Monday, June 1, 2009

Lous Ginzberg and the Aryan Jesus

My thanks to Kevin for informing me of this new book by Susannah Heschel:

Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany

The following is from a letter of Louis Ginzberg on the subject:





A response to Haupts work on the subject from Chacham Moses Gaster can be found in the Jewish Chronicle of 25 September 1908 pg. 30. I'd be grateful to anyone who can get me a copy
of that article.
Update: My thanks to S. for providing the following:
at

4 comments:

  1. Mississippi Fred MacDowellJune 1, 2009 at 7:42 PM

    It's not an article, it's a blurb. Here it is

    http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/5006/gaster.gif

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  2. Wolf2191June 1, 2009 at 8:04 PM

    Thanks a gazillion. Shargal's notes mentioned a forceful response by Chachgam Gaster, what am I missing.

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  3. Mississippi Fred MacDowellJune 2, 2009 at 9:21 AM

    You're welcome. I will say, that if this is her source for his "forceful response," that's a rather slender reed.

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  4. Kevin P. EdgecombJune 2, 2009 at 11:03 PM

    You're very welcome, Chaim! I just started it today. It's a deeply disturbing book to read though.

    I found another treat! Take a look at this page, the Transactions of the Third International Conference for the History of Religions (the "Oxford Congress" mentioned in the newspaper clip above) where the Haupt "Ethnology of Galilee" paper appears (search on the page for that phrase; it's near the bottom of the page). The book was inefficiently scanned, so it's a little garbled. But Haupt's stupid ideas are there for everyone to read!

    The papers are printed, but unfortunately the discussions aren't. Under September 17 is a list of those who discussed Haupt's paper: "Messrs. Calderon, Saunders, Whitehouse,
    Burkitt, Astley, and Gaster." Perhaps reminiscences of the responser are recorded elsewhere, in Gaster's papers?

    To summarize, Haupt suggests that Jesus was descended from Iranians (Aryans, of course) that were transferred to the area by the Assyrians. Haupt builds this whole house of cards on identifying the Hamath to which Sargon exiled various Medes as the one in Galilee, not the great city of Hamath on the Orontes in Syria. He proceeds to then disassociate Jesus from his heritage as a descendant of David, which was "an opinion of the Pharisees." Et voila! Aryan Jesus! (I had to spit after that.)

    I tell you, these people were insane.

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