Deep space anti-Semitism

Trust me, kiddo, all this really happened!

"The Talmud of Jmmanuel" is a translation of a sensational ancient manuscript revealing the true teachings of Jesus Christ, whose real name was Jmmanuel. The manuscript was smuggled out of Israel by a Greek Catholic priest named Isa Rashid, who was eventually murdered by the Mossad in Baghdad, after the IDF failed to do so on an earlier occasion in Lebanon. However, Rashid (whose first name means "Jesus", by the way) managed to send 36 chapters of the text to Billy Meier in Switzerland, who published a German translation and now fears for his life. Both churches, governments and the ubiquitous Jews want to assassinate him, and suppress the precious truths contained in this original gospel.

Or?

Well, no. Not really.

In reality, "The Talmud of Jmmanuel" is a hoax. Nobody has ever seen the original scrolls, there is no evidence that Isa Rashid ever existed, and Billy Meier is a notorious UFO contactee, who claims to be on a first name basis with a group of highly evolved extraterrestrials from the Pleiades, including a blonde alien bombshell named Semjase. I wonder whether Meier even understands Aramaic! "The Talmud of Jmmanuel" was obviously written by Meier himself. In a sense, it was a master stroke. Most other contactees have been quietly forgotten, but if you write a phoney gospel and lay claim to the mantle of Jesus, there is always somebody who is taken in. To a sceptic, the publication of Meier's "gospel" must have been the most obvious piece of evidence that he was a fraud. Ironically, it may also have been one of the main reasons for his enduring success!

"The Talmud of Jmmanuel" is similar in many ways to other modern, alternative versions of the life of Jesus. Jesus travels to India both in his youth and after the resurrection, and eventually dies in Srinagar in Kashmir. (This is a conflation of Notovitch and the Ahmadiyya.) The Essenes are involved, and the teachings of Jesus sound Gnostic. He has come to impart knowledge to humanity, rather than to atone for our sins. Part of the knowledge is that the divine is impersonal, and follows immutable laws of nature. Meier calls it Creation. I suppose a Hindu would call it Brahman. In Meier's version, Jesus also teaches reincarnation. I wouldn't be too surprised if the author studied Levi Dowling's "The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ". Another Gnostic slant is the constant reversal of Biblical motives. In the Bible, Judas Iscariot is evil and betrays Jesus, but in Meier's story, Judas is the hero and the actual author of "The Talmud". Instead, Jesus is betrayed by one Juda Ihariot. The apostle Paul is one of the bad guys. One of the enlightened and luminous space aliens is named Semjasa, a name based on Semyaz, the leader of the fallen angels in the Book of Enoch (still included in Ethiopian Bibles and not unknown among Biblical scholars).

Since "The Talmud" is connected to Meier's supposed contacts with aliens, there is a definitive UFO slant to his book. Jesus is the result of a sexual relationship between Mary and the angel Gabriel, who turns out to be an alien from the Pleiades! Indeed, Adam and all white people are said to be descended from Semjasa, apparently the leader of the aliens. The exact relationship between Samjasa and Meier's blonde contact Semjase isn't explained. Jesus mentions UFOs both during the trial in front of the Sanhedrin, and when brought before Pilate.

Other parts of the message are presumably more original to Meier. The book is heavily anti-Semitic. The children of Israel are threatened with persecution, massacres and death in general. Apparently, they never were God's chosen people to begin with, and Jesus doesn't call himself "king of the Jews". One garbled passage makes a distinction between Israelis and Jews. Did Meier have the Khazar theory on his mind when writing it? Anti-Semitism, it seems, isn't confined to planet Earth.

Other parts of the work makes you wonder what kind of person Meier is on a purely personal level. Jesus threatens homosexual men with castration or sterilization. However, lesbian relations are apparently alright?! Adulterers should also be castrated and sterilized. Meier has also rewritten the Sermon on the Mount to make it sound more normal and "logical", making you wonder what exactly the masses gasped at in Jesus' teachings. Finally, "The Talmud" contains various mistakes and anachronisms. Herod the Great is confused or conflated with Herod Antipas. The rather obvious references to the modern Middle East conflict are anachronistic - the Israelites are even called Israelis! The name "Jmmanuel" is incomprehensible. The apostle Matthew is said to have been illiterate (in reality, Roman-employed tax collectors could read and write). And so on.

Typically, even Billy Meier's private religion has its heretics. This is the one and only true edition of "The Talmud of Jmmanuel". It seems Meier's idea has been stolen by others, who have published revised versions of the book, complete with new messages from the aliens! Being a seer, prophet and revelator (or just an editor) has its perils.

"The Talmud of Jmmanuel" didn't impress me. It lacks the new agey, spiritual feel of Levi's gospel. Jesus' travels in India are mentioned only in passing, so there is little excitement. Nor does it contain much information on UFOs, despite being written by a contactee. But above all, it's a work of noxious anti-Semitism and Jew-baiting, complete with a streak of homophobia. Even as a religious work, it merits a one-star review at best.