Professor Foakes Jackson, English scholar, now resident in this country, emphatically denies the allegations that he is authority for the charge that the ritual murder accusation against the Jews is proved by their Scriptures, as emphasized by Ray Knight in a footnote appearing in the current issue of the “Hibbert Journal” to an article entitled “Biblical Mistranslation.”
Professor Jackson says the charge against him is not only ridiculous but that his book “Josephus and the Jews,” which is used by Ray Knight to substantiate the ritual murder charge, scores the ritual murder accusation.
Professor Jackson, who is a member of the faculty of the Union Theological Seminary, is regarded as a scholar of first magnitude and has written a number of works dealing chiefly with Judaism and the relation between Judaism and Christianity. Some five years ago he delivered a series of lectures on Judaism and Christianity during the first century, at the Jewish Institute of Religion.
His statement refuting the charges that ritual murder is a Jewish practice, as given to “Opinion,” declares as follows:
“It all seems rather ridiculous that I should be accused of countenancing such an absurdity with which I learn the article in the ‘Hibbert Journal’ charges me.
“My attention has been called to an article on ‘Biblical Mistranslation’ which has appeared in the ‘Hibbert Journal’ of July.
“From it, some apparently suppose I endorse the so-called blood accusation brought against the Jews. I can only quote from my own book, ‘Josephus and the Jews,’ page 28, referred to in the footnote, where the writer only uses me to prove the antiquity and widespread influence of the accusation,” Professor Jackson declares.
The quotation on page 28 referred to reads as follows:
“We come next to an accusation which, ridiculous as it is, has continued through the ages and has been transferred from Jews to Christians and then employed by Christians against the Jews…. In each instance there was an unwarranted suspicion that a human sacrifice was part of a worship so carefully hidden from the outside world…. Not so long ago this absurd and wicked fiction caused a cruel persecution of the Jews in Eastern Europe.”
The ritual murder charge which Ray Knight makes and which is repudiated by Professor Jackson declared: “The charge of ritual murder persistently brought against the Jews and always dismissed as a malignant calumny is proved up to the hilt by their own Scriptures. It dates back to the second century B. C.; Foakes Jackson, Josephus and the Jews, p. 28. It was their horrible practices that led Shalmaneser and Nebuchadnezzar to expel them from Palestine and when they returned they were abhorred by all their neighbors (Jackson, p. 26) doubtless for the same reason. The Temple was a veritable shambles in Josephus’ time, proving the furious blood-lust. The Aztecs, whose religion suffered a similar corruption optimi, incurred the same fate as Israel.”
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