The Washington herald., 1908-04-27
WERE NO JEWS IN GALILEE
Declares that Belief that Nazarene
Was TO he a Descendant OF David
Was Concession to Hebraic Hope,
Described by Christ as a Belief
OF the PharIsees.

Ihe founders OF Christianity were Cali
leans. Our Saviours first disciples, Peter
and his brother Andrew. as well as the
two sons of Zebedee. James and John,
were GaliIean fishermen.
The tradition that Jesus was a de-
scendant Of David and was born at Beth
lehem is not original. The census re-
ferred to at the beginning Of the second
chapter of the third gospel took place
in the year A. D.-that is, at least
eleven years after the Nativity
There was no imperial assessment until
Judea had been made an imperial prov
nce. nor would the people have been as
sessed at their ancestral homes. More
over. Mary would not have been required
TO accompany Joseph.
Concessions to Jewish Hope.
Our Saviour Himself referred to the
belief that the Messiah was TO be a son
Of David as an opinion of the Pharisees.
The later tradition. which endeavors to
harmonize the life of Jesus with the al
legged Messianic prophesies in the Old
Testament, is a concession to Jewish
expectations or prejudices.
Our Saviour is generally supposed 20
have been Hebrew by race But In the
post-exilic Introduction to the poetic glor-
ifcation Of the Ideal King in the ninth
chapter Of the book of the prophet
Isaiah, Galilee is called the district Of
the nations, /. e., Of the Gentiles
In l Mace, Is. we read that mes
sengerS from Galilee. with their clothes
rent, came TO Judas Maccabeus and his
brethren in the year 164 B. c., who re-
ported in this wise.
They OF Ptolemais and OF TyTus and
Sidon and all Galilee Of the Gentiles are
assembled together against US to con-
sumo Us. Then said Judas unto Simon.
his brother. Choose thee out men and
go and deliver thy brethren that ara in
Galilee.' Now unto Simon were given
1900 men TO go into Galilee, where ne
fought many battles with the brethren:
and those that were in Galilee, that is, in
Arbatta "a corruption OF Seeharis. the
capital Of Galilee, northwest OF Naza-
retm, with their wives and their chill
dren, and all that they had, took he
away and brought them into Judea with
great joy.
No Jews In GaIiIee.
80 the Jews who lived in Galnee
among the heather at the time of Judas
Maecabeus were all rescued and trans
ferred 10 Jerusalem In 164 B. c. Con-
sequeHtly there were no Jews IN Gall
lee after the year I64 B. C.
But in lo3 B. c. Simon's grandson, the
eldest son and successor Of the great Mac
csbean conqueror, John Hyrcanus Aris-
tobulus, the first king of the Jews. whose
coronation IS glorifed in the second
Psalm. Judaized Galilee He forced the
inhabitants to accept circumcision and
the Mosaic law Therefore they were not
circumsized before the conquest
Since that time the Galileans were Ju-
daized. not Semitic. by race. The Jews
looked down on them and the dialect of
the Galileans betrayed their non-Hebraic
extraction In Matthew, xvii, 73, we
read that the hystanders said to Peter,
Surely thou also art one or them, for thy
speech betTayeth thee
The Galileans who were Judaized by
ATistobulus were called Iturians a term
which has never been explained, but
which undoubtedly means Assyrians, be
cause they were descendants of the As
syrian colonists whom the founder Of the
Assyrian Empire. Tiglath-Peleser III, and
the conqueror of Samaria, Saragon II.
had sent 10 Galilee, after the inhabitants
had been deported to Assyria in 73s B. c.
Identity of Klamath.
I'VE read in II Kings. xvi2s: In the
days of Pekah. King Of Israel, came
Tiglath-Peleser. King Of Assyria, and took
lion and Abel-beth-machah and Janoah
and Kedesh and Hazar and Gnead and
Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and
carried them captive to Assyria'
Now, it is generally supposed that no
reference to this conquest of Galilee oc-
ours in Tiglath-Peleser's cuneiform in
scriptions But this is due to the fact
that no one ever perceived that Galilee
is called the land of Klamath, both in the
Bible and in the cuneiform inscriptions.
THE name is used in the Old Testa-
ment. but it never occurred to any reader
nf the Bible that Klamath denoted the
incient capital of Galilee at the famous
hot springs half an hour to the south OF
Tiberias on the western shore Of the Sea
Of Galilee.
After the destruction of Klamath, in
the second half Of the eighth century
B. c., Seppharis. the modern Saffuniye.
northeast of Nazareth. was the capital
Of Galilee Tiberias was not founded
before 26 A. D.
when the foundation OF the new CITY
was laid an old cemetery was dug up.
The Jews, therefore, considered Tiberias
as unclean. and could not be induced to
settle there. But after the destruction of
Jerusalem, 20 A D., Tiberias became the
chief center Of Jewish learning.
THE old cemetery, dug up in 26 A. D.,
was no doubt the metropolis of Klamath
the ancient capital of Galilee The en-
trance to Klamath is repeatedly men
toned as a part Of the northern
boundary Of Palestine. This is Wady-al-
hammam, near Magdalah. the birthplace
of Mary Magdalene, three miles north
west of Tiberias.
Hebrew Kings of Klamath.
THE universal opinion has been that
Klamath is the royal city OF the Hittites
on the Orontes. in Northern Syria. But
the boundary Of Israel never reached so
far north, and the names Of the kings of
Klamath mentioned in the cuneiforn
texts are Hebrew
'The King of Klamath, who sent his
son TO salute David, was a Galilean.
SOlomon's store cities, which he built in
Klamath. were situted near the Sea OF
Galilee. The territory of Klamath. which
Jeroboam II recovered for Israel. about
80 b. c.. was the region west of the
Sea Of Galilee.
"a great many of the Assyrian colo.
nists sent to Klamath. /. e.. to Galilee
were Aryans. Sargon relates that he
sent the great Median chief. Deioces, with
his kinsmen TO Klamath. Both Tiglath-
Always the Same