports are available in the literature or on the Web, along with other information, is tabulated in this file. Go Back to: Contents Earliest Written Testimony from Meier-case Witnesses Below are written testimonies to the reality of Meier's experiences. Unless otherwise stated, they derive from Wendelle Stevens' book Contact from the Pleiades: Preliminary Investigation Report (1982), as supplemented by his Message from the Pleiades, vols. 2 and 3. I thank him for permission to reproduce them here. Stevens collected the statements during the course of his investigations in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and had them translated into English. The dozen testimonies come from some nine witnesses, while involving a score of other witnesses, and relate to 10 different events involving Eduard Meier's ongoing ET contacts at that time. A comprehensive list of witnesses, the events they witnessed, dates and other information is given here. Jacob Bertschinger, 14 March 1976, Re Contact #48: I was staying the night of 13 to 14 March 1976 in the living room of Eduard Meier, at 8340 Hinwil, ZH CH, Wihaldenstrasse 10, as we talked. It was just 20:00 when Mr. Meier explained to me that we should be ready at midnight, because he had just received a telepathic call from the spaceship pilot Semjase, from the Pleiades, that she would meet him at midnight or a short time later somewhere. Until then we still had about two hours of time, and so we looked at the Western TV "Heibe Grenzen." Now it was 23:50. My friend [Meier] and I drove my Volkswagen to a point near the contact place, which was situated in upper Zurich, above Bäretswil near Bettswil, not far from the Sunamatteli children's home. At my friend's signal I stopped the car. He stepped out and explained to me, as is always the case, that he is not allowed to take any other person to the actual place of contact with the extraterrestrials. He left me [going] toward the northeast direction, where I could see, at about 200 meters distance, a wooded hill in the shadows of the night. The night was rather cold, which did not make the waiting pleasant as I stood outside and observed the near and far environment. Time passed and it became 00:40 when I suddenly noticed, in a northerly direction, above the fir tops, an orange-colored light which was stationary, and appeared from nowhere. My first thought was that this could be a house where a light was simply turned on. Then this seemed strange to me, because above the tops of the firs in the middle of the forest there could be no house. This moved me to observe the light still more closely. Still, it was just stationary and silent. But then it began, hardly noticeable at first, to move and slowly to wander over the fir tops. Then it began to move faster and climbed up higher. Seen from my position, and from my estimate, I observed it for a long time, until it had climbed up to about 200 to 300 meters height, where it slowly changed its dark-yellow color to a deep dark red. When it reached the mentioned height the light stopped for some moments, and then seen, continued moving directly towards me. It approached by a suddenly enormous speed, while the light increased in brilliance. And here again it changed its color, this time into a milky white. Then the sphere of light suddenly stopped at once and stood still, while I waited for whatever it was going to do. I should mention that the luminous object had continuously climbed up higher in its flight, and now moved at 2,000 to 3,000 meters above the ground. Below the sphere of light, now suddenly, a true rain of sparkles began to fall down, like a gigantic fireworks perhaps 150 to 200 meters long. This appearance was accompanied by extremely loud noises just like shorting electric power cables that continued to short for a long time. Then a loud bang was heard. Then it all began to move backwards just like it started shortly before. The light sphere flew away once more, climbed up higher, and slowly floated away in a northerly direction and entered the high clouds and disappeared. I was not a little astonished by the events just experienced, this I can assure. Because of the cold, I sat in the car after this experience and thought, now soon my friend would appear, but I waited in vain as 20 minutes later he still was not there. I already began to worry that everything might not be all right. I thought of the opposition Gizeh Intelligence who could have their finger in the matter, which could be very dangerous, even though we always proceeded to these contacts carrying a weapon as recommended by Semjase. [Meier has been shot at more than once.] Alarmed, I got out of the car and waited another 20 minutes or so, and looked and listened into the night, but there was nothing to be seen or heard. Disturbed, I stared again over to the hill where 30 minutes ago the sphere of light had come from, and there, indeed, once more the ball of light appeared and ascended in the same way. This time I could clearly see that it came up far above the hill ridge and between the clumps of trees. It stood out above the fir tops like it was searching for something, and then turned and flew away eastwards as a red-light sphere. I could easily follow it until it was high up in the clouds and already far to the east, until it disappeared from my sight. In hopes that my fears about the Gizeh Intelligence would not come true, I sat once more in the car and waited. About 10 minutes later I observed, at about 200 meters distance down the road a small yellow-white light, which moved in a semi-circle left and right. This must surely be my friend, who would give me a sign by lamp. On that I started my car and drove towards the light, and soon recognized Mr. Meier, walking along the street in the darkness. Together we drove home again, and we talked and discussed what we had each seen. To my relief he told me that I would not have to fear, because the two light-spheres had been two spacecraft, as Semjase had this night come together with Quetzal, the Chief of Station. He took care to prepare me a little surprise with his small demonstration, and the burning electrical display was to thank me for having driven my friend to this place of contact. I told my friend the details of all I had seen because he himself had seen nothing of this. When Quetzal offered me this display Mr. Meier was still together with Semjase in her ship, in the clearing, and so witnessed nothing. I declare these details to be the full truth, and that I have not suffered dreams or hallucinations in this respect. signed Jacob Bertschinger Feldstrasse, 9 CH-8330 Pfaffikon/ZH CH 20 April 1976. Note: Jacob has been a farmer and chauffeur. Hans Schutzbach (with Jacob Bertschinger), 27-28 March 1976, Re Contact #49: I spent the afternoon of Saturday, the 27th of March 1976, at the home of Mr. Meier in Hinwil. Later Mr. Bertschinger was present, too. We sat before the television and looked at a western story. In the middle of the film our host suddenly announced in complete calm (it was 23:50): "Now the telephone has rung." It had been silent already the whole evening. On my question concerning this, his answer was only that Semjase had reached him in his thoughts. In a half hour he would leave the house to meet her. The event seemed to be routine. The only discussion was whether the "Toffil" [motor bike] or the car should be driven. Mr. Meier had suffered a crash the last week and had broken two ribs, and so it would have been better if he would have stopped the motor-bike riding for some time. Soon we were prepared. Mr. Meier would use the "Töffli" [his moped]. Mr. Bertschinger and I should, on his advice, drive behind him in the VW. So we started out and turned in the direction to Wetzikon. At the half way, Mr. Meier suddenly stopped, turned around and drove past us about 50 meters towards a field path. At the pistol stand, our destination was reached. Get out and wait for whatever might come, I thought to myself. Then Mr. Meier shook his head. It was strange; now the contact with Semjase had stopped, which should not have happened. Anyhow, I assumed this to be in connection with my presence. We may have stood about 10 minutes in the sharp wind, then our leader told us to wait for him and stay behind. Thus, unnoticed by us, the contact had started again. Sitting in the car, the time was passed by observing the region and talking. Some clouds passed over us, otherwise the whole starry splendor sparkled above us in the heavens. 01:25. Eduard Meier was now away a good half hour. Over the wooded hill northeast of us, a great whitish light is rising. Of course we jump out of the car to see this better. Slowly the light climbs higher, until it is about 500 meters above the forest. Here suddenly, at about 1500 meters in distance, a dazzling white fireworks starts, which stops in ten seconds, to begin a bit higher immediately. At this time the light is continuously climbing. A long tail, surely 170 meters long, flows toward the ground, ending in droplets of fire. It is dazzling and gleaming like a magnesium light. The “spook” lasts about one minute, then the light goes out. When the eye has accommodated itself again to the darkness, we notice that a dark-red pulsating body rises up further on: the origin of the formerly visible apparition. A lighter red forms the frame. The core pulses lighter and darker rhythmically. Without interruption, the object climbs higher, and while doing this, is describing a great curve to the right. Soon it is above the clouds as the color changes to a milky white. The object is surely more than 10,000 meters in the sky by now. It slowly becomes more diffuse, but the even pulsation is nevertheless distinctly visible. A noise is heard, and indeed, it is Mr. Meier. I do not let myself be distracted from my observation by that. Then when he stands beside me and listens to my comments on the object, the light suddenly turns off and nothing but the stars can be seen. I look at my watch and realize that ten minutes have passed since we started this observation. The explanation for the initial contact being partly interrupted is given by Mr. Meier. In the spaceship is a kind of technical automatic guiding-beam, which reacts to certain programmed brain-wave patterns. When we drove along the street, the device did not react as it should have, possibly because I was driving. After the turn it became evident that I was accepted in the company of Mr. Meier. The automatic device had interrupted the contact, to leave the further activity to Semjase. In the personal contact, Semjase's question was also about me, and now I can assume that I have become stored in the automatic [device]. Besides this a greeting to me was received with thanks. Semjase ordered Mr. Meier home early because of his bad state of health. This was the reason the contact had taken so short a time, about which Mr. Meier was not exactly delighted. We returned home and warmed up a bit with coffee. The experience was of course thoroughly discussed. With a sketch, Mr. Meier showed what the ship looked like, because Semjase had arrived in a new type ship. We discussed matters until early morning. I went home and sat at my work table to fix the matter of the experience by word and drawing. I remembered the place of the occurrence well. When I now searched the place on the street map, I noticed that there were neither houses nor streets in that region. I have excluded the possibility that this could have been common fireworks for several different reasons. On the one hand, the light apparition was too great and too extensive, and the play lasted far too long. A military light rocket could be excluded as well. Such an object could not rise so high in this way, and the light was different, too. signed Hans Schutzbach Riethof 25 CH-8604 Hegnau [a mile west of Volketswil] 29 March 1976. Note: Hans was a CPA. Hans Schutzbach with 5 others, 3-4 April 1976, Re Contact #50: Last Saturday, 3 April 1976, I was with Mr. Meier in Hinwil. At the same time there was a small group of other people who often meet with him. Since the weather was good, Mr. Meier suggested that we visit some of the places where he had met Semjase during his contacts. He took us to the site of a remarkable occurrence when Semjase flew her spacecraft around an old "weather" fir, which later was found to have damaged the tree. The cosmonaut circled the tree close enough to the trunk to separate the branches as the ship passed through, about 1/5th of the way down from the top. The branches in close contact with the spacecraft withered and began to die. It looked dehydrated and turned brown. Another strange effect noticed was that the upper part of the tree glowed in the dark after this incident. There was an atmosphere of expectancy in the air. We went back to Hinwil, but the ladies [Margarite Rufer, Amata Stetter, Olga Walder and Marget Flammer], who were always ready to go home, made no move to do so. Instead they brought sandwiches and cookies out of their pockets and prepared to wait, sometimes talking, sometimes watching a Western on TV, and sometimes sleeping in their chair. At about 01:00 the private telephone in Mr. Meier's house rang and that was the signal to depart from the house in 1/2 hour for a contact. Meier got on his Mo-Ped [motor bike] and we followed him in two Volkswagens. We drove to the Natural Forest Preserve southwest of Hinwil. Slowly we drove through the woods and crossed the tracks, then we stopped and got out. Ms. Stetter pointed to the sky in which two large spots of light were moving in a strange way. They could not be airplanes or satellites. They moved back and forth rapidly. Mr. Bertschinger, carefully observing our surroundings, pointed to another light glowing beyond the trees, from the direction we had come. Another car had followed us and seemed to be trying to find where we were. Meier got on his Mo-Ped and told us to follow him, that he had just received new orders. So we returned to the highway near the Sports Stadium and we could see Wetzikon in the distance. We went to the right and down a small trail next to a field. Mr. Meier told us to wait patiently and then he left. He rode without lights in the direction of the wooded hills east of us. We got very cold in the night wind because we did not have warm enough clothes with us. The night stars were very clear in the dark sky above us. Now we began to see fast moving light points against the background of the stars. Around 02:00, from the direction of Bachtel, a strange light approached, like a streetlight in the air, drifted lower and then disappeared. Normally, at this time of night, there would be no traffic on the road here, but now some cars, driving on the highway turned around and shined their headlights around the landscape, as if they were looking for something. Then they backed slowly up and again swung their headlights all around. Now it began to get really exciting, a round reddish spot of light glided noiselessly over our heads. First we thought it must be an airplane, but the sound was very weak and far away. In about 20 seconds it went out. And then the glow brightened up and dimmed down again in mid flight. Toward the street, all of a sudden, an orange-red "window" came on. It was oversized for a house, and in that direction there was no other structure. This "window" could be seen for about one minute. At 03:30 in the nearby woods, about 1.8 kilometers away, a big light went on. Unbelievably fast we warmed up and our spirits went up. With certainty we know that now is the moment for which we waited so long. Slowly the rotating dark-red nucleus, surrounded by lighter red, went up and made a curve to the left. At about 2 kilometers elevation a Bengal Flare appeared, and a very big red fireball glowed for at least 20 seconds. This was much larger than the original light. Ten seconds later an orange light came on, which was so big and so fast that I feared it would collide with us. This time the light stayed [on] much longer than before, maybe twice as long. Twice the light started to drop down but then ascended to an elevation of about two kilometers, as orange beams flashed, and then ascended very high in the sky. Between the changing colors one could see that the craft was rotating on its vertical axis, and then suddenly the night is dark again as the big light left. One could see a rain of luminous drops falling in its wake, which went out a little above the surface of the ground. The ascending light was not red any more but it seems more white and looked like any other bright star in the sky, and took up a position near Cassiopeia. After altogether 10 minutes it went out completely. In the dim twilight one can see the contours of the landscape. Now, as we are standing together, another light comes from the direction of the woods, and in a minute it too went out completely and was gone. About the same time we hear the noise of the Mo-Ped and Mr. Meier returns. How strange he looks. He was mussed up and out of breath. He had had an accident with the Mo-Ped and had hurt his shoulder and back and leg, which were hurting him. He wanted to go home immediately, but not in a car, as we tried to persuade him. He said to go home normally and don't worry about him, which we did. In front of his house we had to wait 15 minutes for him to return, which was strange because it was such a short trip. When he arrived, he said he had made a little detour. The ladies said goodnight and we three men looked at his damaged Mo-Ped. Then we went into his living room for some good warm coffee. And now Mr. Meier told us the truth. He said that somebody was following him and he cut through the woods to get away. When he came up out of the woods onto the next street a car immediately showed up, a Volkswagen with a rotating antenna on top of the roof and two men in it. It swept the area with its headlights and then dropped away. He barely managed to remain undetected. We reminded him that he should walk and leave the Mo-Ped, that riding in his condition was no good. He said that as he was riding through the woods, down a slope, he hit a ditch in the dark and was thrown off the Mo-Ped. He managed to take the brunt of the fall on his shoulder but he still got hurt. As he was in the woods the auto with the antenna on the roof came again. Also, after he got up on the highway it followed him and he cut back into the woods and pulled up behind a house. There were also two other cars in the searching party when he detoured to hide behind the house. The lead car stopped on the intersection and swung its headlight beams all around. That so many people were looking for something at that time of night was very strange. Mr. Meier knows that he is continually watched and followed. As soon as he leaves his house at night, lights start to blink and suddenly there is a lot of unusual automobile traffic. Therefore he has to go through woods and fields to lose his pursuers. Other people, observing all this activity, want to know about it. It seems strange, however, that none of these people ever came to him to speak to him about it. There was a leak within our group. Someone was informing the police and the military. In the meantime he returned to the group to remain undetected, to stew in the frying pan of his own conscience. Meier told us that the car had followed us from his house as we left but that Semjase had used a device that caused electrical short-circuits in the ignition and the equipment aboard the cars. He said that for this visit she was accompanied by five other spacecraft which remained aloft as she landed. One of them was a larger ship. This was unusual We continued to discuss the experience until daybreak when we separated to go home to bed. signed Hans Schutzbach, Jacob Bertschinger M. Flammer, M. Rufer Olga Walder, A. Stetter. Note: Margrit Rufer was a teacher, lived in Zürich. Hans Schutzbach, 23 April 1976: On the night of 23 April 1976, Billy [Meier], J. Bertschinger and I drove by car from Munich to Vienna. Along the way, near Linz, we stopped for a short rest. We had just pressed ourselves again into the Volkswagen car to continue driving. Suddenly Billy pushes open the door at his side and calls, "She's directly above us!" By acrobatic assignment we jump out of the vehicle too. Indeed, just above us, a red spot draws fast along. It seems to come from the vicinity of Munich and turns directly towards Switzerland. "I am directly above you and greet you!" Semjase let him know, as Billy told us. It was exciting and delightful. A short time later we roll on towards Vienna. signed Hans Schutzbach Wolfgang Witzer (with Mr. Fuchs, Hans & Conrad Schutzbach, J. Bertschinger and Mr. Altensperger) 7-8 June 1976, Re Contact #54: On Saturday [Sunday], 6 June 1976, the Fuchs family from Kornwestheim and I drove to Hinwil in Switzerland to visit Mr. Eduard Meier... On Whit-Monday, the following day, Mr. Meier advised us that there would be a contact that night. My first question was whether we would be allowed to be with him there. He agreed that it would be permitted but that we would have to remain at some distance for he was prohibited from taking other persons into the contact with him. Around midnight the first car drove to the designated place, because we had to drive separately and by different ways because the group is often followed by people and police as well as military personnel while on excursion to the contacts. When we arrived at the designated point Mr. Meier was, regretfully, not there yet. We waited patiently for half an hour. Finally we heard the sound of a motor [Meier on his Mo-Ped], and a little later we were told [by Meier], to our disappointment, that we were waiting at the wrong place. Now the time was getting on, because the time for the expected rendezvous and contact had passed and we considered the termination of the undertaking, when I suddenly remembered that a short time before, a bluish light had floated above the forest in the easterly direction. Mr. Meier received a telepathic call at this moment, that we should drive toward this direction that I had mentioned. Ten minutes later we, that is Mr. Meier [with his Mo-Ped]; the Schutzbach brothers, Mr. Bertschinger and Mr. Altensperger [in the one car]; [and I with Mr. Fuchs in the other car], reached the proposed point for waiting. It was agreed we would wait there until Mr. Meier would return, and meanwhile film the beamship as it rose from the forest, observe its flight maneuvers and energy discharges and other still inconceivable things for us human beings, and film these as well. After a short talk, Mr. Meier headed for the contact place [on his Mo-Ped]. For one and one-half hours nothing occurred for us to observe, yet Mr. Meier was talking to Semjase, asking as well the questions from us to her. I made tape recorded interviews and we drank hot coffee, because it was very cold out. During this time I was thinking of the film I would be able to get, and imagined the lighted, spark-spreading disk- craft hurrying through the air, when a short time later I saw an orange colored light at a forest hill, about two kilometers in the distance. At this time I was still of the opinion that this dealt of a great lamp switched on in a house. The size, for comparison, [was] three times as large as the brightest star in the sky. For a short while I did not pay any more attention to it, until it finally struck me that the lamp was not standing still. [We got out of the car.] When I reached the edge of the forest, it became evident that this was nothing from our side. Helicopters and similar [craft] would have been audible, because cars in the distance were audible. "Eh, over there, there it is!" I cried, and the others witnessed this. Unfortunately, I had to notice, the light shining from the object was not enough for it to appear in the film. So I pushed the release for only a short time on the super- 8 camera, hoping to get something. Then the beamship started blinking, with a period of half a second, and a short time later disappeared in the heavens. The sighting had lasted 7-10 minutes while we waited for Mr. Meier. About 10 minutes later he appeared again on his motor bike, and he suggested we drive to the contact place. On reaching the contact place in the forest, half way up the slope of the hill and next to a railway line with nearby piles of wood in series, we explored the landing place. In the high grass there were three triangularly spaced, pressed-down, circular landing areas. The blades of the grass were swirled counter-clockwise in a spiral. We took compass measurements, and the compass needle no longer showed the right direction. Finally I made some flashlight exposures of the landing-site marks. This was lucky, because hours later, after daylight, when we returned, all the grass had been cut by the dear municipality, and the evidence no longer existed. Only the pictures remained, but in the dark of the night I could not fix the correct distance for photography Happy and contented, though the filming had not succeeded well, Mr. Fuchs and I drove to the hotel. By now the clock showed 05:00 hours. signed Wolfgang Witzer Guido Moosbrugger (with Konrad Schutzbach and Mss. Stetter, Flammer and Walder), 12 June 1976, Re Contact #55: This experience was a little different from the earlier ones because it was planned and announced in advance. Three days before, it occurred that I received a telephone call from Mr. Meier and he gave me the good news that for the coming weekend a demonstration of the spacecraft by Semjase was planned, and the primary reason was to put new evidence in our hands. Some people who had not had an opportunity would be able to see the craft, and we would be able to make photographs this time that had not previously been allowed. Because of my limited experience in photography, I contacted Mr. Risser for some advice on use of a telephoto lens. I bought the most sensitive film I could find for the anticipated night shots, which afterward would be sent by Mr. Risser to Stuttgart to be developed. I felt considerable misgiving over the probability of my amateur success under the conditions as I drove to Meier's house that night. I doubted that my pictures would show the desired results. In Hinwil when I arrived there were already a number of people gathered at the Meier household. To simplify the expedition it was decided that only those who had accompanied Guido in 1993. Meier before should actually go with him this evening. The others would remain at a Courtesy J. Laurino. distance. During the evening I heard that we should be ready between 24:00 and 01:00. While the ladies, Mss. Stetter, Flammer and Walder took a little nap we sat back and talked about photography problems, Mr. Meier, Conrad Schutzbach and myself. By 00:30 Meier still had not received his telepathic call from Semjase, and I went out to get a breath of fresh air and see how the weather was. When I came back into the house the others were ready to go. While I was outside Meier had gotten the instructions and information that the demonstration would take place in the near vicinity of Hinwil. After a short planning discussion we departed about 01:00. Mr. Meier rode his Mo-Ped to the scheduled landing place of the spacecraft. It as always was guided by an on-board computer and Meier was directed by telepathy. For certain reasons, only Mr. Meier, alone, has been selected by the space people from their planet Erra for this contact. We rode to the point selected for the contact and immediately set up our cameras on their tripods, three of them. We positioned our cameras facing a northeast direction, towards the woods. Though it was very late, there were still many cars on the highway. We attributed the traffic to a pop festival held on Mt. Hausberg that night. We were afraid that Semjase would not show up with all the traffic because she did not like many witnesses. We knew that the brilliant light displays accompanying the spaceship visits could attract a lot of unwanted attention. But it seemed she didn't want to disappoint us, and at exactly 02:15 the night performance started in the sky. As we thought, in the northeast direction, in front of a forested hill, was a reddish disk-shaped light that glowed and then went out. Surprisingly, I didn't have to move my camera at all because the reddish disk appeared right in the field of view of my camera. After a short pause a silver disk, a little bit higher, was seen, but it was directly over the position of the first and almost of the same size and intensity. Soon after that, in a little higher position again, a third disk-shaped light appeared. The ladies said that this one had three colors. I personally didn't see that because I was working on my camera to adjust its elevation. Soon high over the horizon there was a silver disk, which had a glittering rain of fire falling straight down. For our better understanding I must say that these luminous energy patterns did not always have the same shapes. Finally after this demonstration we could see the spacecraft flying away slowly as it withdrew to a small red point of light in the sky. This ascended rapidly and disappeared. The whole exhibition did not take more than 10 minutes. About 02:30, all of a sudden a Mo-Ped came from the appointed direction. It was Mr. Meier, who during the demonstration had also taken photographs. He told us that Semjase had flown over to Austria, and on her way back would land again, supposedly at a different place. We at once changed our location, and then again we were ordered to "stop and wait." Very soon Mr. Meier went into the woods for a new contact. To our big surprise, for the first time one of the members of the group, Ms. Stetter, would ride on the Mo-Ped with him, in the hope that she would be accepted for the personal contact, since sometimes she also gets telepathic instructions but in a different way from Meier. The well meant attempt unfortunately did not succeed. We would have liked her to meet Semjase face to face, but it didn't happen. Instead, Ms. Stetter had to get off the bike close by and had to wait there all alone until Meier came back. It was good that she had my coat because it was quite cold. We had a car to go into, where it was warm. Besides, the two other ladies gave us cake and coffee. Neither the arrival nor the departure of the spaceship did we see at all. The only thing to break the silence was the braying of a horse and the barking of a fox, and some large birds like ravens flew up. We had noted before that animals get restless when the spacecraft are in the vicinity. At 04:00 Mr. Meier and Ms. Stetter came back to where we were waiting. This was, by the way, the 55th contact since 28 January 1975. Now I want to make some remarks with reference to the photographs taken that night. As I said, we saw just four disk-shape lighted objects and a reddish point. The photographs showed different results. The pictures taken by Connie [Konrad] Schutzbach showed just the luminous disks. The black and white diapositives shot by Hans, and the color dias that I shot show a small light. The color photographs shot by Mr. Meier from a much better vantage point show, at an upward angle, still another effect. His pictures showed a brilliant display of colored lights in flowing patterns. One frame came out completely white with what looked like a number 1 outlined in it. Anyone who has seen these light figures has to confess that they are not made by any earthly fireworks -- but very clever ones will surely find once more a reasonable -- so they think -- explanation for these phenomena. signed Guido Moosbrugger 14 July 1976 Note: Guido was a school principal from Austria. The cited books of Wendelle Stevens show 23 "UFO" photographs taken on this occasion by Guido Moosbrugger and Conrad Schutzbach. Hans Schutzbach (with Meier's wife and three children, and Conrad, brother of Hans, was a pilot. Amata Stetter), 28 June 1976, Re Contact #58: On Monday, 28 June 1976, at about 15:30, Eduard Meier called and asked me to drive out [to his home]. He said he would meet with Semjase and would be glad if I could be there. At about 16:00 I put Meier's family and Mrs. Stetter into my Doschwo (2- CV auto), and Meier got on his Mo-Ped. He showed me a map and told me exactly where we should wait for him. In about a half hour we stopped and parked in the shade of a tree some distance from Hinwil. About 16:00 the Meier children hollered and I turned around and looked, and saw an object about 700 meters above a small woods. At first I thought it looked like an over-large hot air balloon, but the form was not right. This object was of disk-shape, silver gray, and it went up very fast. It made a wide circle from the northwest around to the south. Too bad I did not have binoculars so that I could see its detail. At first we were not sure, and then we realized it was the spaceship. We watched the object for about 10 minutes and then it went higher and higher until it became a small dark object and then a point in the sky above, and then vanished from sight still going up. Meier's oldest son in 1979 showing picture he drew 3 years before of what he saw during this sighting. Then we saw Meier coming toward us. When we told him what we had From Vol. 2 of UFO...Contact from the Pleiades. seen he nodded and said that Semjase had told him that for security reasons, Courtesy of Lee Elders. not wanting to be seen by other humans, they had to break off contact. We had seen the spaceship of Quetzal and Pleja, Semjase's sister, as it departed. He said if we were interested he would take us to the place of the landing where we could see the marks left on the ground by the ships. We went down a little hill and about 500 meters into the woods. There we saw several pressed down areas in the high grass which lay in a geometric pattern. Meier pointed to the marks and cautioned us to walk carefully in the soft ground so as not to disturb the evidence. He pointed down to a small footprint and said that was where Pleja had stood. In the half-meter high grass I saw six large round circles pressed down. They were in two triangular patterns. The grass in the circles was pressed down in a counter-clockwise spiral form. In the middle of each triangle of circles there was a smaller space pressed down straight, as from above, as though something had come straight down and laid the grass there in that fashion. The circles in the first pattern measured 2.0 meters across and 3.77 meters from center to center. The small pressed-down area in the center of the triangle measured 0.70 meters. This was Semjase's ship. The second pattern of circles, left by the ship piloted by Quetzal, lay very near. There was only 5.35 meters between the nearest points. The marks from Quetzal's ship measured 1.82 meters across and were less deep. There was a line of footprints leading from the center mark of each triangle to a point where they came Photo by Hans Schutzbach on 28 June, 1976, of the landing tracks left by Semjase's beamship (on right) and Quetzal's (showing only partially) on left. together between the ships and the woods, where Semjase had Location near Pfaffenholz and Hinwil. From ...Und Sie Fliegen Doch, (1991), met Quetzal and Pleja before they walked together into the plate 43, Guido Moosbrugger, author. woods where Meier met them. Pleja's footprint measured 26 centimeters, while those of Quetzal measured 30 centimeters. Meier said Pleja was in a playful spirit and wanted to ride his Mo-Ped. He told her it was a dangerous thing. After a short conversation the cosmonauts returned to their ships and the spacecraft took off in different directions and left. We took a camera and photographed the marks. signed Hans Schutzbach Herbert Runkel, with 10 others, 17 July 1976: It was Sunday the 17th of July, 1976, between 16:00 and 17:00 hours in the afternoon when the demonstration took place. [Runkel had written 17 October, which has since been corrected to 17 July.] I had stayed the weekend before, Saturday and Sunday the 9th and 10th of [July], in Hinwil with "Billy" Meier, when he mentioned to me that there would be a demonstration by Semjase on the following weekend, but he didn't say what kind of Sketch by Hans Schutzbach of the landing-trace patterns. From demonstration. Not wishing to miss anything, I And Yet... They Fly, (2001), p. 213, by Guido Moosbrugger. drove to Hinwil on Saturday the 16th to stay with "Billy." In the morning of the 17th we worked on the construction of a small hot air balloon. We did this work during the day. At 15:00 in the afternoon we finished the balloon made of paper and we loaded it into the car. Accompanied by a number of others who had been around all day (presumably waiting for the same thing), we got into my car and drove to a small wooded area near Hinwil. About 10 people followed us [in other cars]. At about 16:00 we stopped at the place where we intended to launch the balloon. Before we did anything else, "Billy" says, "Look around this place very very exactly, that you can remember all the details here. Take pictures also." Billy aimed his camera at a small group of trees in front of us. We also, with our cameras, took pictures around this area. We also looked at the sky in hopes that Semjase would come, but there was nothing [to be seen]. Nobody knew what would happen. After that, we lit a fire in the balloon and watched it grow. In a few minutes it was full and the balloon rose up into the sky. We followed the balloon with the cars as long as we could, then the balloon went so high in the sky we lost sight of it and went back to the place of launching. "Billy" also came back. Suddenly "Billy" asked us if we noticed anything changed in the area. We looked around and looked for a long time. Finally, "Billy" smiles and says, "Doesn't anybody see anything [different]?" Then some of us remember the direction "Billy's" camera was pointing before [when he snapped the picture], and wasn't something missing, but what? Oh, like a miracle, there, where two trees, one about 4 to 5 meters high and a smaller one [about 3 meters high] had stood, one of the trees, the taller one, was not there! Disappeared. How? Where? We ran to the place where the tree had stood and there was only grassy ground. No hole in the earth! Nothing to indicate that a tree had ever stood there. If anyone would now say, in front of others, that a tree had stood there, he would be called crazy. The only sign was that the second tree, the smaller one, was not growing straight because the other, larger tree was crowding it and it was bent away for room, as it was still now bent. That is all I know. There was no spacecraft, no strange lights, no sounds or anything, but the tree was gone and I remember it very well. The tree may also be seen on the pictures we took that day before we launched the balloon, and it is missing on the ones we took afterwards. I do not know what happened to it. It has never come back. signed Herbert Runkel Note: Elsie Moser and Jacob Bertschinger were two of the 10 other witnesses. This demonstration on how the Pleiadians could make a tree disappear is believed to have been staged because of the continuing dissension among a few of the FIGU members on how such a thing could have occurred to the tree on all sides of which Semjase posed her craft for Meier to photograph on 9 July 1975. The "before" and "after" pictures of this October event are shown in Stevens' 1982 book and Moosbrugger's 1991 and 2001 books. Judging from the location and orientation of a pronounced shadow, little time could have elapsed between the two photos. Jacob Bertschinger, 7 February 1977, Re Contact #73: It happened February the 7th, 1977, about 6 o'clock in the evening as I, Jacob Bertschinger, was driving up to Ottikon with Eduard Meier. We were expected by Semjase, the pilot of the spaceship, for an announced contact. I parked my car on a forest road. Edi [Eduard Meier] left the car and disappeared towards the southeast to reach the contact point, while I waited alone in the car. After about 15 minutes I suddenly heard my friend's voice over my radio. That means I felt he was talking to me, but Edi obviously tried to reach the home station without success as no one was on duty there. His voice was very low, I could hardly hear it. I told him to speak up. So he explained that the connection was bad because he was with Semjase in the spaceship. But no worry. Semjase would correct that in a second. A few seconds and I could hear Edi's voice loud and clear. Edi explained to me that he saw me quite distinctly on a TV screen. He asked me to move the car by his guidance. I did that and drove up onto a small hill, from where I had a panoramic view over the country. Directly in front of me was Ottikon, far to the left Herschmettlen, right down the hill the many lights of Dübendorf, Schwamendingen and Oerlikon. Quite thoughtful, I sat there staring out into the clear night. Suddenly Edi's deep voice alarmed me: "Could I see the ship?" They were directly over Kloten airport. Yes, I could see it -- but only an oval disk, slightly illuminated. I told Edi I was not satisfied. He just laughed and answered that Semjase would soon turn up the lights and I could see then, a few seconds later, how the ship started shining and blinking. I could see it quite clearly flying slowly over Zurich and then disappear. Tired after some time of waiting, I tried to contact my friend in the spacecraft, but no success. The microphone still in my right hand, I was looking down to Oerlikon. I tried to get radio connection again. Suddenly I started. Quite suddenly and like magic there appeared a human figure on the right side of my car. I was absolutely shaken, I tell you. As I stared at the figure I heard my friend's voice through the radio: "I'm already here, my friend." It was Billy (Eduard) standing in front of the car. He came to the car and sat beside me grinning all over his face. "You are surprised, aren't you?" I couldn't deny it. Then I started questioning my friend. Where had he been? How was it possible to appear out of nowhere so suddenly? Edi laughed. He explained that he had heard me calling while still in the spacecraft, before being set down by Semjase by a teleporter beam while the craft was hovering directly over the car. He allegedly did this only because he wanted to see my astonished face when he would appear so suddenly. Unfortunately, he could not see me though, because it was too dark in the car. Certainly I was greatly amazed at this happening, then again it was not so surprising after all. Edi often does crazy and unexpected things -- one has to get used to his ways. Sitting in the car, I had unfortunately not been able to see the spacecraft above. Only when Edi sat again in the car I could see a bright light moving away westwards in the direction of Forch. After this light had disappeared we drove back to Hinwil. Suddenly, Edi urged me to speed towards his house. Semjase had told him she would fly with her illuminated shining spacecraft over Hinwil due east. I accelerated, scanning the sky to the west, but could see nothing but the skyline. Speeding on the highway towards Wetzikon, I saw it. From far out west a brightly shining object about the size of a football appeared, moving in our direction. But again Edi ordered me to hurry to his house, where we would see Semjase passing by. Arriving there, his family, whom he had alerted by radio, stood already in the front yard looking up at the object -- Semjase's spacecraft -- approaching shining like a full moon. There were still some people in the street, staring up at the ship floating by without emitting a sound -- until it disappeared three minutes later behind the hills. We then went inside, drinking the coffee which Edi had asked via radio for his wife to prepare while still sitting in my car. I declare that the above mentioned happenings are truly and accurately retold. Truth remains truth -- there is no doubt. signed Jacobus Bertschinger Note: Meier's radio conversation with Bertschwinger is given, along with his conversation with Semjase, in Message from the Pleiades, vol. 3, pp. 289-293. Engelbert Wächter, Jr. (with Bernadette Brand, Jacobus Bertschinger, and Jakob Bertschinger, Sr.), 20 February 1977, Re Contact #75: It must have been toward 7:00 PM. I was just going to suggest an evening walk to my wife when the telephone rang. Gaby, our daughter, answered the phone hoping for a friend's voice, but in vain, the call was for me. It was Billy asking us to join him and others for a live contact with Semjase, the pilot of the spacecraft. Happily I accepted, this was to my taste. We agreed on a midway meeting point at the railway station at Wädenswil at half past eight. At the mentioned station I didn't have to wait very long for Bernadette Brand to arrive. We soon left for Thalwil where Mr. Meier had some business to attend to. After an hour's stop at Thalwil we drove on towards Horgen- Hirzel. It was raining very hard. We drove over countless field paths to get near the supposed meeting point. The roads became continually worse, and finally ended in a swamp while the rain was streaming down. We had reached our target point. A last check of the CB radios, and Mr. Meier went off into the darkness while we stared fascinated after him. As soon as Billy was gone we tried to get the two cars out of the mud. With great effort we managed to turn the cars around. We even had to mount snow chains to get out of the horrible mud. The continuous downpour soaked us through and through. Suddenly we heard the hooting of an owl. Seconds later a peculiar sound started up, like leaves rustling in the wind -- but there were only pines around -- then this rustle turned into an increasing roar, a kind of whining. Now we know the truth: the spacecraft with our friend, Semjase, the mediator of longstanding, and our mediator, Mr. Meier, passed above us, at a height of maybe 25 meters. About two seconds later, very suddenly for us, we saw Mr. Meier in the midst of us, a very big surprise indeed. He was smiling happily and in absolutely dry clothes. I saw, by the headlights of the car, his leather coat getting slowly wet. But how could it have been otherwise? With Semjase in the spacecraft he was not out in the rain, not getting wet at all. We had a difficult time getting the two cars out of the bog. But about 1 AM Monday night [Tuesday morning, that is] we said a happy goodbye to each other in spite of all the mud and rain. signed Englebert Wächter Note: Englebert was a salesman and printer, from Horgen, Switzerland Herbert Runkel, 15-16 June, 1980, Re Contact #131: I was staying in the house of "Billy" Meier, and we were hanging around, in the living room, in the kitchen, and so on. We were sitting in the kitchen about 11:00 at night, and Billy was drinking some coffee. We talked about several things. During this talking he suddenly smiled and said, "This night I will have a visit." After some more minutes and some more talking he stood up and went outside. The weather was horrible. There was a thunderstorm raging and it was raining very heavily. After about an hour he came back into the house. He was not wet! He smiled and said, "Tomorrow we have something to take pictures of and to film. Semjase set the ship down on the ground and we will have landing tracks." The rest of the night we discussed important things about space and our world and the universe. In the morning, "Billy," Jacobus and I went down to the place (You know the place well, Steve [Wendelle Stevens]), down the hill from the house and the stock pond, and we took still and motion pictures, and also shot video film of the fresh landing tracks in the grass. (Sketch enclosed.) I shot two 36-shot rolls of film and one super 8mm movie film of the evidence. The ship had stood there over a half hour. Supplement in reply to a letter from Stevens: I am very, very sure there is no way for Billy to make tracks like this. I have been many times a witness of landing tracks, I have very clear photos in all details from many different places so I can say this to you with 100% certainty. For example, there is a place in Swiss [misspelling of some town?]; a spaceship landing in 1976... after four years today, you can see the grass in this place grows differently from the other grass... signed Herbert Runkel Meier at this landing trace later, after a fence was built around it to preserve it for over a year Ms. Anny Zimmermann-Moosmayer of Stuttgart, 13-14 June, 1980: June 13th we sat in the kitchen [of Meier's house] and just felt an impulse to step outside -- Semjase was demonstrating in the sky. Saturday the 14th Herbert gave a lecture. That night [the 15th]... a visit by Semjase. The next day [the 16th]I took snapshots of the landing site. I was supposed not to know of the visit! I also was not told of the "happening," maybe not to frighten me. I slept in one of the trailers and had to go there during the nighttime with heavy rain. An affidavit signed by many, including Meier's wife, Kalliope. It is published on page 249 of Guido Moosbrugger's book, And Still They Fly! (Steelmark LLC, 8086 S. Yale, Suite 173, Tulsa, OK 74136; 2004), and on p. 321 of the earlier German edition Und Doch Sie Fliegen! (1991). The translation reads: The undersigned herewith confirm that they have never observed or known Mr. Eduard Albert Meier (Billy), residing at CH-8495 Schmidrüti/ZH, of ever being involved in any unfair intrigues or manipulations in order to feign false facts, much less ever having been involved as assistant himelf. Furthermore, we know of no wealthy backers ever giving Billy material help in any way with the attainment of his ufological slide series and short films. We also confirm that the reports of our experiences outlined in this book completely correspond to the truth. If need be, these statements can at any time be sworn to before a court of law. Hinterschmidrüti, Semjase Silver Star Center, 16 February, 1991 signed: Jacobus Bertschinger Eva Bieri Bernadette Brandt Madeleine Brügger Christina Gasser Elisabeth Gruber Thomas Keller Brunhilde Koye Kalliope Meier Kalliope in 1979, while Freddy Kropf being interviewed by ufologist Jun-Ichi Yaoi. Silvano Lehmann Courtesy Lee Elders. Gilgamesha Meier Atlantis Meier Methusalem Meier Guido Moosbrugger Herbert Runkel Englebert Wächter Maria Wächter Conny Wächter Hans Zimmermann Go Back to: Contents Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:32:22 +0100 From: FIGU - Christian Frehner Organization: www.figu.org User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 (Windows/20071031) To: Jim Deardorff CC: Michael Horn Subject: Re: Movie clip Hi Jim and Michael, I recorded my version, which was an interview, on April 16, 2006. I was alone together with Billy. Billy recorded his film on May 25 and 28, 2006. Atlant installed the camera and instructed Billy how to use it. During the recording Billy was alone in his office. The segments were recorded in the afternoon, and you can see that the clouds are moving in front of the sun and have an influence on the shades at the window and the light in the office. Proof that the film is not sped up is that you can hear the radio playing in the background. The songs are being played in the correct speed. The entire filming by Billy is lasting for more than 15 minutes. Salome, Christian Downloads The Talmud of Jmmanuel document, upon which the Gospel of Matthew is based