The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-10-11
THE HISTORY OF RELIGION Scholars Have Forced 1t
 Back. THE NATIONALITY OF JESUS
 e American Professor Astonished
 Scholars. He Advanced The Theory That Jesus Was a GaIIilean, Who Was Born at Nazareth and Not
 at Bethlehem.
THE NATIONALITY OF JESUS
Astonished
American Professor
 Scholars.

Americans all this year 10 SUIT FeAeT ious England to It's depths and the In- ternafionaI Congress for the History of Religions was no exception to the rufe. The gathering itself was sec ond to none that has heen held Tn the United Kingdom this year and from the very outset. 1t has been year Of great meetings.
 This History of Religions Congress brough together for a weeks deliher- 2 ations scholars from all parts or the world to deliberate upon subjects or the deepest and most widespread mo ment. It succeeded in demonstratlng what tremendous work has been done in a few years in the comparative study of religion and. going still fur ther. provided an incentive for new endeayors in a goodly and fertile field. The Congress was not an experiment.. Its members assembled at Oxford. an ancient seat of learning, where the very atmosphere was redolent of in- vestigatiou and at a reputed strong hold of theology where there has been many a warm discussion of the relig- ious development of mankind.
 The program included 140 papers on as many topics and every one of them was read in, the four da--s allotted to the work It may have been source of intellectual indigestion but there was enough spice to keep savory each days proceedings. The climax came, however. when Professor Paul Haupt, of Johns Hopkins University, Balti- more. faced a large number in the Semitic Room to talk on topic that had aroused great curiosity because of the title of the paper.
 eWas Jesus a Jew by Racer" he had chosen for discussion. It gave promise of a sensational utterance and 1t turn ed out to be highly original in the treatment but throughout 1t was its- tened to with attention and the discus sion which 1t aroused has not been ended yet.
 Professor Haupt began. by explain ing that his theory IS hot new but that he had fresh evidence Briefly stated, the lthoughtswas that Jesus was a Galiiean, born at Nazareth. and not in Beth1ehern. and that the Galileans were not Jews, by race but had been forced to adopt that religion, The foundefs 0f Christianity were Gali- cans" said Professor Aaupt "The tra- dition that Jesus was descendant of David and was born at Bethlehem Is not original. A census fsferred to in the second chapter of the third Cos pei took place in the year A. D., at least eleven years after the Nativity. There was no imperial assessment un- tlf JutFea had been made an imperial province nor would the people have been ass6ssed efs their ancestral homes. as. is suSgestsnTp the world. Ana ma 
 own cfESp Moreover Mary would not have been rednifed to accompany Jo- seph. Jesus himself referred to the be- lief that the Messiah was to besR AaR ofDavfa an opinion of the Phari- Rees. The fefar tradition which endeRys orAd to haTtncnize the life of Jesus wtkh the alleged Messianic prophecies irf the old Testament was concession to Jewish expectations or prejudices."
 The discussion then turned on eth nological points and Professor Haupt argued that the population of Gaililee was Aryan, not Jewish, and the throng of listeners were reminded that Galtlee is referred to in Isaiah as the place or the nations-otherwise the Gentiles. By historical evidence. it was shown that all the Jews in Galilee were re- moved in 1S4 B. c.
 sBut in 103 B. c. .'continued Pro- lessor Haupt, "the eldest son and suc- cessor of the great Maccabean con- queror, John Hyrcanus Aristobulns, the first King of the Jews, whose cor ouation was glorified in the second Psalm, Judaised Galilee. He forced the inhabitants to accept the Mosaic law. Since that time the Galileans were Jews by religion but not Jews by race The Jews looked down on them and the dialect of the Galileans
 The argument hitherto raised against the fact of the Assyrian con- auest had been that there was ao mention of 1t in Tiglath Pileser's rec ords. It was here that Professor Haupt's fresh evidence came in. He contended that the place called Ha~ rnath in those records was really the capital of Galilee. If this was so, the truth was clear. Jesus and his disci~ plss--all Galileans-could scarcely be Jews by race. They were of Aryan origin, not Semitic.
 Naturally the theory was not allow ed to pass unchallenged. George Cal daron wanted to know what the dis- covery really amounted to. and on what system of anthropology the assertion was based. He argues. that there is no such thing as an Aryan race. that Jesus was a Jew by religion and bv natio.. .aiity. The Jews had incorpor- ated a number of races in the course 0f their history and nobody who exam tned them anthropologicaIly could maintain that they were all of one type.
 Professor Haupt declared he had not come to discuss racial questions but he did ask If the speaker would consider that a negro who joined the Church of England became thereby an Anglo Saxon. pr. Whitehouse recalled that Jesus was acclaimed as the Messiah and 1t was therefore impossible for Him not to be of Jewish descent. to which Professor Haupt replied that if Jesus had not .ome from family of Nazareth, then the Jews would not have had such a poor opinion of Naza- reth as they showed when they asked "can any good come out of Nazareth Y'
 pr. Barkett observed that everybody had a mixed ancestry and that three generations of particular domina- tien were sufficient to instill all prejudices and traditions of race into anybody. Then pr. Gacter made S paIpable hit. It was we'll known, he eaid, that the Jews regarded all prose- lyte people with disfavor. If Jesus had belonged to 4eueh a people, thev would surely have used it against Him. Yet neither at the trials nor "a the taunts of the people was there any hint of such an accusation.
 Professor Haupts last word was that he left it all to the faith and common sense of his hearers to draw their own conclusions from his scient. ihie theories and that they had done ao has been evident from the prolonR ed discussion that has been going on ever since. It was the most strikinR feature of the Congress at which therS were many origi- al ideas exploited.
 A pleasant change from the rather technical papers was one by Miss Lima Eckenstein on amulets. in which she pointed out what will be a comfort to many women and that is that they have come down to the present from a time when they were worn to keeI of all kinds of ills. The seals and siRnet rings worn by men are likewise survival of the custom Of carrying a