This discovery occurred in 1963 as Swiss citizen and world-traveler, Eduard Albert Meier, and his friend, an ex-Greek-Orthodox priest, Isa Rashid, were walking along the road just south of the Old City of Jerusalem. Meier happened to glance up

Photo of Meier in the 30 Sept.,1964, Delhi newspaper. Courtesy of P. McAiney

the slope and notice a small opening in the ground amongst the rocks and shrubs. According to Meier's much later recollection in August of 1997, this hole was about 30 cm, or a foot, on a side. Being curious, he reached into his packsack for his flashlight and peered into the hole to notice that it continued inwards. So he and Rashid proceeded to dig away rocks and earth until the hole was large enough that they could crawl inside. It was an old tomb site, half filled in with earth. After further digging and exploring inside it, they noticed something buried underneath a flat rock, and it turned out to be the Talmud of Jmmanuel (or TJ) rolls of written sheets, along with a few small artifacts, encased in resin. There were four rolls, each of which contained many leaves or pages of Aramaic writing. They were obviously old and fragile. Meier recalls that each leaf was roughly 30cm by 40cm in size, or somewhat larger than the European AID A4 size of paper, which is 21cm by 29.4cm.

Rashid, who could read some of the old Aramaic due to his Palestinian background on his father's side, soon noted that the TJ was heretical in several respects. For one, its title involved Jmmanuel (i.e., Immanuel, spelled with a "J" symbol supplying the "i" sound in place of the Aramaic/Hebrew letter "Ayin") rather than Jesus or Y'shua. For another, its writer was given as Judas Iscariot, the supposed betrayer. For a third, it mentioned that Adam's father had been Semjasa, the leader of the celestial sons, who were "El's" or God's guardian angels, and who were "distant travelers." Thus it was apparent from the beginning that if they wished this document ever to become public, its translation would have to proceed in secret.

Isa Rashid in the 1960s  (courtesy of E. Meier)

Meier's interest in the document was very strong, as he not only had been self-schooled in earth's major religions while working his way around Asia and the Mideast, and was seeking spiritual truths, but he had been informed seven years before that he would become the disseminator of this document (more on this in the following section). Rashid spent a few months reading through the TJ rolls to glean their highlights, which he reported to Meier. Then the two agreed in August of 1963 that Rashid would translate the TJ into Meier's language (German, a language which Rashid understood) and would retain custody of the Aramaic document, while sending his translations to Meier for him to disseminate. So Rashid started the long task of rendering a translation of satisfactory quality, while Meier then continued his travels and first-hand religious learning, particularly under a Hindu guru

Meier and family in 1975. Here Meier poses in his uniform as a security guard, a job he held at the time. From Wendelle Stevens' UFO Contact from the Pleiades

at the Ashoka ashram in Mehrauli, India, working his way along through doing odd jobs. In 1965 Meier lost his left arm in a bus accident in Turkey. Later that year he met a Greek girl, Kalliope, eloped with her in 1966 and, after further working/traveling their way around Asia, returned to Switzerland to continue raising a family there and obtain employment in the town of Hinwil.

The translations up through the TJ's 36th chapter reached Meier in Switzerland through circuitous mail some time around 1970. They had been sent to the address Rashid remembered for Meier's parents. But Meier did not hear from Rashid himself until in a letter in September of 1974. This letter briefly explained that his translation project had become known to certain authorities, forcing him to flee from Jerusalem, together with his family, the TJ rolls and further translations, to a refugee camp in Lebanon. But his presence there became known to Israeli authorities, and the camp was heavily bombed, forcing him to flee again, this time to Baghdad, where he posted the letter to Meier. However, he and his family, like the other refugees, had to flee so suddenly that Rashid had no time to retrieve the Aramaic rolls or his further translations of them, and they were destroyed in the resulting conflagration.