Even a brief comparison of the TJ against the Gospel of Matthew discloses that one depends upon the other. The correspondence in order of events and sometimes in wording is too close to permit any other possibility. In comparing them, then, we continually raise the question: Is it more plausible that the writer of Matthew based his text upon the ancient TJ rolls, or that a 20th-century literary hoaxer based the TJ upon Matthew?

In these comparisons, the Matthean verse(s) are listed first under "Mt," followed by the parallel or cognate Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) verse(s) when the parallels exist.

Editor's Note: I cannot reproduce Dr. Deardorff's tables, but they are impressive. You may see them at http://www.tjresearch.info/research.htm

* Matthean verses or passages in blue received valid questions and criticisms, to which the TJ is not subject, from scholar Francis Beare. Those in italics indicate there is no TJ cognate.

* Verses or passages in green received valid questions and criticisms, to which the TJ is not subject, from other Gospel scholars.

* Verses or passages in red receive criticisms of Matthew raised by myself with the aid of TJ hindsight.

* Matthean passages receiving criticisms, to which the TJ parallel passage is not subject, and whose arguments for TJ genuineness are not at all easy to reverse, are marked by an asterisk (*). Matthean verses whose TJ parallels exhibit too much creativity combined with realism to have been credibly hoaxed at all are marked by two asterisks (**).

* An occasional Matthean verse not receiving criticism (in brown) is listed in the Table when the TJ verse it substitutes for is especially interesting or informative.

* Non-italicized verses do have TJ parallels.

* 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. These are then included to help fill in the context.

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 is 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, and is critical. 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 or a portion of it is found in Luke but not in Mark (i.e., the scholar assumed it had been contained in the hypothetical document called "Q" and therefore was not original with the writer of Matthew);

(c) The supposition that a Matthean verse or words within it are non-genuine merely because of an argument that overlooks the likelihood that Matthew was written first in the Hebraic tongue, as attested by the external evidence, with its translation into Greek coming only after Mark and/or Luke were written;

(d) The supposition that no person, no matter how unique and how well attested to have been a short-range prophet, could validly prophesy events in his distant future as well; this would include certain OT prophets in addition to Jesus/Jmmanuel;

(e) The supposition that no such thing as the human spirit, its evolution and power, along with the spiritual world, could exist;

(f) The supposition that angels must not be equated to ETs nor their means of transport to UFOs.

These highly questionable suppositions are listed here because it would not make good sense to judge a source text (e.g., the TJ) that uncovers multitudinous falsehoods within a derived text (Matthew) by standards of the derived text (Matthew or other Gospels). As once noted by Dr. Jean Houston,

We won't solve problems using the mindset of those who caused the problems.

This mindset is one of denying or failing to recognize truth, due to having bought into false assumptions. However, it is worth mentioning that many of the Matthean redactions uncovered by the TJ involve considerations other than the non-validity of the above suppositions.

The verses/passages marked by an asterisk indicate ones that point quite strongly to Matthew having been dependent upon the TJ and/or ones that seem quite unlikely a literary hoaxer could have been creative, clever and knowledgeable enough to have invented. There are 80 of these, involving arguments that are difficult to reverse. The 32 additional passages marked by a double asterisk point even more strongly towards Matthean use of the TJ. The remaining passages are also consistent with the TJ being genuine, though some might equally be argued the other way around.

To each of the verse/passage comparisons deemed essentially independent in the table above a probability has been assigned that it could be a hoax, while avoiding the invalid suppositions listed above. Each probability, labeled PHoax, is a fractional value lying between 0 and 1; a value of 0.5 represents complete uncertainty whether the TJ is a hoax or not, judging from the particular verse comparison, a larger value represents an estimated probability from that verse/pericope comparison alone that it is a hoax, and a smaller value represents the estimated probability that it is not a hoax. Generally I have estimated probability values to the closest 0.05, and have combined them for each Mt-TJ chapter's set of verse comparisons according to the rules for accumulating conditionally independent probabilities. Some Matthean verses do not receive any criticism or question here; they parallel TJ verses sufficiently closely that no claims of redaction could be made. If these had been included in the probability analysis, they would receive hoax-probability estimates around 0.5, which would not affect the outcome.

The resulting accumulated probabilities for hoax are listed in the table [below, which I also cannot reproduce]. Again, see the above website.

What is the resultant probability, then, based on the hypothesis that either the TJ is a hoax constructed from Matthew or that Matthew was constructed out of the TJ, that the entire TJ could be a hoax? Upon accumulating the above probabilities for the 28 Matthean chapters, one finds the overall chance that the TJ is a hoax to be about 10-112. This is no misprint. These are odds of about 1 in 10112, a number that far exceeds the number of atoms in the whole Earth. These infinitesimally small odds for a hoax explain why this investigator has not often used language in this website that sounds hesitant or uncertain whether the TJ is genuine or not.

However, this value does not take into account the "prior probability," which emerges from the derivation of the statistical formula for accumulating the estimated probabilities. The prior probability is meant to account for any unspecified evidence not explicitly taken into account in one's analysis. In this instance, it might be an unsupported belief that Eduard Meier is not honest and fabricated the story of the TJ's discovery and provenance, or that the TJ's translator (Isa Rashid) never existed, or that it seems very improbable that any relevant document like the TJ would be discovered at this late date, or that it is improbable that there could be such a thing as a person (Jmmanuel) who is so highly evolved spiritually that he could prophesy validly both short range and long range, etc. The Bayesian-statistics derivation indicates that if one can identify and assign estimated probabilities of certainty to such "prior" considerations, they are to be treated in the analysis just as are the interpretations of the more explicit (textual) evidence. Although these priors have not been included here, the present website gives evidence that if they were to be included, the probability for hoax would be driven still smaller, by taking into account that the TJ's co-discoverer and custodian/editor of the translations is still alive to vouch for the genuineness of the discovery, that many persons have attested to the truth of his UFO experiences, as does the Meier-case photo evidence. And it would decrease still further if the testimony of 2nd-century bishop Papias were to be taken into account, and interpreted as indicating that the writer of Matthew formed his gospel out of a Hebraic document that Papias referred to as the Logia, which did not survive. And even further decreased if the Jesus-in-India evidence were taken into account, and the massive amount of evidence supporting the reality of reincarnation. The method of accumulating probabilities used herein needs to have all the evidence taken into consideration in order that there be no initial bias favoring either hoax or genuineness (the "prior probability" for hoax is then 0.5 and the simplest expression of the accumulation formula then becomes valid). Although I find that the above vanishingly small odds for hoax would then become even smaller when these other considerations are taken into account, I have not attempted to quantify them, and the prior probability has simply been set to 0.5.

The reader is reminded, however, that many scholars exist who insist that Matthew is dependent upon Mark, who must then insist that a hypothetical document "Q" once existed, that no such thing as the spirit world exists (they haven't studied the past-life, NDE and OBE data), and that UFOs aren't real and associated with aliens or extraterrestrials (they haven't studied the UFO phenomenon). They may be theologically committed and may not mind ignoring the logic of the arguments presented in the Mt-TJ verse comparisons. Such scholars can simply state, in an authoritative tone of voice, "The TJ looks like a hoax to me," and add 0.3 to 0.4 to each individual probability I have assessed. Then they will end up with an overall probability favoring the TJ being a hoax in their minds.