“Welcher Rasse gehörte Jesus an?” Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden 5, no. 6 (1909): 81–87.
Leo Sofer was a physician and anthropologist working in Vienna. He published extensively on the Jews and race, particularly Jews and pathology.
It cannot be my task here to enter into the debate over whether or not Jesus existed. A succession of theologians, from Bruno Bauer to Kalthoff,23 have advanced and contested the existence of Jesus; the silence or the indeterminacy of the contemporary Jewish sources plays a not insignificant role in this. I also would not want to decide this question simply by reference to the tradition of the New Testament, according to which Jesus descended from the House of David. I will merely remark parenthetically that even those who believe in the divine origins of Jesus nonetheless must still give credence to his descent from the Davidic line, since, according to the Gospels, his mother Mary came from the House of David. I allude to this, since H. St. Chamberlain24 in his chauvinism goes so far as to write, to give an example from his foreword to the fourth edition of Grundlagen des 19. Jahrhunderts, 1903: “. . . and whoever disavows the historical approach, and takes the genealogical account in Matthew and Luke as authentic, gains nothing, as this refers him back to Joseph, who, for the faithful, was not the father of Christ.” However, [the fact] that the faithful believed that Mary, whose motherhood of Christ is not contested by them, descends from the priestly line of Nathan and the House of Solomon, this Chamberlain conceals in his usual manner. I also do not resort to the dialectic of Adolf Harnack,25 who responded to a question along these lines by saying: Were Jesus not a Jew, his Jewish opponents would undoubtedly not have identified him as such [literally, would not have bestowed this reproach upon him].
I say rather: Supposing Jesus did exist, and that he did on the whole play the role the Gospels assign to him, then to which racial origins [of Jesus] does the historical and ethnographic evidence most likely point, given that a decisive answer is not possible because of the lack of absolutely reliable sources? Even the Church Fathers possessed no definite conception of Christ’s external appearance. Thus, Origen wrote the following (circa 200 years after Christ’s death) contra Celsus: “We cannot deny that the writings about Jesus tell us that he was ugly in appearance (hässlich von Gestalt); however, that he had a low or ignoble form, as Celsus maintains, of this there is no proof. Even less can one argue that he was of a diminutive stature. I will set forth the words of the prophet Isaiah (53:1–3), in which it is foretold that Jesus would not appear in the world with any particular beauty or impressive figure.”26
Syria is called, in Assyrian inscriptions as well as in the biblical book of Joshua, the land of the Hittites. This Volk, whose participation in the first flowerings of human culture is becoming increasingly evident thanks to recent excavations, made its original home on the coastal gulf of Antioch, at the foot of the Taurus Mountains. From there they migrated north and west, toward Asia Minor, and to the south, to Syria and Palestine.27
Among the ruins of the city of Chuen-Aten (in Upper Egypt), called today Tel-el-Amarna, a letter in cuneiform was discovered in 1888, written by the Egyptian administrator of the Palestinian possessions, sent from Lachis to the Pharaoh Amenophis III (1500–1450 [BCE]). In this letter he related how the Hittites pressed upon Palestine from the north, and how the Habiri (the Hebrews) did so from the east.
From this letter we can form a picture of the cultural and anthropological structure of Palestine at the time of the migration of the Jews into the land. In the north and in the middle of the country, including Jerusalem, the Hittites were a heavy presence. They constructed a series of loosely connected semiprincipalities that exhibited a relatively highly developed culture. Yet politically they were so weak that they were conquered first by the Egyptians, under Tutmosis (Thotmes III, 1504–1449), and then by the Hebrews. Anthropologically, the Hittites were brachycephalic, belonging to the Alpine race; the Hebrews, on the other hand, were dolichocephalic, and Semites. However, there is no reason to assume that the Hebrews themselves were a pure race in the anthropological sense. On the Euphrates, where we have to assume the Hebrews originated, there dwelt a number of brachycephalic nations (Hittites, Elamites, Akkado-Sumerians); as a part of this same race we must also consider the Chaldeans, who came from western Asia Minor, from Lydia, and who were exiled from their land by the Thracian invaders. The Assyrians, on the other hand, exhibit the Semitic type more strongly. The Hebrews had already absorbed brachycephalic elements during their wanderings from their homeland, before they settled in Palestine; this makes it clearer why, in the end, the brachycephalic type showed itself to be the dominant one among the Jews, and the Semitic elements became more and more displaced.
Southern Palestine was occupied by a Volk, the Canaanites, who anthropologically belonged within the Semitic realm. The influx of neighboring Egyptians did not alter this, since we assume today that the ancient Egyptians also belonged to the Mediterranean race, of which the Semites constituted a part. Culturally, three groups were living in proximity to one another in southern Palestine: the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and the Hittites.
In this part of Palestine, the excavations done by Professor Sellin28 (from Rostock) in Lachis and Jericho have been pathbreaking. The Canaanites were already carrying on a thriving trade with the Phoenicians and the inhabitants of the Greek islands 2,500 years before Christ. This is demonstrated by the ceramic objects excavated by Sellin, which have been found with the identical designs in Palestine, Phoenicia, and Cyprus. As regards culture, the Babylonian influence predominated. This is made clear by the numerous excavated clay tablets, which are inscribed with Babylonian cuneiform. On the other hand, the powerful Cyclopian walls of Jericho are reminiscent of the Hittite structures of Boghazköi, the capital city of the land of the Hittites.
Among these [Canaanites] lived the Amorites, who are believed to have belonged to the blond race; their settlement, however, did not stretch further north than Jerusalem.
Last but not least, we must remark upon the Aramaeans. The Aramaeans were a Semitic tribe (Völkerstamm), distinct from the Babylonian and Canaanite Semites, that beginning in the middle of the second millennia migrated out of Arabia into the lands of Asia Minor. We are told about the Aramaeans in fourteenth- and thirteenth-century cuneiform; around 1100 they must have already been settled in Damascus, in Hauran, and in the eastern regions of Jordon, from the Sea of Tiberius to the Hermon. The Bible, along with Babylonian and Assyrian sources, has much to say about the powerful Aramaean state, with its capital in Damascus, during the reign of Solomon, and at the time of the dissolution of the Davidic Kingdom; this state of affairs lasted until Tiglat-Pileser of Assyria conquered Damascus in 732 and around 710 made the Syrian-Aramaean state an Assyrian province. There also took place an Aramaean immigration to Assyria and Bablyonia, which, however, did not result in any significant autonomous nation building. The Aramaeans in these areas were gradually assimilated into the Babylonian culture. However, in one realm the defeated Aramaeans proved triumphant: in Assyria, since the eighth century, Aramaic had been the conversational language; we know this from evidence from monuments. Aramaic displaced Babylonian; it made its way to Palestine and conquered Hebrew, which assuredly was still the written and spoken language of the educated. The Jews of later times came completely under the influence of the Aramaic language, which ruled over the entire Near Eastern cultural world of the period. The later literature of the Jews is written in the western or Palestinian and eastern or Babylonian dialects of this language: hence, the Aramaic portions of the Old Testament, the Talmud, Targum, Midrash, and Apocrypha.
Let us review. When we draw a straight line from the southernmost point of the Caspian Sea toward Jerusalem, ending at the Mediterranean, we almost separate two races from each other [with this line]: the broad-headed Alpine race and the long-headed Mediterranean race. From the first one derive the Hittites, the Elamites, and the Chaldeans; from the second, the Babylonians (Assyrians), Canaanites, and Aramaeans. However, political events in this part of the world led to members of one race infiltrating, either peacefully or militarily, the region of the other race, and the two races mixed with one another. This intermixture left its anthropological traces—however, not enough of the sort that could have produced a total amalgamation of the races.
In comparison to a collective of such sharp anthropological distinctness and to such an original culture, about which we have learned so much from excavations,29 the attempts of those who, for the greater glory of the founder of the Christian religion, desperately want to transform the Galilee, and all of northern Palestine, into an “Aryan” milieu, appear rather artificial.
When we enter into a discussion such as this, we must first and foremost clearly define what we understand by the word “Aryan.” Aryan refers to an affinity of languages; it has nothing to do with racial affinities or similarities. Aryan languages are spoken by Völker of the Nordic race, but also by Völker of the Alpine and Mediterranean races, and by Völker of brown or black skin, such as in India. The adherents of Aryan chauvinism, however, propagate the following deception. On the one hand, they understand Aryan to refer to the traits (blond, blue-eyed) of the Nordic race. On the other hand, however, since a number of geniuses and cultural nations do not fall into this category—for example, the Near Eastern cultures—they avail themselves of the opportunity to use the word “Aryan” in its philological sense. In this sense of the term, however, one component, the Hittites, would fall into this category; for the Hittite language, according to Jensen, must be placed in the Alarodic family, related to Armenian. It is not feasible, however, to posit language as a criterion for racial membership. Völker take up a number of different languages in the course of their history. But they preserve their race with great tenacity. Therefore, we must designate the Hittites as well as the Hebrews as members of the Alpine race, as opposed to calling the former Aryans and the latter Semites. We say this even though both groups at different times and in different places have mixed—on the one hand, very strongly with the Mediterranean races, and on the other hand, less strongly with the Nordic—however without suffering a loss of type.
The chauvinists for Aryanism mainly raise two points. Solomon bestowed a part of the northern district on King Hiram of Tyre; thereby, naturally, a closer connection developed between the Jews in the Galilee and the inhabitants of Tyre. On account of this, however, some Mediterranean (Phoenician-Semitic) blood would merely have been added. Moreover, Sargon and Tiglat-Pileser relocated the native people to some extent, and settled colonists in their place. Yet, as the names of their native towns and their deities demonstrate, these colonists were Semites and Hittites (2 Kings 17, 24–30; cf., Hertz, Moderne Rassentheorien). From this, therefore, can come no support for the idea of a racial influence in the “Aryan-Nordic” sense.
This sort of distortion of history misunderstands, in the first place, the ethnographic map of the Near East, which, setting aside the Amorites, knows nothing of the Aryans as a race; moreover, it misunderstands the inertia of the race in its homeland. Luschan has maintained that during the thousand-year history of the territory in question, those with broad heads have dominated, and it is so even today. Reciprocally, we can conclude from this [that is, from what Luschan observed] that the racial character of this stretch of land has not been disturbed in any decisive way by military or political events.
It is just as false to speak of “Hellenization” on account of Alexander and the Seleucids. It is, above all else, an arbitrary choice to designate the ancient Greeks simply as Aryans, racially speaking. The latest research has just verified, on the one hand, the Hittite character of Asia Minor, which extended to the Greek islands (Crete!); this research has also proven, on the other hand, the existence of an Illyric-Mediterranean race in Peloponnesia. (Compare William Ridgeway, “Who Were the Dorians?,” Anthropological Essays Presented to Edward Burnett Tylor, London: Henry Trowde, 1907). The Achaeans, making up the third component, are seen as sons of the Nordics. As you can see, it is more than audacious to simply equate Greeks with Aryans. And suppose the Greeks would have been racially pure Aryans: a Hellenization of language, manners, and morals—and this extended, naturally, only to the most tenuous, superficial level—meant as little an Aryanization of the race as the ensuing Aramaeanization over time meant a Semiticization of the race. Thus, for instance, when at present in Hungary thousands of Germans are Magyarized linguistically, this signifies a national transformation, not a physical, racial one.
Furthermore, according to tradition, Jesus came from a tiny village in the hills, namely Nazareth; and it is particularly in such isolated villages that the ancient race is preserved in a most unadulterated state . . .
As has already been mentioned, during the time of Christ, Aramaic was the language generally spoken. True, the Sabbath reading was conducted in Hebrew, but the average populace by now understood little of that, and it soon became necessary to bring forth an interpreter who would render the chapters of the Torah into Aramaic—that is, into the particular Chaldaic dialect with which the Jews were most familiar. Around the time of Christ it was even deemed necessary to write down this oral Chaldaic tradition, and Jonathan ben Ussiel, the teacher of Hillel, sought to meet this need.
Jesus also spoke Aramaean-Chaldean. Nikolaus Heim, a Catholic theologian, writes: “Modern ‘researchers,’ however, have ventured to cast into doubt this fact that has been long confirmed by all sides, and sought to support their argument in the main with the notion that at some point Greek was widespread and widely understood within Palestine. This claim may very well be correct when it comes to Jerusalem, Caesarea, Gaza, Tiberias, and all the other significant cities within Palestine, where, by the way, one could, during the time of Christ, hear most of the universal languages in use spoken—Roman (Römisch), Arabic, and so forth. Greek would certainly have been well understood, particularly among merchants and the well-educated. Nevertheless, the Babylonian and even more so the Palestinian Jews were the bearers and defenders of their ancestral traditions and of the rules of the Hebrew—that is, the new Hebrew language; in other words, it is not only that Hebrew was common to them, but that they took a particular pride at all times in the fact that they would converse only in this language of their forebears. We must understand the reports of the Gospel in this sense, when it says (Luke 9)30: “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and, as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read (the Torah in ancient Hebrew) . . . he then rolled up the scroll, gave it to the assistant, and sat down. He then began to speak to them (in Syro-Chaldaean).” And in another place we find: “And then they sang (in Hebrew) a hymn (Matthew 26:30)” and a few other similar reports. Even later, when Paul (whose native land was Tarsus, in the midst of the land of the Hittites) came to Jerusalem at the conclusion of his third missionary trip, he witnessed the angriest of the Jews calmed when he spoke Hebrew—that is, Syro-Chaldaean. With the provincial officials he spoke Greek. Whenever the Evangelists want to present to us individual words of Christ in an authentic fashion, they give them in new Hebrew, that is Syro-Chaldean. Talitha kumi (Maiden, stand up!), Eloi, Eloi lama sabachtani (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?). Jesus was always addressed by his apostles and disciples, as well as by others such as Mary Magdalene, as rabbi (John 1:38; Mark 10:51; John 20:16; Matthew 27:46). The discussions between Jesus and Pilate were almost certainly carried out not in Aramaic or Latin, but in Greek; and Mary Magdalene also most likely spoke to Jesus in Greek when she took him for a gardener. Once she recognized him, she reverted to the more familiar Aramaic, in which she called him ‘Rabbuni.’ ”
Jesus also proved himself to be a genuine Palestinian in that he almost never spoke without employing similes, and happily and frequently spoke in parables. He also had a preference for proverbs. This preference, to state one’s opinion in a simile, was congenital to the Jewish Volk, as was the joy taken in proverbs—an entire biblical book, with thirty-one chapters, is filled with them.
I can, naturally, only really consider the anthropological evidence when it comes to answering the question about Jesus’s racial affiliation. These philological and psychological points, however, may serve as a supporting argument for the view that Jesus, presupposing the correctness of the tradition, sprang from the Hittite race. In all likelihood, a Mediterranean (Semitic) influence is indicated; a Nordic (Amoraic, but not Greek) influence is possible, though unlikely. Now if we accept, following the current prevailing theory, that these three components—in descending levels of strength of influence—are indeed components of the Jewish race, then we cannot but identify Jesus with the greatest probability as a member of the Jewish race. As I have already mentioned in the introduction, we can speak only in terms of probability here rather than certainty, under these circumstances.
23. [Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) was a German theologian and philosopher who wrote on the Jewish Question and the early history of Christianity. In his writings, he was highly unsympathetic to the Jews and Judaism. Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906) was a German theologian and philosopher.]
24. [Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927) was a British author whose works on European history and culture advocated the idea of Nordic or Aryan supremacy, and the danger and degeneracy of the Jews.]
25. [Adolf Harnack (1851–1930) was a German theologian and historian of Christianity.]
26. Origen, Contra Celsus, Book 6, Section 75. [Sofer edits Origen’s remarks here, summarizing and in the process somewhat changing the meaning of the quote from Isaiah. Origen reproduces the verse from Isaiah, and then quotes Psalm 45, which refers to “comeliness” and “beauty,” and which Origen suggests refers to Christ.]
27. See also: Dr. L. Sofer, “Armenier und Juden,” Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden, v. 5, 1907.
28. [Ernst Sellin (1867–1946) was a German theologian who had a strong interest in archaeology. He excavated in Palestine, most famously in Jericho, and is celebrated for having integrated archaeological evidence into biblical criticism.]
29. Among which also belong the excavations done by Morgan in Susa and those of E. J. Banks in Bismya. I do not have the space here to discuss these.
30. [The reference here is incorrect. The quote is actually from Luke 4:16.]