Talmud Jmmanuel

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.

Meier makes extensive use of conspiracy theories to explain away the "holes in the script" -- see "Hoax Characteristics". Apparently, the conspiracy in this case consists of powerful Jewish and Christian leaders who are able to control police forces in the Middle East, as well as the Israeli army. The Mossad (Israeli intelligence) are part of it, capable of assassinating people anywhere on the Earth without leaving a trace. And so on.

Meier and his followers insist on misspelling "Immanuel" with an initial J instead of an I. The stated reason is that he was commanded to do so by space aliens. In my text, I refer to the manuscript as "TJ".

Find story

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. The two friends excavated it and found evidence supporting the genuineness of the manuscript. The manuscript consisted of four scrolls written in Aramaic. Rashid translated most of the text, which took until 1974. During the work, Rashid was persecuted by "the church" and Jews who were out to stop the publication of the manuscript. He was forced to flee from Jerusalem to Lebanon. The Palestinian refugee camp where he lived with his family was then subjected to a massive attack by Israeli military forces. 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.

Some questions are pertinent to this find story:

1. The location of the cave is not given. Why?
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?
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.
4. The letter from Rashid speaks of him travelling with his family. Where are they today? They ought to be able to verify some of the information about him.
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.
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?
7. Since he had the scrolls for 11 years, why did he not make a single photograph or xerox copy of them?
8. How did "the church" and the Jews find out about his manuscript find?
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?
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?

The answer to all these questions is simple and obvious. The cave, Rashid and the scrolls never existed.

The manuscript

According to the accompanying information, the document was written by Judas Iskarioth, the only true disciple of Jesus. All the Biblical gospels are fakes, censored to fit in with church 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 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 churches of being power-hungry, ruthless, loveless, bloodthirsty oppressors. In Meier's opinion, the purpose of the Bible isto 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. 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. Other characteristics of the text are also typical for hoaxes, e.g.

• Jesus travelled to India before his work in Palestine.
• Jesus did not die on the cross.
• After fleeing the grave, Jesus again travelled to India.
• The Essenes are said to be a secret order. (Here, they seek to enroll Jesus who declines to join.)
• Jesus preaches reincarnation.

There are plenty of anachronisms, e.g.

• "The laws of nature", a concept formulated in renaissance times.
• "The horn-bearing kings" denotes the peoples of Scandinavia, later Vikings -- who did not wear horns at all.
• "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".
• 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.

Any further analysis of the TJ text is quite superfluous. Even a cursory glance reveals that it has all the characteristics of a hoax, and wherever a more in-depth analysis is attempted, the forgery merely becomes more obvious. However, if you want some fun, do look at the next subject too, where retired professor Jim Deardorff tries to prove that TJ is a genuine manuscript, and fails in a rather spectacular way!