The visit by Thomas F. Torrance to Chengdu, the
Capital of Sichuan, and to Weichou and Chiang Villages in
Wenchuan County, the upper Min Valley, Sichuan: October
12-15,1986.

I arrived in Chengdu, by a direct flight from Hong Kong, on Saturday, October 4. I had expected to be met by my friend Mr Chen Xue Run of the China International Travel Service who had kindly sent me an official invitation to revisit Chengdu, which helped me sure my visa. I found out later that he had been transferred to The Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and was at the moment in Guanchou. I got a seat in a bus and was soon taken to the Jin Jiang Hotel on the Ren Min Nan Road, near the place where the old South Gate used to be, and was given a very comfortable room on the eighth floor overlooking the city. I had stayed at the Jin Jiang two years before for six days when I visited Chengdu with some Canadians and one American, all of whom had been to The Canadian School at Lan Tai Tze or Wa Shi Ba, on the campus of the West China Union University established by Christian Missionaries. It was a great thrill to be to be back again in the city where I was born and brought up and went to school until I was nearly fourteen (1913-1927). My parents had been missionaries there, first with the China Inland Mission and then with the American Bible Society. My father first went to Chengdu in 1896, and my mother some twelve years later. We used to live, first at San Dow Guai until I was four years of age, and then at at Wu Chi Tong Tang. We all (my parents and six children) left Chengdu in 1927, and came back to Scotland. My mother stayed with us "at home" to see us all through our education at school and then the University of Edinburgh. After a brief furlough my father returned to Chengdu for another spell of seven years before retiring.

The first thing I did when I got back to Chengdu was to visit
many places familiar to me from my boyhood. I looked up the
streets in which we used live - they were still recognizably the
same, although one side of San Dow Guai was being reconstructed
while Wu Shi Tong Tang was a very busy free market. On Sunday I
went to the one Church still being used, the former Anglican
Church at Pi Fang Gai - the preacher was pastor Chun Y Chun,
formerly of the China Inland Mission who knew my parents. The
Church was brimfull, with about 250 people overflowing into the
yard outside. Many of them had been there since eight o'clock in
the morning, for before the service which began at ten, there was
a social meeting of Church members, while catechetical
instruction was given to inquirers and they were taught to sing
Christian hymns. The Celebration of Holy Communion that followed
was very moving to me. It was in that Church that my mother, who
was an Anglican, often used to worship - I took with me one of
her Chinese New Testaments and left it with the chief Pastor for
the use of anyone who might need it. The largest Church in

-1-

revolution had deliberately tried to sever. In Chengdu itself, for example, they had destroyed the ancient imperial city with its lovely Mediaeval buildings in the heart of the city, together with the ancient city wall which used to be sixty feet tall and forty feet wide. Fortunately the contents of the Museum which my father and David Graham had established in the West China Union University had been stowed away in boxes and are still intact in what is now the Sichuan Provincial Museum. I told Mr Li Jia Rui that I believed he could probably find a lot of the archaeological, religious, ethnological and photographic material that he was looking for in those boxes when they were displayed once again. My visit to the Minorities College certainly prepared me well for my visit to the Chiang country.

Chinese records speak of the Chiang as the oldest of the aboriginal peoples in China. During the Chou, Ts'in and First Han dynasties, they were numerous along the Western frontiers of China from Kansu to northern Yunnan. There were evidently divided into several main groups or kingdoms: in Kansu and southern Shensi, with a capital at Wutu in Shensi; in West Sichuan, with a capital at Wenshan or what came to be called Maochou or Mongshien; in northern Yunnan (where they are also known as Nashi or Moso) and south-west Sichuan with a capital at Ch'iong-tu or Ningguyenfu, and in the Yachou-Tachienlu region due west of Chengdu with a capital at Tsohtu or Ts'inyihsien. The Chiang people I wanted to visit belonged to the group that inhabited the mountain fastnesses of the Upper Min and To valleys, mostly in the districts of Wenchuan, Lifan, Mongshien and Shihchuenhsien. My father's work among the Chiang used to ranged over that whole area, carrying him sometimes beyond Maochou to Song Pan and up the valley of the Hei Shui river that runs into the Min north of Maochou, and then up the To and some of its lateral valleys sometimes as far as Tsakulao. My visit, unfortunately, had to be restricted to Chiang villages in Wenchuan County near Weichou, at the confluence of the Shau Ho and Da Ho, or the "Little River" and the "Big River", as the To and the Min are referred to locally.

To visit the upper Min Valley, which was reckoned to be a security zone, I needed a special Aliens' Travel Permit. In getting this I was greatly helped by Mr Chen Guang-meng of the China International Travel Service in Chengdu, and by his mother Mrs Xiong Qingjuan, Secretary-General of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Sichuan Branch, at 180 Ren Min Nan Road. They contacted the Sichuan Security Authorities, and asked for a permit for me which was very readily given. Then they phoned to the County Authorities in Wenchuan about my coming, asking them to make arrangements for my stay in Weichou, the chief town in Wenchuan County situated at the junction of the Min and To valleys. Mrs Xiong Qingjuan and Mr Chen Guang-Guang-meng could not have been more courteous or helpful - I am most grateful to them. I got a seat in a bus for

Wenchuan leaving Chengdu at noon on Oct.12, which went by way of Pishien to Guanshien where we entered the Min Gorges. We travelled up the winding Min Valley through the townships of Mienze and Wenchuan (where the Yamen or the old seat of Chinese government was located), which is now more or less joined up with Weichou. The journey took about five hours, whereas it used to take us six or seven days on horseback or sometimes, on steep mountain paths, by litter which the Sichuanese call a whagur! The motor road cut into the rocky slopes of the Min Gorges took away a lot of the terror I used to feel as a boy when riding on a mule or horse and looking down at the fierce torrents that roared their way hundreds, sometimes thousands, of feet below.

The scenery beyond Guanshien is quite spectacular. It is certainly one of the loveliest and most exciting parts of the world. Unfortunately much of it has been denuded of trees in recent years, but the Alpine flora still abound, and the fauna as well, for, apart from the giant panda now known all over the world, there are still wild cattle on pastures above the tree line and wild cliff-donkeys and golden monkeys on the high mountain slopes. My father first came across the panda sometime after 1913, and drew attention to it in his publication about the Chiang in 1920. There were no pandas in the Chengdu or any other Zoo in those days, although they were known of course to the Aboriginal Tribesmen that lived between Maochou and Songpan. It is near Songpan that the largest giant panda reserve is now located.

When I arrived in Weichou I was welcomed by friends of Mrs Xiong Qingjuan and her son who notified the town authorities that I had arrived, and soon the Mayor and several of his officials, notably Mr Zhou Daisui and Mr Yu Zhaozhong, came to escort me to the Government Hotel. They also brought to meet me two teachers from the Aba Teachers' College in Wenchuan to act as interpreters, Mr Li Fuxiang and Mr Deng Yaxiong. ("Aba" is the name given to that whole area of the upper Min Valley) They were both teachers of English, and were a great boon to me. They asked me what I wished to do and where I wanted to go. When I told them about my desire to visit the Chiang villages where my father had established Christian communities and Churches, they at once set about making arrangements for the whole of my short visit. They could not have been more welcoming or more helpful. From that first meeting to my departure on Wednesday, the leaders of the Wenchuan/Weichou community, Chinese and Chiang alike, were quite outstanding in their courtesy, kindness and generosity. I shall never forget them or their eagerness to help me in every way possible. That evening a dinner was arranged in the hotel restaurant to welcome me, but it was followed by sumptuous dinners on every evening of my visit when other people were introduced to me. I felt that I was being taken to the heart of the Weichou people in a way that I have experienced in no other place.

- 4 -

- 5 -

# In Search of the Ten
民族的聖經

The quest for the lost ten tribes of Israel has
flamed the imagination of countless travelers for gen-
erations. Prominent among them was the twelfth cen-
tury Spanish Jew, Benjamin of Tudela. When he light-
ed upon the far distant city of Khyber, he discovered
50,000 Jews dwelling there from "the tribes of
Reuven, Gad, and a portion of Menashe...this is the
gate of India."

Marco Polo's journey to the East brought him into contact with Jews in China and Japan, as well as in India. Curiously, Christopher Columbus, whose origins are too obscure to pass unnoticed, sought the sea-route to India accompanied by the official Hebrew translator of the court of Murcia, Luis de Torres, a baptized Jew.

Simon Wiesenthal, in his book *The Sail of Hope*, opines that Columbus expressly set out for India in the hope of reuniting with an independent Jewish kingdom, which he knew about from accounts of past travelers. Five years later, as Jews were being expelled from Portugal, Vasco da Gama set sail in search of India. He, too, commissioned the services of a Hebrew translator.

The Biblical Account Leads to
Afghanistan

The Bible relates that the “lost” ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel were exiled in the 8th century B.C.E. by the Assyrians to Chavor, Hera, and the River Gozan, “...where they are until this day” (I Chronicles 5). The biblical *Chavor* bears a striking similarity to the city of Hyber (mentioned by Benjamin of Tudela), as well as to the Khyber Pass linking modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan; *Hera* to the Afghan city of Herat; and the *River Gozan* to the “Rud-Jazan,” which in Persian denotes the Jazan River, a tributary of the Central Asian *Oxus* River. Kabul, the city of Afghanistan, is the name of a biblical city given to the tribe of Asher in Samaria, the former northern kingdom of Israel. The Tafsir of Rabbi Saa-dia Gaon in his 10th century translation of the Bible into Arabic, identified the Afghan city Balkh with the biblical “Gozan.”

The tradition concerning the remnants of the lost
ten tribes in the midst of the Afghan nation were re-
vived and investigated by Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, second
president of the State of Israel. He took an avid inter-
est in everything concerning the dispersed of Israel
throughout the world, and devoted much time and
energy to the amassing of information on the subject.
The fruit of his endeavors is his little known book,
*The Banished of Israel*. Alluding to the hardy Pathan
tribesmen of Afghanistan, he wrote:

"The tribes of Afghanistan, among whom the Jews of Afghanistan for many generations, are Muslim tribes which kept, and still keep, the wondrous tradition regarding their origin from the ten lost tribes." This tradition which circulates among the people of the Afghan tribes, is an ancient one and has historical backing.

Eyewitness Accounts

Jewish travelers of the Middle Ages, and modern emissaries from the land of Israel who found themselves in these eastern cities, spoke of the Israelite source of the tribes of Afghanistan. Some researchers and travelers from Europe who visited these tribes in centuries past, reiterate this fact, and their words were recorded in all the important encyclopedias. They appear in old Afghan Chronicles, and recent Afghan authors repeat it. For some reason, our modern researchers and travelers did not pay proper attention to it, or perhaps because Afghanistan is so remote. Mountains and deserts divide it from Jews of the European Diaspora, and researchers barely had means of contact with this sparse banished Judaism

in the lap of these mountains of darkness.

Ben Zvi's received his collection of stories from
"live witnesses, eye witnesses who spent many years
among these tribes, and got to know their traditions
and customs. These are Jews who speak honestly and
tell what they saw with their eyes and with their
ears."

Shalom Dadush of Herat, who now lives in Is-
rael, arrived by way of Peshawar: "On the border, we
were stopped by one of the Pathan guards for ques-
tioning. When he saw that we were Jews he asked:
"Are we Jews or not? You see, I wear fringes and my
father does too. My mother lights candles, my grand-
mother lights candles, so are we Jews or not?" I
asked him jokingly: "Why do you not return to Ju-
daism?" He answered: "The day will come when we
return and become Jews."

A similar encounter with a Pathan border guard deeply moved Yehezek Batsawar, an Afghan immigrant to Israel: "In 1948 we immigrated to Israel and we reached the Indian (now Pakistani) border. It was Sunday and the Punjabi officer at the crossing station, who was in British employ, refused to stamp our passports on the official day of rest. This distressed us greatly as we feared that the Afghan government might change its mind at the last minute and revoke our exit permits. We tried again to influence the officer to stamp our passports. He asked us our final destination. When we replied Jerusalem, he was taken aback, and repeated: "To Jerusalem?" He asked us if there was a wall there of tears crying? "Yes," we answered. So he immediately stamped all our passports. When he finished, he turned to us and asked: "When you arrive at the wall of tears (The Wailing or Western Wall), make a request for me because I am also of the seed of the Jews. I am from Punjab. And ask of the Blessed Name that he return his lost sons." And we saw tears in the eyes of the officer."

A Closer Look at the Pathans
(Pashtu)

Ben-Zvi's eye-witness accounts have been pur-
sued more recently by Amishav, an association of
scholars and laymen established in 1975 to trace the
alleged Hebrew origins of numerous peoples around
the world. Its founder and chairman is Rabbi Eliyahu
Avichayil, formerly the rabbi of the Hebrew Univer-
sity in Jerusalem. Prominent among the groups that
the association studies are the 15,000,000 Pathans of
Pakistan's northwest frontier province and eastern
Afghanistan, one of the largest tribal groups in the
world.

Of the 21 peoples of Afghanistan, the Pathans are the only ones with semitic facial features. Ben-Zvi wrote that the Pathans “looked Jewish” and “acted Jewish.” They grow sidelocks and beards, and wear a type of *tallit* (prayer shawl) called *Joy-Namaz* (a place of worship in Afghan) made long and square to cover the head and part of the shoulders. The Pathans pray upon it, as is the custom of Islam, to which they were converted in 662 C.E. by Khalid ibn al-Walid, an emissary of Mohammed. According to the Muslim tradition, he returned to Mecca with 76 converts and seven leaders of the children of Israel. The Pathans also wear a smaller *tallit* which is called *kafan*, a four-cornered garment to which they tie strings resembling the Jewish ritual fringes or *tsitsit*.

The Pathans are known in their
own language as the Pashtu, which
may be a derivative of the Hebrew root
*pasht*, meaning to disperse or to be dis-

persed. Markedly less
hypothetical evidence of
their Hebrew antecedents
are the Hebrew origins of
the names of their sub-
tribes: Shinwari (Shi-
mon): Levani (Levi): Daf-
tani (Naftali): Jaji (Gad):
Ashuri (Asher): Yusutzai
(the sons of Joseph): and
Afrida (Ephraim).

The Pashtu collec-
tively trace their genealo-
gy to Afghana, a leg-
endary grandson of King
Saul. Each tribe has a
family tree on deerskin
with gold letters; from
the sons of Jacob until the
present head of the tribe.

The Afghan royal
family in particular
traced its ancestry to the
tribe of Benjamin. Up un-
til the time of Habibula
Khan, who reigned in the
early years of this centu-
ry, the kings would be
blessed by the Jews on
their coronation day,
whereupon they would
display their lineage

Pashtu

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# Lost Tribes of Israel

Desman

from the sons of Benjamin.

When Habibula's son, Aminula Khan, wanted to reform the Afghan constitution, he asked the Jews for their books of personal and monetary laws in order to use them as a model in establishing his reforms. This section of the Pashtu law code, the Pushtun-Wali is called *Tawra* (Torah). Aminula's successor, Nadir Khan, appointed a Jew from Bukhara, Eliyahu Yisakhar, to advise him on state matters. It was by virtue of Eliyahu's pivotal position in the palace that many Bukharan and Afghani Jews came to Israel.

Pashtu customs have impressed numerous researchers as to the likelihood of the Pathans' Hebrew origins. Many are known to circumcise their sons on the eighth

day and to perform levirate marriages. The women immerse themselves in a river or spring a full week after menstruation. Professor S. M. Immodin, of the University of Dacca, wrote that they celebrate passover during which they eat unleavened bread and that in times of plague they sacrifice animals and smear the doorposts of their homes with blood, as in Egypt on the fateful night of the plague of the first-born sons.

The Pathans' preservation of Jewish customs has blended in with their presently strict adherence to Islam. Amnon Eliyav, an immigrant from Afghanistan, related that in 1947 he had arrived at one of the villages of the Afriki tribes late one Friday afternoon. "I stayed with a Moslem family, but imagine my astonishment when they lit candles, and hid them in a corner — a relic of an ancient custom, so they described it, but they were unable to explain the reason for it. In the evening they served grape juice to the members of the household. By Islamic law it is forbidden to drink of the vine, but they have an ancient tradition which must be preserved."

In 1980, a team of Hebrew University and Amishav researchers explored the customs and lifestyle of Pashtu tribesmen in the Kashmir. They entered a Pashtu village straddling the Himalayan foothills where the village elder told them that he descended from the *Banu Isra'il* (Children of Israel) and that they refrain from working on Saturday.

Such encounters between Jews and Pashtu may at times be fraught with danger. Yaakov Danieli, an Israeli researcher, haplessly strayed by one village

near the Gozan River with one of his sons, who, being an Orthodox Jew, wore side-locks. He recounts, "Suddenly...the people of the tribe came upon us in their multitudes and simply wanted to kill me. They thought that I had taken the child from their region. When I succeeded by a miracle to quiet them down a bit and asked why they attacked me, they explained that it was clear to them that I had kidnapped the child, for to grow sidelocks is only the custom of the sons of the tribe, for they are the sons of Israel, and only they grow sidelocks."

The middle name adopted by many of the Pashtu in Kashmir is often "Joo," meaning Jew, which again draws the historical connection to their ancestral roots, even though they are now Moslem. This name can be heard and seen with regularity, often with a Moslem first-name.

## Is There a Prophetic Connection?

The Pathans have preserved to this day the perennial tradition of their ultimate return to the land of their ancestors in Israel. Jewish tradition has similarly nurtured the messianic yearning for the time when "the House of Judah shall walk with the House of Israel" (Jeremiah 3:18). The Jewish sage, Abarbanel, established the tradition of the return of the lost ten tribes as a fundamental tenet of Jewish faith (*Mashmia Yeshua*, Fourth Principle).

Saadiah Gaon explained that the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashana also serves to recall our faith in the future ingathering of Israel's dispersed, and to awaken our longing for it.

Today, two million Pathans live in squalid Pakistani refugee camps, uprooted from their homes by "Soviet liberators." Little support has filtered down to them from their Islamic "brethren." Is it

possible they might find a home in Israel?

Perhaps, in the unfolding of these dramatic events, we can find the burgeoning of an historical process of prophetic portent. As the time for Messiah's coming draws near, Isaiah 11:11-12 promises, "And it will be on that day God will extend again His arm to the remainder of his people which remain in Assyria, from Egypt, from Patros and Kush, from Elam and Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he will gather the banished of Israel and the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the Earth."

While the process has already begun and tens of thousands of Jews have returned and are returning to the Land of Israel, as we read further, verse 16 gives us a very promising hope for the future, "And there will be a highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day he came up out of the land of Egypt." ♦

- by Henri Noach

Henri Noach is director of aliya and Israel Programs for the World Union of Jewish Students. He also lectures on Jewish and Middle East Studies at the International Graduate Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (WUJS) in Arad.

> Bridges for Peace Tapes has produced a taped interview with Henri Noach about the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and the significance of the ingathering of the Jewish people to Israel as a prophetic event in scripture. Please send $6 (includes $1 for postage) to: Bridges for Peace Tapes, 4008 E. 55th St., Minneapolis, MN 55417.

Clockwise from above: Amishav group members, Dr. Mordechai Rottenberg, Rabbi Dr. Eliahu Avihail (top) and Henri Noach (center bottom) with village elder (bottom left) who considers himself Banu Israel; Name of local merchant in Kashmir (note use of "Joo," i.e. Jew; Pakistani national with Pashtu tribesman (note differences in features); Pashtu tribeswoman who lights candles on Friday nights.

## Quarterly Middle East Update on Cassette

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2ND QUARTER 1989

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For Out of Zion . . .

## Synthetic Steroids Without Side-Effects

TEL AVIV — Much maligned for its misuse among athletes for muscle building, steroids have many positive uses that have revolutionized modern medicine to control body functions. However, their negative side-effects, including its high cost, have limited their useful potential.

Prof. Aryeh Frimer explains his revolutionary process to produce synthetic steroids.

But now, this has all changed. An ordained Israeli rabbi, who is also chairman of the chemistry department at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, has developed a technique for the fast production of synthetic steroids, called oxasteroids, that have no negative side-effects. This is something that has eluded scientists around the world for 25

years.

Prof. Aryeh Frimer, heading a team of eight researchers, managed the feat in a two step process achieving a 90% yield. This compares with 10 steps and only a 10% yield possible up to now.

The development of this more efficient technique has reduced its cost of production, promising great savings to the patient as well as an opening to new possibilities in steroid therapy.

The new method, now patented in Israel and the U.S., is widely accepted among chemists for use in the laboratory, even though the new product will take years to reach the market due to the strenuous testing required to approve its safety.

For more information, contact: Prof. Aryeh Frimer, Dept. of Chemistry, Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv, ISRAEL.

## Tomato Revolution

JERUSALEM — Israeli agronomists have developed a species of tomato which can be picked ripe and retain its firmness for a full week or more after turning red.

Until now there has been a great deal of wastage of early ripened tomatoes before export from Israel. After arrival at the market, especially in the hot climates of developing countries, many

have had to be thrown out. And, the typical process of picking tomatoes green for shipping and letting them turn red on the way to market, often results in a tasteless tomato.

Scientists at the Hebrew University developed the tomatoes after testing dozens of firm varieties and cross-breeding them with traditional table varieties. Today all glasshouse tomato growers in Israel grow this new type.

Researchers are now working on the development of varieties which will keep for up to three or four weeks.

## Riding Your Computer

NETANYA — Health faddists and others whose daily workout is confined to a stationary exercise bicycle can now occupy their time by racing through an obstacle course displayed on the screen of their household computer monitors.

They can also supervise their progress by means of a control box which measures speed and distance "covered," as well as their pulse and heartbeat, and calories expended.

The program, complete with diskette and electronic control box, is developed and marketed by an Israeli company under supervision of Dr. Michael Sagiv of Israel's Wingate Institute for Physical Education.

All that it needs to work is a connection between exercise bike and PC computer, and the will to pedal away.

For more information, contact: Dr. Michael Sagiv, Zinman School of Physical Education, Wingate Institute, Netanya, ISRAEL. Tel. (053)-29222

## New Hope for Anti-Cancer Drug

JERUSALEM — New materials with the unique capability of stopping a specific enzymatic process in cancerous proteins have been developed by scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and are likely to be used as new drugs for treating certain cancers.

The team, headed by Wolfson Professor of Biological Chemistry, Prof. Alexander Levitzky, based their approach on how cancer manifests itself in the living cell. In recent years, scientists have identified some of the proteins expressed by cancerous genes, and showed that enzymatic activity in cancerous protein differs from normal. It is this aberrant activity that causes certain cells to free themselves of normal control mechanisms and become "wild" cancerous cells.

The Hebrew University research team set themselves the task of developing materials to block the unique enzymatic activity of the cancerous proteins. They synthesized almost 100 different compounds, and found several which inhibit the enzymatic process both in the test tube and in cell cultures, without poisonous side effects.

Their success in the laboratory opens the way toward developing new drugs which will directly and selective-

ly stop cancerous growth in the cell. Current anti-cancer drugs, while effective in deterring unwanted DNA production in the cell, also damage normal cells. Patents on the new materials have been registered in Israel and worldwide, and a major American pharmaceutical firm is now testing the materials.

For more information, contact: Prof. Alexander Levitzki, Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, ISRAEL. Tel. (02) 882-111.

## Ostrich Burgers, Anyone?

BEERSHEVA — Ostriches may become a lucrative source of income for Israeli settlements in the south. Imported in recent years from South Africa, the ostriches are cultivated for their highly prized skins and for their decorative feathers. The hide of a one-year-old bird can sell for up to $400.

Ostriches are also becoming popular among the health-conscious for meat, which is low-calorie and low-cholesterol.

Research is underway at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev to study the raising of ostriches in Israel. The researchers are seeking to maximize growth rate and minimize the mortality of chicks by examining their energy, protein and water requirements. Experiments with artificial insemination are also being considered to expand the genetic base of the Israeli flock.

For further information, contact: Chaya Galai, Public Affairs Office, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, POB 653, Beersheva, ISRAEL. Tel. (057) 39943

## Israel's World Record Peanut Crop

Israel produces the highest peanut crop yield in the world — about 6000 tons per hectare (two and a half acres).

This could be vital for third world countries for depend upon peanuts, but only have around 1–1,500 tons, per hectare.

Israel's high yield is due in part to intensive summer irrigation. Experiments at the Volcani Centre Research Institute for Agriculture have furthered their success by creating crops with large pods, and seed germination at lower temperatures. This means the plants mature a week before the autumn's first rains in Israel. These rains destroy the crop left drying in the field after the plants have been pulled and left in the sun. ♦

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PAGE 8

2ND QUARTER 1989

T.F.Torrance,
37 Braid Farm Road,
Edinburgh EH 10 6LE,
Scotland.

April 3, 1987.

Dr Archie Crouch,
Christianity in China,
P.O. Box 111,
Princeton,
New Jersey 08542,
USA

Dear Archie,

The copy of the correspondence between you and D.A. Leventhal
came in yesterday. I am very disturbed with what has been
written by Professor Cammann, and not least his attempt to throw
aspersions on my father's credibility and his rather prejudiced
statements about the differences between my father and his good
friend David Graham, which is not the sort of thing one expects
from a professional scholar.

I am extremely busy at the moment and have time to write only
briefly to you meantime, but several things ought to be said
right away!

I know my father sometimes let slip the words 'Jews' or
'Jewish' in what he said of the Ch'iang, but when he did so he
was using them in their widest sense. In his writings the Rev.
Thomas Torrance showed from Chinese records that the Ch'iang were
in Sichuan long before the Ten Tribes were carried away from
their promised land by Sargon in 722 B.C. Thus, for example, in
his short publication "The History, Customs and Religion of the
Ch'iang" (The Mercury Press, Shanghai, 1920), copies of which are
still available in libraries in Edinburgh, London, Yale,
Jerusalem, Chengdu, Hong Kong, and elsewhere, he showed from
Chinese records that the Ch'iang were in western China during the
Hsia, Shang and Chou dynasties, BC 2205-205 - pp.3f. Thus he
referred to the report that the great King Yu, B.C. 2205, was
born in Ch'iang territory at Shihniushan, and mentioned an
inscription to that effect dating from the 11th century AD in
Wenchuan County, Sichuan. Hence to claim that the Ch'iang were
"Jews" would be a serious misnomer, for "Jews", ipso verbo, date
only from the exile. The Chinese authorities in the Ethnological
Museum in Chengdu told me in October of last year that they now
hold the Ch'iang to be the most ancient of the aborigines in
China - rather as my father had thought.

Proper academic research on Professor Cammann's part ought to
have led him to this document; but I find that he has failed even

to get elementary facts correct, e.g. his statement that my father went out to China as a missionary around 1915, when he actually arrived in Chengdu in 1896! Inaccuracies of this kind hardly encourage one to repose any confidence in the rest of Professor Commann's comments on the origin and beliefs of the Ch'iang people, far less in what he has to say about my father's missionary activities and methods.

The Rev. Thomas Torrance spent over thirty years with the Ch'iang people, winning their confidence and getting to know them and their religious beliefs and other customs intimately from the inside, which, as far as I know, no one else has done, not even his friend David. I recall travelling with Dr Graham once when he was taken by my father on a visit to Wenchuan and Mowchou, in which he, Graham, took measurements of the physiognomic features of people he met along the banks of the upper Min river, where the Ch'iang tribespeople have clearly become a mixed race, showing many of the Mongoloid features common to the Chinese and Tibetans. It was rather different, however, as I recall well, in remote Ch'iang villages on hardly accessible mountain slopes where the purity of the Ch'iang race, obviously of Semitic stock, was much more evident, as photographs I have of them bear witness. In Israel today, of course, as indeed elsewhere in Europe and the USA, it is often very difficult to distinguish Jews from Aryans, so far as their facial features are concerned - just as one would expect. In his papers my father named five villages in particular as "Jewish", that is, as inhabited by people with distinctively Semitic-like features.

I should like to make several other points in this letter which I consider important.

Professor Cammann rightly points out that something like the practice akin to levirate marriage found among the Ch'iang and proscribed by the local Chinese government in Lifan in 1881, is also found in many parts of the world (including Central Africa, by the way, which Cammann does not mention). I suppose that parallels of a similar kind to other social and religious customs and rites among the Ch'iang, taken one by one, might well be found in other parts of the world, although I think that for the most part that would be very difficult to do. However, the argument that impressed my father so much was that a whole integrated complex of religious beliefs, rites and customs, found among the Ch'iang were so close to what one finds in ancient Isreal, that one could not put it all down to chance. That a whole group of beliefs, rites and customs of this kind were assembled among the Ch'iang, and the Ch'iang only, could not be ruled out as mere coincidence. It was the coherence of all this in Ch'iang religion and life that was so impressive - a coherence of that kind in a court of law is usually recognised to be compelling! Several coincidences might well be accepted in certain circumstances, but a whole string of coincidences would

- 2 -

be laughed out of court!

In any case, data of this kind cannot be scientifically appreciated or assessed in some "action at a distance" way, remote from, or detached from, the inner conceptual system of belief among the Ch'iang people. I cannot help but recall here the well-known investigations by anthropologists of the Navajo or Azande peoples, and the lessons learned from their initial mistakes. In spite of the care taken in collecting data as accurately as possible, they were astonished that their accounts were rejected by the people concerned. It was only when anthropologists lived, for example with the Navajo Indians, for two years or so when they got inside the conceptual system of the Indians, that they were able to present the same observational data in a way that the Navajos accepted. That was precisely the point my father used to emphasise: it was when he had lived with the Ch'iang for a long time, worshipping with them, that they revealed to him the spiritual meaning of their religious rites; only then was he able really to get inside the conceptual system of the Ch'iang and present their beliefs, customs and rites, in a way that they themselves accepted. But that was not done through a few visits, nor for a mere two years, but through the better part of a life-time's close association with the Ch'iang-Min. It does not seem to be at all worthy on the part of Professor Cammann to put this down to some sort of 'obsession' on my father's part, and to put against his long-considered observations and findings speculations, coupled with a travestied account of my father's missionary activity, apparently with the idea of discrediting his credibility. That is certainly not the sort of thing that David Graham would have been party to. My father and Graham did have some differences, however, over his tendency constantly to offer a naturalistic, evolutionary interpretation of spiritual and religious conceptions, which apart from succumbing to what we know in Britain as "the naturalistic fallacy", seemed to my father rather like a 'baalistic' explanation of the worship of Yahweh in the Old Testament, the very thing which the great Old Testament prophets denounced so severely!

Another point I want to make is that no one really knowing Ch'iang would ever put forward the idea that they were not monotheists. Certainly one can see to this day, as I observed myself last year, that the Ch'iang in villages on the lower slopes of the Min and To rivers, where they mingle with Chinese, frequently follow them in pasting on the doors of their houses paper representations of Chinese "household gods" to ward off evil spirits. My father also pointed out that in some areas Ch'iang priests indulged in rites of exorcism. Yet, all this did not mean that the Ch'iang were not monotheists, any more than it would be true to say of the ancient Israelites that they were not monotheists although, as we learn in the Old Testament Scriptures, they were often rebuked for compromising their faith

- 3 -

T.F. Torrance,
37 Braid Farm Road,
Edinburgh EH 10 6LE,
Scotland.

April 2, 1987.

Dear Archie,

to get elementary facts correct, e.g. his statement that my
father went out to China as a missionary around 1915, when he
actually arrived in Chengdu in 1896! Inaccuracies of this kind
hardly encourage one to repose any confidence in the rest of
Professor Cammann's comments on the origin and beliefs of the
Ch'iang people.

My father spent over thirty years with the Ch'iang people,
winning their confidence and getting to know them and their
religious beliefs and other customs intimately from the inside,
which as far as I know no one else has done, not even his friend
David Graham. I recall travelling with Dr Graham when he was
taken by my father on a visit to Wenchuan and Mowchou, in which
he, Graham, took measurements of the physiognomic features of
people he met along the banks of the upper Min river, where the
Ch'iang tribespeople have clearly become a mixed race, showing
many of the Mongoloid features common to the Chinese and
Tibetans. It was rather different, however, as I recall well, in
remote Ch'iang villages on hardly accessible mountain slopes
where the purity of the Ch'iang race, obviously of Semitic stock,
was much more evident, as photographs I have of them bear
witness. In Israel today, of course, as indeed elsewhere in
Europe and the USA, it is often very difficult to distinguish
Jews from Aryans, so far as their facial features are concerned -
just as one would expect. In his papers my father named five
villages in particular as "Jewish", that is, as inhabited people
with distinctively Semitic-like features.

Professor Cammann rightly points out that something like the
practice akin to levirate marriage found among the Ch'iang and
proscribed by the local Chinese government in Lifan in 1881, is
also found in many parts of the world (including Central Africa,
by the way, which Cammann does not mention). I suppose that
parallels of a similar kind to other social and religious customs
and rites among the Ch'iang, taken one by one, might well be
found in other parts of the world. However, the argument that
impressed my father so much was that a whole integrated complex
of religious beliefs, rites and customs, found among the Ch'iang
were so close to what one finds in ancient Isreal, that one could
not put it all down to chance. That a whole group of beliefs,
rites and customs of this kind were assembled among the Ch'iang,
and the Ch'iang only, could not be ruled out as mere
coincidence. It was the coherence of all this in Ch'iang
religion and life that was so impressive - a coherence of that
kind in a court of law is usually recognised to be
compelling!

The third point I want to make is no one really knowing Ch'iang
would ever put forward the idea that they were not monotheists.
Certainly one can see, to this day as I observed myself last
year, that the Ch'iang in villages on the lower slopes of the Min
and To rivers, where they mingle with Chinese, frequently paste
ion their doors paper representations of Chinese "household gods"
to ward off evil spirits. Yet, that did not mean that they were
not monotheists, any more than it would be true to say of the
ancient Israelites that they were not monotheists al though, as
we learn in the Old Testament Scriptures, they were often rebuked
for compromising their faith in the One God of Heaven in this
way. This is another case of a mistake being made when
observational data are not interpreted from within the conceptual
system that holds sway among the people concerned. Far from
being sound anthropological method, that would be to lapse back
into the serious mistake of operating with an external relation
between empirical data and conceptual interpretation which
inevitably results in the false imposition upon the data of an
alien pattern of thought. This is surely the all-important
epistemological lesson which rigorous scientific methodology has
been taught by some of the greatest Jewish scientists of our time
like Albert Einstein and Michael Polanyi.

The final thing I wish to make in this letter is that most of
the archaeological, religious and ethnological data about the

Ch'iang was lodged in the Museum founded by Thomas Torrance and David Graham in the West China Union University in Chengdu. This has fortunately been preserved in the Sichuan Provincial Museum situated on the campus of the old University which has now been renamed "West China University of Medical Sciences". I hope this collection of data, carefully collected over many years, will now be studied and interpreted in a rigorously scientific way by people who are prepared to steep themselves in the beliefs and conceptual system of the Ch'iang people, and thus do them the justice they so richly deserve. Incidentally Professor Daniel Sheets Dye of Chengdu and Harvard, as far as I recollect, backed up the idea that the Ch'iang derived from what we now call the Middle East, through his years of research in the distribution of mathematical patterns throughout China and central Asia. As far as I can see, the astonishing similarity in Ch'iang religious beliefs and rites and those described in the Pentateuch indicates that they had a long prehistory!

Meantime I am waiting for a much more objective assessment of
my father's researches and writings from scholars in Israel, such
as Professor Harold Fisch, Dr Emmanuel Applebaum, Rabbi Eliyahu
Avichail, and Dr Shalva Weil of Jerusalem. Some of the precious
religious objects given to my father by Ch'iang priests are
shortly to go on loan to the Nahum Goldman Museum of the Jewish
Diaspora in Israel, even though the Ch'iang date back long before
the Diaspora took place.

Thomas F. Torrance

cc:Peterson, Agoratus, Leventhal.

TRANSLATION OF THE LETTERS OF REV. J. TORRANCE

P.1

p.1

Dear Mr. Torrance,

Your letter arrived yesterday. From it I have learnt the importance of praying. After reading it for several times, I kept on praying and giving thanks. Immediately, I sent a copy to Mr. Liu Wai-tung (1) a copy, he showed doubt and did not understand it. I tried to give him a detailed explanation by using the method of comparison, however, his faith still as not been increased. Then a thought came to me reminding me that this is actually not an easy work. The work that I am doing is just a work of clearance of the dry leaves and trees of the mountain. I am afriad that more work has to be done. Even if all the dry leaves and trees are burned, and the land is ploughed, the seeds are sown and are well taken care of, not all the seeds can grow and bear forth flowers and fruits. No matter how small the harvest that may be resulted, we have to try very hard. If I arrived at the province, I would seek advice from you. The baptism of my wife and my daughter are not to be counted as any of my merits since this is not my power to make them to repent, it is all the work of the Holy Spirit. My moter and my elder sister live in the countryside, I am afriad that they would be quite late to receive the grace of the Lord. It is written in Ecclesiastes Ch.3: 'Everthing that happens in this work happens at the time God chooses.' I have been praying for my mother every day for half a year without stopping not even for a day. Please pray for the whole of my family. I am still praying, God will certainly answer my prayer.

p.2

It is difficult to tell you how I came to know the gospel and be converted, since it is a long story. Although I did not have many painful experiences, I really have many times of praying in tears. I am the one who like praying mostly. Since I entered the Bible school in January 6 of the year before last year, I prayed over 10 times a day during these two years. Until now, the number of my prayers every day still has not been reduced. During this very cold winter, I wake up during the night and kneel down to pray for two or three times. I read a chapter from the Proverbs after washing my face in the morning and finishing reading the Proverbs one time a month, now three times a month, and then I read a paragraph from the New Testament. Many of my close friends, and a several of them can memorize the Proverbs. But God still has to try them and still not open His grace, I think they would be saved finally. My experience is some what different from them, but it is only by accident that I receive the grace. Although I am converted still I have not been fully sanctification. On the one hand I hope to have your prayers and encouragement, on the other hand, I have to be very careful, because my evil practices are deep rooted inside, I have to take precaution against it, and because the Devil is all over the world seeking chance to endanger us. How horrible it is! May God's peace be sent unto you

The servant of the Lord
Chan Yuen-cheong
18th January at 3 pm.
from the family of Fau
at the Peach-tree Bridge.

P.2

p.3

My dear brother Po-chi in Christ

Thank you for your concern and love. It is of God's love that I gave my donation of rice to save some poor brothers and sisters who are suffering so much hardship. Please give us more of this kind of chance, and hope that you can pray for the increase of the knowledge of the Bible to our people. Nothing is more precious than the knowledge of the Bible. Hope that the spirit of the Lord be with our church, and this is our blessing.

May the peace of the Lord be with you.

Your brother

Chan Yuen-cheong
18th Jan. in the afternoon.

p.4

this is the prayer of sacrifice. It is written in Tibetan.
(I have translated the first paragraph to you, do you remember?)

THIS is the same material for the introduction of Tuan-kung (I forget how I translate the name of the person) who offered this prayer of sacrifice, the first paragraph is written in Chinese which had been translated into English to you, the rest is written in Tibetan.

JEWS IN ANCIENT SICHUAN PROVINCE?

Dr. Thomas F. Torrance, theologian, prolific writer on themes of science and religion and former moderator of the Church of Scotland, recently returned to China and visited the villages of the Ch'iang, one of the oldest aboriginal peoples of China, where his father had planted churches years ago. He found the Ch'iang minority flourishing, better treated and more numerous than they had been in years. He was given a royal welcome by those who still remembered his father. He found that the many museum pieces his father had collected were intact and incorporated into the provincial museum in Chengdu. He shared with the Ch'iang an old copy of *The History, Customs and Religion of the Ch'iang, an Aboriginal People of West China* which his father had published in 1920! This was of great interest to all. He met with a group in the village of Tong Wen Mei in the very room where his father had founded the first Christian church among the Ch'iang and presented to the son of his father's friend and first Christian leader an extraordinary document which contained the title deeds of the early church property together with its history. He expressed the hope that these ancient records would enable the community to begin again the church which had not met for many years. From this location they could see at a distance the village of *Oir* over 10,000 feet above sea level which he had visited with his father years ago. Dr. Torrance tells of that visit and the amazing rituals of the Ch'iang people that his father had discovered:

I recall very vividly a visit to *Oir* which my father and I made in 1925 or 1926 when a Ch'iang priest explained their ancient sacrificial rites, and told us of their twofold sacrifice on their annual day of atonement: one goat was slaughtered at an altar in a sacred grove at a "high place", and one goat was released into the wilds beyond. When my father read to the priest and his family the sixteenth chapter of the book of Leviticus in which details of this same rite are found in the ancient Hebrew liturgy, the old priest leaped up from his stool in excitement saying that these were the lost Ch'iang Scriptures! He went on to explain that they carried to their sacrifice a sacred roll of white paper or a scroll which stood for the "Word of God" (although it had no writing on it) for it was the Word that was the real sacrifice and Saviour—that was symbolized by a skull (usually that of a monkey because it was small) placed on top of the Scroll to indicate that the Word and Saviour was a person. Each year a fresh piece of white paper was rolled around the scroll to indicate the purity of the Word or Heaven-Sent Sin-Bearer which they termed variously Je-Dzu, Nee-Dzu or Rih-Dsu, meaning "Saviour". On hearing this my father then read the first chapter of St. John's Gospel which tells of the Word of God made flesh in Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God come to take away the sin of the world. He told the Ch'iang that they had been tucked away in such a remote part of the world that they had never heard that the Word of God had come in Jesus Christ to be Lamb of God that bears away the sin of the world. As he announced the Good News to that little company the priest and all his household believed and were duly baptized . . .

It was, I think, one of the most memorable days of my life. Apart from being in close contact with very lovely people I felt that I had been sent back by the Lord to help rekindle the flame of their Christian faith

AMITY TEACHERS APPOINTED

An ecumenical team of 30 English teachers has been appointed by the Amity Foundation for two year appointments in China. The group will participate in an orientation period at Stony Point, NY, July 11-17, and proceed to China in late August. They will join the 12 Amity teachers now in China who are extending their terms of service for a second year. Assignments in China will be made to universities and technical schools—most of them in Jiangsu Province.

Ten of the 30 are Presbyterians sponsored either by the Program Agency in New York or the Division of International Mission in Atlanta. They are as follows: **Peter Jeffrey Ashmore**, New York City; **Alyce White Bishop**, Westerly, RI; **Richard and Anna Harrison**, Washington, KY; **Beth Turner Mattingly**, Broken Arrow, OK; **Betram and Carol Saunders**, Haines City, FL; **Andrew and Christine Shupala**, Columbus, OH; **Martha Todd**, Durham, NC and Florence, AL. Four of the appointees are Presbyterian pastors and their wives (Saunders and Harrison); one a pastor's wife (Alyce Bishop); two have studied Chinese linguistics and culture (Andrew and Christine Shupala); two are professional teachers (Peter Ashmore, Beth Mattingly); all have had some training or experience in teaching English as a second language; all are active members of the Presbyterian church. While in China they will not serve as church professionals, but from the experience of Amity teachers in the past, all will be active participants as lay-persons in churches in the communities where they will be living.

> and start rebuilding the Church in their midst. I was deeply moved by the love and regard the Ch'iang people still retained for my father after more than half a century, and by the way they came to show their appreciation for what he was and had done for them in greeting and welcoming his son . . .

Is it possible that there is some connection between the ancient Ch'iang people and the Jews? Dr. Torrance writes that his father fervently believed that this was the case for there were other similarities such as the putting blood on the lintels and posts of the doors at the time of the New Year. It is known for a fact that there was a Jewish colony in Kaifeng dating from the 12th century. But this would have been much earlier. Dr. Torrance writes: "The staggering thing about this is that, as far as can be ascertained, the Ch'iang were in China many centuries before the time of Moses".

Further information on this fascinating riddle is being put together by Dr. Archie Crouch, who is assembling the Torrance-Ch'iang Min Collection at the Yale Divinity School Library. The collection was started by scholars at West China Union University at Chengdu who have also suggested the presence of a Jewish community among the Ch'iang Min. The collection is named for Dr. Tom Torrance whose father was one of the originators of the collection.

"*The Visit by Thomas F. Torrance to Chengdu, the Capital of Sichuan, and to Weichou and Ch'iang Villages in Wenchuan County, the upper Min Valley, Sichuan: October 4-18, 1986.*"; Kathleen L. Lodwick, Editor, "*Christianity in China: Historical Studies, Autumn, 1986*).

4