1959-08-22 — Page 6

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 1959.

A MODERN WRITER MAKES AN ON-THE-SPOT INQUIRY INTO EVENTS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Are the Gospels

Bethlehem... where Christ was born.

.BY.

THE WAY

by Beachcomber

U

burnouses,

Hed

Arab CHESTERTON'S remark about tails,

who shed the Tatian headdresses? vegetarians

silent the green blood of vegetables con now, be questions Here, there and

very

him

everywhere There is a mechanical device. An angler on Brighion pler caught a financier who was out which will enable you to hear

WOR 4 swim. As he Gardewis for vegetables growing.

angler threw who have the patience in it small. the will know that inaudible veget- back into the sea. ables

not

The A landlady was pelted with growing. imaginative will probably pe- rice-puddings ncler her marriage suade themselves that day ean yesterday. hear the song of the potatoes, "Haulm, sweet haulm." Lit-tle Bo-Pest

are

"DAD-DY, as a mo-to-rist you

have always sald that

is not ex-cess-ive speed which enu-res road cas-u-al-ties, hav en't you?"

Her nephew works

really

IT had been a nerve-racking ride. After a long

wait in Jerusalem by the towering walls of the old city the hard-benched Arab bus had filled up with passengers, shaken off the orangeade hawkers, the chewing-gum vendors, the silent, yacant- looking beggars, and gone careering out along a serpentine highway.

Sometimes the driver had carcered within Inches of n clt- edge. looting his horn, and sometimes he had slowed down to a crawl so that a ticket inspector (there seemed to be dozens of

them) could get on and off.

But now it was over. Dizzily

t dranoupted.

Bethlehem.

was

ira

I was not as I had pletured

1. No place ever is,

Rethlehem sprowls along the erest of a bigh ridge, une among and extend, bare that

mawy tawy, from Jerusalem south- wwrd,

The grey cubes of the Arab houses, with their crevice win- dows and rough domed

true?

For 19 centuries the story of Christ has challenged and inspirod the world. How does that story stand today, in the light of modern scholarship and discoveries? Does Aro its message still ring truo?

its facts acceptable to the 20th- century mind?

by GEOFFREY ASHE

-aulber and historian, who was com missioned to visit the scenes of the Gospels and report on what he found there.

roofs,

In

the

Klar,

Simeon in

Herod's

massacre, the Temple

af

facts?

are widely rattered. But terms of population, Bethlehem, Is a small place. Two thousand Jerusalemn, Are they legends or yours ago it must have been

ree hamlet.

You look down a terraced hill- The ie imo a deep valley. rud climbs and falls. A hard round for a pregnant woman with nothing better than a donkey to Leaving the bus I walked the

ol

occasion.

star of amazing brilliance.

the

of

Bethlehem

... Across the20

fields can the

shepherds.

Tension...

have writer is talking about, what is It may simply

to be heavenly supposed been

happening, same familiar body which the Persion whether it makes sense.

The stories of the Birth do Astrologers though! would be in

make senNO The new research a curisin position when

the of knowledge driven him to revolt had!

and now had Saviour was burn, Be after crime. cime

Brat It may also have been twentieth century may not have on them, ten times and mur- married

the result of a conjunction" much direct bearing dered most of his relations,

RO close but it has flied in the back- two planete coming In Jerusalem. I found, they together as to look like a single ground, and the background is

Family "Herod's

absolutely right. chea you Tomb." Not Herod's Tomb!

Visitors to the London Plane. the breach be- Even in death,

terium were told recently old king tween the dreadful

astronomical calculations which

The hush of the tomen and his kinsfolk was not healed. have proved that a conjunction

the world, The morbid tear of a rival, the of Saturn with the royal planet Peace broods over

and the

the But it is not entirely a hush of bellet in prophecies.

There is tension in right time in the constellation relaxation.

and are waiting. Massacre of the innocents are Jupiter occurred at about

# Many The all loo grimly in keeping. ne of the Fish,

watching. And suddenly this sounds le

un Massacre

that

vague expectation shatpens into monstrous

the focused image of a mother atrocity other books besides the Bible

and child.

do Al Bethlehem today they not make it any too easy for I recall mostly dust and you slate, the uninteresting church which any English town could

$0

A symbol

By studying Old Testament prophesy, the rabbis had even be would that he forecast born in Bethlehem, the birth- place of King David, Si Mat. To ask questions like these

It is surely Interesting that thew mentions this beltet, Brst steps

Lake was to take the

Here,

as often, the famous ought to mention it. But once

the Fish afterwards became an symbol, along a pail, that would wander

of Dead Sea Scrolls come to our you see Bethlehem and

a well-known in the smallness of it all-even important Christian aid. !t is now

after se many genera- figuring in inscriptions in the widely through the lands

thought entacombs. Jordan and Galliee.

Upstairs again I went, through story how those priceless docu- today,

Let me try to summ up my no longer bothers you, the archways, out into the sud- meats, the library of a Jewish Lions of growth that

settlement, were

The number of bays of the point of view, Scholars without outdo, the postering thatter of den heat of the courtyard. The monaste few yards to the Church of the church's almost windowless wall found by same Bedouin boys a right age would have been tiny, number

stared back at me, a blank. Nativity a big, ploin building Near by, the spindly lower of divided inside into a Cathelle and a Greek Orthodox a nusque (with loud-speakers they had lain for 10 centuries.

* pollon, the Catholic strangely to reinforce the muezzin's call than the ordinary and even suburban, to prayer) lifted its minaret

tow yards higher the Orthodox

and church. But the Arabs too. I dull.

ridle on.

decorative

Romun

1947, hidden in caves

where

Expected soon

reign

have searched and a guide.

of ours.

But I also recall somebody these Gospels Herod's murder of a few village sifted

have attacked and who stood at the bus stop-a children, at the very end of a They

in traditional theories and young woman Jong

of spectacular defended, spur wickedness, would probably disproved them, tried to change Arab dress, but unveiled, rather

throw whole dark,

good-looking. order and

quietly It would take a smotimes calling out marily I was able later to see some never have been noticed, except the

by people with a special reason sections out.

sometimes gravely fetime to cover all this ground. to others,

I think he holding the harid; of a Palestine Archaeological Museum **Ah," somebody right say, if anybody dick. Two staircases, one for pil- reminded mysell, believe a great of them in Jerusalem, at the for interest.

want about the Wise would be in danger of going small boy. -strange uttle strips of reedy but Let us consider. deal of the Gospels,

Her face lingered in memory. bold, black Men? They weren't Jews. Thry astray, stuff with

of blinding himself to

like could have looked Mary xpect the aspects that really count. writing across them, for clearer had no

great that. When faced with the than many letters anyone." even today

the Gospels written by

our grandparents They were not Jews, no. But questions which only 40 of 50 years ago. who were they? They have raise, the thing to do

The Scrolls reveal that at the always been called the Magi, a drive straight at the

Down? WTS?

mtms

of each communion, fed to the stable. down Yes. Artists are quite when they paint pictures of a barn-like interior. The Taryge, stable of the New Testament was

Stage is set

a kind of natural cavern-cellur as complicated as beneath the Inn.

question of This stories, for instance.

There is no reason to doubt

They all turn on

11

the birth

It is not it look#. single

sec I Decepling any rate.

difficulty no

them, In

brown

Taron

10

this. the Holy Land today central point, Grant that, and beginning of the Christian era word meaning a Persian priest- the

you can still sec caves being uspil. There below the church they

showed me the spot where Jesus a small was bort. It was in recess, marked by a silver star with Lolin inseription. Lamx hanging over it were kept barn- ing by Orthodox priests.

"Feel"

Some people, the lucky ones

for an Andover firm of charter-perhaps, ean "feel" a place ilke the

ed accountants.

Don't you believe it

Gospels unforgettably describe.

Such

in

Jews were indeed

turfling-point Ilatory, and There

ex- magician of the Zoroastrian

in faith.

expecting even I

Once, with nothing special in minti, I opened a translation of military hand one of the ancient books of that the strategy - of the falih.

And I found prophecies

# war against the Sons of Dark of marvellous being, the eas." whom the Messint; pre- Saoshyant, who was destined to sumably will defeat.

to

Foretold

There

as to

over

maltor.

Ask

is to heart of what the

very

NEXT WEEK: The riddle Christ's 'lost' years -(London Express Servic#},

of

Magic Pen' for Sahara oil

many about

pecting outine at their

EL 5000.

of the Gospel writers sort What want to convey to us is book for sense of expectancy. That is the theme which the different

be born into the world. stories keep coming back to,

In the Arst century A.D., *

were even calculations The shepherds expect a birth, and that is why they can grasp whole series of Jewish agito- when he would come

together turs managed Bel the angels' message.

Herod expects the coming of followers

disastrous and lead

BRITISH equipment is helping a French plan to heaven-gent king, and kills rebellons against the Romans.

children of Bethlehem in Their fellow-countrymen were Here, too, we might call in the

pipe natural gas from the Sahara Desert under the Messiah's coming nld of Professor Gilbert Murray', this. I cannot, as a rule. The the hope of destroying him, so sure

• A phrenologist of High sight set me wondering once

The Wise Men, far away across was close, and so eager to see that great agrostle scholar who the Mediterranean to Spain and France. A sea-bed

Christianity at e divine it, that they were ready to turned toward

survey is now being carried out by Commander Wycombe has written a book to more about the whole mystery Asia. expect to Ang prove that the camel's lump is it implied-that amazing um Child, and travel thousands of belleve. Sonotimes tragically so. the end of his life,

In one of his later books he Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the French under-sea So the shepherds faith is fe which they told me hatt only a large bump.

how. during the last explorer. begun here, and which the four miles in that belief.

Jerusalem, Old Simeon,

credible. And we can easily shows (Beachcomber News Agency.)

imagine Simeon waiting year century or so B.C., astrological

His ship, La Calypso, is using British-mado Decen navige→ tion equipment. life was certainly lived experts the Saviour of the Jews

waiting many after year, yet not at all sur- Ideas from Babylon swept

the

Europe, East and into the There was such a person is he has been

This is the "magic pen" system used in ships and airplanes. visits When he

prised when he is shown a

Greeks, Persians, MAN BELD IN JEWEL CASE Jesus Christ. The evidence for years.

born under strange influencing

to indiente at any moment their exact position. Child

And Jews.

Romana alike.

The French gas and electricity authority plans to bring "Cer-in-ly, my child."

his existence is as good as the Temple shortly after and Mary's (Headline)

clrcumstances in Bethlehem,

surfacu pipeline enormous evidence for most of with

the son is shown to him, he is only

Next, talie Herod, We are Prophecy was in the air,

natural gas from the Sahara by "Then why does the A.A. say

WOMEN

We know what form some of Nostagenum, on the Algerian const, Y quantities of costly jewel-historical figures of his time, glad, not surprised.

His words are famillar in the told how he inquired anxiously

Tho Roman poet took. the Roads

eum-par-at-ive-ly

ordering huge and no scholar of any standing

now where the King of the Jews was it nowndinys to Kunc attempt

Dinulits: "Lord, free from tra!-te seem to pro- lery are new

who would 'The thief

that there was ao lettest thou thy servant depart expected to be born. When the Virgil, who lived only a few

lokl him of the pro- your!! duce high-er cas-u-al-ty rates jewel-cases.

before Christ, wrote o enters the case to abstract the maintain

in peace,

for mine eyes have priests

foretelling the gems releases a ring, and the such person.

phecy about Bethlehem, he had poem actually The objections that do have to seen thy salvation."

who lid closes on him with a bang

bables there put to birth of a divine Child Here Is the starting-point, the male

usher in a now age for would imprisoning his until the police be faced are along different lines.

death. Critles tell us that the Gospela The stage is set. Is it set right? airive.

mass of legends and Have we any

Plenty a known about Herod mankind. reason to think

In the And the Star? We other sources, later, that these fancies which Brew up

atui from people, JewS

idnt from of Christ's birth, he was take a that the character and sayings of

io n admission

Sir, is this man Jesus have been twisted to it -Jews, would actually have year was refused

As long reign in which his endless of astrology. It need not have Fouienough really entitled religious dozma, that the record thought and behaved like this? alck and close to death, after a Murray and explain it by way

The ballroom, because he would not

and

answer

Yes,

and fear appeared specially for this one remove his turban, Now I read to call himself "Captain"! My is full of absurd marvels

blunders and contra- astonishingly positive Yes. The suspielen, insecurity, of a Sikh who was

Jews of those days were watch- E aual recalls a man of the same historical job as a bus conductor for the name who was once, for a week. Actions.

the birth of their Knowing what we do, taking ing for The authorities in charge of a horse-ferry across

et same reasom.

moment. any and

From feared that other conducturs some river in the Midlands. He advantage of everything that Messiah

poets to copy called himself skipper the scholarship has to offer, can we might be encourageri

farthest cast to farthest west, foreign fashions, Hind they ferry. Is Uut the origin of his still believe?

Go on further than the stories Astatic and Homan, were pre- Bethlehem pared for the advent of an "CURIOUS" about that birth at (London Express Service). The shepherds, the wise men, earthly god or divine ruler.

"Well-the-er-it-you

go to sleep!"

In passing

seeh,

REPORTED the other day No comment

the case of ur Indian who

refused

vision of a conductress in kimono? Of conductors in brim. less Korean bowlers, fezzes, pig-

DEAR

#rank?

of

are a

Prophets

could

Gilbert

A

Picture chain

to

the It is then to be brought by n sen-bed pipe across Mediterranean to Aquilas, on the Spanish coast and then overland to France.

Latest methods of under-water photography and depth and his recording are being used by Commander Cousteau selenlists. A continuous chain of photographs of the as-bed is to be taken and each carefully matched to its geographical position as recorded by the Decça equipment.

This, it is hoped, will enable the actual work of laying the pipes to be speeded up.

THAT AUTOGRAPH

By JAK

(London Bourean · Servic®).

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first-class or tourist

DC-6B Service.

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