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...

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: P_Hoax ≈ 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]

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. P_Hoax ≈ 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. P_Hoax ≈ 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. P_Hoax ≈ 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.

P_Hoax ≈ 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. P_Hoax ≈ 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. P_Hoax ≈ 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? P_Hoax ≈ 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.

TJ 1:96    ⁹⁶Joseph 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.

P_Hoax ≈ 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. P_Hoax ≈ 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.

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.