MEIER'S RECOLLECTION OF THE TOMB SITE

Around 1960 Isa Rashid was prompted (by the same ETs who later contacted Meier) to locate the tomb site where the Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) lay buried. However, from what Meier later learned, Rashid didn't then take any action to explore the site or dig his way into it, and soon forgot just where it was. In 1963, however, when Meier was visiting him and they were walking along outside and south of Jerusalem's Old City, Meier was himself prompted to look out at the hillside and notice a small dark cleft or hole up on the slope, partially obscured by bushes. According to Meier's recollection in August 1997, this hole was about 30 cm, or a foot, on a side. He reached into his packsack for his flashlight and peered into the hole to notice that it continued inwards. So he proceeded to dig away rocks and earth until the hole was large enough that they could crawl inside. (Meier remembers that a shrub growing next to this entrance was a "Meramie" plant.)

After more exploring inside the tomb site, they noticed something buried underneath a flat rock, and it turned out to be the TJ scrolls, along with a few small artifacts, wrapped in animal skin encased in resin. Meier's Foreword within the translated TJ document continues the story from there, but gives no description of the tomb, which Meier learned later had been the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, which is mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew.

To the best of his 34-year-old recollection, Meier drew the sketch below of a plan view of the tomb. A member of his support group (F.I.G.U.) labeled it in English.

The tomb is recollected to have been 3.5 to 4 meters in length; the outside slope of the hill is labeled as having been covered with rock, dirt and bushes. In the rear of the tomb there was a narrow tunnel leading out to what had once been a second entrance, long since blocked with earth. This smaller, second entrance would have faced out onto the slope around a bend from where the tomb's main entrance had been. This was the entrance/exit through which Jmmanuel received medical attention from Joseph and some Hindu friends he had sought out, and from which they exited very early in the morning three days later, according to the TJ.

This picture is consistent with guards actually having been posted at the tomb, as in Matthew 27:65-66, to safeguard it from any who would enter in and steal the "body." The TJ indicates that this posting of the guards occurred a day or two earlier than in Matthew (more in keeping with the Gospel of John's timing), and so did not occur on a sabbath when chief priests and Pharisees would have been reluctant to send a deputation to Pilate to ask for the guards. It is not inconceivable that those who helped Jmmanuel recover within the tomb could slip into the secret entrance on the side without being observed or suspected of anything by the guards.

Apparently this tomb site has not yet been explored by archaeologists. Ufologist Michael Hesemann of Düsseldorf, Germany, editor of Magazin 2000plus, explored the general area where the tomb was located in July, 1998. He retraced the route that Meier and Rashid had traversed in 1963, to the best of Meier's recollections, while in contact with Meier by cellular phone. It is located along the south slope of the Hinnom Valley not too far from its confluence with the Kidron Valley, and within the Akeldama tombs area, south of the Old City of Jerusalem. This had been a burial ground for foreigners, and Joseph of Arimathea likely was a foreigner to Jerusalem, if Arimathea is equated to Rathamin, which is located some 20 miles northwest of Jerusalem. According to an article by Gideon Avni and Zvi Greenhut in Report #1 of the Israel Antiquities Authority, "The Akeldama tombs" (1996):

"The confluence of the Kidron and Hinnom Valleys, south of the Old City of Jerusalem, contains one of Jerusalem's richest concentration of rock-hewn tombs. This area, located in the periphery of the village of Silwan, was one of the main burial grounds of Jerusalem... the use of the south part of the Hinnom Valley as burial grounds for foreigners is mentioned by Antoninus Martyr who visited Jerusalem in about 560 CE."

From what Hesemann learned, Meier had been informed by one of the Pleiadians/Plejarens (Florena) in June of 1998 that sometime after 1963 the Plejarens had caused a landslide to occur down and over the hillside containing the tombsite. Contact Report #213 of Dec. 2, 1986, clarifies that it was Quetzal who carried out this "landslide" operation. This is very consistent with the Plejaren strategy of ensuring that they do not force truth upon people who are not in any way prepared to accept it, and one way of doing this is to allow original evidence to be destroyed while allowing truth in the form of secondary evidence to be available. According to Quetzal, the reason for destroying the tombsite was to forestall the development of a new Christian cult that would otherwise have occurred.

Hesemann believes he located the landslide/rubble ravine, within the Akeldama tombs region, which marks the approximate location. The photograph below (courtesy of Michael Hesemann, July 1998) indicates this area, with the probable site lying a little below the heavy arrowhead, with a question mark situated above at the top of the photo. The photo looks due south, and was shot from just outside the present south wall of the Old City. A second site of lesser probability lies some 50 yards to the right of the first, far underneath a thinner arrowhead and second question mark inserted at the top of the photo.

Hesemann was impressed that although Meier has not been back there to view the region, the site he described over the cell phone contained the landslide/rubble ravine. It would seem futile, even if permission could be gained, to attempt to detect what is left of the tomb site underneath the rubble, as all the artifacts inside it had been removed in 1963.

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