from www.lugodoc.demon.
co.uk/cernunos.htm
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."
| |
|
The Celtic god Cernunnos, from www.lugodoc.demon. co.uk/cernunos.htm |
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 word "king" does seem to have been used loosely,
 |
|
This coin shows the ram's horn on the side of Alexander's head. |
[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 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 |