Though rare today, such Christian groups follow many Jewish traditions while believing in Jesus, and consider themselves the world's only truly chosen people. "There were probably many more sects like this in the early part of the 20th century," Neulander said.


She can't prove it. But Neulander believes Protestant evangelicals, possibly from a group that splintered off the Seventh-day Adventist church, inspired the belief in a Southwestern Jewish past less than a century ago.


Hordes dismisses her theory as outrageous. "Do you think they would have forgotten that they were Seventh-day Adventists?" he asked.