• Matthean verses or passages in blue received valid questions and criticisms from Francis Beare, to which the TJ is not subject. Those in italics indicate there is no TJ cognate.
• Verses or passages in green received valid questions and criticisms from other Gospel scholars, to which the TJ is not subject.
• Verses or passages in red receive criticisms of Matthew raised by myself with the aid of TJ hindsight.
• An occasional Matthean verse not receiving criticism (in brown) is listed when the TJ verse it substitutes for is especially interesting or informative.
• Non-italicized verses do have TJ parallels, though these are often only distant cognates.
• When criticisms of two or three categories apply to the same verse or passage, priority in color-coding is assigned first to blue, then green, then red.
• Some passages contain a verse or two that did not receive criticism.
• In all parallel verses, where the TJ reads "Jmmanuel" the Gospel of Matthew has "Jesus." Click here to learn of the evidence and clues that point to Paul as being the one who altered Immanuel's name into "Jesus," why and how he accomplished this, and how long it took before the taboo against use of the name "Immanuel" was finally broken.

The Matthean (Mt) verses quoted within the Table come from the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible (New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1952). The TJ verses come primarily from the 4th edition (2007) English/German version of the Talmud of Jmmanuel (Wild Flower Press; see Steelmark online); in a small minority of instances, the 2001 English translation was given preference over the 2007 edition. The TJ was first given its chapter and verse numbers by its translator, Isa Rashid. These were subsequently revised somewhat by the TJ's editor, Eduard Meier, in TJ versions of 1992 and thereafter.

In the brief discussions following the verse presentations, the criticisms or questions raised by various scholars regarding the Matthean verse(s) are first aired. Then follows a brief explanation of why any parallel TJ verses do not suffer from the scholar's criticism or question. The scholar whose criticisms are presented most frequently here is the late Francis Beare, using his commentary The Gospel according to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981). He will be referenced by name and page number (e.g., Beare, p. xxx). His text is most heavily utilized here because it post-dates the TJ, is comprehensive, is critical, and was the only one known to me with these qualifications at the time I started this study in 1988. However, I have tried not to present "invalid" criticisms based only upon assumptions that with hindsight appear to be false, even when they support the TJ's text over the Matthean text. The most common "invalid" assumptions are:

    (a) The supposition that a Matthean verse is non-genuine merely because it or a portion of it is not found in Mark;
    (b) The supposition that a Matthean verse is non-genuine merely because it is found also in Luke and not in Mark (and would then be assumed by some to have been present in the hypothetical document "Q");
    (c) The supposition that no person, no matter how unique and how well attested to be a short-range prophet, could validly prophesy events in his distant future; this would include certain OT prophets as well as Jesus/Jmmanuel;
    (d) The supposition that no such thing as the human spirit, its evolution and power (this includes reincarnation and past lives), along with the spiritual world, could exist;
    (e) The supposition that angels must not be equated to ETs nor their means of transport to UFOs.

These last two, especially, deserve discussion. If Jesus/Jmmanuel realized the existence and reality of the human spirit and of UFOs/ETs, and his disciple-writer inscribed his teachings about those topics in the TJ, while modern NT scholars remain unaware, that fact will color their opinions of the TJ. They will be unable to distinguish between a true wisdom teacher versus one that is an artificial construct of the writer of Matthew. This is a key point in analyzing the genuineness of the TJ; so if desired, the reader may express his opinion on it in my Blog.

This presentation within the Table above contains some 243 passages from Matthew's 28 chapters, each passage comprising one or more verses, for which Matthew receives criticism and the parallel TJ verses do not. It also contains some 105 more passages of Matthew that have been criticized, of one or more verses, for which no TJ parallel exists. I have included the latter because a literary hoaxer basing his hoax upon Matthew would have slipped up occasionally and unknowingly utilized Matthean verses that are not genuine.

Matthean "Fatigue."Some of the problems with Matthew are identified as "Matthean fatigue" or "editorial fatigue." It has been defined by scholar Mark Goodacre as where the writer or redactor makes a characteristic change (insertion or substitution) in the text he had been following, but then fails to alter subsequent text he copies from his source document to bring it into logical agreement with his change (Goodacre, Mark, "Fatigue in the Synoptics," NTS 44 (1998), pp. 45-58). Goodacre's presentation included the possibility that the writer of Matthew became "fatigued" in some of his supposed alterations of Mark; however, he did not realize that these can be explained by the writer's alterations of the TJ plus the behavior of Mark's writer. Of course, editing that was inattentive or not carefully thought out is more likely to be the cause of the writers' errors than actual fatigue. With hindsight one realizes that the writer of Matthew was more concerned about achieving a text free of the heresies he found in the TJforming a text as compatible as possible with the Torahthan about how logical, free-flowing, non-redundant and sensible his fabrication would appear to be to scholars of the future.

Some 35 apparent instances of Matthean fatigue relative to the TJ have been identified so far. They may be found by searching for "fatigue" either in the Matthew-TJ verse comparisons or in the search engine at the bottom of the Contents page, or by reading under the discussions in the following links: Mt 1:21-23, Mt 2:9, 3:11, 5:3, 5:6, 5:12, 6:9-13, 6:24b-25, 7:7-8, 9:2-3, 9:8, 10:5-6, 11:19, 12:11-12, 13:44, 15:1-4,10-11, 15:13-17, 16:21-22, 19:13-15, 21:28-32, 23:17-19, 24:3-4, 26:14-16, 26:27-28, 26:35, 26:47, 26:49-50, 26:55-56, 26:61, 27:1-12 (two), 27:43-44, 27:59-60a, 28:6, 28:7.

Probabilities of a Hoax. Near the end of each Mt-TJ verse/passage discussion, I have usually included my estimate of the probability (P_Hoax) that the particular TJ verse(s) could be a hoax and the Matthean verse(s) not have been fabricated out of it. It is based upon considerations such as the likelihood that a hoaxer could have, either accidently or purposely, altered the Matthean verse so as to remove the scholar's criticism(s) of it, while retaining continuity in flow and theme of the TJ text, and at the same time maintaining consistency as to why the writer of Matthew would have made the alteration. At the end of each Matthean chapter I have accumulated these individual probabilities to arrive at an overall probability that the parallel text of the TJ over that chapter could be a hoax. I've generally expressed my best estimates of P_Hoax to values divisible by 0.05 (e.g., 0.35, 0.40, 0.45, etc.). The extreme value of 0 or 1 is avoided since no single verse or passage can be so convincing of hoax or no-hoax that other information might not prove it wrong. The value P_Hoax = 0.5, when assigned, means that in that instance there was complete uncertainty whether that verse/passage pointed towards hoax or no-hoax for the TJ.

In a recent tabulation (Nov. 2005) of results, of 335 Matthean verses in the blue-green-red categories that point towards Matthew having been derived from the TJ rather than vice versa, 183 or 54.6% involve verses in Matthew whose authenticity scholars have criticized or questioned over the years, many before the TJ came out, but some only after 1978. 127 or 37.9% of the 335 involve problems with Matthew that I have now pointed out but which New Testament scholars apparently don't yet know about; this was only possible through TJ hindsight. 15 or 4.5% involve Matthean verses that could not have come from a wisdom teacher although even in Matthew Jesus is called just that; in those cases what Jmmanuel says in the TJ parallels do constitute words of wisdom. In 10 instances, or 3.0%, the Matthean verse or passage just does not make sense, or holds no clear meaning, whereas the same verse or passage with no substantial difference in the TJ does so, due to the TJ's overall context being totally different from Matthew's.

In 32 additional instances analyzed, the probability for hoax was set at 0.5. This was due in some cases to the points in favor and against counterbalancing themselves, and in other cases, where the TJ lacked the verse/passage, to the Matthean verse being so heavily criticized by scholars that it had to be assumed that a literary hoaxer would not have copied it or utilized it. In only two instances was a probability for hoax greater than 0.5 assigned (see under Mt 5:28 and under Mt 21:7).

Comparing the TJ with Luke/Acts and John. Interestingly, there are a few verses in the Gospel of Luke, in Acts, and in the Gospel of John that bear an unmistakenly close connection to TJ verses. For example, in Luke's 2nd chapter the narration that speaks of the nativity taking place during the decree of Caesar Augustus and the reign of Quirinius can be seen to have stemmed directly from the TJ (or the other way around, if you like). The post-crucifixion appearance of Jmmanuel to his disciples at the Sea of Galilee, where he pointed out to the fishermen where to cast their nets for a huge haul, is seen to have been altered within Luke into a pre-crucifixion miracle at Lk 5:1-7. Luke's post-crucifixion appearance on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13f) can be seen to be a highly altered version of the TJ's post-crucifixion appearance on the road to Galilee. In the Book of Acts, its first description of Saul's conversion experience on the Road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-9) can be seen to have derived directly from the TJ's account. This provides further evidence that the writer of Luke and of Acts was one and the same person.

Of the Gospels only John mentions (briefly) that Judas Iscariot was the treasurer for the Twelve. The TJ mentions this also, but, in addition, describes an incident in which Judas, early in Jmmanuel's ministry, became disloyal to his teachings. He had begun secretly collecting money from Jmmanuel's listeners and living for his own self-gratification. When Jmmanuel learned about this, he took Judas aside for several days and taught him the difference between right and wrong, whereupon the disciple repented (TJ 14:1-7). A remnant of this appears within the Gospel of John, at Jn 12:6, where Judas is mentioned as being a thief. Also, only in John do we read that Judas was the son of Simon (Jn 6:71), while in the TJ, the actual betrayer of Jmmanuel to the arresting party, who afterwards committed suicide, was Juda, the son of Simeon. (Soon afterwards the rumor was initiated by chief priests and Simeon that the betrayer had been Judas Iscariot.) Additionally, two of Jmmanuel's post-crucifixion appearances to his disciples are described, in redacted form, more correctly in John than in the other Gospels.

It is also interesting that the Gospel of Mark contains nothing that can be inferred to have derived straight from the TJ. It very much appears that some time after the writer of Matthew was done forming his gospel out of the TJ, and after the writer of Mark had made use of the Gospel of Matthew, the writers of Luke/Acts and John were allowed very limited access to the TJ. It seems as if they had been required to agree to extract only those items from it that the writer of Matthew may have overlooked, and to place them into a proper early Christian context. For TJ text that the writer of Matthew had already utilized and sanitized, they were to use his version. That the writer of Mark was left unaware of the TJ makes sense in that the writers of Matthew, Luke and John were located somewhere in the Mideast or Anatolia (Turkey), while the writer of Mark is believed from the external evidence to have written in Rome (where he seems, however, to have had access not only to an early Semitic version of Matthew but to an aborted stolen writing that preceded the TJ, brought to Rome by Peter and John Mark). This all also makes sense out of the well-known saying from Papias, presented by Eusebius, that "Matthew compiled the Logia in the Hebraic tongue, and each interpreted them as best he could." The TJ indicates that these "each" consisted of the writers of Luke/Acts and John, and also of certain Gnostics.

For those under the impression that Matthew could not have been formed out of the TJ because the majority of New Testament scholarship assumes that Matthew was formed out of Mark, a comprehensive hypothesis favoring Mark having been formed out of Matthew is presented here.

Abbreviations. In references at the end of each 1- or 2-chapter section on Matthew and its TJ comparisons, within the above Table and elsewhere in this website, the following abbreviations are used:
     JBL: Journal of Biblical Literature
     NTS: New Testament Studies

For books of the Bible, the following abbreviations are used:

Old Testament

Genesis	Gn		2 Chronicles	2 Chr		Daniel	Dn
Exodus	Ex		Ezra	Ez		Hosea	Hos
Leviticus	Lv		Nehemiah	Neh		Joel	Jl
Numbers	Nm		Esther	Est		Amos	Am
Deuteronomy	Dt		Job	Jb		Obadiah	Ob
Joshua	Jos		Psalms	Ps(s)		Jonah	Jon
Judges	Jgs		Proverbs	Prv		Micah	Mi
Ruth	Ru		Ecclesiastes	Eccl		Nahum	Na
1 Samuel	1 Sm		Song of Solomon	Sg		Habakkuk	Hb
2 Samuel	2 Sm		Isaiah	Is		Zephaniah	Zep
1 Kings	1 Kgs		Jeremiah	Jer		Haggai	Hg
2 Kings	2 Kgs		Lamentations	Lam		Zechariah	Zec
1 Chronicles	1 Chr		Ezekiel	Ez		Malachi	Mal

New Testament

Matthew	Mt		Acts of Apostles	Acts		2 Corinthians	2 Cor
Mark	Mk		Romans	Rom		Galatians	Gal
Luke	Lk		1 Corinthians	1 Cor		Ephesians	Eph
John	Jn