Apart from the biblical prophets, there have been chosen men, that at least in a way have been prophets for their people. Some of them had dreams to reveal to their respective community like Chala (short form of Challianthanga) for the Chinkukis, Remy Ilona & Anthony Obinna for the Ibos, Semei Kakungulu for the Abayudaya, Pāora Te Potangaroa for the Maoris. Ben Ammi for the Black Hebrews, Villanueva for the B'nai Moshe (also known as Inca Jews). Crowdy, founder of the Black Hebrew Israelites, had several visions & eventually his people even called them prophet. A wise old Lemba man of the Maramwidze family told me that teh Messiah revealed to him that in the fututre his people would settle in Israel.
The rabbis lost the right to exact the death penalty. This right was crucial to the practice of their religion because death was the penalty for certain religious offenses. When Pilate told the rabbis he wanted nothing to do with Jesus and for them to judge Him themselves, they replied, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death" (John 18:31). The Messiah had to be born before that power was lost, and He had to be put to death afterward, for He was not to die by stoning, the Jews' manner of execution, but by Roman crucifixion. Amazingly, His crucifixion was prophesied centuries before that means of execution was even known: "They pierced my hands and my feet" (Psalm 22:16).
With astonishing accuracy, the Bible does not single out Damascus, Cairo, London, or Paris as the center of action in the last days, but two other specific cities: Jerusalem and Rome. They are diverse, have been enemies since the days of the Caesars, and remarkably are still rivals today for spiritual supremacy. Catholic Rome claims to be the "Eternal City" and the "Holy City," titles which the Bible has given to Jerusalem. Rome also claims to be the "New Jerusalem," putting her in direct conflict with God's promises concerning the true City of David.
The time of Jacob’s trouble is the Great tribulation.
The modern capital of Iran is Teheran, also preserving the name of the Ephraimite clan of Eran.
I challenge any reader to find anything in Hosea 1 and 2 that pertains to non-Israelite people.
The lion is called the "king of beasts" and has no natural enemies save man. The eagle is the absolute king of the skies. The ox is the largest, most useful of all domesticated cattle.
The Apostles themselves went to Parthia, North Africa, Carthage, Britain, India (Province of Parthia), Gaul, Scotland and all preached the Gospel to them, the House of Israel, confirming the Covenant to the House of Israel, and preaching that the death of Christ redeemed them back to God, no longer being divorced from him but now being part of “the commonwealth of Israel” again, and not being “strangers fromthe covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:” (Ephesians 2;12).
God's Word shows there are innumerable "hosts" in the spirit world, also referred to as the "host of heaven"; they include the twenty-four "elders" seen about God's throne, the cherubim and seraphim, or the "living creatures," seen by Ezekiel (Ezekiel I and 10) as well as countless angels. Only three archangels are mentioned by name in the Bible: Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer. Lucifer was one of the original exalted archangels who became corrupted, rebelled against God, taking his one-third of the angels with him in his rebellion (Revelation 12:4-9; Luke 10:18; Isaiah 14; Ezekiel 28). He was originally called "the anointed cherub that covereth" (Ezekiel 28:14).
The Bible calls the devil the “god of this world.” To most, thisis a truly shocking revelation! Yet, II Corinthians 4:4 states, “In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel…should shine unto them.” In John 12:31, 14:30 and 16:11, Christ refers to Satan as “the prince of this world.” All these verses state that the “prince of this world” will one day be judged. Take time to read them! John 12:31 parallels the judgment of this world with Satan’s judgment. Why? Because this world is his! He is its “god.” This is the plain truth from your Bible! Since Satan has deceived the entire world (Rev. 12:9), then this can not be God’s world. And since the whole world is deceived, it is cut off from God (Isa. 59:1-2).
The first Adam was made physical and material. The second Adam, Christ, was made divine and spiritual. The Old Covenant is material and temporal, the New Covenant is spiritual and eternal. Man was made physical, from the dust—mortal and of the human kingdom. Yet, through Christ, man may receive God’s Spirit, become spiritual—and then immortal and of the kingdom of God.
History also demonstrates that the modern Italians are none other than the ancient Babylonians, often called the Chaldeans, whothemselves migrated west to that peninsula. Some argue that they have Israelite roots in the north & Jewish in the south though.
Changing one's name, even if figuratively or nspiritually, is a tradition done by Mormons, Jews & Muslims at least. That's what Abraham, Sarah, Daniel... did. Fasting is an extending tradition practiced by them as well & by other non-Mormon Christians & other religions.
The late Rabbi Stephen F. Wise, formerly the Chief Rabbi of the United States said, "The return from Babylon and the introduction of the Babylonian Talmud mark the end of Hebrewism and the beginning of Judaism." The learned Rabbi was correct in distinguishing the true religion of the Old Testament as Hebrewism.
Differences in practice and belief between the branches of Judaism are compared here: Major Branches of Judaism (very rough estimates) Branch Number of Adherents Conservative 4,500,000 Unaffiliated and Secular 4,500,000 Reform 3,750,000 Orthodox 2,000,000 Reconstructionist 150,000
The Hebrew word for France, "Tsarfat," is mentioned three times in the Bible, most famously at the end of the Book of Obadiah, where the prophet says that the Jews who were exiled there will one day return to settle the Land of Israel.
Galaad in Arabic is Jalad. These are other Jalads apart from the one in the Holy Land: 1) Jalad, Himachal Pradesh, India. This Indian state has many Israeli tourists. It's next to Kashmir, a state with Lost Israelites. Perhaps a group of them founded Jalad. 2) Umm Jalad, not far from Tabuk, one city formerly peopled by many Israelites it could have easily been founded by Galaadite Israelites. 3) Al Jaladi (or Bi'r-al Jiladi), Saudi Arabia a town near the coast & about 150 km from Kuwait. There were many Israelites in ancient Arabia, so some of them could have found the Jalads.The main Jewish languages are Yiddish, Ladino... Yiddish is spoken by Ashkenazis & it's also called Judeo-German. Ladino or Judeo-Spanish is the language of the Sepharadis. Haketia is an Arabized version of that language spoken in the Magreb. Thanks to the "Alliance Israelite Universelle" French is spoken by many Jews worldwide. Tajiki or Judeo-Persian is spoken by Irani, Bukhara, Dagestani & other Persoan Jews. Judeo-Arabic is spoken by Mizrahis in Arabic countries. The Bene Israel & other Marathi Jews speak Judeo-Marathi in Maharastra, India. In India, but in Kerala, the Cochin Jews & others speak Judeo-Malayalam. Communism in the Soviet Union detached the Jews deeply from their roots, including Yiddish, so Russian became an important language among the Jews. English, spoken in the Anglo-Saxon countries is also an important language for the Jews. Judeo-Tatar is the language of the Krymchaks & the Karaites. Amhara & Tigray (less) is the language of Falashas. Geez is the liturgical language of the Falashas though. Tatic is the language of the Romaniotes. Turkish is spoken by the Donmehs. Judeo-Berber is spoken by Berber Jews in Tunicia & Morocco.
Haym Salomon, a Sephardi Jew, was the main banker of the American Revolution& therefore Should be put among the revolutionary heroes, together with with washington & others. In fact his contribution was so great that the eagle of the Great Seal of the USA is beneath a group of stars in the shape of the Star of David was made on his honor.Not only the first Christians, but the Jews of Otoman Turkey had their possesions in common, as well as other groups like the Essenes...
“Melchizedek” is a title meaning "Ruling Righteous Priest" or "Priest/King" in Hebrew. Abraham recognized the King of Salem as a Righteous King who was also a priest. Righteous Priest/King in Hebrew is malkī-ṣeḏeq. In English it is Melchi-zedek. Abraham was showing respect to this King by giving him the title Melchizedek as he was the first “Priest/King" of (what would become) Jerusalem. A title that foreshadowed the coming Messiah. The line of Zadok was the line of righteous priests set apart for the office of High Priest and the lineage of The Messiah. Few people actually understand the Zadok line of High Priest. The Zadok line of High Priest was prepared in the Torah specifically for the coming Messiah who would be the Ruling Zadok or Melchizedek.
Israelite descendents have also been found in China (Naphtali) along the Levites discovered in Ancient India and modern South Africa. The Indian pyramids in West Tennessee (Pinson Mounds) originally had white sand on the outside, mimicking the pyramids at Giza built by Israelites. Almost every place in the world has been colonized by the Phoenicians/Israelites at some point. Not just Europe.
Since the beginning of times (Adam's), before the Egyptians, Babylonians, Chinese...there was Christianity. Mankind's father, Adam, taught his children that one day a savior would be borne out of a virgin mother. This was the Christianity before Christ. It wasn't called Christianity, of course not. Christ & Christianity are Greek terms coined later. Adam also taught that this Messiah would give up His life & resurect. He also had a priesthood & performed ordinances received from God Himself or His messengers. These & many other things were taught by Adam. However eventually part of humankind deviated from those orninances & beliefs. Hence the so called pre-Christian pagan religions have so much in common with Christianity. So pagan religions evolved from Adamic Christianity, not the other way round (for which Christianity would evolve from paganism).
In regards with the Jewish Khazars their Jewish origin is a priori obvious, and Poliak has drawn attention to one version of the division of the earth, where the Hebrew words for ‘north’ and ‘south’ actually appear in the Arabic text.
When Lucifer was originally created, Ezekiel 28:13-15 reveals that he was not only beautiful in appearance, but had a particular gift for music as “tabrets” and “pipes” are mentioned in connection with his creation. This account metaphorically refers to Lucifer as “the king of Tyre,” but no human king of Tyre was ever “perfect,” “in Eden” or served as an “anointed covering cherub.” When Lucifer fell into sin and rebellion, as Isaiah 14:12-19 records, Lucifer became Satan and used his talents to pervert and warp all that was good and beautiful in the creation. He has also used his musical talents to induce mankind to sin via music that promotes rebellion, lust, violence, etc. As this world “goes downhill” during the latter days in which we live, various forms of “music” have developed which promote sinful activities and attitudes.
The phrase "green tree" is considered to apply to those which were sacred. Tree-worship has survived in Palestine through all religious changes to the present day.
Several Palestinian tombs face the Temple Mount, not Mecca. So what are they really Muslim or Jewish? Obviously Jewish.
Around the time the sap begins to flow and fruit of trees begin to form, this New Year of the Trees is an early recognition of environmental awareness. This day it’s a kind of Arbor Day when people plant trees or donate money to environmental causes.
There's a little village in Greece right next to Macedonia's border called Idomeni (or Idomene). Greece is considered to have had plenty of Israelites. Often wherever there are Israelites there are Idumeans (also known as Edomites or Esauites). The first part of the word Idomene sounds very much as derived from Edom. The end in eni or ene can have many Hebrew meanings. MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN where the words written by a mysterious hand on the wall of Belshazzar's palace, and interpreted by Daniel as predicting the doom of the king and his dynasty. Could Idomene mean Idom (Edom) Mene (Doom) or Idom's Doom?
The Hebrew word Ara can be translated depending on context as lion or earth. Earth in Hebrew is usually eretz. Lion is in Hebrew usually aryeh.
Geni is genealogy Web Page which deals also with genetics & the offspring of Jews & Lost Israelites. http://www.geni.com Hebrew surnames, as the name indicates, deals with individual's Hebrew surnames & you can find comments about that particular person. http://www.hebrewsurnames.com
Israelism (a.k.a. Israelite tradition/religion/faith") is what we could synonymize to the more usual term/concept "ancient Jewish tradition/religion/faith" or simply "ancient Judaism" or "biblical Judaism". This term has been used informally in certain contexts. Israelitism is a synonymous term. Neither terms are popular or widespread. They're mostly used in white British Israelite circles & it's black Hebrew Israelite counterpart circles. But, since there is not an official definition, let alone one that is plain, I thought that it was good to "create" it as a type of neologism. Nowadays there is a nationality for the Jewish State which is Israeli, hence some people use the term Israelism for the practices, traditions, policies... followed by Israelis or by the modern State of Israel.
Apart from the religous currents there are regional divisions within Judaism, Ashkenazi and Sephardic (North and South) as well.
Veiled Israelite woman. Is the tradition of veiling women's faces (found in Genesis 24:65), Muslim or is it pre Muslim & of all the Semitic peoples: Israelites, Arabs, Arameans...?
Throughout the inside the Tabernacle we find the three colors—red, blue, and scarlet —each of which represent Christ: Red is the color of blood, and therefore represents both mortality and Christ’s atonement. Blue the color of the sky and therefore represents heavenly things, typifying God. And purple represented royalty because it was the most expensive color dye to obtain in the old world and was therefore mostly worn by kings and royalty.Not only do all these colors represent Christ in their own way, they also represent something deeper. If you mix the colors blue (representing God the Father) and red (representing the mortal Mary) you get the color purple, which is the color of Christ, the “King of kings.” (Rev. 17:14).The Syrian government's secularism meant that many members of religios minorities, such as the Alawites, Druze & Christians, supported Assad, fearing a return to historic perscution under a Sunni successor government to Assad.
Jesus Was the Savior of Humankind
Jesus’ mother tongue was Aramaic. In his own lifetime he was called Yeshua in Aramaic, and Jesu in Greek. This is like calling the same person John when speaking English and Jean when speaking French: Jesu, pronounced "Yesoo", is the Greek form of Aramaic Yeshua. (The final -s in Jesu-s is a Greek grammatical ending.) Yeshua is itself a form of Hebrew Yehoshua’, which means ‘the Lord is salvation’. However Yehoshua’ is normally given in English as Joshua. So Joshua and Jesus are variants of the same name.
It is interesting that Jesus' name Yehoshua’ contains within it the proper Hebrew name for God, the first syllable Yeh- being short for YHWH ‘the LORD’.
Yeshua of Nazareth was never called ‘Isa, the name the Qur’an gives to him. Arab-speaking Christians refer to Jesus as Yasou’ (from Yeshua) not ‘Isa.
Jesus did not receive a ‘book’
According to the Qur’an, the ‘book’ revealed to ‘Isa was the Injil. The word Injil is a corrupted form of the Greek euanggelion ‘good news’ or gospel. What was this euanggelion? This was just how Jesus referred to his message: as good news. The expression euanggelion did not refer to a fixed revealed text, and there is absolutely no evidence that Jesus received a ‘book’ of revelation from God.
The ‘gospels’ of the Bible are biographies
The term euanggelion later came to be used as a title for the four biographies of Jesus written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the ‘gospels’. This was a secondary development of meaning.
Apparently this is where Muhammad got his mistaken idea of the Injil being a ‘book’.
Apparently this is where Muhammad got his mistaken idea of the Injil being a ‘book’.
A Biblical prophecy is a message from God for a specific time and place. A biblical prophet is someone to whom God reveals hidden things, and who then acts as God’s verbal agent. When a Samaritan woman called Jesus a prophet (John 4:19) it was because he had spoken about things in her life that he could only have known supernaturally. Christianity teaches that Jesus was a prophet, but he brought no ‘book’: he himself was the living ‘Word of God’, a title used of ‘Isa in the Qur’an.
By no means all prophecies referred to in the Bible became part of the Biblical text. The Bible consists of a wide variety of materials originally written for many different purposes, including letters, songs, love poetry, historical narratives, legal texts, proverbial wisdom as well as prophetic passages. These are regarded as inspired by God, but not dictated from a timeless heavenly book.
the Hebrew scriptures were Jesus’ Bible. He affirmed their authority and reliability and preached from them. From these same scriptures he knew God as Adonai Elohim, the Lord God of Israel.
The Biblical narratives are rich with historical details, many confirmed by archaeology. They cover more than a thousand years, and reveal a long process of technological and cultural development.
Christians accept the Hebrew scriptures. They were the scriptures of Jesus and the apostles. They were the scriptures of the early church. The whole of Christian belief and practice rests upon them.
Core Christian concepts such as ‘Messiah’ (Greek ‘Christos’), ‘Spirit of God’, ‘Kingdom of God’ and ‘salvation’ are deeply rooted in the Hebrew Biblical traditions.
Core Christian concepts such as ‘Messiah’ (Greek ‘Christos’), ‘Spirit of God’, ‘Kingdom of God’ and ‘salvation’ are deeply rooted in the Hebrew Biblical traditions.
We note also that Christian seminaries devote considerable effort to studying the Hebrew scriptures.
This is an integral part of training for Christian ministry. The Hebrew scriptures are read (in translation) every Sunday in many churches all around the world.
This is an integral part of training for Christian ministry. The Hebrew scriptures are read (in translation) every Sunday in many churches all around the world.
Some contemporary Muslim voices on Jesus
The Jesus of the gospels is the base upon which Christianity developed.
The historical evidence for Jesus (Yeshua) of Nazareth and his death by crucifixion
Non-Christian sources for Jesus
• Tacitus (AD 55-120), a renowned historical of ancient Rome, wrote in the latter half of the first century that ‘Christus ... was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also.’ (Annals 15: 44).
• Suetonius writing around AD 120 tells of disturbances of the Jews at the ‘instigation of Chrestus’, during the time of the emperor Claudius. This could only refer to Jesus, and appears to relate to the events of Acts 18:2, which took place in AD 49.
• Thallus, a secular historian writing perhaps around AD 52 refers to the death of Jesus in a discussion of the darkness over the land after his death. The original is lost, but Thallus’ arguments — explaining what happened as a solar eclipse — are referred to by Julius Africanus in the early 3rd century.
• Mara Bar-Serapion, a Syrian writing after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, mentions the earlier execution of Jesus, whom he calls a ‘King’.
• The Babylonian Talmud refers to the crucifixion (calling it a hanging) of Jesus the Nazarene on the eve of the Passover. In the Talmud Jesus is also called the illegitimate son of Mary.
• The Jewish historian Josephus describes Jesus’ crucifixion under Pilate in his Antiquities, written about AD 93/94. Josephus also refers to James the brother of Jesus and his execution during the time of Ananus (or Annas) the high priest.
Paul’s Epistles
• Paul’s epistles were written in the interval 20-30 years after Jesus’ death. They are valuable historical documents, not least because they contain credal confessions which undoubtedly date to the first few decades of the Christian community.
Paul became a believer in Jesus within a few years of Jesus’ crucifixion. He writes in his first letter to the Corinthians ‘For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he was seen by Cephas (Peter), then by the twelve.’ This makes clear that belief in the death of Jesus was there from the beginning of Christianity.
The four gospels
• The four gospels were written down in the period 20-60 years after Jesus’ death, within living memory of the events they describe.
The events which the gospels describe for the most part took place in the full light of public scrutiny. Jesus’ teaching was followed by large crowds. There were very many witnesses to the events of his life. His death was a public execution.
Manuscript evidence for the Bible and its transmission
The manuscript evidence for the Greek scriptures is overwhelming, far greater than for all other ancient texts. Over 20,000 manuscripts attest to them. Whilst there are copying errors, as might be expected from the hand of copyists, these are almost all comparatively minor and the basic integrity of the copying process is richly supported.
Futhermore, when Western Christians studies the Hebrew scriptures during the Renaissance, they found them to agree remarkably closely with their Greek and Latin translations which had been copied again and again over a thousand years. There were copying errors, and some other minor changes, but no significant fabrications of the stupendous scale which would be required to concoct the story of Jesus’ death.
Likewise when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered they included Hebrew Biblical scrolls dating from before the time of Jesus. These too agreed very closely with the oldest Hebrew Masoretic manuscripts of more than a thousand years later. Again, no fabrications, but evidence of remarkably faithful copying.
Conclusion: Jesus of Nazareth is a figure of history
Clearly there are events recorded in connection with Jesus’ life that many non-Christians will not accept, such as the miracles, the virgin birth, and the resurrection. However what is beyond dispute is that Yeshua (‘Jesus’) of Nazareth was a figure of history, who lived, attracted a following in his life time amongst his fellow Jews and was executed by crucifixion by the Roman authorities, after which his followers spread rapidly. Both secular and Christian sources of the period agree on this.
The primary sources for the history of Jesus’ public life are the gospels. These were written down relatively soon after his death — within living memory — and we have every indication that these sources were accepted as reliable in the early Christian community, during a period when first and second hand witnesses to Jesus’ life were still available.
We conclude that any statements about ‘Isa (Jesus) in the Qur’an, made six centuries after Jesus’ death, must be judged against the historical evidence from these first century sources, and not vice versa.
The Dispersion & Regathering of IsraelThe dispersion of the Israelites accomplished several divine purposes to improve mankind's condition. We have to distinguish between Jews & Israelites. Al the Jews are Israelites, but not all the Israelites are Jews. Although in origin the term Jew only applied to the tribe of Judah, later applied to the Kingdom of the South (Kingddom of Judah).
We can say the same about the term Israelite. Firsly applied to all the 12 tribes & then to the 10 tribes of the Kingdom of the North (Kingdom of Israel).
The Jews conserved the Torah & identity, whereas the Israelites lost them both. They went all oveer the earth mingling with the peoples they met & giving them higher forms of religion (although usually somehow or outright deviated from the original Torah), technique, agriculture, handcraft...Today we can find rightful Israelite claims all over the earth.
Judaism, Christianism & Islam are monotheistic forms of the original Israelism or Law of Moses. They started from Jews or from the contact with Jews.
The first Christian converts were Jews & many of the first Muslim converts were Jews (some people believe that even the very Mohammed, prophet of Islam, was a Jew living in Arabia).
Several people believe that Shintoism, Mazdeism, Buddhism & Hinduism were founded by Israelites in the diaspora. Hinduism encompasses many different trends with different followers: monotheism, trinitarianism, polytheissm & animism.
Shintoism is basically monotheistic & its rites & temples resemble strikingly the one of the Israelite tradition. Buddhism is more a phylosophy than a religion.
Many so called pagan traditional or animist religions are monotheisstic & resemble strikingly the Israelite religion. This is the case of Maoris, Cherokees, Aztecs, Quechuas, Qiangs, Ibos, Chinkukis, Karens...
It is considered that the heterodox religions (& their membership), Muslim & non-Muslim ones, of the Middle East & some of the Balkans have an Israelite origin in a hidden origin in a hidden way. This is the case of: Yazidis, Kakais, Shabaks, Sabeans, Mandeans, Alevis, Alawites, Druzes, Bektashis...
Some believe that the celebrated Chinese emperor that made the Chinese Wall was an Israelite. This would make millions of Hans have an Israelite origin because millions trace their origins on the emperor's. True or not, the Chinese share some remarkable traditions with the Jews: a deep love for their ancestors (including their huge & old genealogical data), the entrepeneurial character, the lantern festival (resmbling the lighting of candelabras of the Jews & the never ending fire in the temple), the monotheism of the Chinese traaditionaal religion...
That most people belong to religions founded by Israelites (& Jews) & that they believe in a coming Messiah, Mahdi or whatever name it has, makes the God of Israel (& of all the world) even greater than many suspected to be. His son Jesus Christ is the Savior of the whole mankind.
The first missionaries in the Americas, Africa, Asia... declared that they found Lost Israelites everywhere & that's why they accepted Christianity so easily. Although today there are some scheptics about these Israelite claims, we don't have a good argument to doubt it. This was part of God's plan for His children.
The tribes of Israel are now being rediscovered everywhere. We know that they were scattered by God to punish them, but also to bless the peoples with whom they mingled or were neighboring & to make great His name & His son's name.
What Spake Zarathustra? (Corrected Version)
There is a danger in learning about pagan religions since we are usually influenced by what we learn. God commands us to be careful in this matter:
[Deuteronomy 12:30] TAKE HEED TO THYSELF THAT THOU BE NOT SNARED BY FOLLOWING THEM, AFTER THAT THEY BE DESTROYED FROM BEFORE THEE; AND THAT THOU ENQUIRE NOT AFTER THEIR GODS, SAYING, HOW DID THESE NATIONS SERVE THEIR GODS? EVEN SO WILL I DO LIKEWISE.
[Deuteronomy 12:31] THOU SHALT NOT DO SO UNTO THE LORD THY GOD: FOR EVERY ABOMINATION TO THE LORD, WHICH HE HATETH, HAVE THEY DONE UNTO THEIR GODS; FOR EVEN THEIR SONS AND THEIR DAUGHTERS THEY HAVE BURNT IN THE FIRE TO THEIR GODS.
The founder of Zoroastrianism was called Zoroaster in Greek and Zarathustra in Persian. The German philosopher Nietsche wrote a book called "Thus Spake Zarathustra" in which Nietsche places his own philosophy in mouth of Zarathustra.
Zarathustra and the religion he founded is of some importance to us since we believe that Zarathustra was an Israelite from the Lost Ten Tribes and his original intention was to reform the pagan practices of his fellow Israelites.
Background: The Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and exiled the Ten Tribes. The Israelite Exiles became identified as the Scythians and related peoples. The Scythians rebelled against the Assyrians and then became their allies and protectors. After that the Scythians took over the Assyrian Empire. The Scythians established contact with King Josiah ben Amon of Judah. Some of the Scythians returned temporarily to the Land of Israel and established their center in Beth Shean. King Josiah ben Amon sent the prophet Jeremiah and other emissaries to the Scythians in their places of exile to encourage them to return and also to reform their religious practices and beliefs. The appearance of Zarathustra was a result of this and so too was the original doctrine of Buddha. At all events the Scythians lost control of the Assyrian Empire.
The Scythians took the major role in destroying the Assyria cities but were forced by the Medes and Babylonians to give up their positions of authority and begin moving out of the Middle East. The Scythian settlements in Israel were abandoned. The religion of Zarathustra was left over from this period. It had originally been preached to Israelites and intended for them but they apparently did not take to it. Non-Israelite peoples adopted this religion but changed it in accordance to their pagan beliefs. The Israelite origin of this religion is an historical curiosity testifying to what might have been.
Zarathustra (ZOROASTER) appeared from eastern Iran in the region of Hara and Bactria. His original doctrine was monotheistic and even Biblical in character (Franz Altheim, "Alexander Und Asien". Germany 1953, "Alexander und Asien", p.13, Mary Boyce, "A History of Zoroastrianism Leiden/Koln 1975, p.195.) After Zoroaster's death, his religion was paganized by the Median tribe of Magi, even though the original message had been Hebraic. Zoroaster, according to Iranian tradition had been taught by the prophet Jeremiah or by one of Jeremiah's pupils (Josef Horovitz "Hebrew Iranian Synchronism," Bombay 1931, p.12ff.). Zoroaster himself had Scythian familial connections (Gherardo GNOLI, "Zoroaster's Time and Homeland. A Study on the Origins of Mazdaism," Naples, Italy 1980, p.96) yet some reports identify him as an Israelite (HOROVITZ, p.12ff.).
Historically, Zoroastrianism is the term given to the ancient religion of Persia. At present there is a sect of people, named Parsees in Iran and in India. These people descend from Persian followers of the Zoroastrian religion as it was at a later date. The religion of these people (according to our sources) is quite different from the beliefs of its founder.
The Jews in Persia as well as the early Christians in Iran had traditions that Zarathustra was Jewish. It was said that he had been taught by Jeremiah or by Baruch ben Neriah who was a pupil of Jeremiah. The Moslems in Persia also repeated similar ideas. This indicates that even at a later stage there still existed something in Zoroastrianism that suggested Hebrew influence.
Historically, the Scythians, Medes and Babylonians had conquered Assyria. The Medes got the Scythian leaders drunk and massacred them. The Medes and Babylonians then divided the Assyrian Empire between them and drove the Scythians away. The Babylonians conquered Judah and exiled all the Jews to Babylon. The Medes lived in Media in northern and western Iran. They ruled over the Persians. The King of the Persians was married to the daughter of the King of the Medes. When his son, Cyrus, became king of the Persians he rebelled against his grandfather, the king of the Medes, and took over the kingdom. After that Cyrus ruled over the Medes and Persians.
Cyrus conquered the Babylonian Empire. Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Judah, which they did, led by Ezra and Nehemiah. Cyrus the Great (550-530 BCE). was followed by his son, Cambyses (530-522), who died in Egypt after attempting to destroy all the idols there and killing the sacred bull.The brother of Cambyses became king but a distant cousin named Darius claimed that this king was an impostor and killed him and made himself king. He is known to history as Darius the Great (522-486 BCE).
Cyrus conquered the Babylonian Empire. Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Judah, which they did, led by Ezra and Nehemiah. Cyrus the Great (550-530 BCE). was followed by his son, Cambyses (530-522), who died in Egypt after attempting to destroy all the idols there and killing the sacred bull.The brother of Cambyses became king but a distant cousin named Darius claimed that this king was an impostor and killed him and made himself king. He is known to history as Darius the Great (522-486 BCE).
The dynasty that Cyrus began is known as the Achaemenid dynasty. It has been assumed that Cyrus followed Zoroaster but it is not certain. Cyrus in an inscription celebrating the fall of Babylon mentions Marduk and Yahweh of Israel. After Cyrus came Cambyses (530-522), who went about destroying idols. After Cambyses came Darius the Great (522-486 BCE). Darius the Great (522-486) mentions Ahura Mazda, which is the name of God in Zoroastrianism. Under Cambyses the building of the Temple had been interrupted but Darius ordered the building to go ahead.
Ninian Smart, (The Religious experience of Mankind, by, NY, 1969, p.241), mentions four major Stages of development in Zoroastrianism:
1. The Religion of Zarathustra himself.
2. The religion of the Achaemenean monarchs of Cyrus and Darius who introduced elements that compromised the original monotheistic character.
3. The Arsacid (Parthian) and Sassanian dynasties: The Parthians were indifferent religiously and often inclined towards Judaism and Christianity. The Parthians were followed by the Sassanians who ruled Iran from 211 C.E. to 641 C.E. The Sassanians were ardent Zoroastrians and Zoroastrianism was revived and regulated.
4. Modern Period. The Zoroastrian Scriptures are known as the Avesta. Parts of the Avesta:
a. Yasna: liturgical writings including the GATHAS. The Gathas were written in a unique dialect. Some go back perhaps to Zarathustra. b. Visparad: invocations of all the lords for use at festivals.
c. Yashts: collection of hymns to various deities. d. Venidad: prescriptions about purifications, etc.
The Avesta was completed in the 300s CE.
Additional religious texts were written in Sassanian times in the Pahlavi dialect. Parts of the Gathas are attributed to Zarathustra himself and from these the original beliefs of Zarathustra can be reconstructured.
Zarathustra was a monotheist. He denounced other gods as devils. He emphasized opposition to Druj, who was the personification of evil or the Satan. He believed in Angels. His religion has been described as resting on four main points: 1. Worship Ahura-mazda 2. Magnify the archangels 3. Damn the demons 4. Marry your nearest relative [If Zarathustra was an Israelite, this last injunction would have the effect of helping the Israelite exiles retain their ethnic origins].
The Life of ZOROASTER (c.630 - c.550 BCE) (or c. 628 BCE c. 551 BCE). He was probably born at Rhages (now Rayy, a suburb of Tehran), a town in Media - which is the region covered by modern-day Iran and Iraq. His Persian name, Zarathushtra, has been explained to mean camel handler. [It could also be derived from the Hebrew, Zerah]. His father, according to tradition, was the owner of cattle. According to the 'Zend Avesta', the sacred book of Zoroastrianism, he was born in Azerbaijan, in northern Persia, into the Spitama family. His father's name was Pourushapa. At the age of 30 (or 40 according to other sources) he received the first of a series of revelations of a new religion (ca 600 BCE).
He is said to have received a vision from Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, who appointed him to preach the truth. Zoroaster began preaching his message of cosmic strife between Ahura Mazda, the God of Light, and Ahriman, the principle of evil. According to the prophet, man had been given the power to choose between good and evil. The end of the world would come when the forces of light would triumph and the saved souls rejoice in its victory. Zarathustra preached for two years to the religious leaders of his country. His attempts to proselytize at home failed, and he fled east to ancient Chorasmia, now largely Persian Khorasan.
There were ten long years between the revelation and the first convert. And this convert was his own cousin Metyomah. For two years following the conversion of Metyomah, Zoroaster made little or no progress. He then succeeded in converting King Vishtaspa of Chorasmia to the new faith. King Vishtaspa has been identified with Hystaspes, the father of Darius the great [See E. Herzfeld, Zoroaster and His World (1947); R. C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism, 1961]. After this Zoroaster led crusades for 25 years to persuade Scythian and related peoples to accept his new religion. He was killed fighting.
He is said to have received a vision from Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, who appointed him to preach the truth. Zoroaster began preaching his message of cosmic strife between Ahura Mazda, the God of Light, and Ahriman, the principle of evil. According to the prophet, man had been given the power to choose between good and evil. The end of the world would come when the forces of light would triumph and the saved souls rejoice in its victory. Zarathustra preached for two years to the religious leaders of his country. His attempts to proselytize at home failed, and he fled east to ancient Chorasmia, now largely Persian Khorasan.
There were ten long years between the revelation and the first convert. And this convert was his own cousin Metyomah. For two years following the conversion of Metyomah, Zoroaster made little or no progress. He then succeeded in converting King Vishtaspa of Chorasmia to the new faith. King Vishtaspa has been identified with Hystaspes, the father of Darius the great [See E. Herzfeld, Zoroaster and His World (1947); R. C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism, 1961]. After this Zoroaster led crusades for 25 years to persuade Scythian and related peoples to accept his new religion. He was killed fighting.
Zarathustra according to the most commonly accepted sources lived in the period c.630 - c.550 BC. He received his first vision around 600 BCE. King Josiah of Judah reigned according to conventional dates around 640-609 BCE. The Scythians lost control of the Assyrian Empire somewhere around 614-609 BCE. These dates are estimations and are not certain. Zarathustra lived at the time of King Josiah and Jeremiah the Prophet. Jeremiah the prophet, according to the Talmud, was sent to the Lost Ten Tribes. Zarathustra was born in an area of the Lost Ten Tribes and later moved to another area which was also a Lost Ten Tribes center. He had family connections to the Scythians whom we identify as being at least in part identical with the Lost Ten Tribes. There are traditions that connect Zarathustra to Jeremiah the Prophet. The original doctrine of Zarathustra was similar to that of the Bible. We can therefore conclude that Zarathustra really was probably an Israelite.
Beliefs and Parallels with Scripture and Israel.
Scholars agree that there are similarities between the original doctrines of Zarathustra and the Bible but they claim that this is because the Bible was influenced by Zarathustra and not the other way around. This is wrong but it is fashionable. If you said anything else not many people would listen to you and if you were an academic you might not get a job. Zoroaster was thus taught the doctrines of an individual judgment, Heaven and Hell, the future resurrection of the body, the general Last Judgment, and life everlasting for the reunited soul and body.
PARALLELS WITH THE BIBLE:
1. One God.
2. Resistance to evil.
3. Satan and Devils. Other gods = devils. Demonic forces.
4. Angels. Angels appointed over abstract principles.
5. Saoshian= Messiah.
6. Resurrection of the Dead.
7. Last Judgment.
8. Zarathustra was linked with Rhages in Media which is a Ten Tribed area (as explained in the book Ephraim by Yair Davidiy) associated with the Tribe of Naphtali. He later moved to Chorasmia and was active in Herat which was also a Ten Tribed area [as explained in The Tribes by Yair Davidiy].
9. There were Parallels between the doctrines of Zoroaster and Essene teachings. The Essenes were a Jewish sect in Qumran by the Dead Sea. The Essenes however were not influenced by Zoroastrianism but rather both developed from a common Hebraic source. M. Coventsky: <<Many experts contend that the emphasis in post-exilic Judaism on rewards and punishment, heaven and hell, the struggle between the forces of good and evil, and the notion of an individual afterlife were derived from Zoroastrianism. There is a striking similarity between the Manual of Discipline, of the Dead Sea community, and Zoroastrianism, regarding the problem of evil. But other scholars maintain that there is enough in Pharisaic Judaism to justify the search for origins of these ideas with Palestinian tradition specifically, or even exclusively.>> This is the opinion that we adhere to. Zarathustra preached an Israelite doctrine because he was an Israelite. Similarities between Zoroastrianism, the Bible, and Judaism arose because they all came from the same Hebrew sources.
10. The father of Zarathustra was Pourushapa. This name has been explained to be derived from Purushain Sanskrit, which means man and Aspa, which means a horse. The name is derived from the root asep which is also found in Scythian areas and connected to the name Joseph. This was explained by Yair Davidiy in The Tribes(1991) and in more detail by IRMA HAYNMAN, "The Syncretic Creed of Hellenized Jews From Tanais, 1994, World Union of Jewish Studies.
11. Zarathustra supposedly had a vision at age 40 wherein he received a vision from God, (Ahura Mazda), who appointed him to preach the truth, cf . Moses
12. Many scholars (e.g. Altheim, Boyce, Morton Smith) have analyzed passages of the Gathas and found parallels in language, style, and content with Biblical passages especially those of Isaiah.
Isaiah prophesied about Cyrus (Isaiah 44:27-45:4) and the punishment of the Babylonians (43:14;47:14) that Cyrus in part carried out. Josephus says that Cyrus was shown the prophecies of Isaiah mentioning his name and was influenced by them. It may be that the early Persian kings held the Book of Isaiah in reverence and this influenced whoever wrote the Gathas. Cyrus started the Achaemenid dynasty. The Achaemenids belonged to the Pasargadae clan. The early Persians like the early Medes were a confederation of different tribes. Not all these tribes had the same origins. The Pasargadae were the ruling clan of the Persian confederation. They were a small ruling body. The name "Pasargadae" has been explained to mean in the local Aramaic dialect, Pasar-(sons of)-Gad. They may originally have been Israelites from the Tribe of Gad. This would explain why they were so attracted to the religion of Zarathustra as it was originally intended.
Morton Smith saw a parallel between Isaiah and a specific Gatha of the Avesta.
From Morton Smith: Yasna 44. In Yasna 44, Zoroaster asks Ahuramazda questions to which the god replies simply such as "I am" or "I do." Isaiah has similar passages. Tell me truly Lord, who in the beginning, at the creation was the father of Justice? (GY 44.3.1-2) Rain justice you heavens & this I, Yehouah, have created. (Isa 45:8) Who established the course of the sun and the stars? Through whom does the moon wax and wane? (GY 44.3.3-5). Lift up your eyes to the heavens. Consider who created it all, led out the host one by one. (Isa 40:26) What craftsman made light and darkness? (GY 45:5.1-3) I am Yehouah. There is no other. I make the light. I create darkness. (Isa 45:7)13.
The father of Darius had been converted by Zarathustra. Jean-Claude Brinette, "Religion in Ancient Persia", points out that the name Darius in Persian was pronounced as Darayavahu. Brinette says: Darius is properly Darayavahu. Yavahu is uncommonly like Yehouah (YHWH), and must have sounded similar. Vahu is the Iranian god of the wind, that became, like the Hebrew, to mean breath and so life, so Yavahu literally means the same as YHWH. Scholars admit the etymology of "DR" ("ZR") is puzzling. [In Aramaiac and Iranian the d and the z could interchange, e.g. Manda= Manasseh]. Literally, "zara" refers to the action of sowing seed in the fields (Gen 26:12; Isa 37:30), and seems to be a Semitic root. So, Zara in Hebrew is seed. & Darayavahu can be read in Hebrew meaning "seed (progeny) of Yehouah," "seed of the living god." Brinette also points out that, <<Nehemiah was the "cupbearer" to Artaxerxes (Neh 2:1). Since Artaxerxes, as a devout Zoroastrian, could not have touched let alone drunk from a ritually unclean cup, Nehemiah must himself have been [considered the same as] a Zoroastrian. Pollution in the Zoroastrian scheme was the result of the Evil Spirit who caused "dust, stench, blight, disease, decay and death." Devout people were obliged to stay clear of these noxious things to protect themselves as Ahuramazda's good creation. The king particularly required this protection, and we can be sure that his servants had a duty to keep him pure.>> In other words, in the eyes of Artaxerxes, Nehemiah the Israelite must have been considered ritually pure from the point of view of Zoroastrianism. The "Holiness Code" of Leviticus 18 to 26 is a code of purity from pollution that has similarities with practices of Zoroastrianism.
Brinette points out that : <<Darius favored the Jerusalem priesthood. A revealing scrap of papyrus written from Darius to Arsames, his long-serving Egyptian satrap in 419 BC, and found at Elephantine, ordered that the Jews of Elephantine must keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days.>>
We thus see that it may well be that Zarathustra was an Israelite and his religion was originally of Biblical character but the pagan Gentiles changed it. We have also seen that the early kings of Persia may also have been of Israelite descent. Buddha may also have been an Israelite and also have been influenced by the emissaries of King Josiah and Jeremiah. We do not know. We do know that according to Buddhist tradition the first Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, lived around about the same time as Jeremiah, Josiah, and Zarathustra. He was born in ca. 563 BCE. He was known as Shakya-muni. He belonged to the Shakyas who according to the Greeks were Scythians. The Lost Ten Tribes were in Scythia. The original doctrine of Buddhism appears to have been that all suffering is caused by bad deeds and bad mental energies. By doing good and training your energies to be positive you can eliminate suffering. This was not necessarily a religious doctrine but rather a moral philosophy that was later adapted to religious concepts. Buddhism as practiced at present is a pagan religion.
From our point of view all this does not matter very much at present since the overwhelming majority of exiled Israelites did not remain in Persia or anywhere near it but moved away and went to the north and later to the west into Europe. Zoroastrianism and Buddhism became paganized. We do not really need them nor do we need to know much or anything about them. It is enough for us to study the will of God as revealed in the Bible and if necessary as explained by legitimate commentaries on the Bible.
[Deuteronomy 18:9] WHEN THOU ART COME INTO THE LAND WHICH THE LORD THY GOD GIVETH THEE, THOU SHALT NOT LEARN TO DO AFTER THE ABOMINATIONS OF THOSE NATIONS.
Adapted from Ephraim" ch.2
After the Israelite Tribes were exiled by the Assyrians these Tribes were re-settled in different areas of the Assyrian Empire. Many groups from the Israelite Tribes retained their original Tribal Identity. They usually federated with other Israelite entities and are identifiable as part of the Scythian forces. Most of the Israelites were due to be pushed northwards as part of the Scythian hosts though some groups retained a presence for some time in the Iranian area. In Scythia one group identified by its neighbors as Israelite called itself Nephtali. The Nephtali were also referred to as Cadussi. This people had first been recorded close to Mannae southwest of the Caspian Sea. The area was one of the major regions to which Northern Israelites had been transported by the Assyrians. The Apocryphal Book of Tobias mentions Israelite exiles from the Tribe of Nephtali in Ecbatana and Rages of Media both of which adjoined the Cadussii area.
<<This is the story of Tobit, son of Tobiel, son of Hananiel, son of Aduel, son of Gabael, son of Raphael, son of Raguel, of the family of Asiel, of the tribe of Naphtali. He was taken captive in the time of Enemessaros [i.e. Shalmanessar] king of Assyria, from Thisbe which is south of Kedesh Naphtali in Upper Galilee above Hazor, behind the road to the west, north of Peor.>> (Tobit 1;1-2). <<After the deportation to Assyria when I was taken captive and came to Nineveh...>> (Tobit 1;10).
<<All my kinsmen grieved for me, and Ahikar looked after me for two years until he moved to Elymais>> (Tobit 2;10).
<<Sarah, the daughter of Raguel who lived at Ecbatana in Media>> (Tobit 2;7). <<I have often travelled into Media and used to lodge with Gabael our fellow countryman who lives there at Rages>> (Tobit 5;6).
The Book of Tobias (Tobit) thus testifies to the presence of Israelite Exiles from the Tribe of Naphtali in the Cadussi area. Later we have evidence of a people to the north in Scythia who were known as Naphtalites also being referred to as Cadussi or Kadussi. The very name Kadussi may be derived from the ancient Israelite city of Kadesh in the Land of Naphtali:
<<AND OUT OF THE TRIBE OF NAPHTALI, KEDESH IN GALILEE WITH HER SUBURBS>> [Joshua 21:32].
The Nephtalites were called Cadussi by the Greeks, Romans, and Persians but Pliny reported that they termed themselves Gaeli. "Gaeli" is also one of the names that the Celtic Hiberi called themselves. The Gaeli had migrated to the British Isles from the Middle East via Spain. The Cadussi-Gaeli were related to the Sacae Scythians according to Xenophon. [We identify the Sacae as ancestors of the Angles and Saxons who invaded Britain]. The Cadussi (or Kadussi) later moved northwards into Scythia east of the Ural mountains where they were also referred to as Nephtalites or Nephtalite Huns though some sources still referred to them as "Kadassaye" i.e. Cadussi. Legends, their Tribal names, and additional factors link them to the Israelite Tribes of Nephtali, Dan, Judah, and other Israelite Tribes. After a series of wars and migrations the Cadussi-Nephtalites (also known as "White Huns" and sundry other names) split up into several groups. The majority went westward and entered Scandinavia to form what later became the Danes and Norwegians. Another portion remained in Scythia to eventually merge with the Khazars who converted to Judaism.
Tree Worship in Ancient Israel
Because trees are rooted in the earth and reach toward the sky, many ancient religions worshiped them in sacred groves and imagined spirits inhabiting them. In early Israelite history, the Patriarchs erected pillars (mazzevot) in the cult of God; the practice was clearly considered legitimate; Jacob, for example, erected a mazzevah at Beth-El to be used in the service of God.
Similar to the erection of mazzevot was the planting of trees for the service of God. Abraham encountered three angels at Elonei Mamre -- the Terebinths of Mamre -- and planted a tamarisk tree which he dedicated to God in Beersheva. We are not told why Abraham planted the tree; there is no suggestion that the place had any prior sanctity, nor did the patriarch make use of other existing cultic objects.
Prof. Nahum Sarna throws light on the phenomenon of the sacred tree, in his commentary on a reference to another spot where the terebinths, Elonei Moreh, grew. "Abraham passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, at the Terebinths of Moreh. The Caananites were then in the land." (Genesis 12:6)
"The Terebinth of Moreh, in Hebrew 'elon moreh, was undoubtedly some mighty tree with sacred associations. Moreh must mean "teacher, oracle giver." This tree (or a cluster of such trees) was so conspicuous and so famous that it served as a landmark to identify other sites in the area.
The phenomenon of a sacred tree, particularly one associated with a sacred site, is well known in a variety of cultures. A distinguished tree, especially one of great antiquity, might be looked upon as the "tree of life" or as being "cosmic," its stump symbolizing the "navel of the earth" and its top representing heaven. In this sense, it is a bridge between the human and the divine spheres, and it becomes an arena of divine-human encounter, an ideal medium of oracles and revelation.
Trees may have also symbolized the protection or fertility the worshiper hoped to receive from a deity. Fertility cults flourished in connection with such trees, and this form of paganism proved attractive to many Israelites."
While sacred plantings continued for some time, they were eventually forbidden by the official religion of Israel, as they were a common practice among the Israelites' Canaanite neighbors. "You shall not set up a sacred post [asherah] — any kind of pole [etz] beside the altar of the Lord your God that you may make..."
Prof. Jeffry Tigay, in his commentary on the book of Deuteronomy (JPS Translation) differentiates between the two types of sacred posts: "An asherah was a standing wooden object at a place of worship, and its significance is uncertain. Not all objects of this type were inherently idolatrous: Abraham worshiped the Lord at a tamarisk, and there were trees in the sanctuary of the Lord at Shechem and in the Temple. The book of Deuteronomy most likely bans objects of this type from sanctuaries of the Lord because they were associated with Canaanite deities and might eventually have led the Israelites to blur the distinctions between Israelite and Canaanite religion.
The second term in this verse, etz, refers to any treelike object, whether a natural tree, an artificial one, or a pole. This broad definition of a sacred post prevents anyone from claiming that the prohibition covers only certain objects of this type and that others are legitimate; such a distinction could lead to a confusion that can only be prevented by a comprehensive ban."
Worshipping of Trees or Next to Trees
Trees are significant in many of the world's mythologies and religions, and have been given deep and sacred meanings throughout the ages. Human beings, observing the growth and death of trees, and the annual death and revival of their foliage, have often seen them as powerful symbols of growth, death and rebirth. Evergreen trees, which largely stay green throughout these cycles, are sometimes considered symbols of the eternal, immortality or fertility. The image of the Tree of life or world tree occurs in many mythologies. This proves that all human beings have the same origin in the first man Adam. God planted the Tree of life & the Tree of knowledge of good & evil for Adam to choose.
Scholars belief that the fig leaves with which Adam & Eve got dressed were taken from the closest tree (the Tree of knowledge) at hand, which was a fig tree. They also believe that the House of Judah is identified with a fig tree & that the fig tree that Jesus curses is the House of Judah that rejected Him. The olive tree is identified with the House of Israel. Jesus doesn't reject the House of Israel nor the olive tree. The Lost Tribes, being the House of Israel, are not rejected by Christ because they mostly accept Him as the Messiah. In other words, they are Christians. A few Lost Israelites like the Pashtuns, Kashmiris...are Muslims though.
Scholars belief that the fig leaves with which Adam & Eve got dressed were taken from the closest tree (the Tree of knowledge) at hand, which was a fig tree. They also believe that the House of Judah is identified with a fig tree & that the fig tree that Jesus curses is the House of Judah that rejected Him. The olive tree is identified with the House of Israel. Jesus doesn't reject the House of Israel nor the olive tree. The Lost Tribes, being the House of Israel, are not rejected by Christ because they mostly accept Him as the Messiah. In other words, they are Christians. A few Lost Israelites like the Pashtuns, Kashmiris...are Muslims though.
Sacred or symbolic trees include the Banyan and the Peepal (Ficus religiosa) trees in Hinduism, the Yule Tree in Germanic mythology, the Tree of Knowledge of Judaism and Christianity, the Bodhi tree in Buddhism and Saglagar tree in Mongolian Tengrism.
A Banyan (also Banian) is a fig that starts its life as an epiphyte (a plant growing on another plant) when its seeds germinate in the cracks and crevices on a host tree or on buildings and bridges. "Banyan" often refers specifically to the Indian banyan (Ficus benghalensis), which is the national tree of the Republic of India, though the term has been generalized to include all figs that share a characteristic life cycle.
In British fairy lore, the oak is one of three primary magical woods, along with ash and thorn. Even today, in parts of Ireland and Wales, a springtime custom, to bring blessings upon yourself and your family, is to plait crowns of hawthorn blossoms and leave them for the angels and faeries, who come at night and dance around them. Many types of trees found in the Celtic nations are considered to be sacred. Britons under Roman occupation worshipped a goddess of the oak tree, Daron. Insular Celts worshipped in groves. The Christmas tree has this same origin.
Hani people worship trees and nature annually, with a solemn religious ceremony to express their reverence to trees and the nature. The Kukis also worshiped trees.
Igbo households usually contain a chi shrine which could be focused on a tree.
Celts, Igbos, Kukis & Hanis have been put as examples because are considered as Lost Israelites.
Semites, including the Hebrews, were no exception to this. The tree that was generally regarded as sacred in Palestine was the oak, or the terebinth, which in hot countries, especially the more southerly of those about the Mediterranean, takes the place of the oak.
Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he worshiped the LORD. In another chance the LORD appeared to Abraham by the oak trees.
It's noteworthy that oak trees are the trees in Abraham's encounters with the Lord, then in Semitic worship & in Celtic worship.
The Hebrew word for ‘grove’ is “asheyrah, ash-ay-raw’; …Asherah (or Astarte) was a Sidonian goddess, or image of the same”. Asherah was represented by a limbless tree trunk planted in the ground. The trunk was usually carved into a symbolic representation of the goddess. Because of the association with carved trees, the places of Asherah worship were commonly called “groves,” and the Hebrew word “asherah” (plural, “asherim”) could refer either to the goddess or to a grove of trees. One of King Manasseh’s evil deeds was that he “took the carved Asherah pole he had made and put it in the temple” (2 Kings 21:7). Another translation of “carved Asherah pole” is “graven image of the grove”.
Considered the moon-goddess, Asherah was often presented as a consort of Baal, the sun-god. The Lord God, through Moses, forbade the worship of Asherah. The Law specified that a grove of trees was not to be near the altar of the Lord (Deuteronomy 16:21). Despite God’s clear instructions, Asherah-worship was a perennial problem in Israel. As Solomon slipped into idolatry, one of the pagan deities he brought into the kingdom was Asherah. Later, Jezebel made Asherah-worship even more prevalent, with 400 prophets of Asherah on the royal payroll (1 Kings 18:19). At times, Israel experienced revival, and notable crusades against Asherah-worship were led by Gideon (Judges 6:25-30), King Asa (1 Kings 15:13), and King Josiah (2 Kings 23:1-7).
Christianity and Islam treated the worship of trees as idolatry and this led to their destruction in Europe and most of West Asia.
As can be seen, trees have been related to worship approved by God & worship disaproved by God. People say some of the Christian traditions have pagan roots, but it's often the other way round.
Ending the Axis of Evil
While totalitarianism found itself rising most tragically during the 20 century even Islamism is now undergoing comprehensive global self-discreditization; indeed historically like all the other totalitarian ideologies before it. The evil gods of totalitarianism have not only lost their power & appeal, they have been conclusively & finally killed, indeed fully exterminated by freedom.
However, four hideouts of totalitarianism still remain where most brutal totalitarian terror still rules indisputed and these are North Korea, Eritrea, the Islamic State Caliphate and the al Qaida State in northern Syria. Al Qaida of course still controls a few other enclaves here and there around the world.
The leadership of Iran is now abandoning totalitarianism much as have the leaderships of most nominally Communist states already done.
However, the Axis of Evil and its four remaining states are still in place although under increasing internal and external pressure. North Korea is approaching comprehensive state collapse while all four remaining totalitarian states increasingly face an overwhelming internal collapse of ideological credibility. The Islamic State and the al Qaida State find themselves under increasing military pressure by Israel’s allies such as Syria and Kurdistan. Turkey as still under some control of the Muslim Brotherhood Islamist regime finds itself on the brink of an urban popular revolution, despite still retaining significant popular support outside of the major metropolitan regions.
However, the strategic threat of totalitarianism must not be underestimated and the strategic cooperation between the four remaining totalitarian states poses a profound threat to global security despite ideological differences between the four. However, they certainly have more in common than dividing them as totalitarian forms of governance are quite similar irrespective of nominal ideology. North Korea is thus a Communist state with a Neo-Nazi (“Juche”) state ideology advocating national racial purity of blood and practicing serial monarchic succession within the same ruling family. While there are certainly differences between the al Qaida state in Syria and the Islamic State Caliphate, the ideological and religious similarities are overwhelming indeed. Eritrea remains a totalitarian anomaly in Africa bizarrely practicing 25 years of compulsory military service for men.
The increasing strategic coordination between the four remaining members of the Axis of Evil however do still pose a significant threat as there are increasing extremely credible indications that the increasingly desperate Axis of Evil is planning significant global escalation, including mass terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. As their evil gods are now dead and have indeed been all been finally liquidated by the tremendous, indeed completely overwhelming Power of Freedom, the leaderships of the four remaining totalitarian regimes now face the strategic choice between abandoning totalitarianism and facing the strategic reality of increasingly imminent comprehensive regime collapse.
Syrian, Iraqi, and Lebanese insurgencies
Indeed the four remaining still ideologically believing totalitarian states must make the strategic decision of abandoning totalitarianism once and for all or face the painful reality of total war by means of the US military doctrine of Rapid Dominance, also known as Shock and Awe. There can be no more tolerance for totalitarianism in the community of nations and so the four remaining members of the Axis of Evil will face complete collapse unless they speedily make the choice of abandoning totalitarianism. The remaining strategic threat as posed by the Axis of Evil is tremendous and so the Axis of Evil must end or be ended by all legitimate means, inclueeding Total War.
North Korea’s strategic cooperation with the Islamic State Caliphate and the al Qaida state in error Syria has increasingly deepened in recent years despite the seemingly nominally insurmountable ideological dissimilarities between North Korea on the one hand and the Islamic State Caliphate and the al Qaida state on the other. Political misalliances are however nothing new in political history such as the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between totalitarian dictators Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union and Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany and which indeed directly commenced WW2.
The Axis of Evil would be most ill-advised to underestimate the tremendous political resolve and immense military power of the community of nations to end the scourge of totalitarianism once and for all. North Korean plans for attacking major US cities with nuclear weapons are simply intolerable to say the least as are the completely intolerable genocidal threat posed against the peaceloving & prodemocratic Kurdish people by the Islamic State Caliphate and its weapons of mass destruction as are indeed al Qaida’s apparent plans for unprecedented global terrorism, including the use of weapons of mass destruction against major cities around the world.
The Axis of Evil must face the reality that they stand no chance of surviving neither politically nor militarily and that their only choice is between voluntarily leaving totalitarianism or going down in blood. Indeed the Axis of Evil would be particularly well advised to act rationally or else face the Overwhelming Power & Wrath of Freedom. Indeed, North Korea and Eritrea are certainly more predisposed to act rationally in this regard than the twin lunatic Salafist states of al Qaida in Syria and the Islamic State Caliphate. However, human beings are certainly predisposed with ability for reasoning and so the four remaining members of the Axis of Evil are therefore advised to end the lunacy of their respective regimes and behave rationally now that their evil gods are all dead and gone forever.
The Living Waters
I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. (Isaiah 41:18)
The Living Waters: It’s on his way! It will not stop! It is on his way like a flood! It will be refreshing! It will not be possible to avoid it! It included the most valuating things of God’s Kingdom!
The Living Waters include: The precious Blood of Yeshua, Jesus Christ; The WORD of God; Sanctification & Purification; Healing & Restoration; Redemption; Repentance & Salvation; Warfare, Deliverance & Victory!; Purifying Fire; Refreshment; God’s Shekinah Glory & Presence; God's Anointing; And so much more…!
The Holy Spirit filled the house and moved upon the 120 flowing out of their innermost beings like “Rivers of Living waters” (John 7:37-39) and "pour out" (Acts 2:17) which literally means to gush out, to spill out freely, or pour out abundantly like mighty Niagara’s of Living waters and power from on High (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8).
It was like a "rushing mighty wind" or the blast of a clap of thunder sweeping before it (1 Kings 19:11-12). Along with this mighty thunder or blast came visible forked tongues like fire sitting upon each of the 120 disciples! Living Waters & God's refining burning Fire are going together as well!
The Hasidim are Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox), the most conservative members of the Orthodox branch of Judaism. Unlike other Orthodox groups, they place great emphasis on joy and spirituality. (The Hasidic movement started as a reaction against the perceived overly "academic" nature of Judaism at the time).
Hasidim wear distinct clothing that other Haredi and Orthodox Jews may not wear. They wear their tallit katan over their shirts, while other Orthodox Jews wear them under their shirts with only the tzitzit hanging out.
Hasidic men also practice mikveh immersion daily before morning prayers, whereas most male Orthodox Jews only practice mikveh immersion on special occasions.
Hasidic Jews are a sub-grouping of Orthodoxy. They are more conservative, often live in insular communities. They try to abide every law and also try very hard not to assimilate and that is why they live mostly (if not always) in communities with other Hasidim.
Hasidic Jews are part of a sect who have a spiritual leader normally called a Rebbe or Tzadik, he will tell his followers what to do and where to live/go.. Ultra-orthodox and orthodox Jews keep all the laws but are not part of a sect and in case of a query will consult their local Rabbi.
Hasidic jews are a subgroup of Orthodox jews. Hasidic Judaism was founded by the Baal Shem Tov in Poland several centuries ago., Hasidic Judaism is strongly influenced by the Zohar and the Cabala, there are many sects of Hasidic Judaism including Chabad, Satmar and others.
It's the same as the difference between Lutherans and Protestants. One is a specific community, the other, a more general term.
Hasidic Jews are like the Puritans of Judaism.
The Difference Between Regular Orthodox And Hasidic Jews
The Hasidim are Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox), the most conservative members of the Orthodox branch of Judaism. Unlike other Orthodox groups, they place great emphasis on joy and spirituality. (The Hasidic movement started as a reaction against the perceived overly "academic" nature of Judaism at the time).
Hasidim wear distinct clothing that other Haredi and Orthodox Jews may not wear. They wear their tallit katan over their shirts, while other Orthodox Jews wear them under their shirts with only the tzitzit hanging out.
Hasidic men also practice mikveh immersion daily before morning prayers, whereas most male Orthodox Jews only practice mikveh immersion on special occasions.
Hasidic Jews are a sub-grouping of Orthodoxy. They are more conservative, often live in insular communities. They try to abide every law and also try very hard not to assimilate and that is why they live mostly (if not always) in communities with other Hasidim.
Hasidic Jews are part of a sect who have a spiritual leader normally called a Rebbe or Tzadik, he will tell his followers what to do and where to live/go.. Ultra-orthodox and orthodox Jews keep all the laws but are not part of a sect and in case of a query will consult their local Rabbi.
Hasidic jews are a subgroup of Orthodox jews. Hasidic Judaism was founded by the Baal Shem Tov in Poland several centuries ago., Hasidic Judaism is strongly influenced by the Zohar and the Cabala, there are many sects of Hasidic Judaism including Chabad, Satmar and others.
It's the same as the difference between Lutherans and Protestants. One is a specific community, the other, a more general term.
Hasidic Jews are like the Puritans of Judaism.
Biblical Guide to the Drums
With all the many references to musical instruments found in the bible, there is one instrument that is the most important; that is, the “drum.” Anyone who claims that drums were not mentioned or used in the bible, are absolutely clueless and their opinions should be taken with a grain of salt.
Unfortunately, you will not find the word “drum” in the bible but you will find a drum-like, percussion instrument called a “timbrel.” The best description of a timbrel (sometimes referred as tambour) is a hand-drum with miniature cymbals around the edges; it is covered on one side with parchment, cloth or animal skin. It’s held in one hand and “beat” (to smite) with the other hand to keep the tempo during praise and worship in the Old Testament. The word "drum" wasn't even a common word until after or about 1540 A.D. According to the dictionary the word "drum" was probably derived from the Germanic word "tromme."
"The drum (toph). Of this there were many varieties, some of them resembling modern drums. The Egyptians had a long drum, of wood or copper, 2½ feet long, resembling the tom-tom of India, and beaten by the hand. Another form was shaped like a cask with bulging center, and was made of copper. It was of the same length as the other, but larger around, and was beaten with sticks. Another drum was more like our kettle-drum; and one of these, the rabbins say, was placed in the temple court to call the priests to prayer, and could be heard from Jerusalem to Jericho."
The reason that the word “drum” was not found in the Bible is because the first modern-day version of the drum wasn’t common until around the 1540’s A.D.
About 4000 years ago, these instruments were not called “drums,” they had different names but had the same basic purpose and function. Just as dinosaurs in the bible were once called dragons, behemoth and Leviathan; nowadays, the timbrel, tabret and Toph (drum) are now called percussion, drum or tambourine.
To be more specific about this ancient percussion instrument, this hand-drum named timbrel (or tophet in Hebrew), we must remember that drums, just like any other musical instrument, started simple then evolved (for the lack of a better definition) into other complex instruments. It only makes common sense that as percussion instruments progress, so does the music that changes along with it.
Furthermore, when electricity was finally discovered and commonly used, it opened new doors for new instruments, new sounds and techniques and new styles of music. Many pipe organs and pianos in churches use electricity as well. If anyone tells you that electricity is from the devil, they are ignorant because the bible says that God created all things; even electricity in the form of lightning.
Furthermore, when electricity was finally discovered and commonly used, it opened new doors for new instruments, new sounds and techniques and new styles of music. Many pipe organs and pianos in churches use electricity as well. If anyone tells you that electricity is from the devil, they are ignorant because the bible says that God created all things; even electricity in the form of lightning.
"A percussion instrument that was carried and beaten by hand. Considered inappropriate for the Temple, it was probably played primarily by women (Ps. 68:25). The timbrel may have been excluded from the Temple instruments because of its great popularity with the Canaanite fertility cults. Among the Hebrew people, it was associated with merrymaking and processions (Gen. 31:27).
Remnants of timbrels with pieces of bronze inserted in the rim have been uncovered by archaeologists. Thus, the instrument could be shaken as well as beaten."
Remnants of timbrels with pieces of bronze inserted in the rim have been uncovered by archaeologists. Thus, the instrument could be shaken as well as beaten."
"The timbrel, a form of tambourine, a narrow hoop covered with a tightened skin, and struck with the hand. On the Egyptian monuments are three kinds—the circular, the square, and another formed by two squares separated by a bar."
Thus, the Israelites (mostly women) used the timbrel to keep the tempo during celebrations; or as some would say to keep the “beat.” (From a personal perspective, anyone using the term “beat” in place of the proper musical term “tempo,” has little or absolutely no knowledge of musical insight and I wouldn’t trust anything they have to say about music anyway; it’s like taking marriage advice from a counselor who has been divorced three times.)
Are not the modern-day tambourine and the modern-day drum, a percussion instrument? They are both used to keep the tempo, both hit with hand or stick and both used to make music. Just because the Israelites started off with a few light-percussion instruments doesn’t mean that today’s Christians cannot use more complex and better-sounding percussion instruments. There is no Scripture to stop this from happening.
The modern “drum-set” is now the upgrade from the earliest hand-held timbrel. The modern-day drum-set is the contemporary version of the ancient timbrel and the drum-set is used in many musical praise and worship bands. Just as church members have moved forward from having small group church services in people’s homes in the 1st century to an off-site community church building in the 21st century, so has the percussion of the Old Testament moved from a small hand-held drum used by ancient Hebrews to the modern-day drum-sets of today’s church bands. There is nothing wrong with this!
Where does it specifically say in Scripture that music or drums are fleshly? Where does it specifically say in Scripture that music or drums are evil? Where does it specifically say in Scripture that music or drums are of the world? Where does it specifically say in Scripture that music or drums are sinful?
Where does it specifically say in Scripture that music or drums from the devil? It doesn’t, as we will see further on.
Where does it specifically say in Scripture that music or drums from the devil? It doesn’t, as we will see further on.
The timbrel was the one of the principal percussion instruments for the Israelites. It was very similar to the modern-day tambourine. Eventually, over thousands of years the timbrel has easily evolved into the modern-day tambourine. Even most modern English translations of the bible today have substituted the word timbrel as a “tambourine” even though the timbrel was entirely a different kind of percussion instrument.
The word timbrel is “used in the Old Testament in both singular and plural form, so as to suggest that the former referred to a hoop of wood or metal over which was stretched a parchment head; while the plural was perhaps used to designate the tambourine with bells or jangles fixed at intervals in hoops.”
When David encouraged the Israelites to praise God, he said, “Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp (Psalm 149:3, KJV).” Why would anyone praise God with dancing, along with music, without keeping some sort of tempo? Being a drummer and percussionist myself, I can understand that the timbrel must have kept the time (tempo) in order for everyone to sing along and dance in unison. Have you ever tried to dance and sing without some sort of tempo or rhythm? It’s a musical train wreck, especially if there are hundreds of people and half of them lack musical talent or singing skills.
Evidently, the Psalmist (David) did not specify at what the tempo the psalm was to be played but I would assume that God wanted us Christians to understand through His Word that the tempo was important but more relevant was the message in the song. I believe that’s why God allowed the lyrics of David’s Psalms to be written down as words and not as music notes. In other words, play all the music you want, but without words, the song is meaningless. Of course, it’s only meaningless unless there’s something else to accompany it, such as dancing before the Lord, expressing joy from your heart and in celebration and praise to God for the wonderful things He has done.
I believe that God made sure to include the timbrel in His Word because God is not the author of confusion; praise and worship music must be orderly and in sync. In the Old Testament, Israel praised the Lord with various stringed-instruments, dancing, singing, shouting and playing the timbrel and other percussion instruments. From the descriptions given of all these multiple instruments, it almost sounds as if there were large groups of musicians praising God; kind of like a Christian Rock band!
The world, from every nation, tribe and tongue has taken something beautiful, like music that comes from God, and put their own spin on it and has used it for evil, cultic rituals and for their own selfish benefits. Drums, in and of them, are not evil. Would you say that tents are evil without a reason to make them evil? How about tent-makers? Are tent-makers evil because they make “evil” tents to cover the witches who perform black Sabbaths in the desert?
The Apostle Paul was a tent-maker, is Paul and evil man or a righteous man declared by Christ?
Obviously, Paul was a righteous man even though he made and crafted tents. Perhaps later on, an evil man with evil motives came into the local tent shop where Paul’s tent had been placed on consignment. Is the tent evil? Was Paul evil for making the tent?
Obviously, Paul was a righteous man even though he made and crafted tents. Perhaps later on, an evil man with evil motives came into the local tent shop where Paul’s tent had been placed on consignment. Is the tent evil? Was Paul evil for making the tent?
No, tents are no more evil than drums are. Drums are merely a musical instrument that is used to keep the tempo of a song. What man decides to use drums for, is his business. However, for me and my family, I will use drums for the Lord just as the Israelites did when praising God. In the end it’s all a matter of the heart!
Every nation, culture, tribe and person has their own idea as to the history of and the origin of, the modern-day “drum.” Unfortunately, we cannot rely on the opinions, traditions and philosophies of men whether they are true or not; for Christians the Scriptures must be our standard and our guide for true biblical praise and worship music.
Colossians 2:8 - “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ (KJV).”
True worship does not come from the “beat” or tempo, the rhythm, the sound or even from the words or lyrics; true worship comes from having the right attitude in your heart. Words can be empty and meaningless unless the right motive of the heart is involved. Music, along with drums, a catchy melody and a repeating rhythm with lyrics are merely a tool; or a vehicle that helps us to get there.
Music is merely the means by which we are ushered into acceptable praise and worship.
Music is merely the means by which we are ushered into acceptable praise and worship.
When God looks at our worship, is He worried that we are worshipping Him with a tempo? When we are praising God, is He looking down saying, “Those worshippers are using drums to worship me with. I do not accept the worship from them.” Is God concerned that we are using a vehicle to accompany us in our heart-felt worship? If our praise and worship is from the heart with having the right attitude, does it really matter the tempo or “beat” in which our songs are kept?
John 4:23, 24 – “But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth (NLT).”
Did you see that? “True worshippers” worship God in “spirit and truth,” not by the “beat” or tempo. In other words, the music, tempo, drums and the “beat” are irrelevant! Why? Because it is the heart (attitude, motive) of the worshipper that God sees; not the style, beat, rhythm, or tempo of the music.
Again, the music is only a “vehicle” to help us get there. There are probably thousands of people who attempt to worship God every Sunday morning with pipe organs and pianos that do not have a heart for worship. Does God hear the music or “beat” over the hearts of worship? What God is looking for, is people who worship Him in spirit and truth; the drums along with the music are merely a means by which we are led into praise and worship.
Again, the music is only a “vehicle” to help us get there. There are probably thousands of people who attempt to worship God every Sunday morning with pipe organs and pianos that do not have a heart for worship. Does God hear the music or “beat” over the hearts of worship? What God is looking for, is people who worship Him in spirit and truth; the drums along with the music are merely a means by which we are led into praise and worship.
Some people may say, “Since when does something become Christian by merely "Christianizing" the terminology and placing Christ’s name in front of it? How about the Roman cross that was used to kill the worst of criminals in Rome? It was a torture device now it’s a holy icon, seen in practically every church building in the world & hanging around millions of Christian necks as a sign of their faith. It was originally Roman (pagan, heathen) in its history, now it’s Christian.
In some pagan rituals, people would be baptized in bull’s blood as a symbol of eternal life. Others used water as a symbol of purification. In Judaism, it was a familiar practice for new converts. It was pagan and heathen, now it’s Christian.
Since God can use the things of the world to honor Him, such as the Roman method of torture and baptismal pagan bull’s blood practice, why wouldn’t God want Christians to take back what was originally ours to glorify Him with? That is, music; which includes drums, stringed instruments, wonderful words and other various instruments!
Another percussion instrument that God chose the Israelites to use during praise and worship was the tabret. How do I know that the tabret was not just a tambourine and more of a drum-like instrument?
Nahum 2:6-7 “The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved. And Huzzab shall be led away captive, she shall be brought up, and her maids shall lead her as with the voice of doves, tabering upon their breasts (KJV).”
• Easton's Bible Dictionary says that tabering is like “playing on a small drum or tabret. In Nahum 2:7, where alone it occurs, it means beating on the breast, as players beat on the tabret.” • In Smith's Bible Dictionary tabering “connects itself with toph, "a timbrel”…the "tabor" was a musical instrument of the drum type which with the pipe formed the band of a country village. To "tabour," accordingly, is to beat with loud strokes, as men beat upon such an instrument.” • “In Nahum 2:7, where the word "tabering" occurs, it means beating on the breast, as drummers beat on the tabret.”
A “tabret” is a small version of the “Toph” or “Tof.” The term “Tof” implies the word “tophet,” which means to smite, which is how you play the Tof. It is very similar to the medieval tabor drum (or tabour), “which consists of a circular frame of two hoops fitting within one another in which a cloth or animal skin is stretched across to create a small, one-headed or two-sided drum. Since no records, pictures or drawings of tabrets have ever been found, some have come to believe that the tabret is an instrument that is between a tambourine and a modern-day drum.
Originally, the tabor was believed to be a two-sided drum with strings that were strung across one side on a head to create a loud snap. The tabor is believed to be the very first version of the modern-day snare drum. Because of the lack of precise information, in some versions of the Holy Bible, the word tambourine is used in place of tabret and timbrel (Hebrew; Tof), flip-flopped and vice versa.
The tabret was used for: I. Celebrations 1 Samuel 18:6 – “And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music (KJV).” II. Prophesying 1 Samuel 10:5 – “After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, where is the garrison of the Philistines: and it shall come to pass, when thou art come thither to the city, that thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, before them; and they shall prophesy: (KJV)” III. Praise Psalm 150:4 – “Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs (KJV).” IV. Worship Jeremiah 31:4 - Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry (KJV).” IV.
Religious Services 2 Samuel 6:5 – “And David and all the house of Israel played before the LORD on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals (KJV).” 1 Chronicles 13:8 - And David and all Israel played before God with all their might, and with singing, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and with cymbals, and with trumpets (KJV). Psalm 68:25 – “The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after; among them were the damsels playing with timbrels. Psalm 81:2 – “Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery (KJV).” Psalm 149:3 – “Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp (KJV).”
Religious Services 2 Samuel 6:5 – “And David and all the house of Israel played before the LORD on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals (KJV).” 1 Chronicles 13:8 - And David and all Israel played before God with all their might, and with singing, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and with cymbals, and with trumpets (KJV). Psalm 68:25 – “The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after; among them were the damsels playing with timbrels. Psalm 81:2 – “Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery (KJV).” Psalm 149:3 – “Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp (KJV).”
All musical instruments that were available to the Israelites, were used to praise the Lord God: The Israelites were not limited to only two instruments, such as in many churches today that consist of a piano and pipe organ alone. If it was acceptable for the Israelites to have huge bands of people playing all kinds of “instruments of music” during praise and worship, then it’s acceptable for us today’s Christians to do the same. To oppose this idea is legalistic and burdensome. The freedom we have inherited in Christ gives us release from all those rules and regulations of the Old Testament.
2 Chronicles 5:13 – “It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD; (KJV)”
Let’s face it; music really has little to do with praise and worship. As I stated earlier, the musical instruments in a song are merely a means by which we move into our praise and worship. It’s really what comes from the heart that God loves the most. Your motives for praise and worship are worth more to God than having a drummer in the band or a “beat” in the song. Anyone who is worried about having drums in a Christian band or a “beat” to keep the tempo has gotten their priorities in the wrong places. They are more focused upon themselves and the flesh rather than upon the kind worship that pleases God.
Some legalistic and biblically ignorant Christians may say that having drums in a Christian song or Praise and Worship band “feeds” the flesh. The following are a couple of quotes by Christians who have absolutely no clue about using drums in Christian music or what the Scripture say about it:
• “It is the beat which either appeals to the flesh (Rock, Blues) Soul (Classical) or Spirit (Christian).”
• “The lyrics are irrelevant, when the beat is fleshly.”
• “The lyrics are irrelevant, when the beat is fleshly.”
Just as the word “drum” is not found in the King James Version of the Holy Bible, you will not find the phrase “music feeds the flesh” and you will not find the word “feed, drum, beat or music” associated with the flesh.
The Bible says that there are “deeds” of the flesh but there is no mention of anything that “feeds” the flesh. These fleshly deeds are found in Galatians 5:19-23): • Immorality • Impurity • Sensuality • Idolatry • Sorcery • Enmities • Strife • Jealousy • Outbursts of anger • Disputes • Dissensions • Factions • Envying • Drunkenness • Carousing
I have heard that some Christians have even gone as far as to say that Christian music that includes drums, appeal to the flesh. In other words, it is “fleshly.” What does God’s Word have to say about what is “fleshly?”
• 2 Corinthians 1:12 - For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward (KJV).” • Colossians 2:18 – “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind (KJV).” • 1 Peter 2:11 – “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul (KJV).”
• Ezekiel 16:26 - You also committed harlotry with the Egyptians, your very fleshly neighbors, and increased your acts of harlotry to provoke Me to anger (NKJV). • Hebrews 7:16 - “…who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life (NKJV).” • Hebrews 9:10 – “…concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation (NKJV).”
• Ezekiel 16:26 - You also committed harlotry with the Egyptians, your very fleshly neighbors, and increased your acts of harlotry to provoke Me to anger (NKJV). • Hebrews 7:16 - “…who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life (NKJV).” • Hebrews 9:10 – “…concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation (NKJV).”
Summary:
1. fleshly wisdom 2. fleshly mind 3. fleshly lusts 4. fleshly neighbors 5. fleshly commandment 6. fleshly ordinances
There we have it; I didn’t see any mention of music, tempo, the “beat” or Rock music as being “fleshly.” As a matter of fact, there are no examples of music or drums “feeding” the flesh either.
As mentioned previously, I really don’t care where the supposed origin of drums came from; I am not using drums for that purpose. Just as God used a Roman cross to save us from our sins, Christian Contemporary Rock bands use drums to write music that glorifies God and it helps us to move into a heart of praise and worship.
Anyone who claims that Christian Rock music is “fleshly” because it includes drums or that Christian Rock music appeals to the flesh, it's only expressing their useless opinion! To do do this...is fleshly!
What really happens is that the music moves and carries us into a spirit or attitude of praise and worship. Thus, when this happens we are actually walking and living in the spirit and worshipping God in spirit (attitude) and truth (knowing Christ). Music being fleshly is not found in the Holy Scriptures and making the claim that Christian Rock music that includes drums is fleshly, is unbiblical and a lie. It is man’s opinions alone, nothing more. Do not fear man, but fear God.
What really happens is that the music moves and carries us into a spirit or attitude of praise and worship. Thus, when this happens we are actually walking and living in the spirit and worshipping God in spirit (attitude) and truth (knowing Christ). Music being fleshly is not found in the Holy Scriptures and making the claim that Christian Rock music that includes drums is fleshly, is unbiblical and a lie. It is man’s opinions alone, nothing more. Do not fear man, but fear God.
Nowadays, some Christians who are ignorant of music theory, biblical music history and what true worship is, would make the claim that Christian music should emphasize the melody, not the “beat.”
Does Christian music emphasize the melody if drums are involved? When you hear a Christian Contemporary/Rock song on the radio, do you remember what the drums did or what the melody is?
For example, when you hear the song “Jesus Saves” by Jeremy Camp, do you hear or remember “boom, pop, (rest) boom, pop, crash, (rest) boom, pop, (rest) boom, pop, crash?” Or, do you remember the chorus, “Sing it out, to let all the world know that Jesus saves. Raise a shout, to let all the world know, that Jesus saves?”
Do you know why you remember the chorus more than the drum beat or the words to the verses? First of all, most people aren’t professional drummers and second, it’s because the chorus is the melody! The melody is the focus in the song and that’s why the chorus is usually played louder than the verses, thus emphasizing the melody and not the “beat.” The drum beat is simply a rhythm that carries the song and keeps the tempo to get us to the melody. The melody is the focus; the “beat” is actually a “back-beat” that keeps the song moving in a forward direction, that always leads us back to the chorus.
One simple guideline for Christian music is that it’s okay to have drums.
Sins of Jeroboam & of the Church
These are the sins of Jeroboam
1. Changed who was worshiped Golden Calves 2. Changed where to worship Bethel and Dan 3. Priesthood Not Levites 4. Changed times Eighth month
These are the sins of the church
1. Changed who was worshiped Mary and saints 2. Changed where to worship Constantinople & Rome 3. Priesthood Select few only – not all of us being a Royal priesthood 4. Changed times Synchronized pagan holidays
TREE OF LIFE
According to Gen. ii. 9, there stood in the midst of the Garden of Eden a "tree of life," apparently by the side of the "tree of knowledge of good and evil." Although Gen. iii. 3 seems to presuppose but one tree there, Gen. iii. 22 asserts that, after the primitive pair had eaten of the tree of knowledge, they were expelled from Eden lest they should put forth their hands and take of the tree of life and live forever.
The view of the writer was that Eden contained a tree the magical power of the fruit of which conferred immortality upon him who partook of it, though Yhwh prohibited mortals from partaking of this fruit. Referred to in Proverbs. A tradition of this tree lingered long in Israel. In Prov. iii. 16-18 the poet says of wisdom,
"Length of days is in her right hand; . . . She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her," a passage which clearly alludes to the primitive conception of a life-prolonging tree. Again, Prov. xi. 30 reads, "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life"; and Prov. xiii. 12, "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick; but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life."
In Prov. xv. 4 it is said, "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life." In the last three references the thought may not be so literal as in the first, but the use of the tree of life in this gnomic poetry is evidence that the tradition lived. In Ezek. xlvii. 12 also there seems to be an allusion to the tree of life. In describing the river which would flow out from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea the prophet says, "And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth newfruit according to his months."
In the New Testament, where this passage is quoted (Rev. xxii. 2), the tree is described as the tree of life. In the extracanonical literature there are two or three additional references. The Ethiopic Book of Enoch (xxiv. 4) describes the tree of life as having "a fragrance beyond all fragrance; its leaves and bloom and wood wither not forever; its fruit is beautiful and resembles the dates of a palm."
The Slavonic Book of Enoch (viii. 3) says, "In the midst there is the tree of life . . . and this tree can not be described for its excellence and sweet odor." IV Esd. viii. 52, in describing the future, says, "Unto you is paradise opened, the tree of life is planted," etc. showed that in the original narrative of Gen. ii.-iii. there was but one tree. This, he thought, was the tree of knowledge, and he accordingly eliminated the tree of life.
Barton, however, has shown that in primitive Semitic life the especially sacred tree was the datepalm, and that, because of its bisexual nature and because of a belief that man came to self-realization through sexual relations, it was regarded as both the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. The differentiation which divided these functions between two trees came in at a later time, when knowledge of the origin had become in part obscured.
That this is the source of the idea of the tree of life among the Hebrews is rendered probable by the following considerations: (1) the Temple of Solomon, which was evidently intended to imitate a garden was carved with cherubim, palm-trees, and flowers (I Kings vi. 29-32); (2) a recollection of the real origin of the tree of life crops out in Ethiopic Enoch, xxiv. 4; (3) the tradition came to the Hebrews by way of Babylonia, and in Babylonia not only was the palm the sacred tree of a sacred garden, but in the literature its name is sometimes written with the determinative for deity.
For a similar Babylonian conception of a food of life see Paradise, Critical View. In Hebrew literature this idea first appears in its literal form in Genesis, is used as a literary metaphor in Proverbs, and in Ezekiel and the apocalypses becomes a part of the picture of the heavenly paradise.
The view of the writer was that Eden contained a tree the magical power of the fruit of which conferred immortality upon him who partook of it, though Yhwh prohibited mortals from partaking of this fruit. Referred to in Proverbs. A tradition of this tree lingered long in Israel. In Prov. iii. 16-18 the poet says of wisdom,
"Length of days is in her right hand; . . . She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her," a passage which clearly alludes to the primitive conception of a life-prolonging tree. Again, Prov. xi. 30 reads, "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life"; and Prov. xiii. 12, "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick; but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life."
In Prov. xv. 4 it is said, "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life." In the last three references the thought may not be so literal as in the first, but the use of the tree of life in this gnomic poetry is evidence that the tradition lived. In Ezek. xlvii. 12 also there seems to be an allusion to the tree of life. In describing the river which would flow out from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea the prophet says, "And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth newfruit according to his months."
In the New Testament, where this passage is quoted (Rev. xxii. 2), the tree is described as the tree of life. In the extracanonical literature there are two or three additional references. The Ethiopic Book of Enoch (xxiv. 4) describes the tree of life as having "a fragrance beyond all fragrance; its leaves and bloom and wood wither not forever; its fruit is beautiful and resembles the dates of a palm."
The Slavonic Book of Enoch (viii. 3) says, "In the midst there is the tree of life . . . and this tree can not be described for its excellence and sweet odor." IV Esd. viii. 52, in describing the future, says, "Unto you is paradise opened, the tree of life is planted," etc. showed that in the original narrative of Gen. ii.-iii. there was but one tree. This, he thought, was the tree of knowledge, and he accordingly eliminated the tree of life.
Barton, however, has shown that in primitive Semitic life the especially sacred tree was the datepalm, and that, because of its bisexual nature and because of a belief that man came to self-realization through sexual relations, it was regarded as both the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. The differentiation which divided these functions between two trees came in at a later time, when knowledge of the origin had become in part obscured.
That this is the source of the idea of the tree of life among the Hebrews is rendered probable by the following considerations: (1) the Temple of Solomon, which was evidently intended to imitate a garden was carved with cherubim, palm-trees, and flowers (I Kings vi. 29-32); (2) a recollection of the real origin of the tree of life crops out in Ethiopic Enoch, xxiv. 4; (3) the tradition came to the Hebrews by way of Babylonia, and in Babylonia not only was the palm the sacred tree of a sacred garden, but in the literature its name is sometimes written with the determinative for deity.
For a similar Babylonian conception of a food of life see Paradise, Critical View. In Hebrew literature this idea first appears in its literal form in Genesis, is used as a literary metaphor in Proverbs, and in Ezekiel and the apocalypses becomes a part of the picture of the heavenly paradise.
A Modern Day Miracle
Whether Chinese, Ethiopian, Indian, or European, all Israeli Jews are the Sons of Jacob.
With increasing numbers returning every year, today we are witnessing one of the greatest miracles of modern history: After more than 2000 years the Jews have returned to Israel. Never before in human history has a people been dispersed for centuries to the four corners of the earth, only to return to that same ancient homeland and re-establish an independent state. But, it is happening now.
Here in Israel, this return of the Jews is referred to as Aliyah, which literally means “to ascend.” For Jews around the world, returning to Zion is considered a spiritual ascension since it is the spiritual center for all Jews where the very presence of God dwells.
In biblical times, the ascension, or traveling to Jerusalem, was described as going “up to the Mountain of the Lord” (Is. 2:3). Psalms 120-134 are entitled The Songs of Ascension, or in Hebrew Shir Hama’a lot, and were sung when Jews made pilgrimage (or ascension) to Jerusalem three times each year during the high holidays.
WAVES OF ALIYAH
Today, Aliyah mainly refers to Jewish exiles returning to the Promised Land. The very first wave of modern day Aliyah was Russian Jews fleeing the pogroms of Czarist Russia at the end of the 19th century. Prior to 1948, a total of five waves of Aliyah brought Jews to Israel, the fifth and final wave was Jews from central Europe escaping Nazi persecution.
Only three years after WWII, on May 14, 1948, David Ben Gurion declared the state of Israel to be established, and literally overnight, Jews returning to Zion had a state of their own. As the Psalmist declared: “When the LORD brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream.… Then they said among the nations, ‘The LORD has done great things for them’” (Ps. 126:1-2). It was indeed like a dream. The people who just escaped the gas chambers of Nazi Germany now had a homeland.
Once the State of Israel was established, Jews continued to arrive. Between 1949 and 1950 almost the entire Yemenite Jewish community was airlifted out of Aden. This operation of over 380 flights of British and American transport planes was referred to as Knafei Nesharim, or “on eagles’ wings” referring to Isaiah 40:31: “But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles….”
Operations Ezra and Nehemiah in 1950-1951 airlifted some 125,000 Jews out of Iraq. The largest contingent, however, came from Morocco. By the mid-sixties, a massive influx of a quarter million Moroccan Jews returned to Israel, which today represents a strong cultural constituency within Israel.
Ethiopian Jews, who trace their ancestry back to the tribe of Dan, returned in two clandestine missions in 1984 (Operation Moses) and 1991 (Operation Solomon), and are still returning even today.
After 1989, when the Soviet Union’s iron curtain was torn down, more than a million Jews flooded into Israel from the “land of the North.” Many view this as a direct fulfillment of Isaiah 43:6: “I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ And to the south, ‘Do not keep them back!’ Bring My sons from afar, And My daughters from the ends of the earth….” the ICEJ continues to assist Aliyah from Russia, Ukraine, and other states.
As a result, modern day Israel is a fascinating mix of cultures. Once exiled to Europe, Africa, North and South America, China, India, and other nations around the world, Jews adopted many of the cultures and ethnic features of their home countries. Although Chinese, Ethiopian, Indian, or European in physical appearance, Israeli Jews are united by their common roots, which trace back to the twelve sons of Jacob. Every Passover they rekindle the hope of celebrating Passover “next year in Jerusalem,” and that one day they would return to Zion. The Israeli government estimates that today more than half of the world’s Jewish population lives in Israel and numbers continue to grow. In the last year alone, more than 30,000 Jews arrived in Israel.
AN OLD TRADITION
The vast majority of evangelical Christians today see this return of the Jews back to their promised land as proof of God’s covenantal faithfulness to Israel. This understanding is almost as old as the Reformation started under Luther and Calvin. Unfortunately, the early reformers believed God was finished with the Jews. “The Jews cut off from themselves all hope of restoration to the mercy of God,” wrote John Calvin in his commentary on Ezekiel.
But, as the Reformation reached England, and the Puritan movement emerged from it, this began to change. Through studying Scripture, some believers realized that God was not finished with the Jews, and His plan was clearly to restore them as a nation back to their homeland.
From the late 16th century onwards, countless books addressed the biblical restoration of the Jews, even inspiring the Pietist revival movements back on the European continent, like the Moravians under Count Zinzendorf. It became such a prominent theme that great preachers like Charles Spurgeon frequently referred to it. In 1855, for example, during a sermon in London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle, Spurgeon declared: “I believe in the restoration of the Jews to their own land in the last days. I am a firm believer in the gathering in of the Jews at a future time. Before Jesus Christ shall come upon this earth again, the Jews shall be permitted to go to their beloved Palestine.”
JESUS ON ALIYAH
The return of the Jews back to their homeland is deeply rooted in Scripture, and runs as a central theme through the Word of God. More than 70 passages promise their return to Eretz Israel (Land of Israel). Beginning with the Law of Moses (Deut. 30:1-10), it is referred to by almost every prophetic writer and was even part of Israel’s songbook, the book of Psalms. The hope that God would “return the captives of Israel” became a part of the liturgy of Israel’s worship. In Psalm 147 the Psalmist declares, “For it is good to sing praises to our God: For it is pleasant, and praise is beautiful.” and immediately explains why: “The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers together the outcast of Israel.”
Jesus himself referred to a dispersal of the Jews from Israel: that Jerusalem would become desolate for a season, “until the times of the gentiles are fulfilled” (Lk. 21:24), indicating a future return of the Jews and a rebuilding of Jerusalem. As Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives, he wept over Jerusalem and foresaw its destruction (Mt. 23:37-39; Lk. 19:41-44). At the same time, he also anticipated a restored Jewish city whose inhabitants would someday welcome him with a Jewish Old Testament greeting Baruch haba b’Shem Adonai (blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord). Baruch haba! (Blessed is he who comes) is even used in modern Hebrew to say “welcome.” So Jesus, who foresaw dispersion, clearly expected a Jewish presence at his return who would welcome him in Hebrew.
UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES
The prophets wrote the majority of the references regarding Israel’s return from exile. More than 50 prophetic passages refer to a return of the Jews from exile. Although many prophesies do refer to the Babylonian exile and return during the times of Cyrus, Nehemiah, and Ezra (539-440 BC), most of them saw the return from Babylon as a partial fulfillment of even greater events foretold by Scripture.
For example, the prophet Amos declares: “‘I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them,’ says the LORD your God” (Amos 9:15). Isaiah speaks to a restored Israel: “They shall inherit the land forever…” (Is. 60:21), and Jeremiah declares “…and I will bring them back to this land; I will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up” (Jer. 24:6). These prophets clearly saw a great and final return to their land after which the Lord would never exile them again. Obviously, this was not the case after the Babylonian return, since Israel was once again dispersed by the Romans 500 years later.
In addition to Israel’s ingathering being permanent, almost all the prophets understood it would be accompanied by a spiritual revival and even reformation for the entire nation, most clearly seen in Ezekiel. After declaring the Lord would take Israel from the nations and gather them “into your own land” (Ezek. 36:24), he then beautifully described Israel’s spiritual awakening: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you … I will give you a heart of flesh … I will pour my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes ... you shall be my people and I will be your God...” (vv. 25-31). (See also Is. 43-44; Jer. 31; Joel 3.)
Israel has not yet experienced a national, spiritual revival of this magnitude. After the return from Babylon, the prophets Zechariah, Malachi, and Haggai recognized this spiritual renewal of Israel had not yet taken place, but was still to come. The Apostle Paul understood that although only a remnant would be saved (Rom. 11:5) during his lifetime, he foresaw a future national revival when “all Israel shall be saved … and the Deliverer shall come out of Zion” (Rom. 11:26).
The prophets also saw a future messianic kingdom established with Israel (Jer. 23) living in perfect peace (Is. 32:17; Ezek. 38:8), and the nations coming to Jerusalem to worship the Lord (Is. 2:1ff, Zech. 14:16). All this and more still waits for its final fulfillment.
A CALL TO THE CHURCH
As the prophets foresaw this end time restoration of Israel, they also expected Gentile nations to play a central role. As the prophet Isaiah declared: “Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations, and set up My standard for the peoples; They shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders; …’” (Is. 49:22). The return of the Jews is a divine banner, a sign of God to all the nations (see also Is. 11:12) which the church cannot afford to ignore. God declares to us: “Get involved!”
Today, hundreds of thousands of Jews have returned to Israel with the help of Christians and churches worldwide. The ICEJ has been involved in bringing over 120,000 Jews back to Eretz Israel. It is one of the greatest privileges of the church today to be actively involved in this fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
One more thing: this is a message that needs to be preached from our pulpits. Jeremiah declares: "Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, And declare it in the isles afar off, and say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, And keep him as a shepherd does his flock’” (Jer. 31:10). The return of the Jews to Israel is a truth, which should be discussed often in every church and denomination today.
GET INVOLVED
Beta Israelite
The work of God in returning the Jews to Israel is still ongoing, especially in many countries of the former Soviet Union (e.g. Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Belarus), France and the Bnei Menashe from India. The Jewish Agency recently asked for our assistance with the final wave of Jews from Ethiopia.
One of our greatest privileges at ICEJ is to be actively involved in this prophetic work and I invite you to join us. All these projects are exciting opportunities to be part of what God is doing in Israel. Pastors, prayerfully consider joining us and have your congregation sponsor one or more Jews in their return to Israel. As God is faithful to his promises regarding his people Israel, I know He will be faithful to abundantly bless you in return.
Why Did the Messiah Curse the Figtree?
Yeshua's enigmatic cursing of the fig tree on the road from Bethany has baffled students of the Bible for centuries! WHY did the tree have leaves when it was "out of season" and not yet time for new growth? And why did the Messiah curse the fig tree when he FULLY REALIZED -- before he even approached it -- that it would have NO fruit? Read about the ORIGIN of the fig tree and the HIGH ESTEEM in which it was (and still is) held by some of the oldest civilizations on earth! Discover the mind-boggling SYMBOLISM that surrounds this tree, and WHY the fig tree is also representative of the Church of YEHOVAH God today! The WITHERING of that fig tree was an IMPORTANT HIGHLIGHT in the stream of events being fulfilled during our Savior's last days on planet earth before being crucified, and stoned, on the Mount of Olives -- probably within a very few yards of the fig tree itself!
In the 21st chapter of Matthew, we read of a very unusual event in the last days of our Savior's life here on this earth:
Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city [Jerusalem], he was hungry. Seeing a FIG TREE by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, "May you NEVER bear fruit again!" Immediately the tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?" they asked. Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain [Olivet], 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." -- Matthew 21:18-22.
Was this highly unusual occurrence just a lesson in faith, or was there more to it than that? And why did the Messiah pick a FIG TREE for this lesson? Before answering these questions, let's look at Mark's account of the event:
The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because IT WAS NOT THE SEASON FOR FIGS. Then he said to the tree, "May no one EVER eat fruit from you again." AND HIS DISCIPLES HEARD HIM SAY IT...In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree WITHERED from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!" "Have faith in God," Jesus answered. "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." -- Mark 11:12-14, 20-24.
In verse 14 Mark makes a POINT of explaining that the Messiah's disciples actually heard him curse the fig tree, the implication being that the Messiah did not necessarily intend for those with him to hear or understand what he was doing. When Peter brought the event to Yeshua's attention the next day, as they were passing by the scene, the Messiah gave an explanation that, in retrospect, could not have really satisfied the disciples. Why?
Christ the Great Shepherd & Great Light of the World
The cursing of this particular fig tree has baffled theologians down through the centuries. In fact, Mark even said that "it was not the season for figs" (verse 13). On top of that, we should realize that it was barely time for the tree to have leaves! This event occurred four days before the Messiah's crucifixion in the spring of 31 A.D. and, according to the Aid to Bible Understanding, "Along about February, the first fruit buds appear on the branches of the previous season and precede the leaves by about two months, SINCE THESE [THE LEAVES] DO NOT APPEAR UNTIL THE FINAL PART OF APRIL OR IN MAY."
A PUZZLING EVENT!
It has puzzled people for centuries why the Messiah was so upset with a fig tree that BY NATURE should not have had much in the way of leaves, and no figs! Notice what The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible has to say:
The most difficult passage to interpret is the story of Jesus' cursing the fig tree (Mark 11:13-14, 20-21; and its parallel in Matt. 21:18-21), which seems so OUT OF CHARACTER. Many explanations have been offered, but without any permanent solution. That it may have been a dramatic illustration of the parable in Luke 13:6-9, pointing to the tragic end of those who produce no fruit from their lives, seems possible. The absence of the early spring green figs (Song of S. 2:13), which normally precede the leaves and indicate that the tree would bear fruit that season may have been the basis of the story, though it WOULD NOT EXPLAIN THE IMPULSIVE ACTION OF JESUS. Perhaps the story was originally intended as an apocalyptic symbol. That the original context and meaning of the story HAVE BEEN OBSCURED OR LOST is clear. -- Abingdon Press, N.Y. & Nashville. 1962, p. 267.
A fig tree that failed to bear figs was cursed by Jesus (Matt. 21:18-19) PERHAPS as a metaphor for the destruction of the Temple that similarly failed to bear proper religious fruit. -- Edited by Paul J. Achtemeier. Harper & Row, San Francisco. 1985, p. 308.
The Interpreter's Bible, Volume VII, provides us with these additional thoughts:
The DIFFICULTIES of the story should be frankly faced. To propose that Jesus saw the tree was already diseased, and said so, DOES NO JUSTICE to the undeniable curse in vs. 19. It also OVERLOOKS the fact that men then believed that a righteous man's curse has POWER. To propose that Christ would blast a tree, but not a human life, is SIMPLY UNCONVINCING. Would Christ deal thus even with a tree, especially if - as Mark's Gospel says - it was NOT the season for fruit? It is better to ASSUME that this is a rewriting of the parable of the Jewish nation recorded in Luke 13:6-9. It is significant that Luke does not record this story except as a parable.
A tree, standing alone where all men could see it, having promise of fruit but no fruit -- a fitting symbol of Jewry in the time of Christ. -- Abingdon Cokesbury Press, N.Y. & Nashville. 1951, pp. 507-508.
James Hastings, in his Dictionary of the Bible, attempts to interpret Yeshua's actions that day on the road from Bethany:
When our Lord came to the fig tree near Bethany (Mk. 11:13), just before the passover, i.e. from late in March to the middle of April, "the time of figs was not yet," that is, the season for ripe figs had not come. Among the VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS of Christ's action which may be given, the only ones which seem to us worthy of consideration are the following:
(1) That being hungry, and seeing from a distance that the tree had leaves, and therefore was not dead, he came, not to find new figs, but to find and eat any figs of the last season which might have remained over on the tree. The expression "if haply he might find anything thereon" implies that he did NOT expect to find much. One or two figs will often stay an empty stomach marvelously. According to this OPINION, the offense of the fig tree was the fact of not having what must have been a very exceptional relic of a former harvest.
(2) That, finding leaves, he knew that there should be young fruit, and hoped that there might, even at that EARLY PERIOD, be "the first ripe figs," bikkurah. According to this interpretation, the fault of the fig tree was in not having a precocious fig or two before the time, "for the time of figs was not yet." We will not dispute the possibility of finding a winter fig or two on a tree (ALTHOUGH DURING A RESIDENCE OF THIRTY-THREE YEARS IN SYRIA WE HAVE SEARCHED AND INQUIRED IN VAIN FOR THEM), or of the exceptionally early maturing of some variety of figs, perhaps not now cultivated. Neither of these theories, however, ACCORDS WITH OUR CONCEPTION OF CHRIST'S JUSTICE. In neither case would the fig tree be blameworthy. We are not accountable for extraordinary attainments in religion.
(3) Christ was at the moment hungry. Orientals do not eat early in the morning. Laborers and artificers come fasting to their work, and often toil an hour or two before eating. So it is presumable that our Saviog, r, in his morning walk of two miles from Bethany to Jerus., had not broken his fast. The physical sensation of hunger as a basis gave direction to his thoughts, as he happened to see a most familiar spectacle, a fig tree, at a distance, with fresh, young foliage. The fact that it is mentioned that "the time of figs was not yet" (RV), WOULD SEEM TO PROVE THAT CHRIST WOULD NOT HAVE THOUGHT IT STRANGE HAD HE NOT FOUND WINTER FIGS OR PRECOCIOUS FIRST FRUITS. It is hardly conceivable that he could have condemned the tree for that. But, when he arrived, he found no fruit at all. Immediately the disappointment of unsatisfied hunger was lost in the moral lesson which flashed across his mind. A fig tree with leaves should have at least green fruit. This one had none. There was pretension, which, in the moral sphere, is hypocrisy. Having leaves and no fruit, it was a deceiver. The ripeness of the fruit is not the point. If it had unripe fruit, it would not have been condemned. It was condemned because it had nothing but leaves. -- Vol. II, 1958, page 5-6.
The bottom line here is CONFUSION! There are as many interpretations of this event as there are interpreters! All because they have not SOUGHT OUT the real significance, origin, and symbolism of the fig tree.
A MIRACLE WITH GREAT SYMBOLIC IMPORTANCE
Forgiven bowing to Jesus the Messiah
Looking at the cursing of the fig tree with an open mind, it is without a doubt that the whole event was a MIRACLE from start to finish. Why would the Messiah go to all this trouble with a nondescript fig tree growing alongside the road into Jerusalem? For the Messiah to go to all this trouble to produce a sign of this nature, there must have been some great, symbolic importance and meaning to it. If there was no symbolic importance to this event, then it simply makes NO SENSE at all and has no RELEVANCE to the last days of the Messiah on this earth! But it does, as we shall see, have GREAT symbolic importance in understanding the tremendous sacrifice of our Lord and Savior.
The fact that the fig tree had leaves was in itself a miracle bj, ecause leaves would not have naturally been on the fig tree for at least a month later. Also, there should not have been any figs on the tree. Since the tree was located on a main thoroughfare into Jerusalem and with the heavy population around the city at that Passover season, it is not to be imagined that Christ expected to find a few dried figs of last year's crop on the branches. The tree would surely have been stripped clean of its fruit. Christ MUST HAVE KNOWN that he would NOT find any figs on this unusual fig tree. The truth is, however, the lack of figs and the abundance of leaves were important FACTORS in a miraculous occurrence. In this scene we are provided with a most important symbolic teaching by Christ with his actions.
Since it is obvious that some great, symbolic importance IS attached to this unusual event, let us now examine the fig tree itself in greater detail, and see whether it also has any symbolic significance.
IDENTIFYING THE TREE!
The first mention of the fig tree, in the Bible, is found in Genesis 3:
And when the woman [Eve] saw that the tree [of the knowledge of good and evil] was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, AND A TREE TO BE DESIRED TO MAKE ONE WISE, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband [Adam] with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed FIG LEAVES together, and made themselves aprons. -- Verses 6-7.
Although the Genesis account does not DIRECTLY say that the fig tree is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it alludes to it by having Adam and Eve sew fig leaves together to hide their shame RIGHT AFTER describing the eating of the tree's fruit.
Harold N. Moldenke and Alma L. Moldenke, in their book Plants of the Bible, make this association:
While tradition usually holds that it was the "apple" (that is, apricot) which was the "tree of knowledge" in the garden of Eden, LEGENDS say that this mythical tree WAS THE FIG. The latter claim is doubtless based on the statement in Genesis that Adam and Eve took FIG LEAVES with which to clothe themselves IMMEDIATELY after eating of the forbidden fruit. -- Chronica Botanica Co., Waltham, Mass. 1952, page 105.
W. R. Paton suggests that the story of Adam and Eve and their aprons is reminiscent of an ancient custom of fertilizing fig trees BY A PAIR OF HUMAN SCAPEGOATS who, like the victims of the Thargelia, associated themselves WITH THE TREE by wearing its foliage or fruit (ibid, page 104 -- footnote).
Is this, then, a CORRECT association to make? Should we rightfully associate the sewing together of fig leaves with the eating of the fruit? Let's see what Jewish tradition has to say:
What was the tree of which Adam and Eve ate? Rabbi Yosi says: It was the FIG TREE...the FIG whereof he ate the fruit opened its doors and took him in (Midrash, Bereshith Raba, 15,7).
The FIG LEAF which brought remorse to the world (ibid., 19,11). We also find (Berahot 40a) the following: The tree of which the first man ate...Rabbi Nehemiah says: It was the FIG, the thing wherewith they were spoilt, yet were they redressed by it. As it is said: And they stitched a FIG-LEAF.
In the non-canonical Book of Adam and Eve, we find further confirmation of this viewpoint:
I sought a leaf to cover up my nakedness and found none, for, when I ate, the leaves withered off every tree in my plot except for the FIG, and from it I took leaves and it made me a girdle, EVEN FROM THE TREE OF WHICH I ATE. (20:5).
It is quite apparent, then, that the Jews consider the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to have been the FIG; but what about the traditions of OTHER nations or religions?
EVIDENCE FROM OTHER NATIONS
There is, it turns out, ABUNDANT EVIDENCE from many peoples of the Middle East and Asia to support this viewpoint. Notice, now, the traditions of India:
The tree more particularly revered by Buddhists is the Bo-tree, or Tree of Buddha. Often it is used as a symbol of Buddha. It belongs as close to Buddha as the Cross does to Jesus Christ. Legend states that Buddha attained his great ENLIGHTENMENT after six year's meditation under the Bo-tree. Bo is a contraction of Bodhi, WHICH MEANS WISDOM THROUGH A TREE. Here again we are confronted with THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. -- Tree Worship, by Charles Alldritt. Strong & Ready Ltd., Auckland. 1965, p. 60.
And what TYPE of tree was the Bo-tree? A book published by the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York answers:
Deciding that the answer was to be found in his [Buddha's] own consciousness, he sat in meditation under a PIPAL, OR INDIAN FIG TREE. Resisting attacks and temptations by the DEVIL MARA, he continued steadfast in his meditation...until he supposedly transcended all KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING and reached enlightenment. --Mankind's Search For God, 1990, p. 137.
The Encyclopedia Britannica (1943) confirms this:
The SACRED FIG, peepul or bo (F. religiosa), a large tree with heart-shaped, long-pointed leaves on slender footstalks, is much grown in southern Asia....in India it is chiefly planted with a religious object, being regarded as sacred by both Brahmans and Buddhists. A gigantic bo, growing near Anarajapoora, in Ceylon, is, if tradition may be trusted, one of the oldest trees in the world. It is said to have been a branch of the tree under which Gautama Buddha became ENDUED WITH HIS DIVINE POWERS, and has always been held in the greatest veneration.
The same encyclopedia, under the heading Bo-Tree or Bodhi-Tree, has this to say: "The name given by the Buddhists of India and Ceylon to the Pipal is SACRED WILD FIG (Ficus religiosa). It was a tree of this species beneath which the Buddha is traditionally supposed to have attained PERFECT KNOWLEDGE."
The identity of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is further proven by Alexander Porteous in his intriguing book, Forest Folklore, Mythology, and Romance:
In the town of Calicut, in Madras [India], there is a SACRED GROVE OF WILD FIG TREES, the scarlet berries of which were said to have been the CAUSE OF THE FALL OF MAN. The largest of these trees was surrounded by a wall or terrace, on which the SACRED SERPENTS (COBRAS) sunned themselves, and they reared their young in the recesses of the stately SACRED TREE.
How much PLAINER can that be?
The traditions of the Brahmas are very similar to those of the Buddhists. Notice the following quote from the same volume by Alexander Porteous:
The Pippala [FIG TREE] was one of those trees SACRED TO VISHNU, who is often depicted as sitting on its heart-shaped leaves [just like Buddha?]. He was born under one of these trees, and when Brahma APPOINTED RULERS OVER BEASTS, BIRDS, AND PLANTS [reminiscent of Adam in the Garden of Eden] the HOLY FIG TREE became the sovereign over all trees. A SILK-WORM, which feeds on its leaves, is called DEVA, OR DIVINE, AND SHARES IN THE SANCTITY OF THE TREE.
In the Upanishads -- part of the sacred writings of Hinduism -- we find the story of the two birds:
Two birds always united, OF THE SAME NAME, occupy the same TREE.
One of them enjoys the sweet FRUIT OF THE FIG, the other looks on as a witness. Living on the same tree, the DELUDED SOUL is grieved by the WANT OF POWER, and when it perceives the Ruler, and his glory, then its grief ceases. When the BEHOLDER sees the golden-colored maker, the Lord, the Soul, the source of Brahma, THEN HAVING BECOME WISE, shaking off virtue and vice, without taint of any kind, he obtains the highest identity. -- Mundaka Upanishad, III. 1,1-3.
If we examine the traditions of Iran or ancient Persia, we find very similar vestiges of the Garden of Eden scenario: "The legend concerning the birth and the first exploits of Mithra runs thus. He was BORN OF A ROCK [dust of the ground -- Adam] ON THE BANKS OF A RIVER under the shade of a SACRED FIG TREE...When he had clothed himself with the LEAVES OF THE FIG-TREE, DETACHING THE FRUIT [TO EAT?] and stripping the tree of its leaves by means of his knife, he undertook to subjugate the beings ALREADY CREATED in the world." (The Mythology of All Races, vol. VI., p. 287).
Charles Alldritt clarifies this Mithras legend:
Mithras was said to have been born of a rock, and gifts were brought to him by wise men and shepherds who had witnessed the miracle. But of course we must again HAVE OUR TREE [of the Knowledge of Good and Evil]; and the new born babe, to relieve cold and hunger WENT IMMEDIATELY TO A LARGE FIG TREE AND ATE THE FRUIT AND CLOTHED HIMSELF WITH FIG LEAVES. -- Tree Worship, page 60.
What about the ancient Egyptians? With one of the oldest civilizations this side of the flood, we should expect to find evidence of legends built up around the tree in the Garden of Eden. We are not disappointed! Returning to the work Forest Folklore, Mythology, and Romance, we find this evidence:
In the great hall of the temple at Heliopolis in Egypt there once stood a VERY ANCIENT SYCOMORE TREE OR SYCOMORE FIG (Ficus Sycomorus), of which it is said that THOTH AND THE GODDESS SEFCHET, "the lady of writing, the ruler of books," wrote the name of the Pharaoh on its leaves, and that the god Atum, following her example, "wrote the name on the NOBLE TREE with the writing of his own fingers."
And who was Thoth? None other than the Egyptian GOD OF WISDOM! Notice what J.E. Manchip White writes about this Thoth:
Thoth, the Greek Hermes [Cush]...was vizier and scribe of the gods and controller of the seasons, the moon and the stars. He invented hieroglyphic writing, mathematics, the keeping of accounts, languages, magic, the legal system and even the game of draughts. He was married to the heavenly librarian Seshat [Sefchet], who inscribed on the leaves of the Tree of Heaven [fig] the record of every man's life. -- Ancient Egypt: Its Culture and History, Dover Publications, N.Y. 1970, p. 24.
Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson underscores the importance of the FIG TREE to the ancient Egyptians:
Of FIGS and grapes they [the Egyptians] were particularly fond, which is shown by their CONSTANT introduction, even among the CHOICE OFFERING PRESENTED TO THE GODS; and figs of the sycamore must have been HIGHLY ESTEEMED, since they were selected as the HEAVENLY FRUIT, given by the goddess Netpe to those who were judged worthy of admission to the regions of eternal happiness.-- The Ancient Egyptians: Their Life and Customs, vol. 1, Crescent Books, N.Y. 1988, p. 181.
On page 259 of this same volume, the author reveals this incredible piece of information:
Of fruits, the SYCAMORE FIG, and grapes were the MOST ESTEEMED for the service of the altar. They were presented on baskets or trays, frequently covered with leaves to keep them fresh; and sometimes the FORMER [SYCAMORE FIGS] were represented placed in such a manner, on an open basket, AS TO RESEMBLE THE HIEROGLYPHIC SIGNIFYING "WIFE."
Isn't that amazing? Here we see the figs linked with "wife"ADAM'S "WIFE," EVE!!
It is interesting to note that in the Andaman Islands (lying between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea) the most dignified form of burial is on an elevated platform (much like some of the North American Indians) IN A FICU (FIG) TREE. These people also believed that if a baby dies, its soul returns to the tree (fig) from whence it originally came. Also, even to this day, in Palestine, the Sycamore Fig tree is believed to be inhabited by devils!
Now let's not leave ancient Rome out of the picture! In Latin myths the FIG TREE plays a very important role. Held sacred to Bacchus, it was employed in religious ceremonies; and the fig tree that OVERSHADOWED the twin founders of Rome -- Romulus and Remus -- in the wolf's cave, AS AN EMBLEM OF THE FUTURE PROSPERITY OF THE RACE, testified to the high value set upon the fruit by the nations of antiquity. In fact, the fig tree was so important to ancient Rome that the following incident was recorded by Alexander Porteous:
There was once a famous Fig tree in Rome which, so it was said, had sheltered the infants Romulus and Remus while they were being suckled by the wolf. The tree was thus known as the Ruminalis, or the RUMINAL FIG, and on one occasion, so tradition avers, when it began to show signs of decay, the UTMOST CONSTERNATION prevailed in the City of Rome at such an AWFUL OMEN. Fortunately, however, for the tranquillity of the inhabitants, the tree eventually put forth new shoots and regained its verdure. -- Forest Folklore, Mythology, and Romance, p. 227.
There is another intriguing legend out of the Middle East that narrates that "Eve, in absence of mind, carried away with her from Eden a BRANCH OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE, which she planted; while another tells that the Archangel Michael handed to Eve a branch bearing three leaves, detached from that tree, with instructions to plant it on the GRAVE OF ADAM. She did so, and it grew into a tree, which was REPLANTED AS AN ORNAMENTAL TREE BY KING SOLOMON IN THE TEMPLE..." And what was this tree? None other than the fig tree!! (Ibid., p. 211).
THE BIBLICAL EVIDENCE
Last, but certainly not least in authority, is the Bible! Notice, now, Jeremiah 24:
The Lord shewed me, and, behold, TWO BASKETS OF FIGS were set before the temple of the Lord, after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. ONE BASKET HAD VERY GOOD FIGS, even like the figs that are FIRST RIPE: and the other basket had VERY NAUGHTY [EVIL] FIGS, which could not be eaten, THEY WERE SO BAD. Then said the Lord unto me, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, FIGS; THE GOOD FIGS, VERY GOOD; AND THE EVIL, VERY EVIL, THAT CANNOT BE EATEN, THEY ARE SO EVIL. -- Verses 1-3, KJV.
Here we see the two baskets of figs, representing the two fig harvests, called GOOD AND EVIL, HENCE THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL! How plain and evident that is! Why have we not seen that before?
YEHOVAH God continues, in verse 8, "And as the EVIL FIGS, which cannot be eaten, THEY ARE SO EVIL; surely thus saith the Lord, So will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes...And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt..."
There it is, as PLAIN as daylight -- THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL IS NONE OTHER THAN THE FIG!
Now that we have clearly established the fig tree was indeed the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we can approach the question of the Messiah's enigmatic action in cursing the fig tree of Mark 11.
RESOLVING THE ENIGMA!
Recall that the next day after the Messiah cursed the fig tree alongside the road from Bethany, the disciples found it COMPLETELY WITHERED (Mark 11:20, 22; Matt.19:19, 20)! Now what was so significant about that? Since the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a fig tree, and this tree, when Adam And Eve first ate the fruit thereof, brought SIN AND DEATH to them (and, of course, in an extended sense to ALL of humanity), then this tree (of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) is NOW WITHERED AND DEAD, as pictured by the tree alongside the Jerusalem-Bethany road!!
According to Jewish tradition, the only tree under Adam's care in the Garden of Eden that did not shed its leaves after the progenitors of the human race partook of the fruit, WAS THE FIG TREE. It was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But with our Savior's miracle on the Mount of Olives during that last week of His life, it meant THAT THIS SYMBOLIC TREE WAS NOW WITHERED AND DEAD! Do you understand that? Let Ernest Martin explain:
It [the withered and dead fig tree] signified that NO LONGER would that symbolic tree be in the midst of humanity TO ENCOURAGE MANKIND TO SIN IN THE MANNER OF OUR FIRST PARENTS. But there is even more teaching. It meant that when Christ went to that miraculous tree looking for some figs to eat (like Eve did), CHRIST WOULD NOT FIND ANY WHATSOEVER! This signified that there was NOT going to be a REPETITION of what Eve (and later Adam) did in regard to the fig tree that they partook of. One fig tree [in the Garden of Eden] was the instrument to bring "sin" into the world, BUT THE SON OF GOD COULD NOT FIND ANY FIGS ON HIS FIG TREE (the miraculous tree on the Mount of Olives that was typical of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil). Christ cursed THAT symbolic tree at the top of Olivet SO THAT NO MAN WOULD EAT OF IT AGAIN. And to COMPLETE his victory over sin, four days later Christ was going to be SACRIFICED FOR THE SINS OF THE WORLD JUST A FEW YARDS AWAY FROM THIS WITHERED AND DEAD TREE. -- Secrets of Golgotha, p. 260
Isn't that awe-inspiring?
What the Messiah (the second Adam) was actually doing during the last week of his life on planet Earth was ACTING OUT A SYMBOLIC VICTORY over the very factors in the Garden of Eden around which Adam and Eve failed! Do you grasp that? The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was now WITHERED AND DEAD, and the TREE OF LIFE, a short distance away on the spot where Shem buried the skull of Adam (Golgotha -- Place of "THE" Skull), became the very tree on which the Messiah was put to death! THE TWO TREES -- THE FIG TREE ALONGSIDE THE ROAD AND THE TREE YESHUA DIED ON -- SYMBOLIZED THE TWO TREES IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN!!
THE FIG TREE AND THE CHURCH OF YEHOVAH GOD!
The symbolism doesn't end here! The FIG TREE also represents the Church of YEHOVAH God; and the lessons we have already learned can equally be applied to YEHOVAH's church in the last days! The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree, found in the thirteenth chapter of Luke, is a POWERFUL WARNING to a church NOT bearing fruit -- an apostate church that has left a state of much truth and plunged into a state of luke-warm theology and rampant compromise.
Leading up to this parable, Luke records the warning words of the Messiah, as he rails against a church blinded by lethargy and corruption.
That the Messiah is talking about the Laodicean Church of Revelation 3:14 is quite apparent in Luke 12:35-36: "Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and you yourselves be like men who WAIT FOR THEIR MASTER, when he will return from the wedding, that when HE COMES AND KNOCKS they may open to him immediately." This parallels Revelation 3:20: "Behold, I stand at the door and KNOCK. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me."
Yeshua then explains that he came to bring DIVISION to this earth: "Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, NOT AT ALL, but rather division. For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three. Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."
Why would "the Prince of Peace" bring division to a home and, in the greater sense, to his church? Because not everyone will accept the TRUTH of YEHOVAH God! Those of the "Laodicean" spirit will not accept "new truth" from YEHOVAH, nor accept His warning message without rancor. Some in the Church of YEHOVAH God become angry when the FACTS of their spiritual barrenness are laid out before them, and DIVISION ensues. The TRUTH of YEHOVAH God has always brought division, because it sorts out the men from the boys -- those who are luke-warm and compromising from those who have a burning desire to get as close to YEHOVAH God and His way of life as possible.
Further proof that the Messiah is talking about the Laodicean Church is found in the next verses from Luke 12: Then He also said to the multitudes, "When you see a cloud rising out of the west, immediately you say, 'A shower is coming'; and so it is. And when you see the south wind blow, you say, 'There will be hot weather'; and there is. HYPOCRITES! You can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it YOU DO NOT DISCERN THIS TIME? -- Verses 54-56.
How PERFECTLY this describes the Churches of YEHOVAH God today! The Worldwide Church of God, under the apostate leadership of Joseph Tkach, has derisively thrown prophecy out the window -- a full ONE THIRD of the Bible! They say the Messiah probably wont return for another twenty or thirty years, and that we should be more concerned with our "spiritual temperature" than excitedly anticipating and waiting for the return of our Lord and Savior --and "counting down" to that much prophesied event. No wonder they are BLIND to the correct day of Pentecost and the true Sabbath-day! This culmination to the Passover season was EXCITEDLY anticipated by the Jews -- to such an extent that they COUNTED THE DAYS and crossed them off as they passed -- until the "day of Lawgiving" was nigh. This takes devotion and spiritual ZEAL, something that the Worldwide Church of God and her sister congregations have lost.
The Messiah continues this condemnation by exhorting his people to REPENT -- repent or perish. "There were present at that season some who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Yeshua answered and said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you REPENT you will all likewise PERISH." Unless those of the LAODICEAN SPIRIT come to their senses and WAKE UP AND REPENT, they will certainly perish in the approaching great tribulation.
Now to the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree: He also spoke this parable: "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, 'Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?' But he answered and said to him, 'Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down. -- Luke 13:6-9.
The SPECIAL WARNING conveyed by this parable is obvious from the context. We have just seen the Messiah CORRECTING his church for not discerning the times, and warning his people that unless they repent they will perish. This parable offers not merely an exemplification of these predictions of the Messiah, but sets before us what underlies it -- THE CHURCH IN ITS RELATIONSHIP TO YEHOVAH GOD; the need of REPENTANCE; the church's DANGER; the nature of repentance and its URGENCY; the relationship of the Messiah to his church; the Gospel; and the FINAL JUDGMENT on those who refuse to repent.
As we read this parable we can see that the fig tree has been specially planted by the owner in his vineyard, which occupies the choicest of the land. Alfred Edersheim notes that this was not unusual:
Fig-trees, as well as palm and olive-trees, were regarded as SO VALUABLE [like the people of God], that to cut them down if they YIELDED EVEN A SMALL MEASURE OF FRUIT, was popularly deemed to deserve DEATH at the Hand of God. Ancient Jewish writings supply interesting particulars of this tree and its culture. According to Josephus, in favored localities the ripe fruit hung on the tree for ten months of the year, the two barren months being probably APRIL AND MAY, before the first of the THREE CROPS which it bore had ripened. The FIRST FIGS ripened towards the end of June, sometimes earlier. The SECOND, which are those now dried and exported, ripened in August; the THIRD, which were small and of comparatively little value, in September, and often hung all winter on the trees. A species (the Benoth Shuach) is mentioned, of which the fruit required THREE YEARS for ripening. The fig-tree was regarded as the MOST FRUITFUL of all trees [as the Church of God should be]. On account of its repeated crops, it was declared not subject to the ordinance which enjoined that fruit should be left in the corners for the poor. Its artificial inoculation was known. The practice mentioned in the Parable, of digging about the tree, and dunging it, is frequently mentioned in Rabbinic writings, and by the same designations. Curiously, Maimonides mentions THREE YEARS AS THE UTMOST LIMIT which a tree should bear fruit in the land of Israel. Lastly, as trees were regarded as by their roots undermining and deteriorating the land, a BARREN TREE would be of THREEFOLD DISADVANTAGE: it would yield no fruit; it would fill VALUABLE SPACE, which a fruit-bearer might occupy; and it would needlessly DETERIORATE THE LAND. Accordingly, while it was forbidden to destroy FRUIT-BEARING trees, it would, on the grounds above stated, be DUTY to cut down a 'barren' or 'empty' tree (Ilan seraq). --The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI. 1990, pp. 246-247 (B. II).
Jesus in Jerusalem
These informative particulars will help us to more FULLY understand the details of the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree. Allegorically speaking, the FIG TREE served as an emblem of YEHOVAH GOD'S CHURCH -- of the leaders and the church in general. The VINEYARD is, in the New testament, the symbol of the Kingdom of YEHOVAH God; and we thus see that YEHOVAH called His church as a nation -- a SPECIAL PEOPLE -- and planted it in the most FAVORED spot: as a fig tree in the vineyard of His own Kingdom. And He "[came] seeking fruit," as He had every right to do, "and [found] none." It was the third year that He had VAINLY looked for fruit, when He turned to the keeper of the vineyard -- the Messiah, to whom the vineyard [Kingdom of YEHOVAH God] is committed as its King -- with this direction: "Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?" Not only does this barren tree [Church of YEHOVAH God] occupy the best location, it also uses up [deteriorates] the ground -- when it should be bearing the BEST of fruit. Its THREE YEARS of barrenness has established its UTTERLY HOPELESS CHARACTER. Then we see the keeper of the vineyard [the Messiah], in his infinite compassion, plead for the fig tree [Church of YEHOVAH God] which he himself had planted and tended, that it should be spared "this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it."
This is parallel to the Messiah knocking on the door of the Laodicean Church with the hope that someone would open the door and let him in. "And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, AFTER THAT [at the return of the Messiah] you can cut it down." In the words of an author of the last century: "Between the tree and the axe nothing intervenes but the INTERCESSION of the Gardener [the Messiah], Who would make A LAST EFFORT, and even His petition applies only to a SHORT AND DEFINITE PERIOD, and, in case it pass WITHOUT RESULT [ no fruit of the spirit of YEHOVAH God], this petition itself merges in the proposal, "But if not, then CUT IT DOWN."
This warning should have us shaking in our very boots! YEHOVAH God's people must bear fruit and, if not, the future is a grim prospect indeed. It's time the LAODICEAN CHURCH woke up to their spiritual decadence and lethargy; its time the Worldwide Church of God, Church of God International, the so-called "Philadelphia" Church of God and all the little splinter groups came to their senses and HEEDED the warnings from YEHOVAH God! The Messiah is knocking on the door -- WAKE UP AND LET HIM IN, for your very existence is at stake!
The withering of the fig tree along the Bethany road can also be applied to the Church of YEHOVAH God. When the Messiah returns -- WHATEVER THE SEASON -- he expects to find fruit in his church; and if disappointed, he will have the tree [church] wither away to a state of utter uselessness. The very fact that the Messiah said "Let no fruit grow on you ever again" clearly implies that the fig tree ONCE HAD FRUIT! So, too, did the Laodicean Church! In the early years of Herbert Armstrong the church bore much fruit and had much truth; but in the declining years of its leader and, after his death, in the years of Joseph Tkach, the fruit of the fig tree has fallen to the ground and rotted; and the tree has become BARREN. WAKE UP AND DUNG YOURSELF BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!
THE TREES OF LIFE
The identification of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil has enabled us to draw back the veiling curtain that has obscured the TRUE understanding, and significance, of that baffling event that occurred on the road to Jerusalem just a few days before the the Messiah, the Lamb of YEHOVAH God, sacrificed himself for ALL humankind that ever lived! The cursing of the fig tree was a CRUCIAL HIGHLIGHT in the stream of events that had to occur as our Lord and Savior Yeshua the Messiah closed out the final chapter of his first presence on this earth.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is now withered and dead -- NO LONGER WILL MANKIND PARTAKE OF THIS TREE AND HAVE TO SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS WITHOUT HOPE OF FORGIVENESS AND RESTORATION UPON REPENTANCE AND ADHERENCE TO THE LAWS OF OUR GRACIOUS GOD!
When YEHOVAH God returns to the Mount of Olives and enters the Temple through the eastern gate, a river will flow out from the Temple to the Dead Sea. Along the banks of this river will grow trees just like those to be in the New Jerusalem:
Then the angel showed me the RIVER OF LIFE, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the TREE[S] OF LIFE bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its [their] fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree[s] are for the HEALING OF THE NATIONS. NO LONGER WILL THERE BE ANY CURSE. -- Rev. 22:1-3.
In a direct reference to the WITHERING of the fig tree, we find this in Ezekiel 47: Along the banks of the river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of trees [of life] used for food; THEIR LEAVES WILL NOT WITHER, AND THEIR FRUIT WILL NOT FAIL. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for HEALING. -- Verse 12.
The symbol of the Church of YEHOVAH God will now be the ALMOND TREE -- the tree of life --and YEHOVAH's ecclesia will be nourished by the spirit of YEHOVAH God and will continually BEAR FRUIT in ALL seasons; and YEHOVAH's people will heal the nations. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil [the fig tree] is now WITHERED AND DEAD. No longer will this tree be in the midst of humanity to encourage mankind to sin in the manner of Adam and Eve. No longer will good and evil be in YEHOVAH God's ecclesia. The Tree of Life will then nourish and heal the nations -- the very tree that the Messiah was sacrificed on!
How breathtaking is the truth of YEHOVAH God when "rightly divided" and understood! How mind-boggling is the plan of YEHOVAH God in all its intricacies and details! Thank the Eternal God for His infinite mercy in revealing these truths to us.
Will There Be Drums in Heaven?
There are plenty of musical instruments mentioned in the Bible—just have a look at Daniel 3:5, for example. But honest-to-goodness drums don’t seem to number among them. I was alerted to this when checking the Kasem (northern Ghana) translation of Daniel, where the translator had decided to draw on the wealth of Kasem words for different types of drum in order to arrive at a list of instruments as impressive as that in the original Hebrew text. Having determined that drums appeared to be without mention in Scripture, I decided that substituting drums as a cultural equivalent in the translation was not a good choice.
There is however one possible exception to all this—the Hebrew word tōp. In nearly all versions this is translated as tambourine or timbrel in its 17 occurrences. CEV (Contemporary English Version) translates it as small drum just once, in 1 Samuel 10:5, and GNB (Good News Bible) also translates it as drum here, and in 6 other places. Both these versions use tambourine in all the remaining occurrences of tōp, so it would be interesting to know why they chose to use drum in just these few specific verses.
In any case, even if tōp could be classified as a type of drum, it is a small, hand-held percussion instrument, tapped rather than thumped. In fact, it seems to be one of the few percussion instruments of any kind mentioned in the Bible. Psalm 150 mentions cymbals of two types (v.5), as well as including one of the occurrences of tōp (v.4). The most complete collection of percussion instruments comes in 2 Samuel 6:5, adding rattles/ castanets/ sistrums to the tambourines and cymbals. All in all, we are left with 17 references to tambourines, 3 to cymbals (2 of these in Psalm 150:5) and 1 to rattles.
So, will there be drums in heaven? Taken overall, Scripture seems to favor stringed instruments (harps, lyres), trumpets and woodwind (flutes) over any kind of percussion. This is even more pronounced in the New Testament, where a single mention of cymbals (1 Corinthians 13:1) is used to represent abrasive noise. In Revelation, where we might expect to get a glimpse of heavenly music, harps are definitely in vogue. Harps seem to represent peace and harmony, whereas flutes relate more to merriment, and trumpets to warnings and announcements.
I suspect heaven will be quite a noisy place (see, for example, Revelation 14:2 and 15: 2-4), but we won’t be putting our fingers in our ears, rather joining in, together with people of every nation, tribe, people and language.
Antisemitism in the Soviet Union & Post Soviet States
I was born in the eastern part of Ukraine in 1994. Although the Soviet Union had just collapsed, the pressure and influence from Russia still existed and the attitudes towards Jews remained the same as they were during the days of Communism. So if you had an opportunity to keep the fact that you were Jewish a secret, you’d better do it. There were all kinds of terrible attitudes. One was that if there were no water in a building, people would say that, “the Jews must have drunk it all.” My mother said that all her life, she did her best to hide this attitude of the world around her from her children.
My father is Jewish and it is written in all his family documents. My mother’s side is more complicated. If you were to ask my grandmother about her roots it’s almost the last topic she would like to discuss. A few months ago when I visited her, I overheard my grandfather angrily saying to my grandmother, “How in the world did it happen that I married a Jewish woman?”
To understand the problem, you would need to live in my country. Religion was prohibited, churches and synagogues were destroyed, priests were killed. My mother told me that when she was a little girl there was an obligatory lesson in school called “atheism.” After World War II, people were forced to hide their religion and never to speak about it. The result was that their children, who were born in the middle of the 20th century, mostly didn’t believe in God and under the pressure of propaganda didn’t even try to learn more. So, if there were problems for Christians, you can’t even imagine how it was for the Jewish people. A Jewish man would never receive the highest position in an organization. There was an almost official policy of “No Jew in the director’s chair.” My father experienced this all his life.
My father is a very talented engineer, a brilliant manager and leader. But he never received a position from the government in any of the leading factories. He was, however, once given a “dying” factory. The authorities didn’t have any choice because the previous director had made the bad situation that already existed in the factory even more catastrophic. They had to hire a new director and there were no better candidates to do it than my dad, even though he was Jewish. No one expected big changes. The factory had never been profitable. So imagine how surprised they were when, after two months, the factory had not only cut out all waste, but for the first time showed a profit!
All started from my grandfather – he changed his name as an adult from Moses to Michael. When I was born, my father didn’t give me his surname. He was afraid that all these horrible things that were following him and his family all their lives would happen to me as well. The attitude from my parents was: “Never talk about your roots, never discuss it. The best thing you can do is to be silent. Silence is golden.” But I wasn’t comfortable with this. I couldn’t understand it. One time, when I was in the first grade, all the children were talking about themselves, who they are, who are their parents, what do they want to do in their lives. When it was my turn, I stood up proudly and in a loud voice informed everyone that I’m a Jew.
It wasn't well received. My teacher decided to call my parents, to tell them what happened and to ask them to make me think about my behavior and to teach me never to say those words again. That was the first time I met anti-Semitism in my life. I was only six-years-old. The truth is, I didn’t really know what it meant to be a Jew back then. I loved and respected my father so much that I wanted to be like him. But, still, this happened in a free country, in the 21st century.
I didn’t speak out again for many years. I really internalized that lesson, not to speak about being Jewish again. But in Ukraine, when you turn 16, it’s time to receive your own passport. And in your passport, you can choose to use either your father’s or your mother’s surname. You can change it without any complications. I realized that I wanted to become Schwartzman, my father’s surname. I asked my mother if I could do this and she agreed. My father found the question so “abnormal” that he didn’t even take it seriously. But I did it. I changed my surname and I felt like the thing that should have been fixed a long time ago was finally done. I hope that my father, somewhere in his heart, is proud. But I know that he will never openly say that to me because he always wants to protect me.
Ny new surname caused me some problems. I had one more year left in high school in Ukraine, and there were so many questions from the students and from the teachers. I didn’t like it, but I felt like this was none of their business so I tried not to care too much. The next year, I left to study in Poland.
I saw an advertisement on TV that said you could come to study IT (Information Technology) for free in the European Union. There is a lack of IT specialists in Europe, so a special grant was established.
You needed to pass your exams back home with high marks and receive certain specializations. I had done both. I received the grant and was told I could start studying in Krakow in the coming two months. My parents were in favor. They felt that a Ukrainian diploma would only be accredited in Ukraine and Russia, but a European degree would allow me to work all over the world. In the worst-case scenario, if there was a war in Ukraine, I could go to another country to work and be safe. That sounded like a joke, but after I was living for two years in Poland, that worst-case scenario became true and I knew I’d made the right choice.
You needed to pass your exams back home with high marks and receive certain specializations. I had done both. I received the grant and was told I could start studying in Krakow in the coming two months. My parents were in favor. They felt that a Ukrainian diploma would only be accredited in Ukraine and Russia, but a European degree would allow me to work all over the world. In the worst-case scenario, if there was a war in Ukraine, I could go to another country to work and be safe. That sounded like a joke, but after I was living for two years in Poland, that worst-case scenario became true and I knew I’d made the right choice.
I’ve already received my first degree in IT and now I’m in my last year of my master’s degree, writing my thesis in business administration. I still hope that the war will stop and I will be able to return to Ukraine to help my parents in their businesses.
Mostly I’m studying, but if my schedule allows, I try to work. Last year, I was the assistant producer for a Ukrainian television travel show, which came to Krakow to film an episode. During the summer, I volunteered in the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival.
I didn’t get involved in Jewish activities in Poland immediately. After all the pressure in Ukraine, I didn’t even think about it. It was always such a taboo topic at home. My father used to go to a synagogue in Ukraine. When I asked to go with him, or to sign me up for classes in Judaism, he always rejected the idea. After a while, I just got used to it. After four years of living here, I decided to stay in Poland, and not return to Ukraine for the summer. That’s when I got involved in the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival. I hoped that it might bring me closer to this “mysterious Jewish world” from which I had been ”protected.” During the preparation for the festival, we had a lecture at the Jewish Community Center about the Jewish people from Rabbi Avi Baumol [Shavei Israel’s emissary to Krakow]. He briefly explained everything we need to be aware of to be helpful during the festival. Most of the volunteers are not Jewish, but Rabbi Baumol mentioned that if there was anyone here who has Jewish roots and who is interested in becoming a part of the community and learning more, they may join the JCC.
That was the turning point. I spent that entire evening preparing my documents and already the next morning I asked to become a member. It’s been six months now. I’m a shy person, so becoming a part of something absolutely new and huge was a very stressful experience. But I was met with such kindness and friendliness, I forgot all about the stress in a moment. After the four lonely years I had spent in Krakow without my family, I felt that in the end I found a new one. I never thought that my life could be so colorful and interesting!
Every week there are Shabbat dinners, student events and Hebrew classes. These activities, which take place almost every day, gave me an understanding of what it means to be a part of community; that there is a place and a people that I want to see every day. And one more thing that’s very important: Studying. First, I was just quietly listening to the stories Rabbi Baumol would tell during Shabbat dinner. Then one day I asked my friends in Krakow to take me to synagogue with them. Now I’m trying to participate in all of the rabbi’s classes, which take place at least four times a week. I feel that I have found a place and a person who can teach me everything I need to know.
The deaths of the apostles, i.e. disciples, represented in chapter eleven of Zechariah, as the 'mighty cedars' and the shepherds.
1. Jesus crucified at the hand of Romans after the betrayal of Judas.
2. John the Baptist was beheaded.
3. Peter, the son of John, crucified head downward by the Romans.
4. James, who was known as the brother of Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, the author of the Epistle of James, known as James the Just, not an apostle but an evangelist. The Jews stoned James, but this was stopped and to finish the task of killing him he was further struck with a club until he died.
5. Matthew [who was called Levi, was an apostle - killed by a spear.
6. Paul [formerly called Saul, an Apostle outside of the number of twelve, was from the tribe of
Benjamin. Paul was beheaded at Rome by the Romans.
7. Luke, an apostle, physician and an evangelist. Luke was crucified on an olive-tree.
8. Mark the disciple, and interpreter of Peter, was dragged throughout the city of Alexandria for two days and then burned to death. This was a brutally bloody ordeal – a most horrifying death.
9. John the apostle, the son of Zebedee, a cousin of Jesus, and a brother of James the elder. It is said
that John died of old age.
10. James, the son of Zebedee, the apostle and brother of John, known as James the elder, a cousin of
Jesus. James was killed by the sword of Herod.
11. Andrew, an apostle and brother to Peter, he preached to the Scythians, Sogdians, Sacae, and the city which is called Sebastopolis. Andrew was crucified by Aegeas, on a cross that resembled an X rather than a T - i.e. St. Andrew's Cross.
12. Thomas, an apostle, was killed in Calamina, a city of India, by a dart.
13. James, the son of Alphaeus, an apostle and brother to Matthew, and brother to Thaddæus, was also known as James the lesser. James was stoned to death near the Temple in Jerusalem.
14. Simon Zelotes, an apostle, was crucified.
15. Philip, an apostle, was stoned and crucified head down in Hierapolis, a city of Phrygia.
16. Judas Iscariot, an apostle, died by his own hand – suicide.
17. Matthias an apostle. After he had preached to the Jews, Matthias was stoned and beheaded.
18. Bartholomew, son of Thalmai, was an apostle, aka as Nathanael, was beaten down with staves then crucified and beheaded.
19. Thaddaeus also known as Jude and Lebbaeus, an apostle, and brother of James the lesser and Matthew. Thaddaeus was killed under Abgarus, king of the Edessenes, in Berytus.
20. Jude an evangelist and author of the Epistle of Jude, brother of Jesus, and brother of James, the Just, who was the bishop of Jerusalem, he died by unknown means.
Pagan Yahwism: the Folk Religion of Ancient Israel
The Bible imagines the religion of ancient Israel as purely monotheistic. And doubtless there were Israelites, particularly those associated with the Jerusalem Temple, who were strict monotheists. But the archaeological evidence (and the Bible, too, if you read it closely enough) suggests that the monotheism of many Israelites was far from pure. For them, Yahweh (the name of the Israelite god) was not the only divinity. Some Israelites believed that Yahweh had a female consort. And many Israelites invoked the divinity with the help of images, particularly figurines. I call this Israelite religion pagan Yahwism.
The archaeological evidence we will look at comes mostly from Judah in what is known in archaeological terms as the Assyrian period, the span from 721 B.C.E., when the Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, until 586 B.C.E., when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple and brought an end to the Davidic dynasty in Judah. This period, to put it into perspective, is several centuries after King Solomon built the Jerusalem Temple in about 950 B.C.E. So the archaeological evidence we are about to discuss documents a level of Israelite paganism long after Solomon built an exclusive home for Israel’s god.
While Yahweh was the god of the Israelites, other nations had their own national gods. The chief god of the Phoenicians was Ba‘al. For the Philistines, the chief god was at first Dagon and later also Ba‘al (Judges 16:23; 2 Kings 1:2). For the Ammonites it was Milkom. For the Moabites, Chemosh. For the Edomites, Qos. And for the Israelites and Judahites —Yahweh. Except for the Edomite god Qos, who appears only in the archaeological record, all of these gods are mentioned in the Bible (1 Kings 11:5, 7, 33).
Interestingly, while each nation’s chief god had a distinctive name, his consort, the chief female deity, had the same name in all these cultures: Asherah or its variants Ashtoreth or Astarte. (As we shall see, this was even true of Yahweh’s consort.)
Not only was the female consort the same, the various nations used the same cult objects, the same types of incense altars made of stone and clay, the same bronze and clay censers, cult stands and incense burners, the same chalices and goblets and the same bronze and ivory rods adorned with pomegranates. It was easy to take cult vessels of one deity and place them in the service of another one—and this was commonly done. For example, in the ninth-century B.C.E. stela erected by Mesha, the king of Moab, he describes himself as the “son of Chemosh,” and tells how he defeated the Israelites (see also 2 Kings 3:4–27). He then brags, “[I] took t[he ves]sels of Yahweh, and I hauled them before the face of Chemosh.”
We sometimes get the impression that after Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, Yahweh had no other sanctuary in ancient Israel—but this is not the case. The religious reforms of, first, King Hezekiah in the late eighth century B.C.E. (2 Kings 18:1–8; 2 Chronicles 29–31), and then of King Josiah, in the late seventh century B.C.E. (2 Chronicles 34–35), sought to centralize the worship of Yahweh in Jerusalem. The need for these reforms demonstrates, however, that Yahweh worship was by no means confined to Jerusalem.
The Bible itself mentions sanctuaries at sites such as Dan, Shechem, Shiloh, Bethel and Beersheba, and archaeology confirms that there were numerous other sanctuaries outside Jerusalem dedicated to the Israelite national god. A cultic installation dedicated to Yahweh must have existed at Judahite Nebo in Moab during the ninth century B.C.E.: In his stela, Mesha claims to have taken from Nebo the vessels of Yahweh that he later used in a sanctuary dedicated to the Moabite god Chemosh.
A complete Judahite sanctuary has been uncovered in the fortress of Arad in southern Judah. Despite scholarly disputes as to precisely when it was built and when it was destroyed, it is clear that the Arad sanctuary was in service simultaneously with the Jerusalem Temple and was probably in use during most of the monarchy. It consisted of three parts—a courtyard, a heikhal, or main hall, and a debir, or holy of holies, which was ascended by three steps. In the debir was a massebah, or standing stone.
Two additional masseboth were embedded in the wall of the holy of holies. On the third step two limestone incense altars were found, with remains of burnt material on top, probably incense. In the temple courtyard stood a large animal altar. Other cult centers have been uncovered in Israelite Megiddo and Judahite Lachish, both dating to the tenth century B.C.E.
Two additional masseboth were embedded in the wall of the holy of holies. On the third step two limestone incense altars were found, with remains of burnt material on top, probably incense. In the temple courtyard stood a large animal altar. Other cult centers have been uncovered in Israelite Megiddo and Judahite Lachish, both dating to the tenth century B.C.E.
Cult installations have also been excavated in several Israelite and Judahite fortresses. One—at Vered-Jericho—was reported in these pages some time ago. The excavator, Avi Eitan, interpreted the installation as a bamah, or high place.
More recently, Itzhaq Beit-Arieh reported on cult platforms ascended by steps, found adjacent to the gates of two fortresses near Arad, ‘Uza and Radum.
In addition, a large four-horned altar and a bamah were excavated at Beersheba. Stone stairs at the fortress of Mes\ad-Michmash, on Judah’s northern border, have been interpreted as leading up to a bamah.
Inscriptions also confirm the existence of cultic installations dedicated to Yahweh, some even outside the country. At the cult site of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, in the Sinai, inscriptions were found that mention “Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah” and “Yahweh of Teman” and his Asherah.
The houses of Yahweh, like the Jerusalem Temple, were served for the most part by hereditary priests. Several seals contain names designated with the title cohen, priest. One recently published seal refers to “Hanan son of Hilqiyahu the priest”. The ending -yahu is a form of Yahweh. Another seal, dating to the last days of the northern kingdom (late eighth century B.C.E.), mentions an Israelite priest active in the temple at Dor: “Zekharyo [-yo is a shortened form of Yahweh] the priest of Dor.” Similarly, the prophet Amos reports that “Amazyah [-yah is another form of Yahweh] the priest of Bethel” sent a message to King Jeroboam of Israel (Amos 7:10).
The Yahwistic names just mentioned incorporate the name of the Israelite god. In Judah, names had -yahu as a suffix. In Israel, it tended to be simply -yah or -yo. The theophoric element could also appear at the beginning of a name, as in Yo-natan (Jonathan). Evidence of Yahweh worship comes from the prevalence of Yahwistic names. Approximately 1,200 personal names have turned up in archaeological excavations in Judah—on seals, bullae (lumps of clay impressed by a seal) and ostraca. Over 45 percent of them contain a Yahwistic element. And although a more general name for god is ‘el (Israel and Nathaniel), only 3 percent of the 1,200 names contained this theophoric element. Other gods were incorporated into Judahite names even less frequently.
The prevalence of Yahweh worship is also reflected in the frequency with which his name is invoked—for instance in the ostraca found at such Judahite sites as Arad and Lachish. His name appears in numerous oaths and blessings: “I have blessed you to Yahweh”; “May Yahweh let hear my lord tidings of peace”; “May Yahweh bless you in peace”; “May Yahweh give my lord pleasant tidings”; “May Yahweh give you prosperous tidings,” and the like. All this reflects the widespread devotion to Yahweh among the Judahite population.
Yet was it pure? Or did elements of the population mix their Yahwism with paganism?
I have already mentioned the inscriptions from the Israelite sanctuary at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud in the Sinai, dating to the late ninth or early eighth century B.C.E., that refer to Yahweh “and his Asherah.” This site of course is outside the borders of Judah. But a reference to the divine couple has also been found at the site of Khirbet el-Kom, in the heart of Judah (near Hebron). A tomb inscription there reads: “Blessed will be Ariyahu to Yahweh and his Asherah.”
Like their neighbors, Israelites and Judahites widely used figurines to represent aspects of divinity. But it is rather surprising that so many figurines peculiar only to Judah are found within the borders of this supposedly monotheistic (but not to say imageless) kingdom.
Like the figurines in the surrounding cultures, the Judahite examples are mostly female and about 5 to 6 inches high. They belong to the type known as “pillar” figurines. The head is made separately, from a mold. The body is usually solid and handmade, in the shape of a small column, to which are added exaggerated breasts supported by the statuette’s hands. Scholars usually identify these figurines as Astarte, the fertility goddess.
Another common variation involves a handmade head with a kind of pinched face. These are often called “bird’s-head” figurines.
Sometimes the goddess is playing a tambourine or holding a dove—a traditional emblem of goddesses in all periods throughout the ancient Near East. A few figurines, made in the Phoenician tradition, have a hollow, round body—a bell-shaped body, in scholarly jargon. Even rarer, but occasionally found, are figurines in the form of a plaque, flat on the back and impressed from a mold on the front.
The Judahite figurines were originally painted in strong colors such as white, black and red, but the paint has survived on only a few. Eyes and hair were made especially prominent, and occasionally a necklace was added.
Another surprising fact: Although these figurines have been found all over Judah, about half (405 out of 822, to be exact) were found in Jerusalem, many only a short distance from the Temple Mount.
The first type is by far the most common. Some scholars connect these figurines with the cult of sun chariots mentioned in the Bible (2 Kings 23:11); according to others, they represent a warrior god. The latter seems more likely: A warrior god appears in the cults of all of Judah’s neighbors, and Yahweh himself is pictured as a warrior in the Bible (for example, in Isaiah 13:4: “The Lord of Hosts is mustering a host for war”).
The turban-crowned figurines seem to be wearing an authentic turban; the turbans are very similar to those depicted on the Israelites going into exile on the reliefs at Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh.
These male figurines could represent some foreign deity—perhaps the Phoenician god Ba‘al, who was worshiped in Judah alongside Yahweh. Or they may represent Yahweh himself, who would be joined by his consort Astarte or Asherah (the female figurines). In either case, there can be no question but that these figurines are Judahite.
We are thus led to the inevitable conclusion that between the foreign pagan practices and the pure monotheism of Yahwism there existed a cult that may be called pagan Yahwism or perhaps more accurately, Yahwistic paganism. Of course in the background was the central monotheistic cult practiced in the Jerusalem Temple by its priests and preached by the Biblical prophets. And some of the kings of Judah—especially Hezekiah and Josiah—made efforts to centralize the monotheistic cult in Jerusalem. But looking at the archaeological evidence, we must conclude that they were less than 100 percent successful. Indeed, until the Babylonian destruction of Judah and the end of the Israelite monarchy in 586 B.C.E., pagan Yahwism was common even in Jerusalem, to say nothing of the rest of Judah.
Coda: We have almost no evidence of cultic practices of any kind from the period between the Babylonian destruction and the return of the exiles under Cyrus, king of Persia, in the late sixth century B.C.E. This situation changes in the Persian period with the return of the exiles. Once again figurines are found in the area of what was Judah, but now the area was divided among the Idumeans (descendants of the Edomites) and the Judeans or Jews (descendants of the Judahites). The Galilee was inhabited mostly by the Phoenicians. In the post-Exilic period the figurines are found only in areas inhabited by Idumeans and Phoenicians. In the areas of the country occupied by Jews, not a single cultic figurine has ever been found despite intensive excavations and archaeological surveys of these areas.
The situation is much the same with respect to post-Exilic sanctuaries: Many have been found in non-Jewish areas, but none in Jewish areas. The only exceptions are the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the Samaritan temple on their holy mountain, Mt. Gerizim in Samaria. Upon the return from exile, the Jews purified their worship. Jewish monotheism was at last consolidated.
Lost Ex-Jewish Americans
How Many Gentile Descendants of Jews in the USA are there?
We do not really know how many non-Jewish citizens of the USA descend from Jews. I have heard all kinds of estimations. A large number of Jews migrated to America. Many assimilated. Their descendants in many cases may now be found amongst the Gentile population. It is not easy to be Jewish. The Jewish Religion is demanding. One can only eat certain foods, work on certain days, and have sex with one's wife on only part of the month. For those who keep the Jewish Religion the difficulties are worth it. The Almighty gives HIS own reward. After leaving the religion it can be difficult to remain Jewish. Jews suffer from discrimination. If one lives with other Jews then the dislike of non-Jews may conceivably be lived with.
Otherwise the tendency would naturally be to hide one's origins. Not only Jews do this. Numerous Germans in the USA reportedly claimed to be Dutch or Irish. It is difficult to estimate how many Gentile Americans are of Jewish descent. All kinds of unknown factors are involved. Did they have large families or did they tend to have few or none children? Families and whole peoples do tend to die out and disappear. On the other hand, other once insignificant groups may suddenly increase and multiply and leap to the foreground. Jews are bound by the Covenant. Once the Covenant is left does the Almighty punish them with demographic obliteration? Or maybe not?
Anyway this is a question that arises.
We consider the USA to be dominated by Manasseh but to include very very many from Ephraim as well as from all the other Tribes. Hosea 2:14 and Ezekiel 20:35 speak of Israel being brought into the Wilderness in the End Times or in the Period leading up to them. The Wilderness is the place where the Almighty will renew HIS COVENANT with the Israelites. North America may be this Wilderness.
The USA today encompasses approximately almost 42.5% of the Jews in the world, and about half of the non-Jewish Israelites. Throughout the centuries the Jews of Europe were persecuted. They suffered from persecution, discrimination, forced conversion to Christian, kidnapping of women and children, and so on. It stands to reason that many Jews were lost amongst the Gentiles. Did many of these Gentiles of Jewish descent eventually find their way to the USA? This is not an empty question. The migrants from Europe to North America were often different from those who stayed behind. Studies have been done this. Even physical differences have been noticed. Certain family names have almost disappeared from Europe but are now common in America. We understand that concerning the immigration from Germany to the USA in the 1700s and 1800s that these were descendants of Israelites. Those who remained in Germany, on the whole, were not Israelites.
What applies to German and other Immigration to the USA concerning Israelites may also apply to Jews.
Hispanic Jews (Anusim) in the USA?
OTHERS for some time have been making similar claims concerning early Hispanic settlement in the southern USA. In Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Malta, and southern Italy (once ruled by Spain) Jews were given the choice of converting or leaving. Many converted. Many were also forced to convert. In Portugal all the children were abducted, baptized, and brought up as Christian. These people were referred to as Marranos (pigs) by the Spanish and as Anusim (forced converts) by the Jews. After their conversion some of the Anusim kept Jewish customs and tried to practise the Jewish Religion in secret. They were persecuted by the Inquisition. Even those who were genuine Christians were suspected and harassed and often falsely accused. It is believed that groups of Anusim tended to congregate in certain areas. The early Spanish settlements in what is now California, New Mexico, Texas etc may have been one of these regions. Recently numerous studies have been made long these lines. Every now and again one of them makes headlines.
A remote valley in southern Colorado may not be the first place one would go in search of a lost Jewish community. But a recent study published in the US Journal of Human Genetics suggests that San Luis is harbouring exactly such a secret.
"We found evidence that DNA segments are shared by Sephardic Jews and Spanish Americans from Colorado and New Mexico, suggesting shared ancestry," said Dr Harry Ostrer, Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and the director of the study.
Dr Ostrer's team analysed two communities whose ancestry can be traced back to Spanish colonial times, one in the San Luis Valley, which stretches between southern Colorado and New Mexico, and one in the Loja Province of southern Ecuador.
It is the first time that researchers have studied the entire genome for large chunks of DNA that indicate shared ancestry, rather than just looking at particular disease mutations or other individual genes. They calculated Jewish ancestry among the Lojanos at 5-10 per cent, and among the Spanish Americans, or Hispanics, at 1-5 per cent.
Rumors of a secret Jewish past had been flying around the San Luis Valley for decades. 500 years ago number of Conversos - Jews who were forced to convert by the Spanish Inquisition - made their way across the Atlantic. Over the past few decades, scholars claim to have found remnants of crypto-Jewish practices in communities in south-west USA, as well as in Latin America. As the theory goes, when the Inquisition hit the shores of the New World, the crypto-Jews moved to the far flung corners of the Spanish Empire in a bid to escape the church.
Some Hispanics are even said to keep up forms of Jewish life without knowing their origin. Demetrio Valdez, a Catholic cattle farmer in the San Luis Valley, for example, grew up practising kosher slaughter without realising that the technique was Jewish.
Orlando Mondragon, one of the New Mexicans who took part in the study, wasn't at all surprised to hear news of his likely Jewish heritage. "He always thought so," said his wife, Viola.
What applies to these few isolated Hispanic communities may also be pertinent to other immigrant groups to the USA.
A Look at Comparative Statistics.
How many Descendants of Jews Should there be?
Having pointed out the difficulties involved we may still make tentative comparisons and perhaps guess the possible numbers of Jewish Descendants in the USA.
We compared Jewish Immigration with that of the Irish and Germans and Italians and this is what we came up with.
Jewish Americans
During the twenty-five years 1881-1905 very nearly 1,000,000 Jewish immigrants reached the United States. By 1904, the Jewish population can not have been much below 1,700,000.
Jewish Migration to the United States
Altogether about 2 million Jews from Eastern Europe came to the USA.
Jewish migration to the United States is divisible into periods. For each there are sources of information for doing genealogical research. DatesPeriodNumber of Immigrants 1654-1838 Colonial/federal Fewer than 15,000 1838-80 German emigration 250,000 1881-1924 Eastern European emigration 2,000,000 1924-44 Pre-Holocaust 100,000 1945-60 Holocaust survivors 250,000 Present Russian Jews and others Up to 50,000 per year.
Altogether ca. 3 million. 2012 5,275,000 Altogether an increase of less than 1. 8 times.
Irish Americans
Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans? estimated at 11.9% of the total population?reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Roughly another 3.5 million (or about another 1.2% of Americans) identified more specifically with Scotch-Irish ancestry. The Irish diaspora population in the United States is roughly 6 times the modern population of Ireland.
Immigration, the Journey to America/ The Irish Altogether, almost 3.5 million Irishmen entered the U.S. between 1820 and 1880.
In years after 1860, Irish Immigration persisted. More than 2.6 million Irish came in the decades after 1860.
About 6.5-7 million immigrants. 2014 36 million. An increase of 5 to 6 times.
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 50 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group.
Between 1820 and World War I, nearly six million Germans emigrated to the United States.
Why Germans Left Home
Table 3. German Immigration since 1820 Totals Total Immigration 49,753,412 German Immigration 7,028,258 German % of Total: 14.1
Increase 7 times.
Italian Americans
Immigration The Italians
During the mass emigration from Italy during the century between 1876 to 1976, the U.S. was the largest single recipient of Italian immigrants in the world. However, their impact was not as great as countries like Argentina and Brazil.
About 5.5 million Italians immigrated to the U.S. from 1820 to 2004. The greatest surge of immigration, which occurred in the period between 1880 and 1920, alone brought more than 4 million Italians to America. About 80% of the Italian immigrants came from Southern Italy, especially from Sicily, Campania, Abruzzo and Calabria.
Today, over 17.8 million Americans claim Italian ancestry. An increase of 3.
Conclusion
The Irish since coming to the USA have increased by about 5, the Germans by ca. 7, and the Italians by around 3. These figures may be mistaken. Each case is different. Irish and Italians are mostly Catholics and in the past tended to have large families. The German immigration was earlier and therefore has increased more.
Jews who identify as Jewish have only increased by less than 1.8. Nowadays more than 40% of the Jews intermarry with non-Jews. Usually the result of intermarriage from a Jewish perspective is disappearance.
Based on Statistics alone we could say that for every two Jews who identify as being Jewish in the USA there is at least one Gentile whose parents were Jewish only one generation back. The situation was more or less the same almost from the beginning. In some places it was worse.
A rough guess that 15 to 20 million USA Gentiles are by ancestry more Jewish than anything else may well be acceptable. Most of these would be white though the Afro-American and Hispanic communities may also include those of Jewish descent.
The “Other Tribes”: Which Are They?
Although mention is often made of the Lord’s “other tribes” which were taken captive by the Assyrians in 722 B.C., the exact identity of the names of the ten “other tribes” is much less well known.
Since an understanding of the ten tribes must begin with a knowledge of the original twelve, let us review the names of the sons of Jacob (Israel) for whom the twelve tribes of Israel are named: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph & Benjamin.
Throughout the period of the exodus from Egypt, however, thirteen tribes are generally listed instead of twelve. This is because Jacob adopted the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, in order that they might have the double inheritance due to the birthright son. (See Gen. 48:5, 16.) Thus, when the Israelites returned from Egypt to Canaan, each of the two tribes descended from Joseph was given a share of land.
Moreover, the tribe of Manasseh was further divided into two land groups in the settlement of the promised land, one half preferring to settle in the territory east of the Jordan, and the other taking up its inheritance in Canaan. (See map.) These two land divisions are mentioned numerous times in the Old Testament as distinct “half-tribes,” and so we often read of the “nine tribes, and the half tribe” that settled in Canaan and the “two tribes and the half tribe” that settled in trans-Jordan. (See Josh. 13:7 and Num. 34:15.) The latter half-tribe was also referred to as “Machir,” after the son of Manasseh whose descendants comprised that half-tribe. (See Num. 32:40; Josh. 17:1.)
The term “Blood of Israel” refers only to the original twelve tribes of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi (refuge cities located within green areas), Judah, Dan (migration route indicated in red), Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph (entire inheritance area indicated in gray), and Benjamin. “Land Israel” refers to fourteen tribal units: eleven tribes plus the three sub-tribes of Joseph (Ephraim and the two half-tribes of Manasseh) considered separately.
In effect, then, the subdividing of the land inheritance of Joseph into three allotments (Ephraim, Manasseh, Machir), plus the other eleven sons of Israel, brought the total number of distinct tribal groups mentioned to fourteen. Thereafter we must always be aware of the difference between “blood of Israel” (the tribes descended from the twelve sons of Jacob) and what might be called “land of Israel” (the tribal groups that received distinct land inheritances in Canaan). As one can see, the one blood-Israel tribe of Joseph resulted in three land-Israel inheritances.
To further complicate the matter, one of these fourteen groups—Levi—was given no land inheritance per se. Instead, the Levites were allotted cities throughout all of the various tribes, in order that they might serve the nation through the Aaronic Priesthood which they held. (See Num. 18:23–24; Num. 35:6–8; Josh. 13:33.)
Also, one of the tribes—Dan—had to forego its original allotted portion bordering on the west of Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim because of its inability to cope with Philistine invasions. The struggle between the Danites and the Philistines is partially chronicled in the story of Samson. (See Judg. 13–16.) Ultimately, however, the tribe of Dan left its seacoast inheritance and migrated to the north, where they settled in the Hulah valley. (See Judg. 18.) Had they not done so, they would perhaps not have been taken captive by the Assyrians centuries later.
By the time the period of the judges ended (about 1050 B.C.), all the land and blood tribes of Israel were at last united into a kingdom under Saul and later David. In the time of Solomon, however, the prophet Ahijah informed Jeroboam, an Ephraimite, that it was the Lord’s intention to give him ten of the tribes, while Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, would retain but one tribe. (See 1 Kgs. 11:29–37; 1 Kgs. 12:20.) Thus it was that Jeroboam became king of Israel while Rehoboam remained king of Judah.
The first question is, if ten tribes went to Jeroboam and one (Judah) to Rehoboam, what of the remaining tribal groups? And what tribal grouping was it—land groups or blood groups? Or a combination of both?
One of the land groups not accounted for in Ahijah’s prophecy is Simeon, whose inheritance was in the Negev region around Beer-sheba. Jacob had prophesied of the people of Simeon (and Levi as well) that the Lord would “scatter them in Israel.” (Gen. 49:7.) Moses, too, when he blessed the tribes of Israel (Deut. 33), omitted the name of Simeon; and after the time of the initial settlement of the promised land, there are no further historical records concerning the land group of Simeon, though the blood group is listed in prophecy. Simeon was the only tribe of Israel to be completely surrounded by one other tribe—by Judah. Consequently, it is likely that as a distinct land and even blood group that Simeon became assimilated largely into the tribe of Judah by the time of Rehoboam, and that the term “Judah” always included Simeon.
Benjamin, too, is mentioned as part of Judah at the time of Rehoboam (see 1 Kgs. 12:20–21, 23; also 2 Chr. 11:3, 23), although a portion of Benjamin was initially retained by Jeroboam. But by the time of Asa, king of Judah (955 B.C.), all the territory of Benjamin had been captured by the kingdom of Judah and Benjamin remained thereafter a land part of Judah only. This is confirmed by the numerous passages listing the two tribes together. (See, for example, 2 Chr. 15:2, 8–9; 2 Chr. 25:5; 2 Chr. 31:1; 2 Chr. 34:9, 32.)
The Levites, who had no major land inheritance, owed much of their allegiance and service to the temple in Judah’s Jerusalem. Jeroboam therefore expelled most of the Levites from his kingdom and appointed non-Levites as priests to serve in his apostate temples. (See 1 Kgs. 12:26–33; 2 Chr. 11:13–16; 2 Chr. 13:9–11.) Thus the blood tribe of Levi, having “resorted to him [Rehoboam] out of all their coasts” and having “left their suburbs and their possession and [come] to Judah and Jerusalem” (2 Chr. 11:13–14) also ended up, for the most part, in the land kingdom of Judah.
In time, however, both the northern and southern kingdoms were to suffer the fate of exile. The kingdom of Israel was taken into captivity by the Assyrians in 722 B.C., while Judah fell to the Assyrians’ conquerors, the Babylonians, in 586 B.C. The people of the northern kingdom that were taken away never returned to reclaim their land, and eventually they became the “lost tribes”—that is, lost to the record-keepers of Judah. The people of land Judah were more fortunate. In 537 B.C., Cyrus II of Persia, who had conquered Babylon, issued a decree allowing the people of Judah to return home and rebuild Jerusalem and their temple.
The genealogies of the returnees from Babylon inform us of the major blood composition of the kingdom of Judah. They were of the blood tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi. (See Ezra 1:5; Ezra 4:1; Ezra 10:9; Neh. 11:4ff., Neh. 11:36; Neh. 12:34ff.) If we include Simeon, which appears to have been absorbed as a blood group by Judah, we have four of the blood tribes of Israel accounted for in the southern kingdom of Judah, and they have endured with Judah all that has befallen the Jews the past 2,000 years. However, this means that only eight of the original twelve tribes of “blood Israel” were living in the north at the time of the Assyrian captivity. But these eight tribes of “blood Israel” accounted for ten tribal groups of “land Israel.”
We count ten “lost” tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel by remembering that the tribe of Joseph was divided into three land and people elements for the purpose of land inheritance—Ephraim and the two subdivisions of Manasseh. Hence, the “ten lost tribes” are ten lost land groups and are accounted for as follows: Reuben Asher Ephraim Dan Issachar Half-tribe of Manasseh Naphtali Zebulun Gad Half-tribe of Manasseh (Machir)
As is well known, there is clear evidence that not all members of the tribes listed above were taken captive. Some members of these tribes were left behind on the land, while others fled to the kingdom of Judah for refuge. (See, for example, 2 Chr. 11:16–17; 2 Chr. 15:9; 2 Chr. 30:1, 5–6, 10–11, 25.)
Consequently, descendants of these “lost” tribal groups remained among the Jews and have thus been spread throughout the world today. As a result, some of each of the Twelve blood tribes have been gathered in this last dispensation to reassemble under the banner of the One King who is destined to reunite all Israel in these last days. The promise is that we shall yet have the joy of helping all of Israel—blood-tribe Israel and land-tribe Israel—to gather under the gospel banner from the four quarters of the earth as a result of the last days gathering of the dispersed and outcasts of Israel. It is a promise in which we all have great faith and confidence.
Abraham's Oak as appeared in 1897.
Egyptians Catching Plesiosaurus
Remember that the Bible was translated into English long before the word “dinosaur” was coined (back when scientists called the great reptiles “dragons”). The word “dragon” appears 21 times in the Old Testament alone (King James Version). Here’s another Psalm: “You shall tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shall you trample under feet” (Psalm 91:13).
From the context it is clearly speaking about a real creature that it would be impressive and intimidating to step on! Jeremiah 51:34 states, “he has swallowed me up like a dragon…” which brings to mind the way many carnivorous reptiles gulp their prey whole.
Both dragons of the sea (Psalm 74:13) and field (Isaiah 43:20) are mentioned and even the The Vocalization of the Dragon is alluded to. Indeed, Genesis 1:21 can best be translated: “And God created great sea monsters…” One such sea monster became sufficiently well-known to the ancients to be given the special name “Rahab” (Isaiah 51:9). The prophet Ezekiel likens Pharaoh to a sea monster that invaded the Nile river and stirred up the mud (32:2). The Hebrew word, “Tannin,” is from the root meaning “to extend.”
The language conjures up an image of a long-necked plesiosaur-like creature paddling up the river and stirring up mud from the Nile delta with its flippers. Just such a creature is depicted in ancient Egyptian art. So maybe they actually netted one just as Ezekiel describes in verse 3.
About Genesis Park
Website
Consequently, descendants of these “lost” tribal groups remained among the Jews and have thus been spread throughout the world today. As a result, some of each of the Twelve blood tribes have been gathered in this last dispensation to reassemble under the banner of the One King who is destined to reunite all Israel in these last days. The promise is that we shall yet have the joy of helping all of Israel—blood-tribe Israel and land-tribe Israel—to gather under the gospel banner from the four quarters of the earth as a result of the last days gathering of the dispersed and outcasts of Israel. It is a promise in which we all have great faith and confidence.
ABRAHAM'S OAK
A famous and venerable oak (Quercus pseudo-coccifera) which still stands at Mamre, half an hour's journey west of Hebron, and is surrounded by a wall over which it projects. Josephus probably refers to it ("Ant." i. 10, § 4), or a predecessor on the same spot, when he mentions that Abraham dwelt by an "ogygian" (prehistoric) tree. According to tradition, it was opposite this oak that Abraham's tent was pitched at the time that the angels came to him and promised him a son and heir; also when he was negotiating with Ephron the Hittite for the cave of Machpelah (Gen. xviii. and xxiii.). Some have connected the oak with an earlier stage of tree-worship. In Jerome's time, fairs were held under it.
During the Crusades Abraham's Oak was visited frequently by the pilgrims; and it became customary to hold the Feast of the Trinity under its shadow, connecting the subject of the feast with the three angels of the Biblical narrative. The inventive traveler Odoricus (1286-1331) connects the oak with the legend of the Cross ("Itinerarium," chap. xlvi.). Josippon states that it lasted until the days of the Emperor Theodosius, when it withered. Its wood was used for medicinal purposes, the belief being that such a use prevented any illness up to the day of death (Chronicle of Jerahmeel, pp. lxxi. and 78). Abraham's Oak in 1847.
During the Crusades Abraham's Oak was visited frequently by the pilgrims; and it became customary to hold the Feast of the Trinity under its shadow, connecting the subject of the feast with the three angels of the Biblical narrative. The inventive traveler Odoricus (1286-1331) connects the oak with the legend of the Cross ("Itinerarium," chap. xlvi.). Josippon states that it lasted until the days of the Emperor Theodosius, when it withered. Its wood was used for medicinal purposes, the belief being that such a use prevented any illness up to the day of death (Chronicle of Jerahmeel, pp. lxxi. and 78). Abraham's Oak in 1847.
Near the oak in former times, on its north side, stood a terebinth, which, according to Josephus ("B. J." iv. 9, § 7), had existed since the beginning of the world. It was under this tree that, in Hadrian's time, the great sales of Jewish slaves, numbering, it is said, no less than 135,000, took place.
Abraham's Oak has become considerably weakened in recent years, as is shown by the accompanying illustrations, taken in the years 1847 and 1897 respectively. In 1852 a large branch was broken off by lightning; and the wood from it formed eight camelloads.
Abraham's Oak has become considerably weakened in recent years, as is shown by the accompanying illustrations, taken in the years 1847 and 1897 respectively. In 1852 a large branch was broken off by lightning; and the wood from it formed eight camelloads.
Dragons Mentioned in the Bible
There are a number of places where it appears that dinosaurs or other similar creatures are mentioned in the scriptures. The Psalmist jubilantly declared, “Praise the LORD from the earth, you dragons, and all deeps:” (Psalm 148:7).
Remember that the Bible was translated into English long before the word “dinosaur” was coined (back when scientists called the great reptiles “dragons”). The word “dragon” appears 21 times in the Old Testament alone (King James Version). Here’s another Psalm: “You shall tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shall you trample under feet” (Psalm 91:13).
From the context it is clearly speaking about a real creature that it would be impressive and intimidating to step on! Jeremiah 51:34 states, “he has swallowed me up like a dragon…” which brings to mind the way many carnivorous reptiles gulp their prey whole.
Both dragons of the sea (Psalm 74:13) and field (Isaiah 43:20) are mentioned and even the The Vocalization of the Dragon is alluded to. Indeed, Genesis 1:21 can best be translated: “And God created great sea monsters…” One such sea monster became sufficiently well-known to the ancients to be given the special name “Rahab” (Isaiah 51:9). The prophet Ezekiel likens Pharaoh to a sea monster that invaded the Nile river and stirred up the mud (32:2). The Hebrew word, “Tannin,” is from the root meaning “to extend.”
The language conjures up an image of a long-necked plesiosaur-like creature paddling up the river and stirring up mud from the Nile delta with its flippers. Just such a creature is depicted in ancient Egyptian art. So maybe they actually netted one just as Ezekiel describes in verse 3.
About Genesis Park
Mission
Originally designed as only a virtual organization, Genesis Park was incorporated in 2013 in the State of NH. The Board of Directors established a Statement of Faith and laid out a vision for a physical facility at some point in the future. The purpose of Genesis Park is to showcase the evidence that dinosaurs and man were created together and have co-existed throughout history. This site stands in opposition to those darwinists who claim, “Dinosaurs… are the poster children of evolution.”
(Carroll, Sean, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, 2005, p. 295.) Genesis Park questions the evolutionary propaganda heaped upon the dinosaurs and approaches the subject of origins with a literal adherence to the scriptures and an emphasis on creation demonstrating God’s power. “Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? there is no searching of His understanding.” (Isaiah 40:28)
(Carroll, Sean, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, 2005, p. 295.) Genesis Park questions the evolutionary propaganda heaped upon the dinosaurs and approaches the subject of origins with a literal adherence to the scriptures and an emphasis on creation demonstrating God’s power. “Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? there is no searching of His understanding.” (Isaiah 40:28)
Tagline
There are multiple senses in which dinosaurs are “living evidence of a powerful Creator.” Like all of the biological organisms inhabiting the planet earth, dinosaurs resist a naturalistic explanations of origins. That is, the missing transitional forms and shortcomings of naturalistic mechanisms (random genetic changes accumulating complex information systems) and inadequacies of natural selection apply well to the dinosaurs. The lack of clear phylogeny (evolutionary lineage) is a mystery that confounds the common ancestor theory of origins. In another sense, the dinosaurs demonstrate that some of the biggest, most impressive creatures lived long eons ago on the primeval earth. The book of Job clearly communicates that God created these creatures so that men throughout history might be awed with His power (Job 41:10). Lastly, there is evidence that some dinosaurs (and similar great swimming and flying reptiles) still survive. If these creatures are found morphologically unchanged (except smaller and arguably less fit), then their existence would fit best within the creation model. Like the Psalmist, we would say, “Praise the LORD from the earth, you dragons, and all deeps:” (Psalm 148:7).
This site was first produced in 1999 through the effort of multiple individuals. Special thanks to the following people for their contributions to the material in this site:
Creation Evidences Museum gave permission to use several of their exhibits. Some of the exhibit graphics are from Dr. Duane Gish’s delightful book Dinosaurs by Design. Special thanks to the Institute for Creation Research for making them available, especially the drawings by Earl & Bonnie Snellenberger. Answers in Genesis permitted us to utilize original art by Dan Lietha. The Hovinds of Creation Today granted the unlimited use of their material, including multiple drawings by Bill Rebsamen. Rick Lalonde provided the pictures of his beautiful iguana Kyle. The fishing Tanystropheus picture on the Ancient Plesiosaurs page was created by Ciavatti Gerard. Joe Tucciarone permitted the use of his exceptional Quetzalcoatlus drawing. Credit for the Tuatara picture goes to Michael Schneider. Credit for the draco picture goes to NASA and Cislunar Aerospace, Inc. The frilled lizard pictures come courtesy of Andy, Lee, & Celly’s Lizard Web Page.
Brian Sass and Pete Beach granted the use of their photos taken in Cameroon Michael Cremo consented to the use of pictures and material from his book Forbidden Archaeology. The picture on the Plesiosaur Tank page is by Julius Csotonyi. The Horned Chameleon photo is by Gail Fletcher. The Sailfin Dragon photo is by Scott Corning. The detailed photo of the Unktehi on Agawa Rock near Lake Superior was taken by Aaron Peterson Zach C. Coker drew the wonderful reconstruction of a Clevosaurus specimen. Dr. Jack Cuozzo, author of Buried Alive, generously assisted by providing photos. The picture of the Apatosaurus and tribesman on the “Monster of Cameroon” page is from Roy Mackal’s 1987 book A Living Dinosaur: In Search of Mokele-mbembe. The Dimorphodon picture on the PNG Expedition page is modified from DK Images of London. Rights to modify and display it were purchased from them.
The pics of the saltwater crocs came from the Garden of Eaden website. Meike Kohler drew the picture of the “Giant bunny vs modern bunny” on our Larger Organisms in the Past page Some of the Inca Ceremonial Stone Pictures are displayed with Dr. Don R. Patton’s permission. The pictures of the dragons from the French Chateaux and the Malachite Man were also taken by him. Patrick Ryan took the picture of the delightful thorny devil in Australia with Ayers Rock in the back. Credit for the Regal Horned Lizard goes to Robert Parmenter at UNM. The Water Dragon picture is featured courtesy of Scott Corning. John Kirk, President of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club which heads up the CaddyScan project permitted the use of his copyrighted Cadborosaurus photograph. The pictures of the big alligators were taken by Genesis Park staff at Florida’s Gatorland.
The picturesque dinosaurian world displayed on the “What Killed Them?” page is a screen shot from Disney’s movie “Dinosaur.” The Tanystropheus drawing on the Champ page is by L34ndr0 The Triceratops family pictured on the Ceratopsian Cage page was taken at Jurapark in Bałtów, Poland. The Apatosaur Paddock picture is by Lee Krystek. Chris St. James of s8int.com provided valuable insight into the Palestrina Mosaic on the Ancient Depictions page and has brought other dinosaurian iconography to our attention. Thanks to Leo (Jake) Hebert for his artifact picture contribution on the Ancient Depictions page. Special thanks to Elma for bringing the Bushmanland engravings to our attention. Tom and Donna Eckman, missionaries to Argentina, brought the elusive sea monster of Lake Nahuel Huapi to our attention. We appreciate the British Museum giving permission to employ the picture of the Sennacherib Plate with depictions that appear to be pterosaurs on a pole from Barnett’s 1967 work. Vance Nelson supplied the photo of the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon and other dinosaurian depictions. Dennis Swift deserves credit for a large number of the photos on the Ancient Depictions page.
We appreciate his generous help. Ian Juby gave valuable insights into the Dinosaur Deathpose and the Berean Tracks. Missionary John Pendleton assisted with the research at Acambaro featured on the Ancient Depictions page. The delightful animated dinosaur GIFs that we utilize are the work of Mary Potocska-Krizmanic of YRAM Enterprises. Genesis Park purchased rights to display them. Chris Ballard provided helpful analysis on created “kinds” as we attempted to analyze larger organisms in the past.
Brian Sass and Pete Beach granted the use of their photos taken in Cameroon Michael Cremo consented to the use of pictures and material from his book Forbidden Archaeology. The picture on the Plesiosaur Tank page is by Julius Csotonyi. The Horned Chameleon photo is by Gail Fletcher. The Sailfin Dragon photo is by Scott Corning. The detailed photo of the Unktehi on Agawa Rock near Lake Superior was taken by Aaron Peterson Zach C. Coker drew the wonderful reconstruction of a Clevosaurus specimen. Dr. Jack Cuozzo, author of Buried Alive, generously assisted by providing photos. The picture of the Apatosaurus and tribesman on the “Monster of Cameroon” page is from Roy Mackal’s 1987 book A Living Dinosaur: In Search of Mokele-mbembe. The Dimorphodon picture on the PNG Expedition page is modified from DK Images of London. Rights to modify and display it were purchased from them.
The pics of the saltwater crocs came from the Garden of Eaden website. Meike Kohler drew the picture of the “Giant bunny vs modern bunny” on our Larger Organisms in the Past page Some of the Inca Ceremonial Stone Pictures are displayed with Dr. Don R. Patton’s permission. The pictures of the dragons from the French Chateaux and the Malachite Man were also taken by him. Patrick Ryan took the picture of the delightful thorny devil in Australia with Ayers Rock in the back. Credit for the Regal Horned Lizard goes to Robert Parmenter at UNM. The Water Dragon picture is featured courtesy of Scott Corning. John Kirk, President of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club which heads up the CaddyScan project permitted the use of his copyrighted Cadborosaurus photograph. The pictures of the big alligators were taken by Genesis Park staff at Florida’s Gatorland.
The picturesque dinosaurian world displayed on the “What Killed Them?” page is a screen shot from Disney’s movie “Dinosaur.” The Tanystropheus drawing on the Champ page is by L34ndr0 The Triceratops family pictured on the Ceratopsian Cage page was taken at Jurapark in Bałtów, Poland. The Apatosaur Paddock picture is by Lee Krystek. Chris St. James of s8int.com provided valuable insight into the Palestrina Mosaic on the Ancient Depictions page and has brought other dinosaurian iconography to our attention. Thanks to Leo (Jake) Hebert for his artifact picture contribution on the Ancient Depictions page. Special thanks to Elma for bringing the Bushmanland engravings to our attention. Tom and Donna Eckman, missionaries to Argentina, brought the elusive sea monster of Lake Nahuel Huapi to our attention. We appreciate the British Museum giving permission to employ the picture of the Sennacherib Plate with depictions that appear to be pterosaurs on a pole from Barnett’s 1967 work. Vance Nelson supplied the photo of the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon and other dinosaurian depictions. Dennis Swift deserves credit for a large number of the photos on the Ancient Depictions page.
We appreciate his generous help. Ian Juby gave valuable insights into the Dinosaur Deathpose and the Berean Tracks. Missionary John Pendleton assisted with the research at Acambaro featured on the Ancient Depictions page. The delightful animated dinosaur GIFs that we utilize are the work of Mary Potocska-Krizmanic of YRAM Enterprises. Genesis Park purchased rights to display them. Chris Ballard provided helpful analysis on created “kinds” as we attempted to analyze larger organisms in the past.
Our sincere appreciation must also be extended to those who critiqued this material and assisted in the construction of the site:
Dr. John W. Cuozzo Dr. Charles Phelps Joe Taylor Bill Gibbons Dr. Kevin Henke Dr. Daniel Banks Vance Nelson Andrew Sutton (original HTML work to initiate the site in 1999) The background picture (and much of the custom artwork) was drawn by Richard Dobbs. For more of his work, check out his website at www.dobbsart.com. The Genesis Park Logo was produced by Eric Coppinger Site redesign and layout by Peter Anglea.
Genesis Park was produced by Dave Woetzel. The webmaster is Peter Anglea. It undergoes constant changes as we seek to make improvements and vary the displays.
The Last Name Samoy & Its Israelite Origin
Samoy – In the Grimorium Verum an angel conjured in black magic operations. He may be the same as Samoel. This book of whichcraft (the Grimorium Verum) is based in the Jewish kabbalah.
SAMOY: Name of one of Michael’s Luminous “Servants.” This name is Hebrew and can
be translated as “Invisible, Hidden or Secret.”
When this Virtue dwells in the interior of the Walker, it draws his attention to the symbols
that unconsciously reveal to him his own body and mind. Symbols that might show him his
state of mind or spiritual condition and if he is going on a correct or incorrect path for the
finalization of his karma (these symbols can appear, for example, in dreams or by way of
slight psychosomatic anomalies.)
He is the Angel of Balanced Prophecy.
Samoy is a French & Belgian last name also found in great number in the USA & in the Philippines. The French-Belgian (& I add the Americans) last name is supposed to derive from the Hebrew name Samuel. Does the Filipino Samoy derive from the Hebrew name too?
Samoye, Samoey, Samois(e), Sameys, Sameese, Semeese come from the Dutch psalmoier, salmoier which would come from psalmodiëren, meaning singing Psalms. People with similar or derived last names are Willelmo Salamoyen in 1329, W. Salmeyen in 1334, W. Salomoyen in 1337, W. Samoyken in 1344, Domino Salmoyken in 1345, W. Salmoeien in 1346 or Pierre Saumois, Chauny in 1300. Samoy Samoye, Samoey could derive from Sam- of Samson or from the reduced form of the Dutch (p)salmoier (psalmist).
As Saba is another form for Sheba, Sam is another form for Shem. Sometimes Sam is even shortened into Sa. There are several peoples that inspite not speaking (in some cases) a Semitic language they are Semites or had some Semitic and they still have, at the beginning of their name, the Sam as reminder of Shem their ancestor.
In ancient Italy lived a people called Samnite. The Bruttii (people of the Brit/Covenant in as having the same root as Samnites: Suiones, Semnones, Suebi (Swabians), Sabelli, Sabini.
No, not descendants of Rashi. No, not even claimed descendants of King David. How would you like to be certain that your ancestry goes back as far as the year 1396 BCE?
The hands of the Kohanim are held in a special way during the Priestly Blessing: the hands are raised, palms out. The thumbs of the two hands are outspread but touching. The other four fingers on each hand are held split into two sets of two fingers each. This became the symbol of the Kohanim. It is frequently found on tombstones of Kohanim.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef: 1920- 2013
“If I was brought into this world only to help the Ethiopians that is enough for me.”
The Israelite Board of Rabbis joins with much of the world in mourning the death of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. His brilliance as a Torah sage is well known and his accomplishments are legendary. Most obituaries have focused on his role as a founder and leader of the Shas political party which was created to protect the interest of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews who were not being adequately represented by the Ashkenazi ruling elite in Israel. Through their yeshevot they fought to preserve Sephardi culture, traditions, and above all an ancient tradition of Torah learning and independent Bet Din (rabbinic court).
We pay special tribute to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef for the wisdom and courage he displayed in 1973. Though he was only in his first year as the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, he took the bold step of recognizing the Jewishness of Beta Israel (the black Jews of Ethiopia). The Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Shlomo Goren, initially rejected this decision and the Chief Rabbinet of Israel, which was under Goren’s control, required that “pro forma” conversions be done. Rabbi Yosef opposed this position.
He subsequently became an ardent defender of the Beta Israel; he spoke out against discrimination and segregation in Israeli religious schools. He even threatened to “fire any principal” and withhold funding from any Shas school that refused to admit Ethiopian children on an equal basis. Having been born in Baghdad and having lived for a time in Egypt, he had a profound understanding of the challenges that Jews from the Mediterranean and Africa face in the larger Jewish world.
“May his soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life”.
The Last Name Samoy & Its Israelite Origin
Samoy – In the Grimorium Verum an angel conjured in black magic operations. He may be the same as Samoel. This book of whichcraft (the Grimorium Verum) is based in the Jewish kabbalah.
SAMOY: Name of one of Michael’s Luminous “Servants.” This name is Hebrew and can
be translated as “Invisible, Hidden or Secret.”
When this Virtue dwells in the interior of the Walker, it draws his attention to the symbols
that unconsciously reveal to him his own body and mind. Symbols that might show him his
state of mind or spiritual condition and if he is going on a correct or incorrect path for the
finalization of his karma (these symbols can appear, for example, in dreams or by way of
slight psychosomatic anomalies.)
He is the Angel of Balanced Prophecy.
Samoy is a French & Belgian last name also found in great number in the USA & in the Philippines. The French-Belgian (& I add the Americans) last name is supposed to derive from the Hebrew name Samuel. Does the Filipino Samoy derive from the Hebrew name too?
Samoye, Samoey, Samois(e), Sameys, Sameese, Semeese come from the Dutch psalmoier, salmoier which would come from psalmodiëren, meaning singing Psalms. People with similar or derived last names are Willelmo Salamoyen in 1329, W. Salmeyen in 1334, W. Salomoyen in 1337, W. Samoyken in 1344, Domino Salmoyken in 1345, W. Salmoeien in 1346 or Pierre Saumois, Chauny in 1300. Samoy Samoye, Samoey could derive from Sam- of Samson or from the reduced form of the Dutch (p)salmoier (psalmist).
As Saba is another form for Sheba, Sam is another form for Shem. Sometimes Sam is even shortened into Sa. There are several peoples that inspite not speaking (in some cases) a Semitic language they are Semites or had some Semitic and they still have, at the beginning of their name, the Sam as reminder of Shem their ancestor.
In ancient Italy lived a people called Samnite. The Bruttii (people of the Brit/Covenant in as having the same root as Samnites: Suiones, Semnones, Suebi (Swabians), Sabelli, Sabini.
The Oldest Jewish Dynasty: A 3400-Year Line of Descendants
No, not descendants of Rashi. No, not even claimed descendants of King David. How would you like to be certain that your ancestry goes back as far as the year 1396 BCE?
Yes, not only is it possible, there are many Jews we know who can claim this distinction. How? Let's start with the origin of that "tribe."
In the Hebrew year 2365, corresponding to 1396 BCE,(F1)there was born in Egypt to Amram and Yochebed, a son, Aaron.(F2)His older sister was Miriam, and a brother (born later) was Moses. After the Exodus from Egypt, God instructed Moses to build the Tabernacle (a portable Temple in the desert of Sinai), and to "advance his brother Aaron, with his sons, from among the Israelites, to ordain them, and consecrate them to serve Him as priests. It shall be a law for him and for his offspring for all time to come."(F3) Thus Aaron became the High Priest (Kohen Gadol), and throughout Jewish history his lineal male descendants were priests (Kohanim).
As long as the First and Second Temple existed, the priests were serving, offering sacrifices to God, and blessing the people on Holidays. One of them, from Aaron down through generations, was a hereditary High Priest. He was the only one who could enter the Holy of Holies (Inner Sanctum) in the Temple on Yom Kippur "to make atonement for his own House and for the people Israel." The Kohanim were subject to special laws designed to keep them pure and conforming to the high level of their position. The High Priest was anointed like a king at his coronation.
Christ washing feet-Second Anointing
Christ washing feet-Second Anointing
Their dynasty supplied a long succession of High Priests and other priests for many generations. Until the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE there were 82 High Priests. (I saw in the UCLA Research Library a Hebrew book which had their names and some history. Alas, I did not at the time note its title or number). There are genealogical lists of High Priests in Ezra 7:1-5, and in I Chronicles 5:18-41 and 6:35-38. The Encyclopaedia Judaica Index (1:506) has a list of some 66 names of High Priests mentioned in several volumes. Some of the High Priests exercised a power and influence in political and social matters as great as that of the King.
The Kohanim were a priestly caste separated from the rest of the people by their religious role and by the "laws of purity" they had to observe. They were also guardians of ritualistic purity in clothing, in body, in food and drink, and in moral conduct. The Priestly Code required the priest to have no physical deformity and to be of irreproachable moral character. He could not marry a convert, a divorcee, a "harlot", a woman born to a Kohen by a woman he was forbidden to marry, or even remarry his own divorced wife. There is a dispute whether he can marry a daughter of a convert. He could not touch a corpse, or even have physical contact with anyone who had done so. Even entering a cemetery defiled him. It is his duty to defile himself only for his close relatives.(F4)
The sacrificial function of the High Priest and the hierarchy lasted until the Destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE. After that, Rabbinic Laws declared that even though the Temple in Jerusalem was a ruin and the priests could not minister there, their direct male descendants, down to the end of time, must maintain the same purity. They must preserve their pedigree unstained. For, when the Messiah arrives with the Redemption, and raises a New Temple on Mount Zion, they -- the descendants of the Kohanim -- are expected to be morally and spiritually worthy and ready to assume the priestly roles that their forefathers were forced to drop centuries before.(F5)
To this day, in all the synagogues in the world, only those Jewish males who are Kohanim are privileged to recite the Priestly Blessing of the people while standing before the Ark of the Torah.
The original name "Kohen" has been used in various versions, spellings and languages. Thus we find Cohen, Cohn, Cahan, Kahane, Kahn, Kagan, Kogen, Kaganovitch (in Russian), Kaplan (Polish), Sacerdote (in Italian), Koyen (Yiddish), and Kohanski (Hebrew-Polish). A special case is Katz, often (but not always) an abbreviation ofKohen-Tzedek ("righteous priest").
The hands of the Kohanim are held in a special way during the Priestly Blessing: the hands are raised, palms out. The thumbs of the two hands are outspread but touching. The other four fingers on each hand are held split into two sets of two fingers each. This became the symbol of the Kohanim. It is frequently found on tombstones of Kohanim.
Now we have news of a surprising development in genetics. Dr. Karl Skorecki, a researcher at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, and his colleagues in England and the U.S., applied the techniques of modern biology to members of the Kohanim. Priestly status has been passed down through the ages from fathers to sons through word of mouth. To this day, all the Kohanim are considered descendants of Aaron, not just figuratively, but by blood. But not anyone with one of the various forms of the name Kohen is necessarily one of the priestly Kohanim. Until this study there has been no known genetic tie linking the Kohanim. Dr. Skorecki and his fellow researchers compared 68 Kohanim (F6) and 120 non-priestly Jews. They examined certain portions of the Y chromosome, which belongs only to men, and is passed strictly from fathers to sons. The researchers reported in the journal Lancet that the men who have been told that they were Kohanim shared certain distinctive genetic traits, indicating that they represent a single line tracing back to one male forbear, perhaps even to Aaron.
The scientists' original intention was to find out whether there was physical evidence that would support the traditional explanation of the Kohanim lineage. The test they developed cannot in its present form pick out individual Kohanim. Nevertheless, this possibility exists. And now many Jewish men, some named Cohen and some not, wanted to know whether they had a rightful place among the Kohanim. It is an emotionally charged search. The last couple of generations, many people have lost touch with their religious sources. Now they hear that they are of this lineage, but it's not part of their life. They want to know if they really are Kohanim.
Although there are no genetic tests now to help trace one's lineage, researchers said that judging from the response to the findings on the priesthood, people would line up for any such test that did become available. Those who were most interested in the genetic test were the ones who had lost track of their cultural heritage. They want to find out what their roots are. Many Kohanim are in doubt about whether they are really Kohanim. Some rabbis point out that the study not only confirms the genetic links among the Kohanim, it also validates the reliability of the word-of-mouth, father-to-son transmission of the priesthood. "It confirms that the Jewish people have for 3400 years maintained their authenticity and familial integrity."
“If I was brought into this world only to help the Ethiopians that is enough for me.”
The Israelite Board of Rabbis joins with much of the world in mourning the death of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. His brilliance as a Torah sage is well known and his accomplishments are legendary. Most obituaries have focused on his role as a founder and leader of the Shas political party which was created to protect the interest of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews who were not being adequately represented by the Ashkenazi ruling elite in Israel. Through their yeshevot they fought to preserve Sephardi culture, traditions, and above all an ancient tradition of Torah learning and independent Bet Din (rabbinic court).
We pay special tribute to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef for the wisdom and courage he displayed in 1973. Though he was only in his first year as the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, he took the bold step of recognizing the Jewishness of Beta Israel (the black Jews of Ethiopia). The Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Shlomo Goren, initially rejected this decision and the Chief Rabbinet of Israel, which was under Goren’s control, required that “pro forma” conversions be done. Rabbi Yosef opposed this position.
He subsequently became an ardent defender of the Beta Israel; he spoke out against discrimination and segregation in Israeli religious schools. He even threatened to “fire any principal” and withhold funding from any Shas school that refused to admit Ethiopian children on an equal basis. Having been born in Baghdad and having lived for a time in Egypt, he had a profound understanding of the challenges that Jews from the Mediterranean and Africa face in the larger Jewish world.
“May his soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life”.
The Reform Movement in Judaism
began in Germany in the 19 TH Century with the idea that Jewish traditions should be modernized and compatible with Western culture. However, even this movement is not homogeneous. There are a number of denominations, namely American Reform and British Reform. British Reform is more conservative than American, which in Britain is considered Liberal Judaism. These denominations are loosely organized into the World Union for Progressive Judaism as an umbrella organization, but without any doctrinal authority. In fact, as stated above, there is no central doctrinal authority over any branch, movement or denomination of Judaism.
began in Germany in the 19 TH Century with the idea that Jewish traditions should be modernized and compatible with Western culture. However, even this movement is not homogeneous. There are a number of denominations, namely American Reform and British Reform. British Reform is more conservative than American, which in Britain is considered Liberal Judaism. These denominations are loosely organized into the World Union for Progressive Judaism as an umbrella organization, but without any doctrinal authority. In fact, as stated above, there is no central doctrinal authority over any branch, movement or denomination of Judaism.
Lost Ex-Jewish Americans
How Many Gentile Descendants of Jews in the USA are there?
We do not really know how many non-Jewish citizens of the USA descend from Jews. I have heard all kinds of estimations. A large number of Jews migrated to America. Many assimilated. Their descendants in many cases may now be found amongst the Gentile population. It is not easy to be Jewish. The Jewish Religion is demanding. One can only eat certain foods, work on certain days, and have sex with one's wife on only part of the month. For those who keep the Jewish Religion the difficulties are worth it. The Almighty gives HIS own reward. After leaving the religion it can be difficult to remain Jewish. Jews suffer from discrimination. If one lives with other Jews then the dislike of non-Jews may conceivably be lived with.
Otherwise the tendency would naturally be to hide one's origins. Not only Jews do this. Numerous Germans in the USA reportedly claimed to be Dutch or Irish. It is difficult to estimate how many Gentile Americans are of Jewish descent. All kinds of unknown factors are involved. Did they have large families or did they tend to have few or none children? Families and whole peoples do tend to die out and disappear. On the other hand, other once insignificant groups may suddenly increase and multiply and leap to the foreground. Jews are bound by the Covenant. Once the Covenant is left does the Almighty punish them with demographic obliteration? Or maybe not?
Anyway this is a question that arises.
We consider the USA to be dominated by Manasseh but to include very very many from Ephraim as well as from all the other Tribes. Hosea 2:14 and Ezekiel 20:35 speak of Israel being brought into the Wilderness in the End Times or in the Period leading up to them. The Wilderness is the place where the Almighty will renew HIS COVENANT with the Israelites. North America may be this Wilderness.
The USA today encompasses approximately almost 42.5% of the Jews in the world, and about half of the non-Jewish Israelites. Throughout the centuries the Jews of Europe were persecuted. They suffered from persecution, discrimination, forced conversion to Christian, kidnapping of women and children, and so on. It stands to reason that many Jews were lost amongst the Gentiles. Did many of these Gentiles of Jewish descent eventually find their way to the USA? This is not an empty question. The migrants from Europe to North America were often different from those who stayed behind. Studies have been done this. Even physical differences have been noticed. Certain family names have almost disappeared from Europe but are now common in America. We understand that concerning the immigration from Germany to the USA in the 1700s and 1800s that these were descendants of Israelites. Those who remained in Germany, on the whole, were not Israelites.
What applies to German and other Immigration to the USA concerning Israelites may also apply to Jews.
Hispanic Jews (Anusim) in the USA?
OTHERS for some time have been making similar claims concerning early Hispanic settlement in the southern USA. In Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Malta, and southern Italy (once ruled by Spain) Jews were given the choice of converting or leaving. Many converted. Many were also forced to convert. In Portugal all the children were abducted, baptized, and brought up as Christian. These people were referred to as Marranos (pigs) by the Spanish and as Anusim (forced converts) by the Jews. After their conversion some of the Anusim kept Jewish customs and tried to practise the Jewish Religion in secret. They were persecuted by the Inquisition. Even those who were genuine Christians were suspected and harassed and often falsely accused. It is believed that groups of Anusim tended to congregate in certain areas. The early Spanish settlements in what is now California, New Mexico, Texas etc may have been one of these regions. Recently numerous studies have been made long these lines. Every now and again one of them makes headlines.
A remote valley in southern Colorado may not be the first place one would go in search of a lost Jewish community. But a recent study published in the US Journal of Human Genetics suggests that San Luis is harbouring exactly such a secret.
"We found evidence that DNA segments are shared by Sephardic Jews and Spanish Americans from Colorado and New Mexico, suggesting shared ancestry," said Dr Harry Ostrer, Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and the director of the study.
Dr Ostrer's team analysed two communities whose ancestry can be traced back to Spanish colonial times, one in the San Luis Valley, which stretches between southern Colorado and New Mexico, and one in the Loja Province of southern Ecuador.
It is the first time that researchers have studied the entire genome for large chunks of DNA that indicate shared ancestry, rather than just looking at particular disease mutations or other individual genes. They calculated Jewish ancestry among the Lojanos at 5-10 per cent, and among the Spanish Americans, or Hispanics, at 1-5 per cent.
Rumors of a secret Jewish past had been flying around the San Luis Valley for decades. 500 years ago number of Conversos - Jews who were forced to convert by the Spanish Inquisition - made their way across the Atlantic. Over the past few decades, scholars claim to have found remnants of crypto-Jewish practices in communities in south-west USA, as well as in Latin America. As the theory goes, when the Inquisition hit the shores of the New World, the crypto-Jews moved to the far flung corners of the Spanish Empire in a bid to escape the church.
Some Hispanics are even said to keep up forms of Jewish life without knowing their origin. Demetrio Valdez, a Catholic cattle farmer in the San Luis Valley, for example, grew up practising kosher slaughter without realising that the technique was Jewish.
Orlando Mondragon, one of the New Mexicans who took part in the study, wasn't at all surprised to hear news of his likely Jewish heritage. "He always thought so," said his wife, Viola.
What applies to these few isolated Hispanic communities may also be pertinent to other immigrant groups to the USA.
A Look at Comparative Statistics.
How many Descendants of Jews Should there be?
Having pointed out the difficulties involved we may still make tentative comparisons and perhaps guess the possible numbers of Jewish Descendants in the USA.
We compared Jewish Immigration with that of the Irish and Germans and Italians and this is what we came up with.
Jewish Americans
During the twenty-five years 1881-1905 very nearly 1,000,000 Jewish immigrants reached the United States. By 1904, the Jewish population can not have been much below 1,700,000.
Jewish Migration to the United States
Altogether about 2 million Jews from Eastern Europe came to the USA.
Jewish migration to the United States is divisible into periods. For each there are sources of information for doing genealogical research. DatesPeriodNumber of Immigrants 1654-1838 Colonial/federal Fewer than 15,000 1838-80 German emigration 250,000 1881-1924 Eastern European emigration 2,000,000 1924-44 Pre-Holocaust 100,000 1945-60 Holocaust survivors 250,000 Present Russian Jews and others Up to 50,000 per year.
Altogether ca. 3 million. 2012 5,275,000 Altogether an increase of less than 1. 8 times.
Irish Americans
Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans? estimated at 11.9% of the total population?reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Roughly another 3.5 million (or about another 1.2% of Americans) identified more specifically with Scotch-Irish ancestry. The Irish diaspora population in the United States is roughly 6 times the modern population of Ireland.
Immigration, the Journey to America/ The Irish Altogether, almost 3.5 million Irishmen entered the U.S. between 1820 and 1880.
In years after 1860, Irish Immigration persisted. More than 2.6 million Irish came in the decades after 1860.
About 6.5-7 million immigrants. 2014 36 million. An increase of 5 to 6 times.
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 50 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group.
Between 1820 and World War I, nearly six million Germans emigrated to the United States.
Why Germans Left Home
Table 3. German Immigration since 1820 Totals Total Immigration 49,753,412 German Immigration 7,028,258 German % of Total: 14.1
Increase 7 times.
Italian Americans
Immigration The Italians
During the mass emigration from Italy during the century between 1876 to 1976, the U.S. was the largest single recipient of Italian immigrants in the world. However, their impact was not as great as countries like Argentina and Brazil.
About 5.5 million Italians immigrated to the U.S. from 1820 to 2004. The greatest surge of immigration, which occurred in the period between 1880 and 1920, alone brought more than 4 million Italians to America. About 80% of the Italian immigrants came from Southern Italy, especially from Sicily, Campania, Abruzzo and Calabria.
Today, over 17.8 million Americans claim Italian ancestry. An increase of 3.
Conclusion
The Irish since coming to the USA have increased by about 5, the Germans by ca. 7, and the Italians by around 3. These figures may be mistaken. Each case is different. Irish and Italians are mostly Catholics and in the past tended to have large families. The German immigration was earlier and therefore has increased more.
Jews who identify as Jewish have only increased by less than 1.8. Nowadays more than 40% of the Jews intermarry with non-Jews. Usually the result of intermarriage from a Jewish perspective is disappearance.
Based on Statistics alone we could say that for every two Jews who identify as being Jewish in the USA there is at least one Gentile whose parents were Jewish only one generation back. The situation was more or less the same almost from the beginning. In some places it was worse.
A rough guess that 15 to 20 million USA Gentiles are by ancestry more Jewish than anything else may well be acceptable. Most of these would be white though the Afro-American and Hispanic communities may also include those of Jewish descent.
Jewish Tribes Want To Make Aliyah
Tens of thousands of requests submitted to Interior Ministry in past two years by residents of Third World countries seeking to immigrate to Israel, claiming to be members of '10 lost tribes'.
Who wants to be a Jew? It appears that many people around the world would like to join the club which would grant them free entry into the State of Israel.
Interior Ministry data reveals that tens of thousands of requests have been filed in the past two years by members of "lost Jewish tribes" worldwide, mainly from Third World countries, seeking to immigrate to Israel.
A rise in the number of appeals has been noted in the past year. The drop in the number of new immigrants arriving in Israel continued in the past Jewish year (18,746 new immigrants compared to 23,050 in the previous year). This trend has motivated private organizations, many of them religiously orientated, to locate descendants of the 10 tribes and bring them to Israel.
Interior Ministry officials are less enthusiastic over the matter and have recently issued strict regulations for people who converted abroad and seek to immigrate to Israel as Jews.
Sources in the ministry noted that more than half of the people who immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return, about 54%, were not really Jewish.
A draft document distributed in the past few days among organizations dealing with conversion lists a number of strict criteria set by the Interior Ministry for granting citizenship to people who converted to Judaism abroad.
Among the criteria: Taking part in regular Judaism lessons for nine months while actively participating in community life.
Data obtained by Yedioth Ahronoth reveal that thousands of people, claiming to be members of the 10 lost tribes, most of them from Africa and Asia, have immigrated to Israel with the help of different haredi groups, or are demanding to make aliyah.
According to estimates, millions of people in countries across the world – including Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Ethiopia, India, China, Russia, Peru, Portugal, Brazil and Spain – are demanding that Israel recognize their Jewish status.
Natasha Mosgovaya and Michal Goldberg contributed to this report.
Israel Just Approved Immigration For 9,000 Ethiopian Jews — Here’s Who They Are
A look at what is believed to be the last group of Jews awaiting aliyah
November 23, 2015,
The Israeli government has approved entry of the “last” group of Ethiopian Jews awaiting immigration to Israel.
The move comes two years after the arrival of 450 Ethiopian Jews then deemed to be the “last” such group. Indeed, there have been several groups said to be the last since Ethiopian immigration began in the 1970s.
The initial wave was supposed to have ended with a giant military-style operation in 1991. Then Ethiopian aliyah “ended” again, in 1998. Then again in 2008. And again in 2010. Each time, advocates of continuing Ethiopian immigration prevailed upon the government to let in not just more Jews, but other groups with Jewish ancestry.
Experts and Ethiopian community members say this group may actually be the one capping three decades of Ethiopian immigration. But when the new arrivals hit Israel, they’ll encounter a whole new set of challenges. Ethiopian-Israelis lag in employment, wages and education, and have protested what they call institutional discrimination.
“The need is not to just bring olim to the land, but to invest in their integration,” said Roni Akale, director-general of the Ethiopian National Project, which develops educational programs for Ethiopian youth. “If they don’t invest, there will be damage. The state needs to take care of them.”
Here’s who Israel’s 135,000 Ethiopian Jews are, why their aliyah has taken more than 30 years and how the immigrants have fared.
Jews have lived in Ethiopia for 3,000 years.
Many believe that Jews first arrived in Ethiopia three millennia ago after splitting off from King Solomon’s ancient Jewish kingdom. Since then, Ethiopian Judaism developed mostly in isolation from the rest of world Jewry. Ethiopian Jews do not celebrate post-biblical holidays like Hanukkah and Purim, and they maintain their own unique celebrations, like the fall festival of Sigd.
Successive Ethiopian governments persecuted the Jews, leaving them impoverished and relatively isolated in agrarian communities amid the country’s northern mountains. Contacts with outside Jewry increased in the 20th century. In 1973, Ovadia Yosef, then Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, ruled that the Ethiopian community was Jewish, paving the way for their immigration.
Thousands came to Israel via military operations.
Ethiopian aliyah began with a trickle in 1977. Between 1984 and 1985, thousands of Ethiopian Jews fleeing famine crossed into Sudan, some of them traveling for up to a month on foot. From there, in a mission called Operation Moses, Israeli Defense Forces planes airlifted about 8,000 to Israel.
In 1991, with Ethiopia’s government on the cusp of being overthrown by rebel groups, mass aliyah resumed with the clandestine Operation Solomon, which brought 14,500 Jews to Israel on 40 flights in just 36 hours. Some of the flights held double their normal capacity to save time.
Debates over who is an Ethiopian Jew have drawn out the aliyah process.
After Operation Solomon, advocates for the community urged the government to let another group of Ethiopians move to Israel. The group, whose members are known as Falash Mura, has Jewish ancestry but is descended from Ethiopians who converted to Christianity about a century ago.
Some Israeli officials opposed the aliyah of the Falash Mura, saying their ties to Judaism were too weak. But in the 1990s and 2000s, successive governments brought waves of Falash Mura to Israel, who underwent formal conversion to Judaism after their arrival.
Experts say this wave may really be the end of Ethiopian aliyah because it includes every Falash Mura known to Israel. Its primary purpose, according to the government, is to reunite families split by earlier immigrations. To qualify for this round, candidates need to have family in Israel and arrived in pre-aliyah compounds in Ethiopia run by the Jewish Agency by the start of 2010.
Ethiopian-Israelis lag in education and employment.
For many Ethiopians, getting to Israel is only half the battle. Ethiopian immigrants, often from poor and uneducated families, have struggled to integrate.
According to data compiled by the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, a government-sponsored think tank, as of 2013 only 27 percent of Ethiopian-Israeli students qualified for university, as opposed to 51 percent of all Israelis. Average wages for Ethiopian-Israelis were more than a third lower than the Israeli average.
Ethiopian-Israelis claim that state institutions discriminate against them. Following the emergence earlier this year of a video showing police officers beating an Ethiopian-Israeli soldier, Ethiopians massed in protest. Police responded with stun guns and a water cannon. Following the unrest, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to take steps to address the discrimination.
“Among the general population, I’m sure there are some stereotypes, prejudices that affect access to employment,” said Myers-JDC-Brookdale director Jack Habib. “How much of that is perception and how much of that is reality we don’t know. But there are these strong feelings of discrimination. It’s not an issue we can ignore.”
Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions)
Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France (English: Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions) is an umbrella organization of French Jewish organizations.
The celebrated Federation Internationale des Juifs Noirs (English: Black Jews International Federation) is affiliated with it.
Logo of the Council
It is the official French affiliate of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), the world-wide umbrella organization of Jewish communities, and of the European Jewish Congress.
It opposes antisemitism and policies that they perceive to be antisemitic. It generally supports Zionist goals and the state of Israel, although CRIF denounced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's 2004 characterization of antisemitism in France and his calls for all French Jews to emigrate to Israel.
On 20 November 2004, it accused the French government of failing to protect citizens from broadcasts by Hezbollah's al-Manar TV, which includes films that CRIF claims are antisemitic and incite Muslims to attack Jews. (Reuters-Haaretz) Al-Manar was blocked by the CSA. It has opposed the beatification of Pius XII, stating that a majority of independent historians did not agree with the position that Pius worked ceaselessly to save Jews.
Alliance of Two Houser webs & Jewish Ideas.net with corresponding explanations
How would it be to have an alliance of two houser webs like Jews & Joes, Steve M. Collins, http://www.britishisrael.co.uk http://www.british-israel.ca http://stevenmcollins.com http://jewsandjoes.com http://www.british-israel.com http://www.cogwriter.com , the Restored Church of God http://www.israelite.ca http://www.nordiskisrael.dk http://bene-ephraim.com http://www.messianicassociation.org http://www.hope-of-israel.org http://www.angloisrael.info http://hebrewnations.com http://britam.org http://www.bibleblessings.net http://www.10losttribes.com http://www.thechurchesofgod.com http://www.hebroots.org http://lionlamb.net http://jahtruth.net/, http://www.biblesearchers.com, http://www.biblemysteries.com, http://www.ccg.org/, http://www.abrahams-legacy.org/, http://www.historyofnations.org/, http://www.logon.org/
There are many individual Christians that support Israel & would be eager to know about the Two House-Britam beliefs. Even esoteric Muslim groups like Druzes believe they are Jews in reality.
Jewish bucket list
Learn to read some basic Hebrew, the language of the Jewish people and its greatest texts. As a phonetic tongue that is largely root-based, even the most linguistically challenged person can pick up the skills needed to read in a relatively short amount of time. Doing so connects one with Jewish history and destiny, and can make attending synagogue or a Passover Seder far more consequential.
Study a page of Talmud, one of the core sources of Jewish law and lore. Sure, it looks intimidating. But thanks to innovations such as the Steinsaltz edition, or Artscroll's Schottenstein set, which provide extensive English translations, notes and explications, it is now possible for every Jew to dip his toe into the sea of the Talmud and work his way through a topic. The pleasure that comes from grappling intellectually with the legal, moral, philosophical and practical issues that arise on any given page of the Talmud is something that no Jew should go through life without experiencing at least once.
Seek out a Holocaust survivor and hear his or her story. Each year, with the passage of time, the number of those who managed to emerge alive from the Nazi German death machine continues to dwindle. Reading about the Holocaust or seeing a documentary can be educational, but it pales in comparison to spending an hour or two with a person who witnessed it firsthand. Take your family with you, and keep the memory of what happened alive.
Visit Israel and, when you do, make sure your itinerary includes a site such as the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the resting place of the biblical figures Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. How many nations on earth have the privilege of knowing where their founding fathers were buried millennia ago? This holy place has a spiritual and historical power that profoundly impacts all who set foot within.
Observe at least one traditional Shabbat. Regardless of your level of Jewish affiliation, you will find celebrating an authentic Sabbath as Jews have done for thousands of years to be an emotive experience. Call a rabbi or Sabbath-observant family, and ask them to host you for what will prove to be 25 hours of physical rest and spiritual uplift.
Obviously, there are many more items that a Jewish bucket list can and should contain, and each person or community should tailor its contents accordingly, taking into account their own individual or collective needs.
Tens of thousands of requests submitted to Interior Ministry in past two years by residents of Third World countries seeking to immigrate to Israel, claiming to be members of '10 lost tribes'.
Who wants to be a Jew? It appears that many people around the world would like to join the club which would grant them free entry into the State of Israel.
Interior Ministry data reveals that tens of thousands of requests have been filed in the past two years by members of "lost Jewish tribes" worldwide, mainly from Third World countries, seeking to immigrate to Israel.
A rise in the number of appeals has been noted in the past year. The drop in the number of new immigrants arriving in Israel continued in the past Jewish year (18,746 new immigrants compared to 23,050 in the previous year). This trend has motivated private organizations, many of them religiously orientated, to locate descendants of the 10 tribes and bring them to Israel.
Interior Ministry officials are less enthusiastic over the matter and have recently issued strict regulations for people who converted abroad and seek to immigrate to Israel as Jews.
Sources in the ministry noted that more than half of the people who immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return, about 54%, were not really Jewish.
A draft document distributed in the past few days among organizations dealing with conversion lists a number of strict criteria set by the Interior Ministry for granting citizenship to people who converted to Judaism abroad.
Among the criteria: Taking part in regular Judaism lessons for nine months while actively participating in community life.
Data obtained by Yedioth Ahronoth reveal that thousands of people, claiming to be members of the 10 lost tribes, most of them from Africa and Asia, have immigrated to Israel with the help of different haredi groups, or are demanding to make aliyah.
According to estimates, millions of people in countries across the world – including Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Ethiopia, India, China, Russia, Peru, Portugal, Brazil and Spain – are demanding that Israel recognize their Jewish status.
Natasha Mosgovaya and Michal Goldberg contributed to this report.
Israel Just Approved Immigration For 9,000 Ethiopian Jews — Here’s Who They Are
A look at what is believed to be the last group of Jews awaiting aliyah
November 23, 2015,
The Israeli government has approved entry of the “last” group of Ethiopian Jews awaiting immigration to Israel.The move comes two years after the arrival of 450 Ethiopian Jews then deemed to be the “last” such group. Indeed, there have been several groups said to be the last since Ethiopian immigration began in the 1970s.
The initial wave was supposed to have ended with a giant military-style operation in 1991. Then Ethiopian aliyah “ended” again, in 1998. Then again in 2008. And again in 2010. Each time, advocates of continuing Ethiopian immigration prevailed upon the government to let in not just more Jews, but other groups with Jewish ancestry.
Experts and Ethiopian community members say this group may actually be the one capping three decades of Ethiopian immigration. But when the new arrivals hit Israel, they’ll encounter a whole new set of challenges. Ethiopian-Israelis lag in employment, wages and education, and have protested what they call institutional discrimination.
“The need is not to just bring olim to the land, but to invest in their integration,” said Roni Akale, director-general of the Ethiopian National Project, which develops educational programs for Ethiopian youth. “If they don’t invest, there will be damage. The state needs to take care of them.”
Here’s who Israel’s 135,000 Ethiopian Jews are, why their aliyah has taken more than 30 years and how the immigrants have fared.
Jews have lived in Ethiopia for 3,000 years.
Many believe that Jews first arrived in Ethiopia three millennia ago after splitting off from King Solomon’s ancient Jewish kingdom. Since then, Ethiopian Judaism developed mostly in isolation from the rest of world Jewry. Ethiopian Jews do not celebrate post-biblical holidays like Hanukkah and Purim, and they maintain their own unique celebrations, like the fall festival of Sigd.
Successive Ethiopian governments persecuted the Jews, leaving them impoverished and relatively isolated in agrarian communities amid the country’s northern mountains. Contacts with outside Jewry increased in the 20th century. In 1973, Ovadia Yosef, then Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, ruled that the Ethiopian community was Jewish, paving the way for their immigration.
Thousands came to Israel via military operations.
Ethiopian aliyah began with a trickle in 1977. Between 1984 and 1985, thousands of Ethiopian Jews fleeing famine crossed into Sudan, some of them traveling for up to a month on foot. From there, in a mission called Operation Moses, Israeli Defense Forces planes airlifted about 8,000 to Israel.
In 1991, with Ethiopia’s government on the cusp of being overthrown by rebel groups, mass aliyah resumed with the clandestine Operation Solomon, which brought 14,500 Jews to Israel on 40 flights in just 36 hours. Some of the flights held double their normal capacity to save time.
Debates over who is an Ethiopian Jew have drawn out the aliyah process.
After Operation Solomon, advocates for the community urged the government to let another group of Ethiopians move to Israel. The group, whose members are known as Falash Mura, has Jewish ancestry but is descended from Ethiopians who converted to Christianity about a century ago.
Some Israeli officials opposed the aliyah of the Falash Mura, saying their ties to Judaism were too weak. But in the 1990s and 2000s, successive governments brought waves of Falash Mura to Israel, who underwent formal conversion to Judaism after their arrival.
Experts say this wave may really be the end of Ethiopian aliyah because it includes every Falash Mura known to Israel. Its primary purpose, according to the government, is to reunite families split by earlier immigrations. To qualify for this round, candidates need to have family in Israel and arrived in pre-aliyah compounds in Ethiopia run by the Jewish Agency by the start of 2010.
Ethiopian-Israelis lag in education and employment.
For many Ethiopians, getting to Israel is only half the battle. Ethiopian immigrants, often from poor and uneducated families, have struggled to integrate.
According to data compiled by the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, a government-sponsored think tank, as of 2013 only 27 percent of Ethiopian-Israeli students qualified for university, as opposed to 51 percent of all Israelis. Average wages for Ethiopian-Israelis were more than a third lower than the Israeli average.
Ethiopian-Israelis claim that state institutions discriminate against them. Following the emergence earlier this year of a video showing police officers beating an Ethiopian-Israeli soldier, Ethiopians massed in protest. Police responded with stun guns and a water cannon. Following the unrest, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to take steps to address the discrimination.
“Among the general population, I’m sure there are some stereotypes, prejudices that affect access to employment,” said Myers-JDC-Brookdale director Jack Habib. “How much of that is perception and how much of that is reality we don’t know. But there are these strong feelings of discrimination. It’s not an issue we can ignore.”
Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France (English: Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions) is an umbrella organization of French Jewish organizations.
The celebrated Federation Internationale des Juifs Noirs (English: Black Jews International Federation) is affiliated with it.
Logo of the CouncilIt is the official French affiliate of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), the world-wide umbrella organization of Jewish communities, and of the European Jewish Congress.
It opposes antisemitism and policies that they perceive to be antisemitic. It generally supports Zionist goals and the state of Israel, although CRIF denounced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's 2004 characterization of antisemitism in France and his calls for all French Jews to emigrate to Israel.
On 20 November 2004, it accused the French government of failing to protect citizens from broadcasts by Hezbollah's al-Manar TV, which includes films that CRIF claims are antisemitic and incite Muslims to attack Jews. (Reuters-Haaretz) Al-Manar was blocked by the CSA. It has opposed the beatification of Pius XII, stating that a majority of independent historians did not agree with the position that Pius worked ceaselessly to save Jews.
Alliance of Two Houser webs & Jewish Ideas.net with corresponding explanations
How would it be to have an alliance of two houser webs like Jews & Joes, Steve M. Collins, http://www.britishisrael.co.uk http://www.british-israel.ca http://stevenmcollins.com http://jewsandjoes.com http://www.british-israel.com http://www.cogwriter.com , the Restored Church of God http://www.israelite.ca http://www.nordiskisrael.dk http://bene-ephraim.com http://www.messianicassociation.org http://www.hope-of-israel.org http://www.angloisrael.info http://hebrewnations.com http://britam.org http://www.bibleblessings.net http://www.10losttribes.com http://www.thechurchesofgod.com http://www.hebroots.org http://lionlamb.net http://jahtruth.net/, http://www.biblesearchers.com, http://www.biblemysteries.com, http://www.ccg.org/, http://www.abrahams-legacy.org/, http://www.historyofnations.org/, http://www.logon.org/
There are several differences between Jewishideas.net with many of the beliefs/knowledge of Britam & other related webs but there are many points in common. If all of you together unite your word can spread thruout the world more easily.
Moreover you should spread the word thru groups like Christians United for Israel (Cufi), and other Christian & Jewish groups like the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), Jehovah Witnesses, Baptists, Methodists, Anglicans, Lutherans, Orthodox Christians, Maronites, Coptics, Catholics.
There are many individual Christians that support Israel & would be eager to know about the Two House-Britam beliefs. Even esoteric Muslim groups like Druzes believe they are Jews in reality.Jewish bucket list
Learn to read some basic Hebrew, the language of the Jewish people and its greatest texts. As a phonetic tongue that is largely root-based, even the most linguistically challenged person can pick up the skills needed to read in a relatively short amount of time. Doing so connects one with Jewish history and destiny, and can make attending synagogue or a Passover Seder far more consequential.
Study a page of Talmud, one of the core sources of Jewish law and lore. Sure, it looks intimidating. But thanks to innovations such as the Steinsaltz edition, or Artscroll's Schottenstein set, which provide extensive English translations, notes and explications, it is now possible for every Jew to dip his toe into the sea of the Talmud and work his way through a topic. The pleasure that comes from grappling intellectually with the legal, moral, philosophical and practical issues that arise on any given page of the Talmud is something that no Jew should go through life without experiencing at least once.
Seek out a Holocaust survivor and hear his or her story. Each year, with the passage of time, the number of those who managed to emerge alive from the Nazi German death machine continues to dwindle. Reading about the Holocaust or seeing a documentary can be educational, but it pales in comparison to spending an hour or two with a person who witnessed it firsthand. Take your family with you, and keep the memory of what happened alive.
Visit Israel and, when you do, make sure your itinerary includes a site such as the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the resting place of the biblical figures Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. How many nations on earth have the privilege of knowing where their founding fathers were buried millennia ago? This holy place has a spiritual and historical power that profoundly impacts all who set foot within.
Observe at least one traditional Shabbat. Regardless of your level of Jewish affiliation, you will find celebrating an authentic Sabbath as Jews have done for thousands of years to be an emotive experience. Call a rabbi or Sabbath-observant family, and ask them to host you for what will prove to be 25 hours of physical rest and spiritual uplift.
Obviously, there are many more items that a Jewish bucket list can and should contain, and each person or community should tailor its contents accordingly, taking into account their own individual or collective needs.
Drumming to the Heartbeat of God
While some Christians who traditionally worship to the sound of an organ, piano, or guitar may at first find the pulsing patter of dozens of hand drums “foreign” or “exotic,” others find these same sounds culturally affirming and deeply worshipful. But Robin Harris argues that “all people should have the opportunity to worship God in their own heart languages and music”. That’s true for Christians in Western as well as non-Western contexts. We too may have an undiscovered or long-neglected “heart language” that could be rekindled through drumming as a way to creatively connect to our Creator.
Worshiping with a drum set is no longer seen as out of place in worship traditions influenced by urban gospel or contemporary Christian rock music. However, traditional hand drums such as the djembe, which carry stronger ethnic associations, are only recently appearing in Western Christian worship, though these instruments have been used in non-Western Christian contexts for a long time. I have been worshiping with traditional hand drums in my church for many years. Drum circle worship, I’ve discovered, makes sense in the context of worship in general and of Reformed worship in particular.
Drumming is rooted in our earliest biblical worship traditions. The frame drum (Hebrew tof) mentioned seventeen times in Scripture is commonly mistranslated as “tambourine” or “timbrel.” The jingly instrument we know as a tambourine today did not come into existence until the Roman period, according to archaeologists and biblical scholars. The instrument referred to in the Old Testament is a large frame drum, about twelve to twenty-two inches across its face. It was most often played by women in both secular and religious contexts (see sidebar). Hebrew women, such as Miriam (see Ex. 15:20-21) appropriated this same drum in the worship of Yahweh, continuing to do so at least until the period of Babylonian captivity, and possibly beyond. The sound of drumming, in combination with the blowing of hollow rams’ horns (shofar), cymbals, and dancing were among the earliest ways our spiritual ancestors worshiped God. So the sound of drumming reminds us of our roots as Christians.
Drumming connects us with Christians around the world. Hearing the sounds of instruments from around the globe, playing them with our hands, and seeing the carving and craftsmanship all are ways in which we identify with, and are reminded of, being part of the worldwide body of Christ. Using these instruments in worship reminds us that we do not worship a God associated with one ethnic group or tradition but the One who loves people of every tribe and nation. Drums symbolically “stand in the place” of our brothers and sisters from other lands, reminding us that we are all united by faith in our one shared-in-common God.
Drumming is an accessible way for congregations to participate more fully in worship. In many Western worship traditions, congregational participation is limited to verbal expression, which often relies on the ability to read. That makes worshiping difficult for small children (who are pre-literate), those unfamiliar with the language of the host congregation (immigrants, non-native language speakers, or those who are illiterate), and those who have visual impairments (the elderly or those who have visual difficulties). It not only restricts participation in worship, generally speaking, to the healthy and the well-educated, but it limits the range of human expressions in worship, which is affirmed and encouraged in Scripture.
Congregational drumming also invites intergenerational participation in worship in a way that is particularly helpful for people who worship best through musical and/or kinesthetic styles. Drumming requires minimal training, and while experience allows a greater range of sounds and rhythms to be played, most people can play a drum in a way that sounds good without any previous experience, allowing both children and the elderly to worship with expression and joy.
Drumming affirms our “bodyliness.” The hallmark of the Reformation was the idea that Christians should be able to read the Bible for themselves and pray to God on their own behalf. This democratization of faith and religious tradition resulted in a return to studying Scripture. To this day, many Christians spend a great deal of time reading to deepen their understanding of the Bible. This heavy emphasis on words may have the unfortunate effect of implying the Gnostic idea that our intellect (maybe even just our left brains!) is what God really loves.
Yet if we believe that God calls Christians to transform culture and our world as a sign of our gratitude to God for redeeming us, by necessity we must do so with our bodies and with action. The sound waves of the drum pulsating against our skin invite us to respond with our bodies by moving our feet, bobbing our heads, swaying our limbs, and spinning our bodies. The word “hallelujah” itself (Hebrew hallel) describes the spinning dance of praise, affirming these God-inspired bodily responses to sound. This is not a response of the intellect; rather, it is a response of the body to truth encapsulated in sound! In some cultures, if you can’t dance in response to what you believe, it is a sign that the belief has not yet penetrated the heart. Worshipers in the Reformed tradition need to relearn not only how to walk and talk with God but also how to drum and dance with God!
Drumming as a community is inherently reconciliatory. When people drum together, their individual rhythms quickly find a common pulse. This principle is called “entrainment,” and it’s one of the reasons why many people love drumming in community. For many who come into the drum circle, this natural coming-together of individual percussion patterns into one drum song seems almost magical. I often ask my circle what they each noticed when they drummed. People remark that they “listened to each other” or were surprised how “we all came together.” Drumming in community, people intuitively learn how to listen to one another and draw together. Making this kind of “new music” to God as a unified body of believers must have some overtones of what the music of heaven will be like some day when people from every tribe and every nation gather around the throne of God.
Drumming is one way to live out the summary of the Law. When Jesus asked the rich young ruler to tell him what was written in the law of God, he answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Luke 10:27). In my experience, drum circle worship breathes new meaning and understanding into passages like this that summarize Christian belief put into action.
It is difficult to participate in drum circle worship without becoming emotionally moved by the immersion in the waters of rhythm; without having a sense of being connected to God in a profound way that goes deeper than words; without passionately engaging your muscles as you play; without connecting your rhythm to the rhythms of the other drummers; without noticing that you are an equal member of a community, each contributing to the song.
Drumming is spiritually formative. Drumming in community nurtures many of the kinds of behaviors encouraged in Scripture. God calls us to come to him “like a little child” (Luke 18:17). Drumming encourages spontaneous and playful expressions of the heart and allows us to explore this kind of open-hearted, sincere play. The apostle Paul calls us to humility (Rom. 12:3); drum circle worship shapes us to play well, and, by extension, live well together.
Listening to the steady, pulsing beat of the bass drums is an auditory reminder of the presence of God in our noisy lives. I often tell my drummers, “If you ever get lost or can’t find your rhythm, just listen for the bass drums. The bass drums are like God. Whenever we are lost, if we listen to God, we know which way to go again.” This paraphrase of Psalm 119:105 helps contextualize the worship drum circle as an experiential metaphor of the Christian life. Entraining our lives to the heartbeat of God becomes easier the deeper we practice this way of living. Ultimately, the drum circle is not about drumming at all; it is about being in rhythm with God as members of the community of God’s imagebearers here on earth.
The Final Days of the Sabbatean-Jesuit-Illuminati-Freemason Zionist Israel
The Salvation of Hebrew Babies
The name Shiphrah occurs once in the Bible. She and Puah are the two midwives who Pharaoh commands to kill all Hebrew babies (Exodus 1:15). The midwives don't comply and the people grow numerous. So numerous even that when the Exodus commences, there are 600,000 males.
Critics argue that this number must be symbolic, because a mere two midwives can't bring about the babies of 600,000 couples. The obvious counter-argument (without denying that the number may indeed be symbolic) is that Shiphrah and Puah weren't the only two midwives, but rather the two representatives of the midwife guild. The chances are excellent that Pharaoh and Shiphrah and Puah never actually met, and that the whole affair was dealt with through messengers and ministers and all that.
Re. Hon. Winston S. Churchill – “Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world. The conflict between good and evil which proceeds unceasingly in the breast of man nowhere reaches such an intensity as in the Jewish race. The dual nature of mankind is nowhere more strongly or more terribly exemplified. We owe to the Jews in the Christian revelation a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all other wisdom and learning put together. On that system and by that faith there has been built out of the wreck of the Roman Empire the whole of our existing civilization.
Sir Winston Churchill, B. Nov. 30, 1874 - D. Jan. 24, 1965 And it may well be that this same astounding race may at the present time be in the actual process of producing another system of morals and philosophy, as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which, if not arrested, would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible. It would almost seem as if the gospel of Christ and the gospel of Antichrist were destined to originate among the same people; and that this mystic and mysterious race had been chosen for the supreme manifestations, both of the divine and the diabolical.
Today, it makes no difference whether we see the true Sabbatean anti-Jew like Senator John Kerry in America or President Nicholas Sarkovsky in France; the allies of the Sabbatian Rothschild Jews; the Bush – Clinton Dynasty, the White Freemasons of Shimon Peres of Israel, the Islamic Freemasons President Hussein of Jordan, Mahmoud Abbas and the late Yasser Arafat of the Palestinians, or the Black Freemasons like Barak Hussein Obama and his alliances with the Black Muslim Brotherhood.
Contemporary pyramid schemes of man promise 'get rich' opportunities, whereas the Great Pyramid of Giza was a promise of God that pointed to a coming Messiah and a wealth of wisdom.
Like so many of God's offerings to mankind, something good has been stolen and perverted.
The same can be said about God's Great Pyramid exploited by the occult, the Freemasons, the Illuminati, offbeat religions etc.
Pyramidology became an object of fascination to the British Israel movement in the 19th century and because of their preoccupation with it, lost the dynamics of what these stones signified and became the brunt of ridicule. Although it must be argued that it is rather naive to think that the purpose of the world's greatest pyramid ever built was merely a burial monument to some pharaoh. In fact, no Egyptian can lay claim to it.
Needless to say, the mechanics of this ancient wonder of the world is yet to be explained and cannot be duplicated by the greatest engineers of our time. The greatest pyramid ever built was assumed to have hidden within it, the greatest treasure of all time. However, penetration of its interior passages and chambers by 'get rich' treasure hunters revealed no gold or precious gems. Instead, the Great Pyramid of Giza predates the writing of the Word of God, which we call the Bible, and could only be construed as a divine communication to man. The treasure wasn't materialistic, but rather spiritual.
Are we Christians to believe that the physical appearance of the oldest and largest building in the world, along with its systematic interior, geometric and mathematical intricacies, including scientificcalculations of earth and astronomy, is the creation of man alone?
The important thing for us to remember today is that Christ is returning again for His Bride, Israel; and we'll see how the Great Pyramid fits into that promise. Surely there would be some calculation for preterists, but alas there is none to be found. Most likely, we'll figure it out after it happens
The Great Pyramid cries out for proper recognition that its design can only be divinely inspired by the Creator of the Universe. The divine design is as replete as the Holy Bible being the greatest book ever written, having supernatural properties to guide mankind's faith through prophecy. The Great Pyramid has been referred to as 'prophecy in stone' whereby the actual interior measurements correspond to biblical chronology, such as the location and time of the Messiah's birth.
E. Raymond Capt's book "The Great Pyramid Decoded" does an excellent job of introduction to this subject as it pertains to Christian Identity studies. One should read his book to have an appreciation for this message.
The Bible and the Great Pyramid harmoniously dovetail into two witnesses focusing on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Some people fail to see the connection between the Great Pyramid and the Bible, not to mention what God promises to His people. Let us therefore indulge in a perspective rarely seen by the casual student of Christianity. When we compare the Great Pyramid to all other buildings ever made, there is no comparison.
I believe it's safe to say that the Great Pyramid was designed in such a way as to corroborate the existence of God and His revelation to mankind. God understands perfectly the pride of a thoroughly materialistic world and thus anticipated humanity becoming boastful of its intellect and thereby trying to destroy what He has created. But no matter how hard man tries to wreck the living written Word of God, it is not dead. By the same token, the Great Pyramid is still standing as an ancient witness. It has survived the ages for a reason.
Daniel 12:4 foretells of a time when many shall travel and knowledge would be increased. It is only in our generation that the great knowledge has been revealed about the Great Pyramid. At this point it is easy to anticipate the foul accusation of being called 'Gnostic' (pretend knowledge), when in fact we are called to grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord Savior (II Peter 3:18). God often provides coincidence for those who would believe false knowledge. Divine promise is the reality for those who have the eyes to see it.The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus and the testimony of Jesus is of promise.
The science, mathematics and astronomy of the Great Pyramid lay dormant for thousands of years until now. We need not praise mystic alchemists, numerologists or astrologers for the preservation of anything. Only now do archaeologists, historians and Bible scholars unlock the door of prophetic times and events from 13 acres of 2,300,000 limestone blocks weighing between 2 1/2 to 50 tons each. It is the divine design that yields the only kind of authority that can make infallible promises.
This may come as a surprise, but modern science did not discover pi. Indeed, the entire geometric structure of the Great Pyramid was designed on the basis of pi (3.14159; it is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, the mathematical ratio upon which the whole physical universe is designed) and the value of y (365.242; the number of days in the Earth's solar year). Those two things alone should get your attention from the Almighty Creator of the universe.
Here at Giza we have the greatest sign of all times and people are wasting their time reading into the signs of a burial shroud, icons that bleed or cry, hocus pocus codes and pictures of Maryon a tortilla. Christians need to overcome the satanic signs and lying wonders that have usurped God's Pyramid.
God has given His people a plethora of promises many of which have been already granted, while others await being revealed. We shouldn't malign the Great Pyramid with controversy or obfuscate it with mystical shell games. With the exception of a pyramid casino in Las Vegas, pyramids were never intended for habitation or commerce. If we can comprehend anything from the world's foremost pyramid in Giza, it is four isosceles triangular sides which rise to a crescendo at the top. However, the very top piece of this architectural feat is absent. As we shall see, there's a very good reason for this missing component. I must say at this point, that the people whom God has chosen to be His servant race are missing the uppermost priority in their lives.That, of course, is Jesus Christ, often referred to as the head of the body or church.
"Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read the scriptures [Psalm 118:22-23], the stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the comer; this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?" - Matthew .21:42.
To further verify His divine position we read, "Jesus Christ Himself being the chief comer stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord" - (Ephesians 2:20-21).
The body of Christ is as 'fitly framed together' as the immovable blocks of limestone which make the Pyramid the only surviving wonder of the world. The symbolic analogy is as about as profound as it gets.
The only promises the sheep can look forward to are from crooked politicians who break them once they are elected. The promises aren't very godly to begin with. They are more like the tower of Babel, a sure promise for chaos and confusion, than the Pyramid of promise for order and blessings.
The tribes of Reuben and Gad were so concerned about losing sight of God that they built an altar, but not for burnt offerings or sacrifices, but rather that it may be a witness for future generations that they serve God (Joshua 22:26-27).The principle here is not that rocks have a mind of their own, but that they serve as a reminder. How much greater then is the Great Pyramid as a witness to God's Creation, that likewise had no need for burnt offerings or sacrifice?
But the average Christian may be wondering where is this Great Pyramid in the Bible specifically? Like so many other treasures of biblical wisdom, the Pyramid is written about covertly, so that only through patience, study and meditation, is its significance revealed at the appropriate time. Isaiah 19:19-20 is the Scripture which comes into play on this subject. Before sceptics try to interpret something other than the Pyramid for this prophecy, we should look at what Isaiah limits it to. The KJV renders it thusly,
"In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign, and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt."
Let's diagram this message piece by piece. "In that day" signifies when the prophecy shall come to pass. Isaiah's writings provide three time frames: his own time, the first advent of Christ and the second advent of Christ. Let us assume for a moment that it is the latter, given the context and perplexity of chapter 19.
It next says there's going to be an altar to the Lord. There are two types of altars in Scripture. One is for sacrifice and the other is for witness. Verse 20 clearly identifies it as a "sign" and a "witness". We should take note that God's Law for an altar of sacrifice must be unhewn,
"For if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou has polluted it" - (Exodus 20:25).
However, for an altar of witness, there is no prohibition; hence there is nothing to prevent it from being built of hewn stone.
"In the midst of the land of Egypt" is a no-brainer, so we need not look anywhere else. Indeed, we are given a specific geographic position "At the border thereof". These seemingly contradictory coordinates of it being in the centre and the border of the land is resolved because of the unique configuration of Egypt. Our Pyramid, then and now, was in close proximity to the heart of Egypt's political and social life, in both ancient Memphis and modem Cairo. Until recent times, the boundary of Egypt was determined by cultivated land and desert. The fertile fan-shaped Nile Delta forms a quadrant in which the centre point is marked by the Great Pyramid of Giza. Giza or Gizeh in Arabic means skirt, edge or border. To the east of Giza is a highly cultivated and densely populated land, but to the west is nothing but the sand of the Sahara Desert. There can only be one spot on the face of the Earth that corresponds to Isaiah's description.
But where is the Pyramid in all of this? The word "pillar" in the KJV is misleading as itmay suggest a vertical column of sorts. This is rectified with a more accurate translation of the Hebrew word 'matstsebah', which can also mean a memorial stone or monument. We therefore have a hewn monument of the border in Egypt which Isaiah writes for us in our study today. This altar of divine design is a visible sign. This witness in stone is speaking to our generation at the appointed time. Let the sceptic bring forth his venue and artifacts. Let there be a shining light of glory.
At one time, the surface of the Pyramid was like glass, acting like gigantic mirrors reflecting great beams of light. The ancient Egyptians called it Ta Khut, "The Light", and also Ikhet, meaning the "Glorious". We can relate this to Scripture. II Corinthians 4:3-6 says, "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." Gospel means 'good news' and the good news of the 'Glorious Light' of the Pyramid has been suppressed to people who have not found Christ.
"But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them " (verses 3-4).
Now many will say that the "god" of this world is "Satan", however the 1611 KJV capitalized God, so it isn't the so-called devil that blinds. In fact, "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing" (Proverbs 25:2). Some people will voluntarily remain lost. Why? Matthew 13:22 tells us it's the carnal nature of man that chokes the Word which thus becomes unfruitful i.e. a self-imposed darkness upon themselves. Everyone can see the Great Pyramid, but some people are blind as to its greatness.
"For God,who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face [person] of Jesus Christ" (verse 6).
By the same token, the pyramid radiates its light from the sun on the dark continent of Africa. Jesus is referred to as the "Sun of righteousness" in Malachi 4:2.
Let us open our eyes to the great allegory in living stone. In the interior of the Great Pyramid there are an ascending and descending passageway. The upward path leads to the King's Chamber.You can only get there after negotiating the great step at the upper end of the ascending path. It is symbolic of another point of view or level of consciousness. It is the perspective of all power and authority which rightfully belongs only to Jesus Christ on earth and heaven (Matthew 28:18). In this chamber is also found the open coffer (a lidless tomb) in which no royal mummies were ever enshrined; symbolic of the empty tomb at Calvary and the resurrection of our Kinsman Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
The empty tomb indicates eternal life attained through resurrection, the same as Christ risen from the dead. All other pyramids in Egypt have descending passages only, representing the way of death. The way of life, as symbolized in the Great Pyramid, is above ground ascending passages with a ventilation system for life sustaining air. Let us consider two things here. First, the dead do not breathe and second, the breath of life, the Spirit of God, was breathed into the nostrils of Adam and he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). Who else but God would tell us such things about lifeand death?
The intricate construction of the interior also reveals a relationship between the lengths of the passages and respective epochs of history. This means that the Pyramid's blueprint was designed according to a given scale of precise mathematical measurements that correspond to prophetic events which have come and gone. There can only be one architect orchestrating so many revelations to mankind and that one is God. May you find Him now.
Because of the pyramid's magnanimity, when the sun goes down it still takes on the appearance of a golden mountain.
The last days for the Jewish people, the Lost Tribers & the gentiles
The Jewish people and the Lost Ten Israelite Tribes can comprehend that we truly are living in the era after 1840. This was the era in which Jews began seriously to settle the Land. This was also the era in which the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel were awakened by the “Second Great Awakening”. It immensely affected the 13 Original Colonial States along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States representing to the colonists as the 13 Tribes of Israel, with the House of Joseph representing a double portion with the Tribe of Manasseh represented as the 13th Tribe of 12-Tribed Israel. So truly that era represented the 7th century of the sixth millennium (5600-5700, 1840-1940).
It was during this era that the talmidim (disciples) of the Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomoh).
Out of the Nazi Holocaust, both the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel that had settled in Northern Europe and the Jews suffered immensely. This was a war and a holocaust that affected all the nations of the world, yet it especially identified the Jewish people as “G-d’s Chosen People” while at the same time awakened the Lost Ten Tribes that were scattered around the globe to their new identity.
Out of the pyres of the Holocaust and World War II, over 60 million people died, the largest desecration of human life in history. Yet, it was the 6 million lives of the Jewish people living emancipated lives in Europe that have sensitized the world as to what happens when you lose the essence of the dignity of human life; created in the “Image of G-d.”
So what about today, the 8th century of the sixth millennium (5700-5700, 1940-2040)? Let us then look into the next Sidra (Parashat) Nitzavim (Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20). Here is in part what we will read:
Deuteronomy 30:1-10- “It will be that when all these things come upon you – that blessing and the curse that I have presented before you – then you will take it to your heart among all the nations where HaShem your G-d, has dispersed you: and you will return unto Hashem, your G-d and listen to His voice, according to everything that I command you today, you and your children with all your heart and all your soul.
Then Hashem, your G-d, will bring back your captivity and have mercy upon you, and He will return you and gather you in from all the peoples to which HaShem your G-d has scattered you. If your dispersed will be at the ends of heaven, from there HaShem, our G-d will gather you in and from there He will take you. HaShem, your G-d will bring you to the Land that your forefathers possessed and you shall possess it. He will do good to you and make you more numerous than your forefathers. HaShem your G-d will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, to love HaShem , your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”
When HaShem begins the fullness of the redemption of Klal Yisrael, that is the entire House of Israel and the House of Judah, what then will happen
Deuteronomy 30:7-10 - “HaShem your G-d will place all these imprecations upon your enemies and those who hate you, who pursued you. You shall return and listen to the voice of HaShem, and perform all His commandments that I command you today. HaShem will make you abundant in all your handiwork – in the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your animals, and the fruit of your land – for good, when HaShem will return to rejoice over you for good, as He rejoices over your forefathers, then you listen to the voice of HaShem, your G-d to observe His commandments and His decrees, that are written in the Book of the Torah, when you shall return to HaShem your G-d , with all our heart and all your soul.”
What is amazing is that all of these revelations have been imbedded in the Written Torah for 3,600 years. Yet, they have been laying there waiting for the Torah sages to mine deeply to find the diamond in the rough and then facet it until it can be understood and perceived at the end of days.
The days of the Trein Mesheechem, the Two Messiahs, one from the family of King David and Shlomo of the Tribe of Judah, son of Leah, and the other from the Tribe of Ephraim, son of Joseph, son of Rachel, who will be called Ephraim, Maschiach tzidki, or Ephraim, My righteous anointed one. Both will be anointed in heaven and there they will be given their divine mandate of the role in which they will fulfill.
EBIONITES (from = "the poor"):
Sect of Judæo-Christians of the second to the fourth century. They believed in the Messianic character of Jesus, but denied his divinity and supernatural origin; observed all the Jewish rites, such as circumcision and the seventh-day Sabbath; and used a gospel according to Matthew written in Hebrew or Aramaic, while rejecting the writings of Paul as those of an apostate. Some Ebionites, however, accepted the doctrine of the supernatural birth of Jesus, and worked out a Christology of their own.
The origin of the Ebionites was, perhaps intentionally, involved at an early date in legend. Origen still knew that the meaning of the name "Ebionim" was "poor," but refers it to the poverty of their understanding, because they refused to accept the Christology of the ruling Church. Later a mythical person by the name of Ebion was invented as the founder of the sect, who, like Cerinth, his supposed teacher, lived among the Nazarenes in Kokabe, a village in the district of Basan on the eastern side of the Jordan, and, having spread his heresy among the Christians who fled to this part of Palestine after the destruction of the Temple, migrated to Asia and to Rome.
The early Christians called themselves preferably "Ebionim" (the poor), because they regarded self-imposed poverty as a meritorious method of preparation for the Messianic kingdom, according to Luke vi. 20, 24: "Blessed are ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God"; and "Woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation" (=Messianic share; Matt. v. 3, "the poor in spirit," is a late modification of the original; comp. Luke iv. 18, vii. 22; Matt. xix. 21 et seq., xxvi. 9 et seq.; Luke xix. 8; John xii. 5; Rom. xv. 26; II Cor. vi. 10, viii. 9; Gal. ii. 10; James ii. 5 et seq.). Accordingly they dispossessed themselves of all their goods and lived in communistic societies (Acts iv. 34 et seq.). In this practise the Essenes also were encouraged, partly by Messianic passages, such as Isa. xi. 4, xlix. 3 (comp. Ex. R. xxxi.), partly by Deut. xv. 11: "The poor shall never cease out of the land"—a passage taken to be a warning not to embark upon commerce when the study of the Law is thereby neglected.
Origen, while not clear as to the precise meaning of the term "Ebionim," gives the more important testimony that all Judæo-Christians were called "Ebionites." The Christians that fled to the trans-Jordanic land, remaining true to their Judean traditions, were afterward regarded as a heretic sect of the Ebionites, and hence rose the legend of Ebion. To them belonged Symmachus, the Bible translator.
Why Do You Believe All the Antisemitic Legends?
Are the Jews Really Jewish? Refuting the Khazar Theory
I have heard, from time to time, the idea expressed that Jews, particularly Eastern European Jews (known as “Ashkenazim,” after “Ashkenaz” meaning Germany) are not really Jewish at all, but are descendants of the Khazar tribe, which converted to Judaism. Therefore, it is argued, since most Jews are Askenazi; the Jewish people of today have little relation with the ancient people of God. Is this true?
Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD and the Roman exile, southern Italy provided an initial destination for Jewish populations dispersing from the Near East. A north-bound migration from Italy, beginning in the 4th century AD and proceeding at least until the 10th century, gave rise to a nucleus of Ashkenazi Jewry in the Rhine valley. The eastern expansion of the Ashkenazi settlement, starting after the 11th century, produced what was to become the largest Jewish population prior to World War II. Demographic data provide evidence for a dramatic expansion in size; from an estimated number of ~25,000 in 1300 AD, the Ashkenazi population had grown to more than 8.5 million by the beginning of the 19th century.
Let's remember that there are also Sephardic Jews who were centered in Muslim countries and Spain. (“Sepharad” means Spain in ancient Hebrew.) Yemenite, Ethiopian, Cochin, and other Jewish groups have separate and distinct ancient origins different from the Ashkenazi community. Granted, most Jews are Ashkenazi, but the percentage of the Jewish people coming to Israel from other heritages is growing. In Israel today the more traditional Sephardis (who are less likely to use birth control) are multiplying at a faster rate than the Ashkenazis. So we can't simply ignore the Sephardic Jews and Jews of other origins, to begin with.
Second, is it true that most of the Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Khazars? The evidence by no means leads to the conclusion that they are not descendants of Abraham because of the Khazari connection. Let's see what we can find out about the Khazars:
1. We know that the Khazars were a Turkish tribe living between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea in the eighth century.
2. To what extent the Khazars converted to Judaism is open to debate. According to the scholar Robert M. Seltzer, “The Judaism of the Khazars has been much discussed but the historical evidence is very limited. Only the ruling class of the Khazars became Jews...”2 Raphael Patai states: “For more than two centuries Judaism was the religion of the ruling class while other religions, notably Islam, but also Christianity, were extensively practiced among the people.”3
3. Abba Eban has written: “...the rulers of the Khazars apparently converted to Judaism at the end of the eighth century, although the majority of the population appears to have remained either Christian or Moslem.”4 According to Max Dimont, “In 969 Duke Sviatoslav defeated the Khazars and incorporated their territory into the new Russian state he was founding....And so it came about that the former Jewish kingdom of Khazar became part of Mother Russia, and its people made the sign of the cross to the Russian Orthodox formula Gospodi Pomiloy instead of bowing reverently to the Hebrew Shema Yisroel.”
4. Eban also wrote: “It is likely too that some Khazar progeny reached the various Slavic lands where they helped build the great Jewish centers of eastern Europe.”6
5. Many Jews from other lands emigrated to Khazaria both prior to and subsequent to the conversion of the Khazars.
Conclusion: There were members of a tribe of Turkic people who converted to Judaism. Many of their people remained Christian or Muslim, and some of those who had converted to Judaism became Russian Orthodox when conquered by Russia. Some of their descendants probably survived to join the Eastern European Jewish community. This, in a nutshell, is what we know about the Khazars. Does this information lead to a conclusion that the Jewish people of today are not really Jewish at all and are not in fact the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh? Hardly!
What motivates those who argue this way? Some may simply have been convinced by speculative theories. Possibly anti-Semitism may motivate others, but I think we need to be careful with such a charge. Still others may be motivated by a more positive desire to affirm the truth that most ultimately the children of Abraham are those who believe in the Messiah and have by faith embraced the covenant. This is clearly taught by Romans 4 and Galatians 3. Romans 11 tells us that those who believe are grafted into the tree of the patriarchs, but there God also clearly tells us that He has a concern for the natural branches and is able to graft them in again to their own tree.
There is truth to the statement “the Jews are not a race.” The Jewish people are a “community of descent,” which differs from a “race.” Today's Jewish people are, by and large, the community of physical descent from Abraham and the patriarchs. Not a Race: A “Community of Descent”
Let me illustrate this point. If I were to marry an Asian woman and father children who then married other Asians, these children would be my descendants. If that woman were to die and I were to marry an African woman and have children, and they were to marry others of African descent, they would also be my descendants. One set of descendants would be racially Asian and the other racially African, but they would both be my descendants! Today's Jewish people are, by and large, the community of physical descent from Abraham and the patriarchs, whatever their race. Race is not the issue. The issue is descent. Black Ethiopian Jews, blonde Jews from Scandinavia, and Cochin Jews from India are racially different but are all Jewish. Sure there has been intermarriage, rape, and conversion of Gentiles. Some non-Jews have entered into ethnic Jewry, and no doubt, many Khazars, but at the core, the Jewish community remains descended from patriarchal Israel. There is still a Jewish “community of descent.” Am Israel Chai!
Can it be refuted that Jews named Levi, Levitt, Levinson, Lewis, etc. trace their heritage to the tribe of Levi or that Jews named Cohen, Cohn, Cahn, Kaplan, Katz, etc., trace their ancestry to the Cohanim, the priestly descendants of Aaron? This knowledge has been preserved in part because of the special roles these descendants have had in the synagogue. You must know if you are a Priest or Levite in the synagogue. It has only been fifty generations since the first century. It doesn’t seem so difficult to believe that this sort of information could be passed on orally given the importance of it in synagogue life. Recent genetic studies have found a common genetic link, tracing back to a single ancestor, that connects Jewish males from all over the world claiming priestly heritage. Also, a very large percentage of Ashkenazi Jews all descend from four women of Middle Eastern origin. In general, genetic studies have shown Ashkenazi Jews in general have significant MiddleEastern genetic origins, which demonstrates non-Khazar ancestry. Granted, unless DNA studies are done on remains of certifiable Jewish ancestors, which yet may happen, these studies are not conclusive proof of descent from Abraham, but they do at least establish Askenazi Jews have Middle Eastern ancestry and they do refute the idea that all Ashkenazi Jews are simply Khazars. So what if there has been some influx of non-Jews? Non-Jews, like the Khazars, have married into the community of descent from Abraham. It is a most reasonable conclusiuon that most Jews today still share the ancient Israelites as their common ancestors.8 As a people, Jews are the community of Abraham's physical descendants.
A Providential Preservation
God has preserved the Jewish people against overwhelming odds. The great American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, said: “The Jews may be considered as a remarkable evidence of the truth of revealed religion, in that they were preserved so long a time a distinct nation from all others, even since their father Jacob's time, till this day; being neither destroyed, nor abolished, nor lost by mixing with other nations.”9 Edwards recognized God's amazing preservation of the Jewish people, a preservation motivated by grace and accomplished to God's own glory. When the Jewish people return to faith in their own Messiah, Jesus, it will be to His glory and praise. The ethnic children of Abraham will come back into the spiritual family of Abraham by faith, the New Covenant Community.
Truly, the promises of God and the election of God are only realized through faith in Messiah. Praise the God of Israel that He has opened a way for all people to become Abraham's spiritual children through Messiah, the ultimate seed of promise! As for the natural branches of Abraham's tree, God is still faithful to His promises. He has told us: “As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and His call are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:28-29) May those of Abraham’s natural descent soon return to the God of their fathers and soon join with all those of spiritual descent, that is, all who believe, so that a great blessing may be experienced by all and that the good news of Messiah will prosper in the world.
Why do you believe all the antisemitic legends: that the Ashkenazi Jews are Turks, that the wailing wall is a Roman building etc... Don't you realize that the Bible is true and its prophecies can not fail? It's prophecied that the Jews (Falasha, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi...) will come back to their land & will build for the last time a temple to their Messiah. It doesn't say that false Jews will create a false nation of their own. God's prophecies are to be accomplished. He won't allow false Jews to create a false Jewish nation. He's a God of truth. Shalom, my friend.
Communist anti-Semitism
As Stalin's anti-Semitism metastasized after World War II, plans were developed for wholesale Jewish relocation. Much evidence indicates that the Soviet government planned to deport virtually the entire population to the autonomous oblast and other remote regions, no doubt slaughtering a substantial number in the process. In all likelihood, Soviet Jewry was saved only by Stalin's death in 1953.
Are the Jews Really Jewish? Refuting the Khazar Theory
I have heard, from time to time, the idea expressed that Jews, particularly Eastern European Jews (known as “Ashkenazim,” after “Ashkenaz” meaning Germany) are not really Jewish at all, but are descendants of the Khazar tribe, which converted to Judaism. Therefore, it is argued, since most Jews are Askenazi; the Jewish people of today have little relation with the ancient people of God. Is this true?
Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD and the Roman exile, southern Italy provided an initial destination for Jewish populations dispersing from the Near East. A north-bound migration from Italy, beginning in the 4th century AD and proceeding at least until the 10th century, gave rise to a nucleus of Ashkenazi Jewry in the Rhine valley. The eastern expansion of the Ashkenazi settlement, starting after the 11th century, produced what was to become the largest Jewish population prior to World War II. Demographic data provide evidence for a dramatic expansion in size; from an estimated number of ~25,000 in 1300 AD, the Ashkenazi population had grown to more than 8.5 million by the beginning of the 19th century.
Let's remember that there are also Sephardic Jews who were centered in Muslim countries and Spain. (“Sepharad” means Spain in ancient Hebrew.) Yemenite, Ethiopian, Cochin, and other Jewish groups have separate and distinct ancient origins different from the Ashkenazi community. Granted, most Jews are Ashkenazi, but the percentage of the Jewish people coming to Israel from other heritages is growing. In Israel today the more traditional Sephardis (who are less likely to use birth control) are multiplying at a faster rate than the Ashkenazis. So we can't simply ignore the Sephardic Jews and Jews of other origins, to begin with.
Second, is it true that most of the Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Khazars? The evidence by no means leads to the conclusion that they are not descendants of Abraham because of the Khazari connection. Let's see what we can find out about the Khazars:
1. We know that the Khazars were a Turkish tribe living between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea in the eighth century.
2. To what extent the Khazars converted to Judaism is open to debate. According to the scholar Robert M. Seltzer, “The Judaism of the Khazars has been much discussed but the historical evidence is very limited. Only the ruling class of the Khazars became Jews...”2 Raphael Patai states: “For more than two centuries Judaism was the religion of the ruling class while other religions, notably Islam, but also Christianity, were extensively practiced among the people.”3
3. Abba Eban has written: “...the rulers of the Khazars apparently converted to Judaism at the end of the eighth century, although the majority of the population appears to have remained either Christian or Moslem.”4 According to Max Dimont, “In 969 Duke Sviatoslav defeated the Khazars and incorporated their territory into the new Russian state he was founding....And so it came about that the former Jewish kingdom of Khazar became part of Mother Russia, and its people made the sign of the cross to the Russian Orthodox formula Gospodi Pomiloy instead of bowing reverently to the Hebrew Shema Yisroel.”
4. Eban also wrote: “It is likely too that some Khazar progeny reached the various Slavic lands where they helped build the great Jewish centers of eastern Europe.”6
5. Many Jews from other lands emigrated to Khazaria both prior to and subsequent to the conversion of the Khazars.
Conclusion: There were members of a tribe of Turkic people who converted to Judaism. Many of their people remained Christian or Muslim, and some of those who had converted to Judaism became Russian Orthodox when conquered by Russia. Some of their descendants probably survived to join the Eastern European Jewish community. This, in a nutshell, is what we know about the Khazars. Does this information lead to a conclusion that the Jewish people of today are not really Jewish at all and are not in fact the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh? Hardly!
What motivates those who argue this way? Some may simply have been convinced by speculative theories. Possibly anti-Semitism may motivate others, but I think we need to be careful with such a charge. Still others may be motivated by a more positive desire to affirm the truth that most ultimately the children of Abraham are those who believe in the Messiah and have by faith embraced the covenant. This is clearly taught by Romans 4 and Galatians 3. Romans 11 tells us that those who believe are grafted into the tree of the patriarchs, but there God also clearly tells us that He has a concern for the natural branches and is able to graft them in again to their own tree.
There is truth to the statement “the Jews are not a race.” The Jewish people are a “community of descent,” which differs from a “race.” Today's Jewish people are, by and large, the community of physical descent from Abraham and the patriarchs. Not a Race: A “Community of Descent”
Let me illustrate this point. If I were to marry an Asian woman and father children who then married other Asians, these children would be my descendants. If that woman were to die and I were to marry an African woman and have children, and they were to marry others of African descent, they would also be my descendants. One set of descendants would be racially Asian and the other racially African, but they would both be my descendants! Today's Jewish people are, by and large, the community of physical descent from Abraham and the patriarchs, whatever their race. Race is not the issue. The issue is descent. Black Ethiopian Jews, blonde Jews from Scandinavia, and Cochin Jews from India are racially different but are all Jewish. Sure there has been intermarriage, rape, and conversion of Gentiles. Some non-Jews have entered into ethnic Jewry, and no doubt, many Khazars, but at the core, the Jewish community remains descended from patriarchal Israel. There is still a Jewish “community of descent.” Am Israel Chai!
Can it be refuted that Jews named Levi, Levitt, Levinson, Lewis, etc. trace their heritage to the tribe of Levi or that Jews named Cohen, Cohn, Cahn, Kaplan, Katz, etc., trace their ancestry to the Cohanim, the priestly descendants of Aaron? This knowledge has been preserved in part because of the special roles these descendants have had in the synagogue. You must know if you are a Priest or Levite in the synagogue. It has only been fifty generations since the first century. It doesn’t seem so difficult to believe that this sort of information could be passed on orally given the importance of it in synagogue life. Recent genetic studies have found a common genetic link, tracing back to a single ancestor, that connects Jewish males from all over the world claiming priestly heritage. Also, a very large percentage of Ashkenazi Jews all descend from four women of Middle Eastern origin. In general, genetic studies have shown Ashkenazi Jews in general have significant MiddleEastern genetic origins, which demonstrates non-Khazar ancestry. Granted, unless DNA studies are done on remains of certifiable Jewish ancestors, which yet may happen, these studies are not conclusive proof of descent from Abraham, but they do at least establish Askenazi Jews have Middle Eastern ancestry and they do refute the idea that all Ashkenazi Jews are simply Khazars. So what if there has been some influx of non-Jews? Non-Jews, like the Khazars, have married into the community of descent from Abraham. It is a most reasonable conclusiuon that most Jews today still share the ancient Israelites as their common ancestors.8 As a people, Jews are the community of Abraham's physical descendants.
A Providential Preservation
God has preserved the Jewish people against overwhelming odds. The great American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, said: “The Jews may be considered as a remarkable evidence of the truth of revealed religion, in that they were preserved so long a time a distinct nation from all others, even since their father Jacob's time, till this day; being neither destroyed, nor abolished, nor lost by mixing with other nations.”9 Edwards recognized God's amazing preservation of the Jewish people, a preservation motivated by grace and accomplished to God's own glory. When the Jewish people return to faith in their own Messiah, Jesus, it will be to His glory and praise. The ethnic children of Abraham will come back into the spiritual family of Abraham by faith, the New Covenant Community.
Truly, the promises of God and the election of God are only realized through faith in Messiah. Praise the God of Israel that He has opened a way for all people to become Abraham's spiritual children through Messiah, the ultimate seed of promise! As for the natural branches of Abraham's tree, God is still faithful to His promises. He has told us: “As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and His call are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:28-29) May those of Abraham’s natural descent soon return to the God of their fathers and soon join with all those of spiritual descent, that is, all who believe, so that a great blessing may be experienced by all and that the good news of Messiah will prosper in the world.
Why do you believe all the antisemitic legends: that the Ashkenazi Jews are Turks, that the wailing wall is a Roman building etc... Don't you realize that the Bible is true and its prophecies can not fail? It's prophecied that the Jews (Falasha, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi...) will come back to their land & will build for the last time a temple to their Messiah. It doesn't say that false Jews will create a false nation of their own. God's prophecies are to be accomplished. He won't allow false Jews to create a false Jewish nation. He's a God of truth. Shalom, my friend.
As Stalin's anti-Semitism metastasized after World War II, plans were developed for wholesale Jewish relocation. Much evidence indicates that the Soviet government planned to deport virtually the entire population to the autonomous oblast and other remote regions, no doubt slaughtering a substantial number in the process. In all likelihood, Soviet Jewry was saved only by Stalin's death in 1953.
Antisemitic People Don't Believe It But the 20th Century Has Seen Millions of Israelites Dying
During the 20th century 6 million Jews died, plus thousands of Gypsies, both groups in WWII. Not to count the Thousands of of Jews persecuted & killed in pogroms in Russia & other Eastern European countries. Add the several thousands of Israelis killed in wars against Arab countries, being them the attackers that wanted to clean Israel from Jews. We can't forget the Israelis killed in terrorist attacks either.
The Tutsis were also slaughtered to the point that between 1/2 & a million died in the Tutsi Jewish genocide, plus the thousands of Ibos that died in the Biafran war.
All the above have been genocides prepetrated against Israelites & the list is longer for sure.
All Jews Have Common Middle Eastern Ancestry
Jews share a 'genetic signature'. Jewishness is not just in your heart or in your soul, it's also in your genes.
A new study carried out by geneticists in New York and Tel Aviv suggests that Jews have a particular genetic signature.
Geneticist Harry Ostrer, of New York University, said that within specific communities, such as Ashkenazim or Sephardim, Jews are as closely related as fourth or fifth cousins. Furthermore, Dr Ostrer, lead author of the study titled Abraham's Children in the Genome Era, said all Jews have a common Middle Eastern ancestry.
Meanwhile, our nearest genetic relatives in the non-Jewish world in Europe are Italians and other southern Europeans. In the Middle East it is the Palestinians, Druze and, to a lesser degree, Bedouins.
Dr Ostrer said that one of the main findings of the study, which was published in this month's American Journal of Human Genetics, was that European Jews share a common Southern European ancestry that probably predates the Roman Empire. "I think there was a massive conversion to Judaism during classical antiquity," Dr Ostrer said. "Judaism was perceived in the Hellenistic world as an intellectual religion and it had great appeal. The Jewish historian Josephus estimated that 10 per cent of the Roman Empire was comprised of Jews. And this empire extended from Asia Minor across the Mediterranean basin." The study also showed that certain Sephardic Jews are closely related to Ashkenazi Jews, added Dr Ostrer.
He pointed out that Sephardim of Italy, Turkey and Greece have a shared European ancestry with Ashkenazi Jews. Meanwhile, Syrian Jews showed genetic evidence of mixing with Iberian Jews, probably following the Spanish Inquisition. "There is so much diversity among Jewish groups," Dr Ostrer said. "So this distinction between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews is fairly simplistic." Dr Ostrer said the study disproved theories, such as those raised by Arthur Koestler in The Thirteenth Tribe, that Ashkenazi Jews' roots lie in Central Asia.
He said it also disproved 2009's controversial book The Invention of the Jewish People, by Tel Aviv University professor Shlomo Sand, which claimed the Jews had no common ancestry and there was no such thing as a Jewish nation. Dr Ostrer described the book as "bad genetics". Dr Ostrer suggested his research might help genetic testing companies offer products that predict Jewish ancestry.
A second major study, by 21 geneticists, went so far as to conclude that almost every Jewish community in the world can trace its roots directly back to the Levant, with just two exceptions - the Jews of India and Ethiopia. Geneticists collected DNA samples from 14 diaspora communities and compared them to the genetic makeup of nearly 70 non-Jewish populations from the same or neighbouring regions.Prof Parfitt said the findings confirm that the Beta Israel (Falasha) community in Ethiopia did not have Israelite roots."It seems certain that their form of Judaism was one which developed in Ethiopia partly for political reasons. Jews did not go to Ethiopia in ancient times - but Judaism did."
About false world Jewish conspiracies & supposed far right
If there was a Jewish (or Zionistic) conspiracy to control the world & they were succesfully achieving it, then the Jews wouldn't be inferior people as the nazis & other antisemitic (or antizionist, as they like to call it themselves now) groups say about the Jews. So the Jews have to be superior to be able to dominate the world.
It's this simple: or you are an inferior human being & can't control the world, for the only to control it is either being superior or at least you have to have the same level of intelligence. I don't believe there's any ethnic group that is inferior or superior though, but that's how these antisemitic categorize.
Antisemitism doesn't know the borders or political tendencies, but it's majoritary in the political extremes: far right & far left.
Another popular critic, in this case aimed at the Jewish State of Israel is that far right groups are bringing ethnic groups of non Israelite background to the Land of Israel in order to be a majority in Arab areas.
It's not possible to be a far right wing supporter, being racist as they say it, & bring peoples from other ethnic groups. There are two options. Or they are far right supporters (and racist) & are bringing ethnic Israelites, or they are not far right (and racist) supporters & are bringing peoples of non Israelite ethnic origin.
There are racism & racism any ethnic group, but never are a majority, nor among, nor among Africans, nor among Israelis (or Jews)... There are also conpirators, but they encompass any ethnic group, not one in particular. After all both accusations are false, groundless, selfcontradicting & based on calumnies & prejudices against the Israeli Jews, against the Jews as a whole (regarding world Jewish conspiracies) & against Jewish nationalism, which is as worth of respect as any other nationalism.
Martin Luther King said that being against zionism was another way of antisemitism & he was right because with the rise of the so called antizionism we are witnessing the surge of antisemitism.
The Rappaport Center for Assimilation Research and Strengthening Jewish Vitality
The Rappaport Center for Assimilation Research and Strengthening Jewish Vitality is an independent R & D center, founded in Bar Ilan University in the spring of 2001 at the initiative of Ruth and Baruch Rappaport, who identified assimilation as the primary danger to the future of the Jewish people. A central working hypothesis of the Center is that assimilation is not an inexorable force of nature, but the result of human choices. In the past, Jews chose assimilation in order to avoid persecution and social stigmatization. Today, however, this is rarely the case. In our times, assimilation stems from the fact that for many Jews, maintaining Jewish involvements and affiliations seems less attractive than pursuing the alternatives open to them in the pluralistic societies of contemporary Europe and America.
To dismiss such subjective disaffection with Jewishness as merely a result of poor marketing and amateurish PR for Judaism is an easy way out –which we do not accept. Rather, a concurrent working hypothesis of the Rappaport Center is that the tendency of many Jews to disassociate from Jewishness reflects real flaws and weaknesses existing in various areas and institutions of Jewish life today.
The Rappaport Center for Assimilation Research's logo
The first stage of all research projects of our Center is, therefore, to analyze an aspect or institution of Jewish life in order to identify and understand what might be contributing to “turning Jews off”. However, since assimilation is not a force of nature, it should be possible to move beyond analysis, characterizing and formulating options for mending and repair.
This is the second stage of our activities, and these two aspects are reflected in our name: The Rappaport Center for Assimilation Research and Strengthening Jewish Vitality.
The Rappaport Center views the Jewish People as a global community made up of a large number of nodes that link and interconnect in multiple and complex ways. Recognizing and respecting the wide variety of contexts and aspects of Jewish life today, we realize that insights and solutions relevant to specific communities and institutions are not necessarily directly applicable elsewhere. Yet the interconnectivity of Jews worldwide, enhanced by modern modes of communication, means that novel analyses and responses to problems and issues facing specific Jewish frameworks are of more than local significance.
Thus, work carried out at our center can be of benefit to all leaders, activists and institutions motivated – as we are here at the Rappaport Center – to respond creatively to the challenges of assimilation and to enhance and strengthen Jewish vitality. In addition to “Field Reports”, the Rappaport Center publishes a series titled “Research and Position Papers”, authored by outstanding scholars and experts. These papers present original and interesting findings concerning issues pertaining to assimilation and Jewish identity.
Written at a high level of cultural and conceptual analysis, they are nevertheless not ‘ivory tower’ research; they bear operational implications for ameliorating and improving real-life situations. The research and position papers of the Rappaport Center are an invaluable and original series, and constitute a significant addition to the collection of any public and research library and to the bookshelves of all individuals interested in, or concerned with, the future of the Jewish people.
For all of us involved in the activities of the Rappaport Center, and indeed for all Jews and people of good will concerned with the vitality of the Jewish people, the publication of this report is an opportunity to acknowledge once again the vision and commitment of Ruth and Baruch Rappaport. It is their initiative and continued generosity that enable the manifold activities of the Rappaport Center – thus making an important contribution to ensuring the future well-being of the Jewish people. May they continue to enjoy together many years of health, activity, satisfaction and happiness. Zvi Zohar, Director The Rappaport Center for Assimilation Research and Strengthening Jewish Vitality.
Orthodox Judaism
Doctrines
Orthodox Judaism is the direct successor of early Rabbinic or Talmudical Judaism, holding that the "Oral Torah" particularly as it is contained in the Bavli (or Babylonian Talmud) has divine authority equal to that of the "Written Torah" in the Hebrew Bible. In addition to the ancient literature of the Talmudic period, orthodoxy gives special authority to a number of mediaeval commentaries and codes of which the works of Rashi (1040-1105), Maimonides (1135-1204) and Joseph Caro's Shulhan Arukh (1565) are the most used. Another important source of halakhic authority is the mediaeval and modern Responsa literature, that is, collections of "answers" (Responsa) given to specific questions by scholars, some of whom, like Maimonides, gained a worldwide reputation during their lifetime. In the orthodox tradition practice in relation to circumcision, the dietary laws, the sabbath, the calendar, the role of women, marriage, the use of Hebrew in worship, the study of the Talmud and the rabbinate, is of such importance that it to some extent outweighs deviations in theological belief.
Hence a Jew can remain a Jew and at the same time absorb himself in Kabbalah mysticism, or even give up his belief in God altogether, provided he observes orthodox practice. Where observing a law conflicts with the saving of life (pikkuah nefesh), however, the law must be broken. The only exceptions are the three cardinal laws forbidding idolatry, incest and murder, which must be obeyed even if the consequence is certain death, that is, martyrdom. Orthodox responses to the Holocaust were to treat it, like other tragic instances of Jewish suffering down the ages, as an impenetrable mystery transcending human understanding as God transcends it, but no reason to change any of the fundamental principles of traditional Jewish faith.
The continuation of Jewish history after Auschwitz, especially in the newly established State of Israel, provided proof of God's continuing love for his people. There is now an annual commemoration of the Holocaust, known as Yom ha-Shoah ("catastrophe"), focussing on the huge Holocaust Memorial, "Yad va-Shem", in Jerusalem. Orthodox Jewish women, inspired by the women's movement in secular society, have questioned traditional teaching on such matters as the remarriage of divorcees and the participation of women in public worship. Some have written their own liturgies, including various women's "Passover Haggadot", the Rosh Hodesh ("New Moon") festival, and a ceremony for naming their daughters corresponding to the traditional male Bar Mitzvah service. Jewish women's organizations within the Orthodox tradition include Benot Esh "daughters of fire" and Nishmat Nashim ("Women's Soul").
Hence a Jew can remain a Jew and at the same time absorb himself in Kabbalah mysticism, or even give up his belief in God altogether, provided he observes orthodox practice. Where observing a law conflicts with the saving of life (pikkuah nefesh), however, the law must be broken. The only exceptions are the three cardinal laws forbidding idolatry, incest and murder, which must be obeyed even if the consequence is certain death, that is, martyrdom. Orthodox responses to the Holocaust were to treat it, like other tragic instances of Jewish suffering down the ages, as an impenetrable mystery transcending human understanding as God transcends it, but no reason to change any of the fundamental principles of traditional Jewish faith.
The continuation of Jewish history after Auschwitz, especially in the newly established State of Israel, provided proof of God's continuing love for his people. There is now an annual commemoration of the Holocaust, known as Yom ha-Shoah ("catastrophe"), focussing on the huge Holocaust Memorial, "Yad va-Shem", in Jerusalem. Orthodox Jewish women, inspired by the women's movement in secular society, have questioned traditional teaching on such matters as the remarriage of divorcees and the participation of women in public worship. Some have written their own liturgies, including various women's "Passover Haggadot", the Rosh Hodesh ("New Moon") festival, and a ceremony for naming their daughters corresponding to the traditional male Bar Mitzvah service. Jewish women's organizations within the Orthodox tradition include Benot Esh "daughters of fire" and Nishmat Nashim ("Women's Soul").
History
Orthodox Judaism has developed in two forms, Sephardi and Ashkenazi. The Sephardis are distinguished by their use of Judaeo-Spanish or Ladino as opposed to Yiddish (a Jewish variety of German) which is used by Ashkenazis, and also by their pronunciation of Hebrew and some liturgical customs. They were originally the Jews of Spain and Portugal, whose long and creative history ended there when they were expelled by the Christian authorities in 1492. Sephardi communities were established in Italy, Holland, Turkey, the Land of Israel and elsewhere, and today account for 61% of the world Jewish population. In Israel they have their own Chief Rabbi. The Ashkenazis are the Jews of Germany, Poland, Russia and other parts of Europe whose history was one of constant persecution and destruction, culminating in the Holocaust in which their numbers were reduced from about 9,000,000 to 3,000,000. Most now live in the United States, and in Israel where they too have their own Chief Rabbi.
Mainstream Jewish tradition as distinct from Karaism, Shabbateanism or the like, was not defined as "Orthodox" until the challenge of modernism and emancipation split Judaism during the 18th and 19th centuries into several forms. Ultraorthodoxy and Hasidism were at one end of the spectrum, and Reform and Conservative Judaism at the other, with the majority of Jews, led by such men as Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) in Germany and Rabbi Israel Salanter (1810-1883) in Lithuania, holding the "orthodox" middle ground. New Yeshivot ("rabbinical colleges") in which the emphasis was on studying Torah were established all over Europe. From the late 19th century the political Zionism of Theodore Herzl (1860-1904) and subsequently the Kibbutz movement supporting the settlement of Jews from Europe in Palestine, presented a further challenge to orthodoxy.
Some religious groups such as the ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta "Guardians of the City", dissociated themselves from what they saw as an entirely secular movement, while others like the Gush Emunim ("the faithful group"), following the teaching of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), evolved forms of "religious Zionism" in which possession of the Land of Israel was equated with divine redemption. Most orthodox Jews hold the middle ground between these two extremes. They account for the majority of Jews in some countries, including Great Britain where the Chief Rabbi is orthodox, although not in the United States and Israel where orthodoxy is now in the minority after Reform and Conservative Judaism.
Mainstream Jewish tradition as distinct from Karaism, Shabbateanism or the like, was not defined as "Orthodox" until the challenge of modernism and emancipation split Judaism during the 18th and 19th centuries into several forms. Ultraorthodoxy and Hasidism were at one end of the spectrum, and Reform and Conservative Judaism at the other, with the majority of Jews, led by such men as Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) in Germany and Rabbi Israel Salanter (1810-1883) in Lithuania, holding the "orthodox" middle ground. New Yeshivot ("rabbinical colleges") in which the emphasis was on studying Torah were established all over Europe. From the late 19th century the political Zionism of Theodore Herzl (1860-1904) and subsequently the Kibbutz movement supporting the settlement of Jews from Europe in Palestine, presented a further challenge to orthodoxy.
Some religious groups such as the ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta "Guardians of the City", dissociated themselves from what they saw as an entirely secular movement, while others like the Gush Emunim ("the faithful group"), following the teaching of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), evolved forms of "religious Zionism" in which possession of the Land of Israel was equated with divine redemption. Most orthodox Jews hold the middle ground between these two extremes. They account for the majority of Jews in some countries, including Great Britain where the Chief Rabbi is orthodox, although not in the United States and Israel where orthodoxy is now in the minority after Reform and Conservative Judaism.
Symbols
Since the 19th century the Magen David (six pointed Star (or Shield) of David) has become the most distinctive Jewish symbol, and now appear both on the national flag of the State of Israel, and as the insignia of the Magen David Adom, Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross. The Menorah is also very common, as are the other traditional Jewish symbols derived from the Temple and the festivals. Distinctive dress in many orthodox communities includes the small round skull-cap (Hebrew kippah, Yiddish Kappel or Yarmulka) worn by men and the four prayer-shawl "tassels" (Hebrew tzitziot) visible at the waist. During prayer orthodox men cover their heads or shoulders with a tallit and wear tefillin. A decorative mezuzah is fixed to the right hand doorpost at the entrance to most Jewish homes. Since the 16th century a decorative spice-box used in the Havdalah ceremony at the end of the Sabbath, has become another popular Jewish religious objet d'art.
Adherents about 2,000,000 world wide, 1,000,000 in the States
Headquarters/Main Center Agudath Israel World Organization, 84 William Street, New York 10038 Union of Orthodox Rabbis, 235 E Broadway, New York 100002 Conference of European Rabbis, Adler House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9HN. Tel: 0171 387 1066 Israel Chief Rabbinate, Heikhal Shelomo, 58 King George Street, Jerusalem. Tel: 252712...
Kabbalah
Doctrines
Kabbalah (or Qabbalah) represents an alternative mystical world view to that of orthodox Judaism. The central text for kabbalists, comparable in its authority and lasting influence to the Babylonian Talmud, is an early mediaeval work, known as the Zohar or Book of Splendor, probably by the 13th century Spanish kabbalist Moses de León. It is a kind of mystical midrash (commentary) on the Five Books of Moses, written in Aramaic: by studying it and discovering the esoteric or mystical meaning of the Torah, kabbalists gain a unique insight into the inner life of God, which cannot be reached by halakhah or philosophy. This mystical tradition appears in a developed form by the sixth century CE at the latest, in two important works of unknown date and authorship. The one, entitled Sefer Yetzirah "Book of Creation", is a short highly imaginative and enigmatic cosmological work which greatly influenced later kabbalistic speculation.
The other, known as Heikhalot Rabbati "Great Treatise on the Heavenly Palaces", contains traditions about God's Chariot (Merkavah), described in awesome detail in Ezekiel, and the secret knowledge (gnosis), magical names, hymns and formulae by means of which the mystic may journey in safety through the outer "palaces" of heaven to communion with God. In this rich and complex religious tradition, biblical words and names acquire a mystical meaning, as do numbers and letters of the alphabet, all with the object of providing some kind of link or correspondence or analogy between what we know here and now in this world and what we long to know of God in heaven. The Zohar constructs a system based on ten Sefirot, literally "numbers", but now given the sense of "divine attributes, modes of self revelation", by which God, the En-Sof the "Undefinable, Unknowable" (literally "without end"), has chosen to reveal himself:
The other, known as Heikhalot Rabbati "Great Treatise on the Heavenly Palaces", contains traditions about God's Chariot (Merkavah), described in awesome detail in Ezekiel, and the secret knowledge (gnosis), magical names, hymns and formulae by means of which the mystic may journey in safety through the outer "palaces" of heaven to communion with God. In this rich and complex religious tradition, biblical words and names acquire a mystical meaning, as do numbers and letters of the alphabet, all with the object of providing some kind of link or correspondence or analogy between what we know here and now in this world and what we long to know of God in heaven. The Zohar constructs a system based on ten Sefirot, literally "numbers", but now given the sense of "divine attributes, modes of self revelation", by which God, the En-Sof the "Undefinable, Unknowable" (literally "without end"), has chosen to reveal himself:
1. Keter (Crown) 2. Hokhmah (wisdom) 3. Binah (understanding) 4. Hesed (Love) 5. Gevurah (power) or Din (Justice) 6. Rahamim (Mercy) 7. Netzah (victory) 8. Hod (majesty) 9. Yesod (foundation) 10. Malkhut (Kingdom).
The scheme is diagrammatically represented as a tree or a man.
Fundamental to the kabbalists' view of things is the dynamic nature of God and his relationship to Israel and the world. Since the world of the Sefirot is reflected in this world, we can learn something of it from human history and experience, especially the history of Israel. The Torah as interpreted by the kabbalists provides the God-given key to this scheme of correspondences, and it has an ethical dimension too, derived from biblical references to divine involvement in human affairs. The arrangement or balance of the Sefirot is affected in various ways by what happens on earth: Justice replaces Power, for example, when Israel sins. One of the most popular aspects of kabbalistic and hasidic speculation is the legend of the golem, which describes the creation out of clay of a man by a magical combination of the sacred letters of the Hebrew alphabet. There are numerous stories about the terrifying risks involved in the making of golems, by such characters as Rabbi Loew of Prague (c.1520-1609) and even the "Gaon of Vilna" ( 1720-1797).
History
Traces of these mystical traditions, both the contemplative "Creation mysticism" and the more ecstatic, experiential "Merkavah mysticism", can be found already in early Jewish apocalyptic literature and the Talmud, but it is not until the post-Talmudic and early mediaeval periods, that they were permitted to develop alongside talmudical orthodoxy. Before the end of the second century CE, the rabbis had excluded most of the apocalyptic literature from the Jewish canon of scripture, and placed restrictions upon the study of the two Biblical texts most used by early Jewish mystics, Genesis 1 (cosmology) and Ezekiel 1 (merkavah). Some of the early sages who, like the "Four who entered Paradise", strayed into mystical speculation, are remembered as brilliant, but misguided interpreters of scripture. The same attitude among the leaders of halakhic orthodoxy prevailed at first towards the two post-Talmudic mystical works, Sefer Yetzirah and Hekhalot Rabbati.
It was not until after the appearance of the Zohar in the 13th century that the mystical tradition gained a degree of acceptance within or alongside orthodox Judaism. By the sixteenth century the town of Safed in northern Palestine had become a center for kabbalists of whom Joseph Caro (1499-1575) and Isaac Luria (1534-72) are the best known and most influential. They and their disciples remained within the orthodox talmudical tradition, unlike the "mystical messiah" Shabbetai Tzevi (1626-76) and his followers who rejected the Talmud and study the Zohar as zealously as they study the Bible. Finally in the eighteenth century the kabbalistic tradition was revived by the Hasidim of eastern Europe, led by the Baal Shem Tov (died 1760) whose less elitist forms of mysticism survive among ordinary Jewish congregations throughout the world to this day.
It was not until after the appearance of the Zohar in the 13th century that the mystical tradition gained a degree of acceptance within or alongside orthodox Judaism. By the sixteenth century the town of Safed in northern Palestine had become a center for kabbalists of whom Joseph Caro (1499-1575) and Isaac Luria (1534-72) are the best known and most influential. They and their disciples remained within the orthodox talmudical tradition, unlike the "mystical messiah" Shabbetai Tzevi (1626-76) and his followers who rejected the Talmud and study the Zohar as zealously as they study the Bible. Finally in the eighteenth century the kabbalistic tradition was revived by the Hasidim of eastern Europe, led by the Baal Shem Tov (died 1760) whose less elitist forms of mysticism survive among ordinary Jewish congregations throughout the world to this day.
Symbols
Kabbalistic art makes use of all kinds of patterns including the Magen David, Menorah, Tetragrammaton and other letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Two of the most frequent diagrams used to represent the complex interrelatiohships between the Ten Sefirot are the tree and the primal man (Adam Kadmon). Ezekiel's chariot (merkabah) was an early mystical symbol, as a mode of transportation between heaven and earth.
Adherents
The number of kabbalah mystics is impossible to estimate.
Headquarters/Main Center Safed (Hebrew Tzefat) in northern Palestine was known as the center of Jewish mysticism in the 16th century.
What is a Ziggurat? “Ancient ziggurats,” writes historian Jessica Miller, “were massive temple structures built in Ancient Mesopotamia…. Unlike pyramids, these structures would have contained stairs to allow designated people access to upper levels.”In addition, ziggurats often had a temple complex at the top of their structure, which was considered the dwelling place of deity. The following model, displayed in the Pergamum Museum in Berlin, shows us what the ziggurat and its temple complex might have looked like.
According to the Vilna Gaon, before redemption, the immanent work today involves the:
Return of the Jews in the Diaspora as they choose to come home to Israel, the; Gathering of the exiles of the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel, plus the; Expansion and Building of Jerusalem”; Continued extension of the borders of the towns, villages, farmlands and settlements in thecontested land of Shomron and Judea and beyond; Expansion of the Land of Israel across the Jordan River and onward to the Gates of Damascus.
According to the Sages of Judah, in the future the “World to Come” both houses of the House of Jacob will be restored. This includes all the Jewish living in the Diaspora and in the Land of Israel plus all the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel living anywhere on Planet Earth.
The extent of this massive Aliyah has been evaluated carefully by the visionary Orthodox Jewish founders, OvadYah Avrahami, and Rabbi Avraham Feld of “Kol Ha Tor” in Samaria carrying forward the mandate given by the legendary and revered rabbi, Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman in Lithuania called the “Genius of Vilna” or best known as the Vilna Gaon in the latter half of the 18 th century.
They have concluded that upwarods to 2 to 3 billion of the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel will immigrate or flee in “Aliyah” also to the Land of Israel as prophetically mandated by the Holy One of Israel.
This will be by forced evacuation in war, planetary climate catastrophes, or a new reality as they also are transformed by a new awareness that they are the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel.
In as much as we, as the Lost Ten Tribes have failed to honor and sanctify G-d’s Holy Name, He and He alone will reclaim, redeem and restore us back to “the lands of our forefather”. This mandate, an “act of G-d” will not be changeable by any human or global world order. (Ezekiel 36).
Yet to do so, the borders of the Land of Israel will have to expand beyond the wildest dreams every Jewish person in Israel today; left or right, secular or religious, the politicians in the Knesset, the Justices in the Supreme Court. This will include all the Industrialists that make the Land of Israel the most productive land in the world and set the standards of modern technology that will be elevated to “Sacred Technology”.
Reverend William Hechler with his children
My belief about the first period of Hyksos rule, which is founded in very little evidence, that evidence being mostly non-existant, is that the first Hyksos rulership of Egypt, well before Abraham's time, was headed by Shem after he defeated Ham, and eventually went to Palestine to found Salem. I don't have a "lock" on the time line, but the book of Jasher states that Abraham was taken by Terah to live with Noah and Shem for the 10th-49th years of his life. This of course is where he learned all that good stuff he taught the Egyptians.
The second period of Hyksos rule was from Joseph, spanning as much as 250 years until the Pharoah of Southern Egpyt "rebelled" and indentured the leftovers who didn't go out in the first exodus; namely the "tribe" of Zarah as leaders over many groups of immigrants to the north of Egypt. It is already well documented (check an encylopedia) that Darda and Calco, sons of Zarah, founded and ruled settlements/kingdoms in what would later be called Greece and Troy.
The terminus of this migration is very natural because during the 250 year rule of Joseph-Zarah in Egypt, the tribe of Dan pioneered all of Europe; naming all the rivers and other geographical benchmarks after himself, as was his wont. The briefest study of the rivers of east and west Europe will turn up many names that contain some form of the word Dan; Danube.
The Danite-Phoenicians had to scout out the route to be taken by the Lost Tribes on their trek to the place prophesied to David by Nathan in II Sam. The place where their traditional enemies would bother them no more.
Hyksos rule was carried out by the Adamic Priesthood and the Israelites. The last Adamic High Priest Shem ruled the first Hyksos period, and the Israelite/Hebrew sons of Jacob; Joseph, Zarah, et al, ruled the second.
Don't be fooled by the name Hyksos. It's a word like Scythian. It's only a description, not the name of the described. Scythian basically means nomad. They went around in succoths/scooths/scyths.
Hyksos only means "foreign." Foreign kings. Some like to say "Shepherd" kings. There weren't a people known as the Hyksos. This is very easy to understand when applying it to the second period of Hyksos rule. They were Isrealites, but to the Egyptians they were Foreign kings, Hyksos. Don't we get our version of the history of that time from the people who kept the records of that time? The Egyptians? They called the Isrealites what they wanted. And they hated the Israelite rule.
I've read that this is one of the reasons that there is so little mention of the Isrealites in history. It's as though (and some have offered this) the Exodus never occurred and those millions of folks are a product of imagination. I've heard of new rulership going around tearing down all the monuments/references to the hated regime they replaced. Simple enough to see the Egyptians doing the same.
But as many, more scholarly than I, will affirm, there is plenty of evidence in the corners that paints the true picture. It's just very hard to come by all in one place. One must take in such disparate sources as Gordon, Sitkin and Velikovsky.
I have found that the Study of the Lost Tribes is the study of the history of the earth. The Israelites virtually took over the planet. From Japan going west to California.
I know how broadbrushed that sounds, but consider. What was God accomplishing with all us Israelites? What is His ultimate goal for humanity? The "trees" are the Lost Tribes. The Forest is the total history of the Earth, as regards humanity. We have to back way away from the trees to see the Forest, no?
God's objective is to bring the knowledge of Himself and His coming earthly kingdom to all the folks on the planet. What better way than to lead groups of Israelites to all the corners. They will be the most receptive to God's call; when He chooses to wake them out of the "spritual sleep" of worshipping/recognizing other than Himself.
God works in the long term. Centuries before an event He'll send out the scouts, establish travel routes, prepare destinations for habitation, send rulers who will "instantly" embrace the "message/way"of those who come later. Brutus to found New Troy (London), Heremon to Ireland for the arrival of Tea. Esther, Tobit, etc. We accept this readily on the small scale of Joseph being "sent" to Egypt to prepare a place for his family. Why not out-scale this MO to include historical eras?
The Lost Tribes went to the Isles to prepare for the birth of Christianity. Those Druid priests "instantly" accepted the new system of belief brought to them by Joseph of Arimathea and the young Jesus. Isn't it a wonder that a national religion, centuries old would overnight melt into the English fog? Religions are harder to defeat than nations. The only explanation can be that Druidism was recognized as a corruption of God's Truth. It was so close to this "new" message that Druidism was immediately assimilated. One of the early converts to Christianity was the Arch Druid King Bran. He had stepped off the throne to become Arch Druid.
The Big Picture is that God sent Shem to prepare a fertile place for the birth of a nation (and then to another place to pre-establish the nation's capitol). In that place God built up the family of Abraham until they reached a size great enough to make a nation. Bringing them to a place of independence, He taught that nation and strenghtened it until it was time to prepare the way for Jesus. He led His people to northwest Europe and the British Isles, where they could "renew your strength"(Isaiah). In the process, God dropped "seeds" in all the other places on earth; akin to remote receiving stations waiting for the word to come.
Once this network was in place, Jesus arrived to prove God's reality and tell His message of the coming earthly kingdom. The message was birthed in Jerusalem, grew up in England, and, via the Israelite world network, spread around the globe. And now with satellite broadcasting (done mainly by Israelites), this message of the coming kingdom has touched every square inch of the earth.
"And then shall the end come." Praise God! "...stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord..."
Was the Tower of Babel built to serve more as a temple than tower?
After all, the word Babel actually means “gate of God,” which is the very purpose of the temple.
What is a Ziggurat? “Ancient ziggurats,” writes historian Jessica Miller, “were massive temple structures built in Ancient Mesopotamia…. Unlike pyramids, these structures would have contained stairs to allow designated people access to upper levels.”In addition, ziggurats often had a temple complex at the top of their structure, which was considered the dwelling place of deity. The following model, displayed in the Pergamum Museum in Berlin, shows us what the ziggurat and its temple complex might have looked like.
Is it possible that the Tower of Babel was nothing more than a ziggurat, or false temple? After all, “Lucifer,” according to Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “is the Great Imitator [who] patterns his kingdom after that of the Lord.”And this tower may have been no exception. According to LDS scholar Catherine Thomas:
“The tower of Babel was a counterfeit gate of God, or temple, that Ham’s priesthood-deprived descendants built in rebellion against God.”[ the Baptist, 190–92.
Aliyah of the Lost Ten Tribes, Not Just of the Jews
With conservative estimates, the Jewish core population in Israel is 6.1 million citizens and America numbering almost 6.8 million Jews. The number of Jews in these two countries total almost 13 million Jews today. With the addition of Europe’s 1.1 million Jews, now over 14 million Jews may be expected to need homes in Israel as they return from their homes worldwide to live in the Land of Israel.
So why are the religious rabbinic and state leaders of the Nation of Israel so oblivious to these merging statistical catastrophes? The primal reality is that the State of Israel will have to expand their borders far beyond their wildest dreams.
This time it will not be the remnant of the Jews returning to Israel before and after the Shoah, the “Jewish Holocaust” but rather it will be the burgeoning cry of millions of European and American Jews with possibly many others scattered around the world who will wish to make Aliyah to live in the Land of Israel.
Rabbi David Cardozo – “As Europe is disintegrating before our very eyes, it’s only a matter of time before more and more Europeans will be seeking safer havens. And where else would they want to go but Israel?
It is obvious that such emigration is drawing near. Since the Holocaust, Europe has been going downhill. It allowed the murder of six million Jews, thereby destroying many of its most dedicated citizens, a large part of its culture, and some of its most gifted physicians, scientists, artists, thinkers and business people who contributed to its flourishing culture as well as to its domestic and international trade.
Millions of its gentile inhabitants (the Hidden Lost Ten Tribers of the House of Israel) were wiped out as well, and what remained was an impoverished and miserable continent. There is merit to the claim made by some that Europe died in Auschwitz.
Europeans and Americans will investigate their lineage and by hook or by crook will suddenly “find” that they are actually of Jewish descent, as in the case of the many anusim (conversos) today in Spain and Portugal.
Millions will apply to Israeli embassies and claim that on the basis of the Law of Return they have a right to live in Israel. Even committed Anti-Semites will “discover” their Jewish ancestry, and an entire black market of Jewish pedigree documents will appear.
El Al will immediately have to order a myriad of aircrafts to accommodate all these immigrants, since nobody will want to fly any other airline because of safety and security issues.
More and more people will leave Europe, once again turning it into a continent devoid of capable men and women they so desperately need to carve out their future. All those men and women will be on their way to Israel.
When this prophetic vision actualizes, the Mashiach will be on his way to ensure that all goes well. A daunting task! May he succeed!!
As OvadYah Avrahami,the director of “Kol Ha Tor Vision” wrote concerning the redemption and restoration of the Lost Tribes of Menasha back to live in Israel:
OvadYah Avrahami – “We can learn something from this: WHY are they (Bnei Menashe) received back (to Israel)? Because they continued in Jewish Torah Service of some form, sufficient enough to satisfy the Rabbis that they are “Jewish” – and the confusion with them being “Jews” are obvious from the wording of this article.
This means that if one identifies with Judaism (even ‘unofficially’), Judah’s heart is open to receiving them Home! It simply is the story of the ‘Prodigal Son” in true format. The Faithful Son has no problem with the Prodigal that respects and clings to his Father’s Faith and House, never mind wanting to drag him (the Faithful Son) into the Prodigal’s pigsty faith.”
It humbles us to consider that the Prodigal Lost Triber gathers his inheritance and squanders it spiritually away as most Christians have done and are doing so today. They are turning away from the beauties of Torah law,into ecumenical spiritualism and Jewish anti-Semitism. The “Pigsty” interpretedas a “dirty and very untidy place” can easily be seen as Christian Orthodoxy and her Protestant Christian daughters whose spiritual houses become the last place of habitation for the Prodigal “Son” Lost Tribes of the House of Israel before they come to their senses that something is better for them living in their Father’s House (All Israel); the empowered halakhically spiritualized Judaism of Rabbi Jesus the Nazarene.
Requirements Before Redemption According to the Vilna GaonAccording to the Vilna Gaon, before redemption, the immanent work today involves the:
Return of the Jews in the Diaspora as they choose to come home to Israel, the; Gathering of the exiles of the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel, plus the; Expansion and Building of Jerusalem”; Continued extension of the borders of the towns, villages, farmlands and settlements in thecontested land of Shomron and Judea and beyond; Expansion of the Land of Israel across the Jordan River and onward to the Gates of Damascus.
According to the Sages of Judah, in the future the “World to Come” both houses of the House of Jacob will be restored. This includes all the Jewish living in the Diaspora and in the Land of Israel plus all the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel living anywhere on Planet Earth.
The extent of this massive Aliyah has been evaluated carefully by the visionary Orthodox Jewish founders, OvadYah Avrahami, and Rabbi Avraham Feld of “Kol Ha Tor” in Samaria carrying forward the mandate given by the legendary and revered rabbi, Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman in Lithuania called the “Genius of Vilna” or best known as the Vilna Gaon in the latter half of the 18 th century.
They have concluded that upwarods to 2 to 3 billion of the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel will immigrate or flee in “Aliyah” also to the Land of Israel as prophetically mandated by the Holy One of Israel.
This will be by forced evacuation in war, planetary climate catastrophes, or a new reality as they also are transformed by a new awareness that they are the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel.
In as much as we, as the Lost Ten Tribes have failed to honor and sanctify G-d’s Holy Name, He and He alone will reclaim, redeem and restore us back to “the lands of our forefather”. This mandate, an “act of G-d” will not be changeable by any human or global world order. (Ezekiel 36).
Yet to do so, the borders of the Land of Israel will have to expand beyond the wildest dreams every Jewish person in Israel today; left or right, secular or religious, the politicians in the Knesset, the Justices in the Supreme Court. This will include all the Industrialists that make the Land of Israel the most productive land in the world and set the standards of modern technology that will be elevated to “Sacred Technology”.
DO NOT FORGET THE FATHER OF CHRISTIAN ZIONISM
As Theodor Herzl’s close partner in the early Zionist movement, his activism helped lay the groundwork for establishing a Jewish state in their historic homeland. He used his connections with European royalty to help Herzl secure meetings with key world leaders. Few people were as passionate and intense in working for Zionism and the Jewish people. Yet even fewer people know his name.
We are speaking of the Reverend William Hechler, a devout Christian who befriended Herzl and became the “foreign minister” of the Zionist movement. Eighty-five years after his death - the date of which will be remembered this coming January – Hechler is not commemorated across the country that he helped to found. No street bears his name, no structure, no institution. One of the key leaders of the early Zionist movement, and one of the fathers of Christian Zionism, the man that serves as an inspiration for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, is almost forgotten. Now is the time for the State of Israel to recognize its debt to this man who worked so hard for its establishment.
William Hechler was not the first Christian who recognized the religious importance of the Jewish return to their homeland, but he was the first to work actively alongside the newly-formed Zionist movement. Born in 1845 to a devout Anglican family, Hechler took up the cause of Zionism years before Herzl began his activity. As an Evangelical Christian, Hechler saw the return of Jews to their homeland as a biblical imperative. Faithful to this commandment, he was looking for Jewish leaders who would get behind the return to Zion. When he read Herzl’s booklet on “The Jewish State,” Hechler went immediately and knocked on his door to meet this visionary and encourage him to pursue his dream. In those days, Hechler served as chaplain of the British Embassy in Vienna, and he used his connections with the German royal family to open doors for Herzl across Europe.
It started with a meeting with Frederick I, Grand Duke of Baden, to lay out his plan for Jewish resettlement in Eretz Israel. Hechler also accompanied Herzl on a journey to Palestine, and helped him meet the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II. Hechler also served as a special envoy on behalf of the British prime minister in connection with Herzl's efforts. Hechler took part in the early Zionist Congresses -and even received special words of gratitude from Herzl for his work. Herzl noted that Hechler and his biblical inspiration had a great impact on his efforts, giving him a sense that he was a modern-day Moses leading his people back to the Promised Land. Hechler remained an ardent Zionist after Herzl's passing, and was in contact with Jewish and Christian leaders until his death. In the years before World War II, he called for Jews to leave Europe and warned of impending catastrophe.
It started with a meeting with Frederick I, Grand Duke of Baden, to lay out his plan for Jewish resettlement in Eretz Israel. Hechler also accompanied Herzl on a journey to Palestine, and helped him meet the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II. Hechler also served as a special envoy on behalf of the British prime minister in connection with Herzl's efforts. Hechler took part in the early Zionist Congresses -and even received special words of gratitude from Herzl for his work. Herzl noted that Hechler and his biblical inspiration had a great impact on his efforts, giving him a sense that he was a modern-day Moses leading his people back to the Promised Land. Hechler remained an ardent Zionist after Herzl's passing, and was in contact with Jewish and Christian leaders until his death. In the years before World War II, he called for Jews to leave Europe and warned of impending catastrophe.
Unfortunately, no one heard him. The story of the close partnership between Herzl and Hechler is told in the book "The Prince and the Prophet," by Claude Duvernoy. The legacy left by Hechler has not disappeared. Zionist Christian organizations, led by the ICEJ as well as millions of Christians around the world, continue to walk in the path of William Hechler, a great friend of the Jewish people.
On the Hyksos, the Israelites & ShemMy belief about the first period of Hyksos rule, which is founded in very little evidence, that evidence being mostly non-existant, is that the first Hyksos rulership of Egypt, well before Abraham's time, was headed by Shem after he defeated Ham, and eventually went to Palestine to found Salem. I don't have a "lock" on the time line, but the book of Jasher states that Abraham was taken by Terah to live with Noah and Shem for the 10th-49th years of his life. This of course is where he learned all that good stuff he taught the Egyptians.
The second period of Hyksos rule was from Joseph, spanning as much as 250 years until the Pharoah of Southern Egpyt "rebelled" and indentured the leftovers who didn't go out in the first exodus; namely the "tribe" of Zarah as leaders over many groups of immigrants to the north of Egypt. It is already well documented (check an encylopedia) that Darda and Calco, sons of Zarah, founded and ruled settlements/kingdoms in what would later be called Greece and Troy.
The terminus of this migration is very natural because during the 250 year rule of Joseph-Zarah in Egypt, the tribe of Dan pioneered all of Europe; naming all the rivers and other geographical benchmarks after himself, as was his wont. The briefest study of the rivers of east and west Europe will turn up many names that contain some form of the word Dan; Danube.
The Danite-Phoenicians had to scout out the route to be taken by the Lost Tribes on their trek to the place prophesied to David by Nathan in II Sam. The place where their traditional enemies would bother them no more.
Hyksos rule was carried out by the Adamic Priesthood and the Israelites. The last Adamic High Priest Shem ruled the first Hyksos period, and the Israelite/Hebrew sons of Jacob; Joseph, Zarah, et al, ruled the second.
Don't be fooled by the name Hyksos. It's a word like Scythian. It's only a description, not the name of the described. Scythian basically means nomad. They went around in succoths/scooths/scyths.
Hyksos only means "foreign." Foreign kings. Some like to say "Shepherd" kings. There weren't a people known as the Hyksos. This is very easy to understand when applying it to the second period of Hyksos rule. They were Isrealites, but to the Egyptians they were Foreign kings, Hyksos. Don't we get our version of the history of that time from the people who kept the records of that time? The Egyptians? They called the Isrealites what they wanted. And they hated the Israelite rule.
I've read that this is one of the reasons that there is so little mention of the Isrealites in history. It's as though (and some have offered this) the Exodus never occurred and those millions of folks are a product of imagination. I've heard of new rulership going around tearing down all the monuments/references to the hated regime they replaced. Simple enough to see the Egyptians doing the same.
But as many, more scholarly than I, will affirm, there is plenty of evidence in the corners that paints the true picture. It's just very hard to come by all in one place. One must take in such disparate sources as Gordon, Sitkin and Velikovsky.
I have found that the Study of the Lost Tribes is the study of the history of the earth. The Israelites virtually took over the planet. From Japan going west to California.
I know how broadbrushed that sounds, but consider. What was God accomplishing with all us Israelites? What is His ultimate goal for humanity? The "trees" are the Lost Tribes. The Forest is the total history of the Earth, as regards humanity. We have to back way away from the trees to see the Forest, no?
God's objective is to bring the knowledge of Himself and His coming earthly kingdom to all the folks on the planet. What better way than to lead groups of Israelites to all the corners. They will be the most receptive to God's call; when He chooses to wake them out of the "spritual sleep" of worshipping/recognizing other than Himself.
God works in the long term. Centuries before an event He'll send out the scouts, establish travel routes, prepare destinations for habitation, send rulers who will "instantly" embrace the "message/way"of those who come later. Brutus to found New Troy (London), Heremon to Ireland for the arrival of Tea. Esther, Tobit, etc. We accept this readily on the small scale of Joseph being "sent" to Egypt to prepare a place for his family. Why not out-scale this MO to include historical eras?
The Lost Tribes went to the Isles to prepare for the birth of Christianity. Those Druid priests "instantly" accepted the new system of belief brought to them by Joseph of Arimathea and the young Jesus. Isn't it a wonder that a national religion, centuries old would overnight melt into the English fog? Religions are harder to defeat than nations. The only explanation can be that Druidism was recognized as a corruption of God's Truth. It was so close to this "new" message that Druidism was immediately assimilated. One of the early converts to Christianity was the Arch Druid King Bran. He had stepped off the throne to become Arch Druid.
The Big Picture is that God sent Shem to prepare a fertile place for the birth of a nation (and then to another place to pre-establish the nation's capitol). In that place God built up the family of Abraham until they reached a size great enough to make a nation. Bringing them to a place of independence, He taught that nation and strenghtened it until it was time to prepare the way for Jesus. He led His people to northwest Europe and the British Isles, where they could "renew your strength"(Isaiah). In the process, God dropped "seeds" in all the other places on earth; akin to remote receiving stations waiting for the word to come.
Once this network was in place, Jesus arrived to prove God's reality and tell His message of the coming earthly kingdom. The message was birthed in Jerusalem, grew up in England, and, via the Israelite world network, spread around the globe. And now with satellite broadcasting (done mainly by Israelites), this message of the coming kingdom has touched every square inch of the earth.
"And then shall the end come." Praise God! "...stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord..."
Jewish Warriors & Soldiers of the Present & the Past
The Jewish Legion was lead by the Irish Protestant John Henry Patterson
Many Jews have heard there was a Jewish Legion in the 1st World War. It was lead by the Irish Protestant John Henry Patterson. He was famous long before for his building of Bridges & train rails in British East Africa & hunting lions & other big African animals.
He was a sort of Lawrence of Arabia for the Jews. He didn't even only fought with weapons but with words trying raise money for the Jewish State. He was from Dublin. He was a convinced Zionist.
The Jewish legion, created within the British army during WWI, was the first ever group of entirely Jewish soldiers since the last Jewish revolts against Roman imperial rule.
Another interesting thing is there was one Black Jew from British Imperial Africa in the Jewish Legion that volunteered (like the rest) to join the first Jewish army in two millenia.
Simon bar Kokhba (Hebrew: שמעון בר כוכבא) (died CE 135) was the Jewish leader of what is known as the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE, establishing an independent Jewish state which he ruled for three years as Nasi ("Prince"). His state was conquered by the Romans in 135 following a two-year war.
Documents discovered in the modern era give us his original name, Simon ben Kosiba (Hebrew: שמעון בן כוסבא). He was given the surname Bar Kokhba (Aramaic for "Son of a Star", referring to the Star Prophecy of Numbers 24:17, "there shall step forth a star out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite through the corners of Moab") by his contemporary, the Jewish sage Rabbi Akiva.
The Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), Hebrew: מרד בר כוכבא or Mered Bar Kokhba, was the third major rebellion by the Jews of Judaea Province against the Roman Empire and the last of the Jewish–Roman wars. The rebellion is also known as The Third Jewish–Roman War or The Third Jewish Revolt, though some historians relate it as Second Judean Revolt, not counting the Kitos War 115–117 CE, which had only marginally been fought in Judea. The revolt is considered to be the climax of the Jewish–Roman wars, after which the Jews had become a devastated people - their cities were laid waste, over half a million killed and the survivors dispersed through the slave markets of the known world in a clear case of genocide.
The revolt erupted as a result of religious and political tensions in Judaea province. Simon bar Kokhba, the commander of the revolt, was acclaimed as the Messiah, a heroic figure who could restore Israel. Initial rebel victories established an independent state of Israel over parts of Judea for over two years, but a Roman army made up of six full legions with auxiliaries and elements from up to six additional legions finally crushed it.
The Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in genocide and almost complete depopulation of Judea and is considered to have a much more critical impact on Jews and Judaism than the Great Revolt of Judea of 70 CE. Roman losses are also considered heavy, making it one of the worst campaigns of the Empire. Despite easing persecution of Jews following Hadrian's death in 138 CE, the Romans barred Jews from Jerusalem, except to attend it in Tisha B'Av. Although Jewish Christians hailed Jesus as the Messiah and did not support Bar Kokhba, they were barred from Jerusalem along with the rest of the Jews. The war and its aftermath helped differentiate Christianity as a religion distinct from Judaism.
The Kawazba Palestinian "Arabs" were called Koziba & descended from the Jewish hero Bar Kokhba whose original name was Bar Koziba. Monastery of St. George of Koziba is a monastery
St George of Koziba was a monk born in Cyprus c 550, but who spent much of his life at various lauras in the Judean Desert. In Orthodox Christianity and certain other Eastern Christian communities, Lavra or Laura (Greek: Λαύρα; Cyrillic: Ла́вра) is type of monastery consisting of a cluster of cells or caves for hermits, with a church and sometimes a refectory at the center; the term in Greek initially meant a narrow lane or an alley in a city. Was he a descendant of Simon bar Kokhba, the Jewish Hero? Cyprus is not exactly far away to the Holy Land, so he could have been descendent of the Jewish hero.
The other possibility is that George took his name "Koziba" once he went to the Land Of Israel. In fact Cyprus was part of the crussader kingdoms & for some currents is part of what God will give to the Israelites as a Promised Land.
The Monastery of St. George of Koziba obviously was named after the monk George of Koziba. St. George Orthodox Monastery, or Monastery of St. George of Koziba is a monastery located in Wadi Qelt, in the eastern West Bank. The sixth-century cliff-hanging complex, with its ancient chapel and gardens, is active and inhabited by Greek Orthodox monks. It is reached by a pedestrian bridge across the Wadi Qelt, which many imagine to be Psalm 23's Valley of the Shadow. The valley parallels the old Roman road to Jericho, the backdrop for the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37). The monastery is open to pilgrims and visitors.
Artur Carlos de Barros Basto
Artur Carlos de Barros Basto (Hebrew name: Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh) was born December 18, 1887 in Amarante and died in Porto, on March 8, 1961. He made a career in the military, but also as a writer, who published several works related to Judaism. He was an important Jewish leader and one of the people who established the Jewish Community in Porto and assisted the construction of the Kadoorie Synagogue, the biggest Synagogue in Iberian Peninsula. Furthermore he helped the return of Crypto-Jews to the Jewish people and during World War II helped Jewish refugees escape the Holocaust.
When Barros Basto was still young his dying grandfather revealed to him that he had Jewish ancestors. His family hadn’t kept the Jewish precepts and so he became aware of the existence of Jews in Portugal only in 1904; the year he read a newspaper article referring to the inauguration of the synagogue Shaaré Tikva, in Lisbon.
Years later, he joined the army, and when ordered to attend a course at the Escola Politécnica de Lisboa (Technical School of Lisbon), the young Barros Basto went to the synagogue of the city in an attempt to be admitted there. The leaders of the synagogue didn’t give him permission but Barros Basto wouldn’t give up.
When the Republic was established in 1910 Barros Bastos was the one who raised the Republican flag in the city of Porto.
During the First World War, as a lieutenant of the army he commanded a battalion of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps in the front of Flanders. For his acts of bravery and honor on the battlefield he was awarded medals and promoted to captain.
Barros Basto was self-taught, and after learning Hebrew he lived for a while in Morocco where he began a formal process of conversion to Judaism (known in Hebrew as Geirus). This process completed when he was circumcised in Tangier and later subjected to a rabbinical court (Beit Din). After which he changed his name to Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh.
Back in Lisbon, he married Lea Israel Montero Azancot, of the Jewish Community of Lisbon, from whom he had a son and a daughter. He also had several grandchildren and great-grandchildren, his granddaughter Isabel Ferreira Lopes, is the current vice president of the Jewish Community of Porto. He is also great-granduncle of the actress Daniela Ruah.
In 1921 he returned to Porto with his wife. At that time Barros Basto realized that there were less than twenty Ashkenazi Jews living in the city. As there wasn’t a synagogue in Porto these Jews were not organized and had to travel to Lisbon for religious purposes whenever necessary.
Upon learning that reality he began to think about building a synagogue and took initiative in 1923, by officially registering the Jewish Community of the Porto and the Israelite Theological Center in the City Council of Porto.
The current building of the synagogue was built years later but the community was organized and rented a house on the street Elias Garcia, which started to function as a synagogue. As time went on, more and more people started to appear in the synagogue. They said they were descendants of Jews forced to convert in the 15th century and claimed to maintain alive yet some Jewish practices and rituals, in the secrecy of their homes. These people, the crypto-Jews, began to participate in religious services.
The claims of the crypto-Jews were proved true by Barros Basto and the committee of London, who found that they did not lie about their origins since they proved to still keep prayers to Hashem and respect the Sabbath as their ancestors. It should also be noted that on the Act n. º 68 Directorate (Maâmad) of the Jewish Community of Porto it was written that anyone who could "absolutely prove their Jewish origin." would be admitted into the congregation.
This occurrence sparked Barros Basto’s interest, who therefore, decided to visit frequently the villages and towns of the Trás os Montes and Beiras regions, looking for more people interested in returning to Judaism. This measure gained the attention of some people, especially some Jewish communities, as is the case of the Community of Portuguese Jews in London, who created the "Portuguese Marranos Committee", an organization dedicated to help people who wanted to return to Judaism.
With the change of regime in the '30s, Barros Basto was associated with the opposition, and was soon being chased by the army. He started to be placed in locations farther away from Porto, in an attempt to push him away from the Synagogue and the Community.
In 1937, Barros Basto was adjudicated by the Disciplinary Board of the Army and was dismissed from the institution for allegedly participating in circumcision ceremonies (in Hebrew, brit milah) of the students of the Israelite Theological Institute of Porto, which the Council considered "immoral" act, which is actually a fundamental practice for the Jewish people.
Barros Basto
A year later, in 1938, Barros Basto saw the inauguration of his great project, the Kadoorie Synagogue in Porto. Its construction was started in 1929 when Barros Basto was able to gather funds to buy land and build. This became the headquarters of the Jewish Community of Porto and still retains its religious functions.
During World War II, having been already dismissed from the army, Barros Basto helped hundreds of Jews escape the war and the Holocaust, allowing them to start a new life elsewhere. Recently the Jewish Community of Porto signed a protocol with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in order to provide it with thousands of documents and records of individual refugees, who with the help of Barros Basto could then rebuild their lives with a start point in Porto.
He died in 1961, and was, according to his wish, buried in Amarante, the city where he was born. He was wearing the uniform with which always served his country. On his deathbed he said that one day there would be justice, but this justice only would come in 2012, over 50 years after his death.
Following a petition presented to Parliament on 31 October 2011 by his granddaughter, Isabel Ferreira Lopes, the name of Barros Basto was rehabilitated to February 29, 2012.
The petition, which was approved unanimously by all political parties, presents the conclusion that Barros Basto’s dismissal from the army was a matter of political and religious segregation on account of being Jewish. "Barros Basto was separated from the Army due to a general climate of animosity against him motivated by the fact of being a Jew" - can be read in the document that the LUSA news agency had access to.
In turn, the Resolution of the Assembly of the Republic n. º 119/2012, of 10-08, urged the government to undertake a symbolic reintegration of Barros Basto in the Army, posthumously, "by no means in a category lower than the person concerned would have been entitled to had he not been dismissed"
Isabel Ferreira Lopes, granddaughter of Barros Basto and Vice President of the Jewish Community of Porto stated to LUSA that after the rehabilitation of her grandfather’s memory, the next step was the rehabilitation of Porto’s synagogue: "In the year of the rehabilitation of the founder of the Jewish Community of Porto the synagogue shall as well be rehabilitated.”
Artur Carlos de Barros Basto
Artur Carlos de Barros Basto (Hebrew name: Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh) was born December 18, 1887 in Amarante and died in Porto, on March 8, 1961. He made a career in the military, but also as a writer, who published several works related to Judaism. He was an important Jewish leader and one of the people who established the Jewish Community in Porto and assisted the construction of the Kadoorie Synagogue, the biggest Synagogue in Iberian Peninsula. Furthermore he helped the return of Crypto-Jews to the Jewish people and during World War II helped Jewish refugees escape the Holocaust.
When Barros Basto was still young his dying grandfather revealed to him that he had Jewish ancestors. His family hadn’t kept the Jewish precepts and so he became aware of the existence of Jews in Portugal only in 1904; the year he read a newspaper article referring to the inauguration of the synagogue Shaaré Tikva, in Lisbon.
Years later, he joined the army, and when ordered to attend a course at the Escola Politécnica de Lisboa (Technical School of Lisbon), the young Barros Basto went to the synagogue of the city in an attempt to be admitted there. The leaders of the synagogue didn’t give him permission but Barros Basto wouldn’t give up.
When the Republic was established in 1910 Barros Bastos was the one who raised the Republican flag in the city of Porto.
During the First World War, as a lieutenant of the army he commanded a battalion of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps in the front of Flanders. For his acts of bravery and honor on the battlefield he was awarded medals and promoted to captain.
Barros Basto was self-taught, and after learning Hebrew he lived for a while in Morocco where he began a formal process of conversion to Judaism (known in Hebrew as Geirus). This process completed when he was circumcised in Tangier and later subjected to a rabbinical court (Beit Din). After which he changed his name to Abraham Israel Ben-Rosh.
Back in Lisbon, he married Lea Israel Montero Azancot, of the Jewish Community of Lisbon, from whom he had a son and a daughter. He also had several grandchildren and great-grandchildren, his granddaughter Isabel Ferreira Lopes, is the current vice president of the Jewish Community of Porto. He is also great-granduncle of the actress Daniela Ruah.
In 1921 he returned to Porto with his wife. At that time Barros Basto realized that there were less than twenty Ashkenazi Jews living in the city. As there wasn’t a synagogue in Porto these Jews were not organized and had to travel to Lisbon for religious purposes whenever necessary.
Upon learning that reality he began to think about building a synagogue and took initiative in 1923, by officially registering the Jewish Community of the Porto and the Israelite Theological Center in the City Council of Porto.
The current building of the synagogue was built years later but the community was organized and rented a house on the street Elias Garcia, which started to function as a synagogue. As time went on, more and more people started to appear in the synagogue. They said they were descendants of Jews forced to convert in the 15th century and claimed to maintain alive yet some Jewish practices and rituals, in the secrecy of their homes. These people, the crypto-Jews, began to participate in religious services.
The claims of the crypto-Jews were proved true by Barros Basto and the committee of London, who found that they did not lie about their origins since they proved to still keep prayers to Hashem and respect the Sabbath as their ancestors. It should also be noted that on the Act n. º 68 Directorate (Maâmad) of the Jewish Community of Porto it was written that anyone who could "absolutely prove their Jewish origin." would be admitted into the congregation.
This occurrence sparked Barros Basto’s interest, who therefore, decided to visit frequently the villages and towns of the Trás os Montes and Beiras regions, looking for more people interested in returning to Judaism. This measure gained the attention of some people, especially some Jewish communities, as is the case of the Community of Portuguese Jews in London, who created the "Portuguese Marranos Committee", an organization dedicated to help people who wanted to return to Judaism.
With the change of regime in the '30s, Barros Basto was associated with the opposition, and was soon being chased by the army. He started to be placed in locations farther away from Porto, in an attempt to push him away from the Synagogue and the Community.
In 1937, Barros Basto was adjudicated by the Disciplinary Board of the Army and was dismissed from the institution for allegedly participating in circumcision ceremonies (in Hebrew, brit milah) of the students of the Israelite Theological Institute of Porto, which the Council considered "immoral" act, which is actually a fundamental practice for the Jewish people.
A year later, in 1938, Barros Basto saw the inauguration of his great project, the Kadoorie Synagogue in Porto. Its construction was started in 1929 when Barros Basto was able to gather funds to buy land and build. This became the headquarters of the Jewish Community of Porto and still retains its religious functions.
During World War II, having been already dismissed from the army, Barros Basto helped hundreds of Jews escape the war and the Holocaust, allowing them to start a new life elsewhere. Recently the Jewish Community of Porto signed a protocol with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in order to provide it with thousands of documents and records of individual refugees, who with the help of Barros Basto could then rebuild their lives with a start point in Porto.
He died in 1961, and was, according to his wish, buried in Amarante, the city where he was born. He was wearing the uniform with which always served his country. On his deathbed he said that one day there would be justice, but this justice only would come in 2012, over 50 years after his death.
Following a petition presented to Parliament on 31 October 2011 by his granddaughter, Isabel Ferreira Lopes, the name of Barros Basto was rehabilitated to February 29, 2012.
The petition, which was approved unanimously by all political parties, presents the conclusion that Barros Basto’s dismissal from the army was a matter of political and religious segregation on account of being Jewish. "Barros Basto was separated from the Army due to a general climate of animosity against him motivated by the fact of being a Jew" - can be read in the document that the LUSA news agency had access to.
In turn, the Resolution of the Assembly of the Republic n. º 119/2012, of 10-08, urged the government to undertake a symbolic reintegration of Barros Basto in the Army, posthumously, "by no means in a category lower than the person concerned would have been entitled to had he not been dismissed"
Isabel Ferreira Lopes, granddaughter of Barros Basto and Vice President of the Jewish Community of Porto stated to LUSA that after the rehabilitation of her grandfather’s memory, the next step was the rehabilitation of Porto’s synagogue: "In the year of the rehabilitation of the founder of the Jewish Community of Porto the synagogue shall as well be rehabilitated.”
The Anointing Oil
You anoint my head with Oil!
To define we need a better description than “what we feel in the anointing.”
ANOINT describes the procedure of rubbing or smearing a person or thing, usually with oil, for the purpose of healing, setting apart, or embalming.
Anointing
Anointing the body
Anointing the body with oil was an ancient and widespread custom common among Egyptians, Hebrews, and inhabitants of the Far East, as well as among Greeks and Romans.
Cleansing
The allusions to anointing as part of ordinary washing are numerous, both in the OT and NT
As expressive of joy (Psalm 23:5; Hebrews 1:9);
Its disuse indicative of grief (2 Samuel 14:2; Psalm 92:10; Daniel 10:3).
It was also used medicinally (Isaiah 1:6; Mark 6:13; James 5:14). See Oil.
Consecration
Under the Mosaic Law persons and things set apart for sacred purposes were anointed with the “holy anointing oil” (Exodus 30:23-25, 30-33).
Coronation
It was a custom among the Jews to anoint with oil those set apart as kings, which custom was adopted by the Christian church.
Figurative
The anointing with oil was a symbol of endowment with the Spirit of God for the duties of the office to which a person was consecrated.
Anointing, Gift of the Holy Spirit (Gk. chrisma, “ointment,” “anointing”). The gift of the Holy Spirit as an efficient aid in getting knowledge of the truth (1 John 2:20).
Sheep Need Protection.
What required the most amount of work was checking for poisonous weeds and plants in the meadow. A pastor and sheep rancher would spend hours on his hands and knees inventory the area for any poisonous plants.
We are given an analogy of Gods people being sheep and God being the Great Shepherd
There were certain practices in the life of the sheep that were very necessary to its well being, that the shepherd was well aware.
1. Current Diet;
2. Cutting Away
3. Drenching
4. Daging
5. Crutching
6. Shearing
You anoint my head with oil.
The summer was the prime season for all kinds of bugs and insects, and this presented a serious problem for the shepherd and his sheep.
The list of pests is almost endless: warble flies, bot flies, heel flies, etc
One insidious example is the nose fly, which would actually lay eggs in the mucous membrane lining of a sheep’s nose.
When they hatched, the larvae would burrow into the sheep’s flesh, literally getting under their skin, and cause intense inflammation and irritation. These parasites became so annoying that sheep would beat their heads against rocks and trees to try and find relief.
To counteract this disruptive invasion, the shepherd had to act fast. At the first sign of flies, the shepherd would apply a homemade remedy to the sheep’s heads made of linseed oil, sulfur, and tar. It was the ancient equivalent of insect repellent.
Another behavior of sheep that required the application of oil was their tendency to be affectionate. Sheep would often rub heads with each other as a way of saying, “How YOU doing?” But if one sheep had infected skin, it would pass the infection on to the other.
The Covering of the Anointing
Knowing this danger, the shepherd restrains his sheep from a new field (which may be infested) until he can inspect it. He walks up and down, looking for the small holes.
Upon finding these holes, he takes a bottle of thick oil from his girdle. Then, raking down the long grass with his staff, he pours a circle of oil at the top of each viper's hole. Before he leads the sheep into the new, green field, he also spreads the oil over each sheep's head—in that sense he "anoints" them (rubbing their heads) with his oil.
When the vipers beneath the surface sense the presence of sheep and attempt to attack from their holes, they are unable to do so. Their smooth bodies cannot pass over the slippery oil—they become prisoners inside their own holes.
The oil on the sheep's head also acts as a repellent, so if a viper does manage to come near, the smell drives the serpent away. Therefore, in a very literal sense, by oiling the vipers' burrows, the shepherd has prepared the table—the meadow—and the sheep are able to graze in abundance right in the enemy's presence.
I. Provision of God in the anointing Healing
Oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit
Presence of God: His presence has us covered
James 5, Any sick among you let him call the elders of the church and let them anoint them with oil.
Isaiah 61:1-3
Psalms 16:11
II. Protection of God in the anointing (Ointment)
His presence our dwelling
Psalms 42:1-2
Psalms 91:1-7
Psalms 34:17
III. The promise of God in the anointing
Isaiah 10:27
All Nations, Races & Colors Are Equal in Christ, & There Is Nothing Wrong With Inter-Racial Marriages
That is what most Christians believe. Explaining why this is the truth might therefore seem unnecessary, if it wasn’t for the fact that until around 2009-2010 I did not believe it to be true and wrote about it on this website and elsewhere.
Why all nations, races and colours are equal in Christ
The whole Bible, all the 66 books of the Old Testament and the New Testament, is the Word of God. But the covenant between God and mankind is the New Testament (the New Covenant), not the Old Testament (the Old Covenant).
“In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.” (Heb 8:13)
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ” (Gal. 3:13-14)
Under the Old Testament one nation, Israel, was more favoured by God than the other nations of the world. But under the New Testament people of whatever nation, race and colour they belong to are equal in the eyes of the Lord when they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
“For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. 3:26-29)
The “Seed of Abraham” according to the flesh are the descendants of the 12 tribes of Israel, and others as well, and it is about them that this website nordiskisrael.dk is about.
But the “Seed of Abraham” which St Paul explains about in the Epistle to the Galatians is not Abraham’s descendants according to the flesh. St Paul makes it perfectly clear that the “Seed of Abraham” are all they which believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and not the millions of individuals who are the fleshly descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Israel.
Everyone is therefore equal in Christ, whether they are Israelite or non-Israel, Jew or Greek, Black, White, Yellow or Brown.
Why there is nothing wrong with inter-racial marriages
In the New Testament there is not a single verse that can be used to claim that there should be anything wrong with inter-racial marriages. But in the Old Testament there is a number of laws prohibiting the Israelites to marry non-Israelites (such as Deu. 7:1-3 and Ezra 10:17-44). But since Christians follow the New Testament, and not the Old Testament, those laws are now completely irrelevant.
White people are not a race. There is no “White Race”
White-skinned people of European descent are usually called White(s) and sometimes the White Race. If White people were descended from one group of people, they could indeed be called the “White Race”. But a study of Y-DNA Haplogroups show that White Europeans are not descended from one group of people, but from several different groups of peoples and that some White ethnic groups are just as closely related to Jews, Arabs, Indians, Iranians and East Asians as they are to other White Europeans.
I wrote about this in May 2010 in the article Y-DNA Haplogroups links Nordic and Germanic people to Arabs and Jews.
The Y-DNA Haplogroup is passed on from father to son, while the mtDNA Haplogroup is passed on from mother to daughter.
The great majority of White European males belong to three different Y-DNA Haplogroups: R, I and N.
The “Indo-European” Hpg R
Hpg R is the most common Haplogroup among White Europeans, but it is also very common among Indians, Pakistanis and Iranians. One branch of Hpg R, Hpg R1a, is usually thought to be the predominant Haplogroup of the proto-Indo-Europeans, 1 which explains why it is so common both in Europe, Iran, Pakistan and India.
Please compare the Hpg R percentages of Europeans with those of Indians, Pakistanis and Iranians: Hpg R percentages among Europeans: Danes (58%), Norwegians (43%), Dutch (53%), Belgians (67%), Central English (67%), Scots (81%), Irish (82%), Germans (56%), Spanish (70%), Lithuanians (36%), Poles (69%), Ukrainians (60%) and Russians (53%). 2
Hpg R percentages among Indo-European Indians and Pakistanis (both 45%) 3 and Iranians (21-22%) 4 .
The “Abrahamic” Hpg IJ
Hpg I is very common in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, and it is this Haplogroup that I believe is the Haplogroup associated with the Lost Tribes of Israel.
Hpg I percentages: Denmark (39%), Sweden (36%), Netherlands (20%), England (19%), Germany (24%) 5 .
Hpg I’s closest relative is Hpg J, which is the most common Haplogroup among Jews and Arabs, who, to whatever extent, are descended from the tribe of Judah, the Ishmaelites and other of Abraham’s descendants according to the flesh.
Hpg J percentages: Ashkenazi Jews (38%-43%), Yemenite Arabs (82%), Qatari Arabs (67%), Lebanese Arabs (45%), Saudi Arabs (40%), Egyptian Arabs (32%).
Since Haplogroups I and J (or Hpg IJ) are so common in nations thought to be descended from Abraham, Hpg IJ could be called “Abraham’s Haplogroup”.
The “Asian” Hpg N
The third Haplogroup common among White Europeans is Hpg N, which is especially common in North-Eastern Europe and Northern Siberia.
Hpg N percentages: Finns (60%), Saami (40%), Baltic states (45%), Russians (10%-20%), Yakuts (North-Eastern Siberia) (75%), Nenets/Samoyeds (North-Central Siberia) (75%) 6 .
Finns and Balts are almost always considered White Europeans, while Yakuts and Nenets/Samoyeds are considered racially Yellow/Mongoloid/Oriental. Hpg N’s closest relative is Hpg O, which 80%-90% of all males in East Asia and South-East Asia belong to 7 .
When Hpg N is so common among Finns and closely related to East Asians, then it makes sense that Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are among the only European languages that are not Indo-European. It also makes sense that many Finns’s eyelids are similar to the eyelids of East Asians. It also makes sense that Hungarians use their family name first and their personal name last, just like the Chinese do. (For example: In Hungary the Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Liszt/Ferenc Liszt is called Liszt Ferenc, and the Prime Minister Victor Orbán is called Orbán Victor.)
Why there is nothing wrong with inter-racial marriages
Since different White European ethnic groups genetically are quite close to Indians, Pakistanis and Iranians, and Jews and Arabs, and East Asians, it doesn’t make sense to think of them as different races. They are different when it comes to their skin-color, their ethnicities, their cultures and often their religions, but not genetically or racially.
The conclusion is that White Europeans are not a race. If they were a race, one could at least argue whether it was right or wrong to mix the races. For example, people who breed dogs, cats and horses do not practice race-mixing. But when White-skinned people are not even a race, then there is absolutely no argument for why there should be anything wrong with inter-racial marriages.
The Occupation of Israel
Origin of the House of Israel and the House of Judah (1200-586 BCE)
The United Kingdom of Israel was split into two separate kingdoms by Yah. And to this day has never been restored. Notice who they were worshiping. Ashtoreth, aka Easter.
1Ki 11:31 And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the Most High, the Mighty One of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee: 1Ki 11:32 (But he shall have one tribe for my servant David's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel:)
1Ki 11:33 Because that they have forsaken me, and have worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do [that which is] right in mine eyes, and [to keep] my statutes and my judgments, as [did] David his father.
1Ki 11:34 Howbeit I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand: but I will make him prince all the days of his life for David my servant's sake, whom I chose, because he kept my commandments and my statutes: 1Ki 11:35 But I will take the kingdom out of his son's hand, and will give it unto thee, [even] ten tribes. 1Ki 11:36 And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light always before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there.
1Ki 11:37 And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel. (the northern tribes.)
1Ki 11:38 And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do [that is] right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.
1Ki 11:39 And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not for ever.
When the kingdom split, the house of Judah was going to go to war with the house of Israel, but Yah stopped them and told them the division was caused by him.
2Ch 11:1 And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he gathered of the house of Judah and Benjamin an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen [men], which were warriors, to fight against Israel, that he might bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam.
2Ch 11:2 But the word of the Most High came to Shemaiah the man of Yah, saying, 2Ch 11:3 Speak unto Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin, saying, 2Ch 11:4 Thus saith the Most High, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren: return every man to his house: for this thing is done of me. And they obeyed the words of the Most High, and returned from going against Jeroboam.
The house of Israel, also known as the northern tribes will be scattered among the nations of the Earth. They will totally be cut off from Yah. (Hos 1:8-9) They will lose their identity, they will not even know that they are Israel. But their regathering in the last days is prophesied.
Hosea 1:9 Then said [Yah], Call his name Loammi/ Lo Ammi: for ye [are] not my people, and I will not be your [Yah].
Hosea 1:10 "Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' they will be called 'sons of the living Yah.'
Hosea 2:23 I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.' I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my Mighty One.'"
Israel’s identity emerged in the post-586 BCE Exilic and post-Exilic period, and by the Hellenistic-Greek period (after 332 BCE) the House of Judah had become a self-consciously separate community based in Jerusalem. For a time in the 2nd century BCE the Israelites succeeded in creating a nominally independent kingdom covering much of the biblical "Land of Israel", but by the end of the 1st century BCE this was absorbed into the Roman Empire.
This was a fulfillment of scripture for the children of Israel to fall into the hands of their enemies. Israel had turned it's back on the Mighty One of Israel and in return Yah gave them into the hands of their enemies.
Babylonian exile, The Return to Zion and the Persian rule (538-332 BCE)
This was the rule of Darius king of the Persians and Medes. The Babylonian conquest entailed not just the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, but the liquidation of the entire infrastructure which had sustained Judah for centuries. The most significant casualty was the State ideology of "Zion theology," the idea that Yah, the god of Israel, had chosen Jerusalem for his dwelling-place and that the Davidic dynasty would reign there forever.
Babylon was conquered by Cyrus the Great in 539 and Judah remained a province of the Persian Empire until 332. According to the biblical history, one of the first acts of Cyrus, the Persian conqueror of Babylon, was to commission the House of Judah exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.
According to the biblical history Ezra and Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem in the middle of the 5th century BCE, the first empowered by Yah to enforce the Torah, the second with the status of governor and a royal mission to restore the walls of the city.
Hellenistic Greek period (332-37 BCE)
1 Maccabees 1:1-15
1 And it happened, after that Alexander son of Philip, the Macedonian, who came out of the land of Chettiim, had smitten Darius king of the Persians and Medes, that he reigned in his stead, the first over Greece, 2 And made many wars, and won many strong holds, and slew the kings of the earth, 3 And went through to the ends of the earth, and took spoils of many nations, insomuch that the earth was quiet before him; whereupon he was exalted and his heart was lifted up. 4 And he gathered a mighty strong host and ruled over countries, and nations, and kings, who became tributaries unto him. 5 And after these things he fell sick, and perceived that he should die. 6 Wherefore he called his servants, such as were honourable, and had been brought up with him from his youth, and parted his kingdom among them, while he was yet alive. 7 So Alexander reigned twelve years, and then died. 8 And his servants bare rule every one in his place. 9 And after his death they all put crowns upon themselves; so did their sons after them many years: and evils were multiplied in the earth. 10 And there came out of them a wicked root Antiochus surnamed Epiphanes, son of Antiochus the king, who had been an hostage at Rome, and he reigned in the hundred and thirty and seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks. 11 In those days went there out of Israel wicked men, who persuaded many, saying, Let us go and make a covenant with the heathen that are round about us: for since we departed from them we have had much sorrow. 12 So this device pleased them well. 13 Then certain of the people were so forward herein, that they went to the king, who gave them licence to do after the ordinances of the heathen: 14 Whereupon they built a place of exercise at Jerusalem according to the customs of the heathen: 15 And made themselves uncircumcised, and forsook the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the heathen, and were sold to do mischief.
The scope of Greek habitation and rule has varied throughout the ages, and, as a result, the history of Greece is similarly elastic in what it includes. Greek society and culture both have antecedents in the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age though it is uncertain as to when and from where the Greeks first entered Greece.
In 332 BCE the Persians were defeated by Alexander the Great. After his death (322) his generals divided the empire between them. Ptolemy I seized Egypt and the Palestine region. Ptolemy successors later lost it to the Seleucids, the rulers of Syria, in 198 At first relations between the Seleucids and the Israelites were cordial, but later on as the relations between the Hellenized Israelites and the religious Israelites deteriorated, the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (174–163) attempted to impose decrees banning certain Israelite laws, commands and traditions that Yah had set-forth . Consequently, this sparked a national rebellion, which ended in the expulsion of the Syrians and the establishment of an independent Israelite kingdom under the Hasmonean dynasty.
Hasmonean were a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity. Between c.140-116 BCE, the dynasty ruled semi-autonomously from the Seleucids disintegrating, the dynasty became fully independent, expanded in to the neighboring regions of Judea. From 110 BCE, with the Seleucid empire Galilee, Iturea, Perea, Idumea and Samaria, and took the title "Basileus". Some modern scholars refer to this period as an independent kingdom of Israel In 63 BCE, the kingdom was conquered by the Roman Republic and broken up, and the dynasty continued to rule as High Priests of Judea as a Roman client state.
The dynasty was established under the leadership of Simon Maccabaeus, two decades after his brother Judas the Maccabee ("Hammer") defeated the Seleucid army during the Maccabean Revolt in 165 BCE. The Hasmonean Kingdom survived for 103 years before yielding to the Herodian Dynasty in 37 BCE. Even then, Herod the Great felt obliged to bolster the legitimacy of his reign by marrying a Hasmonean princess, Mariamne, and conspiring to have the last male Hasmonean heir drowned in his Jericho palace.
According to historical sources including the books 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees and the first book of The Wars of the Jews by the Israelite historian Josephus (37–c. 100 CE), the Hasmonean Kingdom rose after a successful revolt by the Jews against the Seleucid king Antiochus IV. After Antiochus' successful invasion of Ptolemaic Egypt was turned back by the intervention of the Roman Republic he moved instead to assert strict control over Israel, sacking Jerusalem and its Temple, suppressing Israelite laws, commands and cultural observances, and imposing Hellenistic practices.
The ensuing Maccabee Revolt relaxed Rome's grip on Israel, allowing a brief Hasmonean resurgence backed by the (167 BCE) began a twenty-five-year period of Israel’s independence potentiated by the steady collapse of the Seleucid Empire under attacks from the rising powers of the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire. However, the same power vacuum that enabled the Israelites to be recognized by the Roman Senate c. 139 BCE was next exploited by the Romans themselves. Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, Simon's great-grandsons, became pawns in a proxy war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great that ended with the kingdom under the supervision of the Roman governor of Syria (64 BCE). The deaths of Pompey (48 BCE), Caesar (44 BCE), and the related Roman civil wars Parthian Empire. This short independence was rapidly crushed by the Romans under Mark Antony and Octavian. The installation of Herod the Great as king in 37 BCE made Israel a Roman client state, ending the Hasmonean dynasty. In 44 CE, Rome installed the rule of a Roman procurator side by side with the rule of the Herodian kings.
The deaths of Pompey (48 BCE), Caesar (44 BCE), and the related Roman civil wars relaxed Rome's grip on Israel, and as a result, in 40 BC the Parthian Empire and their Israelite ally Antigonus the Hasmonean defeated the pro-Roman /Israelite forces of high priest Hyrcanus II, Phasael, and Herod, invaded the Roman eastern provinces and manage to expel the Romans. Antigonus the Hasmonean was made king of Judea. Herod later fled to Rome where he was elected "King of Judea" by the Roman Senate.
In 37 BCE, Herod the Great took back Judea with Roman support. Herod turned Antigonus the Israelite, over to Mark Antony, who had him beheaded, ending the rule of the Hasmonean dynasty.
Under Roman rule (37 BCE-324 CE)
The installation of a European Israelite convert, Herod the Great as King of Judah creating an Israelite client state of the Roman Empire in 37 BCE ended the Hasmonean dynasty. Subsequently, a new period of architecture under Herod occurred, with the Second Temple being built in Jerusalem, along with Herod's Palace, numerous Temples across the country, the Caesarea Maritima, a water channel and pilgrim road in Jerusalem, and Roman public facilities. In Ashkelon, Herod built elaborate bath houses, elaborate fountains, and large colonnades. His son, Herod Antipas, founded Tiberias as an Israelite city, and made it his personal realm in Galilee.
Matthew 2:1-8
1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold , there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 2 Saying , Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. 3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled , and all Jerusalem with him. 4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together , he demanded of them where Christ should be born . 5 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, 6 And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor , that shall rule my people Israel. 7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared . 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said , Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again , that I may come and worship him also.
Matthew 2:13-20
13 And when they were departed , behold , the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying , Arise , and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word : for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. 14 When he arose , he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: 15 And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying , Out of Egypt have I called my son. 16 Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth , and sent forth , and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying , 18 In Rama was there a voice heard , lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted , because they are not. 19 But when Herod was dead , behold , an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20 Saying , Arise , and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life.
Judea under Roman rule was at first an independent Israelite kingdom, but gradually the rule over Judea became less and less under Israel’s power, until it was fully under the direct rule of Roman administration (and renamed the Judaea Province), which was often callous and brutal in its treatment of its Judean/Israelite subjects. In 66 CE, Judeans began to revolt against the Roman rulers of Judea. In 70 A.D. the revolt was defeated by the Roman emperors Vespasian and Titus. The Romans destroyed much of the Temple in Jerusalem and, according to some accounts, stole artifacts from the temple, such as the golden Menorah. Altogether, 1,100,000 Israelites perished during the revolt and another 97,000 were taken captive.
Major battles were in Masada and in Gamla. Gamla was the district capital of the Golan Heights first established by the last king of the Hasmonean dynasty. Gamla's citizens saw their battle as directly connected to Jerusalem and fiercely defended their stronghold. Eventually, all of the 9000 city's residents were killed. Judeans eventually came back to Israel to occupy the cities until the 2nd century when Julius Severus ravaged Judea while putting down the Bar Kokhba revolt. 985 villages were destroyed and banished true Israelites from Jerusalem.
This would also line up with the later part of the scripture in Luke 21:24, ... and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. All of the wars and occupations of Israel by these converts and other European nations fulfill Luke 21:24. While the true Israelites are out of the land in captivity amugst many nations-scatterred according to Deuteronomy 28:6, which says, And the Most High shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other;... The gentiles trodden the land by fighting over who shall rule a land that is not theirs and never belong to them.
In the Byzantine (Eastern Greek speaking Romans) period (324-638)
The Byzantine Empire was the predominantly Greek-speaking true Isrealites; continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Its capital city was Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), originally known as Byzantium. Often called the Eastern Roman Empire in this context, it survived the 5th century fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. At this time in the province of Palestine/Israel were living under the rule of the Byzantines under whom there were two more revolts and three Samaritan revolts. Under the oppression, Israelite lived in at least forty-three communities in Palestine/Israel: twelve towns on the coast, in the Negev, and east of the Jordan, and thirty-one villages in Galilee and in the Jordan valley.
In 438, The Empress Eudocia removed the ban on Israelite praying at the Temple site and the heads of the Community in Galilee issued a call "to the great and mighty people of Israel": "Know that the end of the exile of our people has come"!
In 613, a Israelite revolt against the Byzantine Empire coming for to aid of the Persian invaders erupted. The converts gained autonomy in Jerusalem for 5 years but were frustrated with its limitations. At that time the Persians betrayed the agreements with the converts and were expelled from Jerusalem. The Byzantine Emperor Heraclius then managed to overcome the Persian forces with the aid of Israelite converts leader Benjamin of Tiberias. Nevertheless, he betrayed the converts too and put thousands of converts’ refugees to flight from Palestine to Egypt.
Under The Islamic Empire (638-1099)
In 638 CE the Byzantine Empire lost control of the Levant. The Arab Islamic Empire under Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem and the lands of Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt and invited the Israelite to return after having been expelled by the various Christian and Roman rulers. Under the various regimes before Caliph Omar the Israelites suffered massacres and were forced to flee the inland villages towards the coast. They were subsequently induced to return inland after the coastal towns had been destroyed. Nevertheless, the Israelites still controlled much of the commerce in Palestine/Israel. According to Arab geographer Al-Muqaddasi, the converts worked as "the assayers of coins, the dyers, the tanners and the bankers in the community. During the Fatimid period, many Jewish officials served in the regime.
In the first part of the Arab Period, the majority of the population was Christian. The construction of the Dome of the Rock in 691 - the first Muslim shrine and the first major Islamic public building - was meant to counterbalance the Church of the Holy Sepulcre. Both the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulcre have concentric plans, and their diameters are identical, but the Dome of the Rock is decorated with antitinitarian Quranic quotations. Initially, Muslims like Jews of Arabia, faced Jerusalem to pray. However, when the Jews who lived in Medina at the time resisted both religious and political cooperation with the Muslims and did not accept Muhammad’s prophetic claims, a new revelation from Allah directed Muhammad to shift the center of prayer to Mecca.
The Dome of the Rock was built near the area formerly occupied by Herod’s Temple and close by the Wailing Wall, the last remnant of Solomon’s temple.
In building the Dome of the Rock, the earliest Arab rulers of Palestine(Israel) expressed their reverence for Jerusalem, city of the prophets from Abraham and Moses to Jesus, culminating with Muhammad, as the Muslims would say, “the seal of the prophets.” The Dome of the Rock is the oldest existing Islamic monument in the world and for most still the greatest.
In the Crusaders (Roman Catholic Europeans) period (1099-1260)
In 1099, along with the other inhabitants of the land, the Jews(Sephardi Jew converts) vigorously defended Jerusalem against the Crusaders. When the city fell, the Crusaders gathered them in a synagogue and set it alight. In Haifa, the Jews almost single-handedly defended the town against the Crusaders, holding out for a whole month, (June–July 1099). At this time there were Jewish communities scattered all over the country, including Jerusalem, Tiberias, Ramleh, Ashkelon, Caesarea, and Gaza. Jews were not allowed to hold land in the Crusader period but concentrated their efforts on the commerce in the coastal towns during times of quiescence. Most of them were artisans: glassblowers in Sidon, furriers and dyers in Jerusalem.
During this period, the Masoretes of Tiberias established the Hebrew language orthography, or niqqud, a system of diacritical vowel points used in the Hebrew alphabet. At this time a large volume of Piyutim and Midrashim originated in Palestine.
The Masoretes were non-Israelite scribes who converted to the debase faith of Pharasaic Talmudism. This creed, in grouping with Babylonian mysticism, was practiced in the Temple that was constructed under the command of the Edomite, King Herod.
The Masoretes were groups of mostly Karaite scribes and scholars working between the 7th and 11th centuries, based primarily in present-day Israel in the cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, as well as in Iraq (Babylonia). Each group compiled a system of pronunciation and grammatical guides in the form of diacritical notes on the external form of the Biblical text in an attempt to fix the pronunciation, paragraph and verse divisions and Cantillation of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh, for the worldwide Jewish community. Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services.
In the Mamluk period (1260-1517)
In the years 1260-1516, Palestine was part of the Empire of the Mamluks who ruled first from Turkey, then from Egypt. War and uprisings, bloodshed and destruction followed Maimonides. Jews (Sephardi) suffered persecution and humiliation but the surviving records cite at least 30 Jewish urban and rural communities at the opening of the 16th century.
A notable event during the period was the settlement of Nachmanides in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1267 which since then a continuous Jewish (Khazarian) presence existed in Jerusalem until modern day occupation of Jordan in 1948.
A Mamluk is of Turkish stock or rule and was a soldier of slave origin. The "Mamluk phenomenon," as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior class, was of great political importance and was extraordinarily long-lived, lasting from the 9th to the 19th century AD. Over time, Mamluks became a powerful military caste in various Muslim societies. Particularly in Egypt, but also in the Levant, Iraq, and India, Mamluks held political and military power. In some cases, they attained the rank of sultan, while in others they held regional power as amirs or beys. Most notably, Mamluk factions seized the sultanate for themselves in Egypt and Syria in a period known as the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517). The Mamluk Sultanate famously beat back the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut and fought the Crusaders effectively driving them out from the Levant by 1291 & officially in 1302 ending the era of the crusades.
They were of varied ancestry but were often Kipchak Turks/Cumans, depending on the period and region in question. While Mamluks were purchased, their status was above ordinary slaves, who were not allowed to carry weapons or perform certain tasks. In places such as Egypt from the Ayyubid dynasty to the time of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, Mamluks were considered to be “true lords,” with social status above freeborn Muslims.
In the Ottoman period (1517-1917)
The Sultan was the sole and absolute regent, head of state and head of government of the empire, at least officially, though often much power shifted de facto to other officials, especially the Grand Vizier.
The Jewish (Sephardi Jew) population of the Palestine region was at "approximately 10,000 during the first half-century of Ottoman rule. Bold development projects for reviving the Holy Land were conceived by Jewish courtiers in Constantinople, such as Don Garcia Mendes and Don Joseph Nasi. Jerusalem, Tiberias and above all, Safad, became centres of Jewish spiritual and commercial activity... Many of the gains achieved by Islamic Jewry during the 16th century were lost over the next 200 years ... as Ottoman rule became more inefficient, corrupt and religiously conservative."
At the height of its power, in the 16th and 17th centuries, it controlled territory in southeastern Europe, southwestern Asia, and North Africa. The Ottoman Empire contained 29 provinces and numerous vassal states, some of which were later absorbed into the empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. The empire also temporarily gained authority over distant overseas lands through declarations of allegiance to the Ottoman Sultan and Caliph, such as the declaration by the Sultan of Aceh in 1565, or through temporary acquisitions of islands such as Lanzarote in the Atlantic Ocean in 1585.
Thirty Jewish (Sephardi Jew) communities exist at the time in Haifa, Sh’chem, Hebron, Ramleh, Jaffa, Gaza, Jerusalem, and many in the north. The city of Safed became a spiritual centre. Kabbalah flourished among Sephardi Jews (which are converts) in Safed even before the arrival of Isaac Luria (known as "the Ari"), its most famous resident.
Between 1882 and 1948, a series of Jewish migrations to what is the modern nation of Israel, known as Aliyahs commenced. These migrations proceeded the Zionist period.
British Mandate (1917-1948)In 1917 at the end of World War I, Israel (known at the time as South Western Syria) changed hands from the defeated Ottoman Empire to the occupying British forces. The United Kingdom was granted control of Palestine (Today's Israel, West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jordan) by the Versailles Peace Conference which established the League of Nations in 1919 (name was changed to the United Nations later) and appointed Herbert Samuel, a former Postmaster General in the British cabinet, who was instrumental in drafting the Balfour Declaration, as its first High Commissioner in Palestine. During World War I the British had made two promises regarding territory in the Middle East. Britain had promised the local Arabs, through Lawrence of Arabia, independence for a united Arab country covering most of the Arab Middle East, in exchange for their supporting the British; and Britain had promised to create and foster a Jewish national home as laid out in the Balfour Declaration, 1917.
In 1947, following increasing levels of violence, the British government withdrew from Palestine. The proposed 1947 UN Partition Plan would have split the mandate into two states, Jewish and Arab, giving more than half the land area to the Jews (Ashkenazis and Sephardis ). Feeling betrayed, immediately following the adoption of the Partition Plan by the United Nations General Assembly, the Palestinian Arab leadership rejected the plan to create the, as yet un-named, Jewish State and launched what many called a guerilla war.
On May 14, 1948, one day before the end of the British Mandate of Palestine, the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine led by prime minister David Ben-Gurion, made a declaration of independence, and the false state of Israel was established on the portion partitioned by UNSCOP for the Jewish state.
1948 Israeli War of Independence
Hoping to annihilate the new Jewish state, the armies of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq invaded the territory partitioned for the Arab state, thus starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The nascent Israeli Defense Force repulsed the Arab nations from part of the occupied territories, thus extending its borders beyond the original UNSCOP partition. By December 1948, Israel controlled most of the portion of Mandate Palestine west of the Jordan River. The remainder of the Mandate consisted of Jordan, the area that came to be called the West Bank (controlled by Jordan), and the Gaza Strip (controlled by Egypt). Prior to and during this conflict, 711,000 Palestinians Arabs fled their original lands to become Palestinian refugees, in part, due to a promise from Arab leaders that they'll be able to return when the war is won.
Most Israeli-Jews refer to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War as the War of Independence, while most of the Arab citizens of Israel refer to it as the Nakba (catastrophe), a reflection of differences in perception of the purpose and outcomes of the war.
The Modern State of Israel (1948–present day)
Luke 21:24 ...Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
After the war, only 14–25% (depending on the estimate) of the Arab population remained in Israel. When Israel refused the reentry of most, and when subsequent offers of partial repatriation were rejected, they became refugees. Meanwhile, immigration of Holocaust survivors and Jewish (Khazarian and Sephardian) refugees from Arab lands doubled Israel's population within one year of its independence. Over the following years approximately 850,000 Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews fled or were expelled from surrounding Arab countries and Iran. Of these, about 680,000 settled in Israel.
Israel's Jewish population continued to grow at a very high rate for years, fed by waves of Jewish(Khazarian) immigration from round the world, most notably the massive immigration wave of Soviet Jews which arrived to Israel in the early 1990s following the dissolution of the USSR, who, according to the Law of Return were entitled to become Israeli citizens upon arrival. About 380,000 arrived in 1990–91 alone.
Since 1948, Israeli Ashkenazian and Sephardian Jews have been involved in a series of major military conflicts, including the 1956 Suez War, 1967 Six-Day War, 1973 Yom Kippur War, 1982 Lebanon War, and 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, as well as a nearly constant series of ongoing minor conflicts to preserve its national interests. The Israeli Jews have been also embroiled in an ongoing conflict with the Palestinians in the territories which have been under Israeli control since the Six Day War in 1967. Despite the signing of the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993 and the ongoing efforts of Israeli, Palestinian and global peacemakers, despite the constant security threats, Israeli have thrived economically throughout the 1980s, 1990s and present.
Jeremiah 3:18 In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.
Jeremiah 16:15 but they will say, 'As surely as the Most High lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.' For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers.
Jeremiah 30:3 The days are coming,' declares the Most High, 'when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their forefathers to possess,' says Yah."
Jeremiah 31:8 See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great throng will return.
Jeremiah 50:4 "In those days, at that time," declares Yah, "the people of Israel and the people of Judah together will go in tears to seek the Most High their Mighty One.
Jeremiah 50:5 They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to the Most High in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.
Ezekiel 37:22 I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms.
Amos 9:15 I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the Most High your Mighty One.
Amazing Waters of Change Baptism of Our Lord
Water is life. Every living thing in the world needs water. Without water, plants, animals and people die. Water promotes regeneration, healing and new life. The first rain after a bush fire, will spring the plants to life, and new green shoots will appear where once all was seeminly black and dead.
Water is cleansing. Without water washing is impossible. Water dissolves the dirt and removes it, to restore a fresh and clean status. The physicians tell us that if we drink adequate amounts of water each day our bodies will be cleansed of the toxins that pollute our systems.
I am sure that you may all relate to hot days such we are having presently, when you have been working and then partake of drink of cool water; as soon as the cool clear liquid hits you palate, you feel the fresh coolness refresh you, and revitalise your body.
Water is also amazing stuff as an emblem of what happens at baptism. This morning the lectionary readings speak about the Baptism of Jesus. I just want to focus upon this and see the significance of this event for us today over 2000 years later.
One must firstly look at where the idea of baptism came from. The Jews observed a ritual washing, it was used as a rite for a gentile to become a Proselyte Jew. It symbolised the washing away of the old ways, and accepting a new life cleansed under the Torah or Law of God.
In the Dead Sea area, a Jewish community at Qumran know as the “Essenes” practiced ritual washing or baptism as a means of symbolically removing their sins. The excavations in recent years in the Qumran area have unearth a number of baptisteries, that bear evidence to this practice. Some scholars have suggested that John the Baptist was strongly influenced by the Essene community. John practiced baptism in a manner similar to the Essene Jewish people.
Whether John was influenced by the Essenes, or not, is in many ways unimportant. What is important is when John sees Jesus, there is recognition of what God has been please to put into place. Water would take on a new significance. Matthew records it for us in this way:
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
Mark in his Gospel records John pointing out that he [John] baptises only with water, however Jesus would baptise with the Holy Spirit. The world would be changed and even the water would have a new significance.
Jesus convinces John to baptise him; not because of sin, for Jesus is sinless, but to mark the beginning of the new ministry of Jesus, the Holy Spirit’s touch upon Jesus, and through him, upon all who believe and enter the new life.
So how is that significant to us today? We recognise that the church baptises in that well known form: in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This act of baptism is the emblem of cleansing and new life through Jesus Christ.
If we believe that Jesus Christ died upon the cross to save us, if believe that Jesus rose from the dead; then we will also realise that our lives are stained by sin. Sin has robbed us of our true life, and it is because of sin that we simply exist rather than live as God had intended us. For us then, the waters Baptism are an emblem of washing, refreshing and living a new life through Christ.
It was understood that as one was plunged into the water of Baptism this represented the death of the old life; an end to the former life. As one rose out the waters of Baptism, they were a new creation in Christ, they have risen to life from the death of sin to new life eternal in Christ.
Where are we this morning? Have been to Jesus to be washed? Have we come to drink at the fount of living water? Have our souls been refreshed by the cool touch of water that Jesus gives us that is purifying and sweet? Have we experienced how truly amazing Christ’s water change may be?
ELIJAH'S CHAIR
At every circumcision Elijah, "the angel of the covenant," as he is called in Malachi (iii. 1), is supposed to be seated at the right hand of the sandek, upon a chair richly carved and ornamented with embroideries ("kisse shel Eliyahu"). Even in the salutation to the child to be circumcised ( ) is read the invitation to Elijah . When, under the influence of Jezebel, circumcision in the northern kingdom was about to be abolished, Elijah is said to have retired to a cave. There he prayed to God (I Kings xix. 10), and complained that Israel had forsaken the covenant of the Lord; whereupon God ordained that no circumcision should take place except in the presence of Elijah. Some consider this to be a commendation of Elijah for his zeal; others, again, take it to be a measure of protection for Israel, in that Elijah is in every instance to be satisfied that the covenant is not being broken.
Elijah being the guardian of the little ones, is represented as such in the amulet for the lying-inchamber, and, indeed, it is in this capacity that he is invited to the circumcision. In Regensburg R. Judah the Pious was once entrusted with the office of sandek. The child was brought in and greeted by all with the customary formula, but Judah remained silent. Being questioned, he said: "I do not see Elijah seated at my side." As he said this a venerable old man appeared at the window, and to him he referred the questioners. To them the old man declared that Elijah refused to come because the child would one day abandon the faith of his forefathers. The prophecy was fulfilled. Lipman of Mühlhausen, in his "Niẓẓaḥon," deals with the objection that Elijah could not possibly be present at different circumcisions at the same time.
As the sunlight and the Angel of Death are omnipresent, so can Elijah be. The precept that the formula "Zeh ha-kisse' shel Eliyahu zakur leṭob" or "zeh ha-kisse' shel Eliyahu ha-nabi' zakur le-ṭob" must be cried aloud (Meïr ben Gabbai, "Tola'at Ya'aḳob") is also found in the Zohar (Lek Leka; comp. Wayiggash, and Terumah, 169a). In some of the representations of the circumcision ceremony (as in Kirchner and Leusden) Elijah's chair is incorrectly placed at the left of the sandek; in others (as in Buxtorf's "Synagoga," the Amsterdam Pesaḥ Haggadah, etc.), it is not pictured at all.
Ancient Judaism
Doctrines
The earliest form of Judaism was characterized by explicit monotheism ("there is no god but Yahweh"), devotion to Jerusalem as the "holy city", and a belief in the future advent of a savior figure or "messiah", descended from King David, who would establish a kingdom of justice and peace on earth. Pilgrimages to the Temple at Jerusalem and male participation in the sacrificial cult, maintained by a hereditary priesthood, were encouraged. A set of highly distinctive religious practices, including male circumcision, a ban on idol-worship, the sabbath and dietary laws (especially avoidance of pig's meat and the prohibition of eating meat and milk at the same meal), were strictly observed especially by Jews in the diaspora, where intermarriage with non-Israelites was also officially resisted.
History
Our evidence for ancient Judaism, like our sources for ancient Israelite religion, comes almost entirely from the Hebrew Bible. The Torah or "Five Books of Moses", Judaism's most sacred text, reached its final written form by around 400BCE, while most of the other biblical texts had gained quasi-canonical status by about 200BCE. During this period the Second Temple was built at Jerusalem and the small state of Judaea established there under the protection of the Persian government. There were also thriving Jewish communities in Egypt, Babylonia and elsewhere in the diaspora, where alternative beliefs and institutions, including the synagogue, were also developing, and Aramaic and Greek replaced Hebrew as the main languages of the Jews. The crisis of religious persecution under the Syrian King Antiochus IV (175-163BCE), and the successful nationalist revolt led by Judas Maccabaeus which liberated Jerusalem in 164 BCE, resulted in the emergence of several varieties of Judaism. These defined themselves partly in their relationship to the Temple hierarchy and their beliefs about scripture, and partly in their attitude towards some of the hellenistic influences increasingly evident in Judaism, such as Persian eschatology and Alexandrian Greek scholarship. By the end of the second century BCE three groups can be identified in Judaea, Sadducees, Essenes and Pharisees, while in the diaspora important Jewish communities were emerging in Babylonia and Egypt.
Symbols
The Temple in Jerusalem provided a powerful source of symbolism even to Jews living in the diaspora. The two pillars by the main door of the Temple, the seven branched candle-stick (menorah), the high-priest's jewelled breastplate and the rams horn (shofar) are among the religious symbols appearing in early Jewish literature and synagogue art. Representations of the Ark of the Covenant, sometimes on a wheeled cart, were also used. The earliest use of tefillin ("phylacteries"), two small leather boxes attached by straps to the forehead and left upper arm during prayer, can be traced to this period, as can that the mezuzah ("doorpost"), a small decorative cylinder fixed to the right hand doorpost at the entrance to a Jewish home. Both the tefillin and the mezuzah contain a tiny parchment scroll with words from Hebrew scripture written on it. The Tetragrammaton (the four letters of the unpronounceable divine name YHWH), often written in the archaic Hebrew script, was another important symbol from early times.
Adherents
It is impossible to estimate with any accuracy the number of Jews at this stage of the history of Judaism.
Headquarters/Main Center The Jerusalem hierarchy, including a high priest and the Sanhedrin (ruling council), claimed to be the single central authority throughout most of the Second Temple period (515BCE-70CE). There was a brief period in the second century BCE when a rival Jewish temple existed at Leontopolis in Egypt. Expanding communities there and in Babylonia may have had some kind of regional authority by then as well.
Freemasonry
Doctrines
The basic doctrine of Freemasonry is belief in a Supreme Being, a doctrine which requires all Masons to have some form of religious belief before being admitted into the order and to continue to practise their religion after admittance. Freemasonry has three levels of initiation (Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason). All initiates take their initiation vows on, or in full view of, the Volume of Sacred Law (i.e. the Bible), membership is composed exclusively of men, discussion of religion and politics is forbidden within the Lodge, and the Three Great Lights of Freemasonry (the Volume of the Sacred Law, the Square and the Compasses) are always exhibited when the Lodges are at work.
History
Though Freemasonry claims origins in Ancient Egypt, it was established in its present form in 1717 when the Grand Lodge of London was formed. Many intellectuals had abandoned the Christian Church, and felt the need for a new outlet for their faith. Freemasonry appealed to these men because it had a close-knit federal structure, and appeared like a counter-Church. Indeed, it was at first opposed by the Church authorities, a Papal Bull being issued against the movement by Pope Clement XII in 1738. The Masonic movement was also attractive because it claimed to be the sole recipient and guardian of an ancient powerful secret handed down from antiquity, an idea which had been popularised earlier by Renaissance scholars. Most of the leading occultists of the Eighteenth Century were members either of Masonic Lodges or quasi-Masonic fraternities, such as co-Masonry, which allowed women to join them on an equal basis with men.
The United Grand Lodge of England has stated since at least 1916 that "Masonry is not a religion or a substitute for religion, instead seeking to inculcate in its members a standard of conduct and behavior which it believes to be acceptable to all creeds [whilst] studiously refraining from intervening in the field of dogma or theology. Masonry, therefore, is not a competitor with religion though in the sphere of human conduct it may be hoped that its teaching will be complementary to that of religion" ('Information for the Guidance of Members of the Craft', United Grand Lodge of England, p.18). However, Freemasonry is included here because of the influence it has had on developing Pagan religions in the last two centuries, particularly The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and modern Wicca.
The United Grand Lodge of England has stated since at least 1916 that "Masonry is not a religion or a substitute for religion, instead seeking to inculcate in its members a standard of conduct and behavior which it believes to be acceptable to all creeds [whilst] studiously refraining from intervening in the field of dogma or theology. Masonry, therefore, is not a competitor with religion though in the sphere of human conduct it may be hoped that its teaching will be complementary to that of religion" ('Information for the Guidance of Members of the Craft', United Grand Lodge of England, p.18). However, Freemasonry is included here because of the influence it has had on developing Pagan religions in the last two centuries, particularly The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and modern Wicca.
Symbols
The main Masonic symbols are those of the Square and Compasses. The Square is to regulate actions, symbolising the straight and undeviating line of conduct expected of a Mason. The Compasses symbolise the due bounds of relationship with all mankind and represent the unerring and impartial justice of the Supreme Being, who has defined the limits of good and evil and will reward or punish according to the regard or disregard paid to His commands. Together, they remind Masons to bear in mind, and act in accordance with, the laws of the Divine Creator.
Adherents No figures available.
Headquarters/Main Center Each country has its own headquarters. The English headquarters are as follows: United Grand Lodge of England, Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, London WC2, England.
Places of Refuge and Peace
Over the last few weeks the Revised Common Lectionary has taken us through the Gospel with all the drama that St. Mark can muster. This week after all that action and activity, we are brought to a point of rest and reflection. The evangelist records for us that Jesus says to his disciples after hearing of all their fervent work: “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” Mark tells us, that they had no leisure [or chance] even to eat. Jesus and his disciples board a boat and sail across Lake Gennesaret.
The opening verses demonstrate the importance of setting aside a time and place away from the business of life to rest, recuperate, reflect and pray. If you consider our lives today, we live in a ‘cacophony’ of activity. In amongst the ring tones of mobile phones, the noise emanating from TV screens and live news from one’s iPad is there any peace to pray reflect and rest? Is just it possible that one of the problems with our society is that we, our politicians, and leaders fail to take time to pray and reflect? Is this possible why we see decisions that are made seemingly on the run and without due consideration for the care of others?
We read this morning that the drama continued on and the work of the God must go ahead; people bring their sick for Jesus to heal and care for them. We read that Jesus looked at them saw them like sheep without a shepherd, he did the only thing possible- he cared for them, he taught them, he loved them.
One of the all loud noises in these last weeks there has been the issue of the asylum seekers risking their lives to come across the ocean to our shores. Whilst politicians of all sides pontificate, or accuse each other of poor policy and leadership on this matter; the people continue come by boat or aeroplane, appealing to our sense of compassion, care and safety.
As an Australian, a committed Christian, and former refugee to this nation myself in 1968, I have been ashamed, saddened and angry at some of the prevailing attitudes held by some in the community. I am concerned that the world is watching us as a nation, and may well suitability judge us in time to come if not already! Cameron Stewart writing in this weekend’s Weekend Australian concluded his very considered article on the humanitarian and political aspect of the asylum seekers with these words:
More than ever, Australia needs a balanced, orderly and functional humanitarian program. As both parties point the finger at each other, our offshore humanitarian program is crumbling fast, blackening Australia’s once-proud reputation for accommodating the poorest of the poor from all corners of the globe. (The Weekend Australian 21 Jul 2012)
So let us reflect for a moment what may shape our thinking as followers of Christ in a 21st Century Australia?
Firstly, even in the Hebrew Scriptures there was a concept and teaching of providing shelter and asylum in certain cases. (See: Numbers Chapter 35) When I read those instructions to Israel, with my Christian eyes; I see grace and compassion in circumstances that otherwise human logic may dismiss. I see Israel call to do Justice and have mercy. (See: Micah 6:8)
Secondly, I am reminded that Jesus and his holy family were refugees, fleeing from an evil King Herod, and finding shelter in the Kingdom of Egypt. (See Matthew 2:13) For this reason I draw solidarity with a Saviour who knows the plight of refugees, asylum seekers and those cast into exile.
Finally, I am confounded by the Gospel reading today. Jesus’ demonstrated compassion care and selflessness providing the needs to both his disciples and the crowds that gathered around him. Cannot that shape us as Christians today in Australia? Are we not called to be people of compassion to those in need?
Whilst some would dismiss the church at holding a view on this issue; I believe otherwise. As Christians we would be in neglect of the good news of the Gospel not to speak out for the poor and needy. The question that I seek to pose is: Are we not called to uphold the work and attitude of our Lord and Saviour, who even went to the cross to die for our salvation, shelter and peace?
Friends, the many aspects surrounding the issues of asylum seekers are complex, and need to be carefully considered on a whole of government basis. The issues should not be tangled in political rhetoric, grandstanding and tumult; but must be dealt with the attitude of the caring, compassionate and encouraging Australia that accepted my family and me in 1968. My home land was torn apart by the tanks of the USSR, and Australia took us in with care and compassion and gave us shelter. Let us be Christians who stand up and live and proclaim the values of the Risen Christ- Values of shelter, rest, peace and compassion for those from troubled climes must be upon our lips and hearts at all times. That is the Australia that I know and love.
Tikkun Olam
Tikkun means “fixing” in Judaism and the concept of Tikkun Olam (“repairing the world” in Hebrew) has become particularly prominent in contemporary Jewish life in the United States with its large and very politically active Jewish community. It could be argued however that this Jewish concept has been secularized much as Zionism has secularized Judaism.
The focus in Rabbinic Judaism regarding the future was historically in the Diaspora on awaiting the mashiach (messiah) through prayer, religious studies, good deeds and ritual religious observance. With the rise of democratic Zionism and even more so in the decades after the Holocaust comes the idea in the American Jewish community that Jews should seek to remake the world into a better place through political action of helping others helping themselves, particularly within and from liberal democracies such as Israel and the United States of America. Major American Jewish organizations came to increasingly focus on advocating for structurally oppressed groups in the United States and throughout the world and so has the organized American Jewish community become active and respected participants in the political life of the United States of America. Jews becoming agents of both Jewish redemption and world redemption through Jewish political leadership is thus one of the tremendous changes brought by Zionism.
Inventing effective, ethical solutions to intractable global problems by deconstructing those very problems is thus an important part of the political task of the WPJO. Fixing the world one problem at a time therefore requires inventing quality solutions to quantitative global problems.
Tikkun Olam
Tikkun means “fixing” in Judaism and the concept of Tikkun Olam (“repairing the world” in Hebrew) has become particularly prominent in contemporary Jewish life in the United States with its large and very politically active Jewish community. It could be argued however that this Jewish concept has been secularized much as Zionism has secularized Judaism.
The focus in Rabbinic Judaism regarding the future was historically in the Diaspora on awaiting the mashiach (messiah) through prayer, religious studies, good deeds and ritual religious observance. With the rise of democratic Zionism and even more so in the decades after the Holocaust comes the idea in the American Jewish community that Jews should seek to remake the world into a better place through political action of helping others helping themselves, particularly within and from liberal democracies such as Israel and the United States of America. Major American Jewish organizations came to increasingly focus on advocating for structurally oppressed groups in the United States and throughout the world and so has the organized American Jewish community become active and respected participants in the political life of the United States of America. Jews becoming agents of both Jewish redemption and world redemption through Jewish political leadership is thus one of the tremendous changes brought by Zionism.
Inventing effective, ethical solutions to intractable global problems by deconstructing those very problems is thus an important part of the political task of the WPJO. Fixing the world one problem at a time therefore requires inventing quality solutions to quantitative global problems.
Ancient Israelite Synagogues
It was long thought by historians that no synagogues existed prior to the final destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70. This would mean that references to synagogues in the New Testament (65 times) would be anachronistic and mention of synagogues in the Book of Mormon (26 times) would be even more so, since Lehi left Jerusalem about 600 BC. Only one passage in the King James version (KJV) of the Old Testament (Psalm 74:8) employs the word “synagogues.” Though it denotes meeting places in this passage, the Hebrew word appears in many other passages and is more often translated “set time” in KJV.
It is clear from various Old Testament passages that the Israelite elders used to meet at the city gates to judge matters of law (e.g. Ruth 4:1-11; 2 Samuel 15:2-6; 1 Kings 22:10). Indeed, archaeological excavation has disclosed that there were low benches built around the rooms comprising the gates of ancient Israelite city gates. When I noted this to a friend, William J. Adams Jr., he added that these rooms also had niches into which one could place the scrolls of the law, as in later synagogues. We view these gate assembly-places to be the earliest synagogues in ancient Israel.
Jewish tradition holds that the Israelites began building synagogues in the lands of Syria and Babylonia at the time they were deported there, beginning a few years before Lehi left Jerusalem. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, in 1163, visited synagogues that he said had been built by Ezra (5 century BC) in the towns of Racca and Haran, in northern Syria, and another synagogue of Ezra at the foot of Mt. Ararat. Writing of Babylon, he says, “Twenty thousand Jews live within about twenty miles from this place, and perform their worship in the synagogue of Daniel, who rests in peace. This synagogue is of remote antiquity, having been built by Daniel himself; it is constructed of solid stones and bricks.” Daniel lived in the time of the Book of Mormon prophets Lehi and Nephi.
Writing of Napacha, Rabbi Benjamin wrote, “Three parsangs hence, on the banks of the Euphrates, stands the synagogue of the prophet Ezekiel, who rests in peace. The place of the synagogue is fronted by sixty towers, the space between every two of which is also occupied by a synagogue; in the court of the largest stands the ark, and behind it is the sepulcher of Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, the priest. This monument is covered with a large cupola, and the building is very handsome; it was erected by Jechoniah, king of Judah, and the thirty five thousand Jews who went with him, when Evil-Merodach released him from the prison, which was situated between the river Chaboras and another river. The names of Jechoniah and of all those who came with him are inscribed on the wall, the king’s name first, that of Ezekiel last.” Ezekiel was another contemporary of Lehi and Nephi.
After mentioning Sura, Benjamin wrote, “Two days from thence is Shafjathib, where there is a synagogue, which the Israelites erected with earth and stones brought from Jerusalem, and which they called ‘the transplanted of Nechardea.’”
The late first-century AD Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who had seen (and, as a priest, probably served in) the Jerusalem temple (which he describes in his writings) before its destruction by the Romans in AD 70 is another witness to the existence of synagogues in early times. He quoted a decree of Lucius Antonius, vice-quaester and vice-praetor, to the leaders and people of Sardis, in the time shortly after the death of Julius Caesar, noting that the Jews “had an assembly of their own . . . as also a place of their own, wherein they determined their suits and controversies with one another” (Antiquities of the Jews 14.10.17). Similarly, he mentioned a decree of the city council of Sardis, perhaps from the second century BC (others he cites nearby are from that era), calling for the construction of a place where the Jews might assemble to offer prayer and perform religious rites to their God (Antiquities of the Jews 14.10.24).
Josephus also quoted Agatharchides of Cnidus, a second-century BC Greek Historian, who, describing events of the 4th century BC, noting that the Jews of Jerusalem they “spread out their hands in their holy places [hiera], and pray till the evening” (Against Apion 1.22). The hiera are evidently synagogues, which must have existed in the 2 century BC and perhaps as early as the 4 century BC.
Josephus also seems to describe a synagogue in use in his own day in the city of Tiberias. During the war against the Romans, a Pharisee named Ananias “proposed that a general religious fast should be appointed the next day for all the people, and gave order that at the same hour they should come to the same place.” Josephus calls the appointed place a proseucha, which denotes a place of assembly for prayer. Though usually an outdoor gathering-place, this one seems to be indoors, for Josephus notes that one of the men who disagreed with him “commanded that they should exclude all that came with me, for he kept the door himself, and suffered none but his friends to go in.” He allowed only two of Josephus’s officers to enter and there the group prayed according to the “customary service.” Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher who lived a few decades before Josephus, noted in one of his books that the Jews had “usual places” for prayer (In Flaccum 122).
A first-century AD text entitled Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum(LAB or Biblical Antiquities), falsely attributed to Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (and hence often called Pseudo-Philo), citing the ten commandments, expands them using portions of scripture. The fourth commandment adds a passage from Psalm 107:32 and reads, “Take care to sanctify the Sabbath day. Work for six days, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord. You shall not do any work on it, you and all your help, except to praise the Lord in the assembly of the elders and to glorify the Mighty One in the council of the older men.”
All the children of Edom who remained in the south of the land of Israel were converted to the status of slaves and in this way [it was intended that they be] drawn nearer to the Torah through the Hashmonean dynasty.
According to one tradition (Encyclopedia Judaica, "Obadiah") the Prophet Obadiah was a descendant of Esau who converted. He was the only known convert ever to obtain the gift of Prophecy. Obadiah was therefore a suitable vehicle to condemn the descendants of Edom since if he himself chose the right path so could they have done if they so wanted.
Obadiah speaks of a future fall and destruction of Edom: Edom's crime being his participation in persecuting the people of Judah and Jerusalem. Teman was one of the sons of Esau (Edom) and Obadiah exclaims, origin. In the Book of Maccabees and History of Josephus it is related how both the Spartans of Greece and the Romans of Republican Rome established contact with the then-independent kingdom of Judah and how both claimed to be related to the Jews through a mutual descent from Abraham.
Esau and Jacob were twin-brothers sons of Isaac son of Abraham. One authority states that the Romans owe their origins to the Albanes of Latinium in Peloponesus (southern Greece) descendants of the Laconian-Spartans and Ausones [from Esau?] migrating to Italy where they intermixed with the Sabines and Ombrians. Alexander the Great King of Macedonia and onetime conqueror of much of the then known world claimed descent from the Temenidae descendants of Temenus onetime king of Argos in Greece*i.
The Temenidae came to Macedon in ca.650 b.c.e.6. Amongst the Thracian (modern Romania) and Anatolian (modern Turkey) peoples were the Edoni, and Odomants. "Who cut the skin of the membrum of the Odomants?" says a passage "In some of his works he [i.e. Simon Pechi, 1575/1642] maintained that there are common lines of destiny in the history of the Jewish and Hungarian peoples."
The Spartans had an Israelite majoritarian component.
Albanes is clearly a Semitic word, coming from "haLeban", meaning "the white".
Is it Jewish to Believe in Yeshua, the Messiah?
To some, the concept of a Jew believing in Yeshua as the Promised Messiah seems to be a contradiction!
About 2000 years ago we discover that Yeshua was a Jew living as a Jew in a Jewish land among (His own) Jewish people!
All the apostles were Jewish as well as the writers of the Old & New Covenant and for many years this faith in Yeshua was strictly a Jewish one!
From the Book of Acts and other historical evidence, many believe that in the first century there were literally hundreds of thousands of Messianic Jews.* In addition, there were Messianic Synagogues scattered throughout the Roman Empire and beyond!
Symbol Menorah Fish found in Jerusalem's 1st Century
The real issue we must recognize is not whether it is Jewish to believe in Yeshua, because the Jewishness of Yeshua is historically unquestionable. The real issue at stake here is whether Yeshua is truly the Messiah or not. If He is, then it is the most Jewish thing in the world to believe in Him! If He is not the Messiah, then we should not follow Him.
There is only one way to find out and that is to go back into the Jewish Scriptures ourselves and study the Messianic prophecies. One of the pieces of pottery containing the "Messianic Seal" discovered in the grotto on Mount Zion. An item described as the "Messianic Seal" of the Jerusalem Church was discovered on several pieces of the first Century pottery in Jerusalem.
The emblem appeared to be a Jewish seven branched Menorah drawn with triangular base, with the triangular tail of a small fish overlapping the bottom half of the Menorah. This intersected to form the Star of David!
The Use of the Jew in Colonial Discourse
A hitherto unobserved feature of colonial discourse is the astonishing way in which a construction of Jews, quite unrelated to any objective feature pertaining to the Jews of the time, was used throughout the world as a means of explicating unknown or little-known peoples of wildly differing characteristics. This was in part because past Europeans were so imbued with the Bible that it was the first thing they turned to when in doubt, and thus the ethnography of the Israelites was the most available. It was also because Western and particularly Protestant missionaries longed for the return of the Christian Messiah, before which long awaited event Jews had to be found in every corner of the globe; thus Jews were ‘invented’ in the most remote regions to facilitate the Second Coming. Finally, it was a means of favoring certain ‘superior’ peoples in the colonial enterprise of divide and rule. This stratagem, particularly in the African context, was a way of suggesting that anything fine or noble came from outside, from Europe or the Middle East. Thus many peoples who appeared to have a more advanced way of doing things or who had ‘noble’ physical or social features were perceived of as coming from elsewhere – very frequently from ‘Biblical lands.’
The factors that were adduced in this discourse vary from place to place and from time to time but they include such features as the supposed similarity of certain languages to Hebrew and, from the seventeenth century on, the physical and moral resemblance of many different peoples to Jews. Religious features supposedly resembling aspects of the religious practices of Israelites were found among just about every society on earth. Colonial discourse is the sum of prejudice, unspoken belief, stated ideology and assumptions that guided colonial societies in their enterprise. It can be reconstructed to some extent through an examination of a wide variety of oral accounts, novels, political pamphlets, essays and colonial reports. Each contributing text builds on its predecessors, creating an interlocking system, although not all texts contribute to a given stream of discourse. What concerns me here is the way in which the encounter between European and ‘native’ frequently gave rise to the creation of imagined and mythic pasts for colonized or foreign peoples. These imagined pasts languages, beliefs and origins, were extracted from notions which colonists carried with them into the field, and frequently served colonial purposes. They were projections born of colonial fantasies which were often far from malignant and which frequently sought to find links of kinship particularly with minority groups within the colonized or foreign populations. It is clear that the European view of ‘elf’ and ‘other’ came under considerable pressure at the outset of European expansion. With the discovery of the American continent in 1492 and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope a few years later Europe was obliged to expand its sense of an essentially binary European-Mediterranean world to include a new and undiscovered Africa as well as a new and distant American occident which kept moving west as the years went on.
As Susanne Zantop has said, “It had expanded any simple self-other, Occident-Orient dichotomies, to include not just many others, but multiple, multivalent, constantly shifting ‘occidents’.” Anxieties about how to define the other in such new circumstances led to a new interest in questions of origin and language among others. The discovery of these new and in some cases unsuspected lands can be seen as heralding European modernity. It literally opened up new horizons for Europeans: “virgin territories” were to be possessed and exploited; “different” realities were absorbed, surveyed, and described; “strange” peoples were to be understood, integrated into existing categories, and subjected to European needs. In the following centuries increasingly sophisticated methods were applied to the dissection and categorization of the new religions, social systems and customs, not to mention the assiduous mapping of the regions themselves and the classification of the flora and fauna found within them. Nonetheless, and this is one of the central arguments of this paper, the process of transformation from a world view which perceived the Orient and Europe as binary opposites, with Europe and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean as poles, to something more complex was accompanied all too often by a utilization of old configurations in new and quite unexpected circumstances.
At the end of the medieval period the general assumption was that there were four main world religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Paganism. In time the more obvious of the great priestly and text-based religions of India, Japan and China could be more or less accommodated as an extension of this as the parallels between them and the known religions were so evident.
A more informed view was given by John Colenso, a Cambridge educated mathematician who was ordained Bishop of Natal in 1853. Colenso was convinced that the two Zulu names for God embraced perfectly the notions of the divine “contained in the Hebrew words Elohim and Jehovah.” So close indeed were the resemblances, according to Colenso, that frequently the point was made that anyone who wanted to really understand the Bible had best study Zulu customs. Zulu “habits and even the nature of their country so nearly correspond to those of the ancient Israelites, that the very scenes are brought continually, as it were, before their eyes, and vividly realized in a practical point of view.”
Practically everything about the Zulus from their lunar calendar to the order of religious feasts seemed to reflect an Israelite past. “The Zulu keeps his annual feasts, and observes the New Moons as the old Hebrew did. The very Zulus have their festivals at the beginning of the Southern Spring and at the end of their Autumn, corresponding to the ‘feast of the first fruits’ and the ‘feast of the ingathering’ of the ancient Hebrews.” By the end of the nineteenth century the white conquest of what is today South Africa was practically complete and the Ndebele and Shona tribes of what was by then called Rhodesia had also succumbed. As white settlers moved into the fertile lands north of the Limpopo River they were astonished to discover stone buildings, old mine workings and most of all the remarkable ruins known as the Great Zimbabwe complex. These ruins had first been discovered by a German, Karl Mauch, in 1871. Immediately Mauch declared his conviction that these ruins had been erected by the Queen of Sheba and were in fact a copy of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem and that this entire area was the Ophir of the Bible - Solomon’s gold lands.
It stood to reason therefore that Jews had once lived here and within a short time the Karanga-speaking Shona people and specifically the Lemba tribe were being defined in precisely the same way as the Hottentots, Xhosa and Zulus. One settler writer, Richard Nicklin Hall, wrote a book about Great Zimbabwe in which he devoted considerable space to the Jewishness of the surrounding populations. He made a list of twenty four supposed similarities of custom and belief and concluded: “Additional parallelisms with Jewish customs could be stated, and all these peculiar practices, together with the lighter skin and the Jewish appearance of the Makalanga, distinctly point to the ancient impress of the Idumean Jews, which can also be traced on the present peoples of Madagascar and of the coasts of Mozambique and Sofala...the Lemba tribe of Makalanga is noted for the preservation and observance of these Jewish practices, which are distinctly pre-Koranic in origin.” Here we see how the supposedly Jewish appearance of the Makalanga was adduced in support of the ethnographic proofs. The theme of the physical similarity of Jews to some Africans was frequent in this discourse: of course part of the project was racial classification.
Some of these constructions of the other emanate from anti-Semitic premises. In a 1962 article Raphael Patai referred to the writings of the German scholar Frobenius about the Lemba tribe of southern Africa. “I could not help being reminded of the impression made upon me by the Galician Jews,” wrote Frobenius, “Their glances can never detach themselves from the small heap of three-pence pieces which was built up before them as a stimulus for their narrative art..” Karl Peters, the founder of German East Africa, who was forced to resign from the German Imperial Service accused of cruelty to the local population and who retired to British South Africa wrote some years earlier of a neighboring group in Rhodesia: “How absolutely Jewish is the type of this people! They have faces cut exactly like those of ancient Jews who live around Aden. Also the way they wear their hair, the curls behind the ears, and the beard drawn out in single curls, gives them the appearance of Aden - or of Polish - Jews of the good old type,”( as opposed to the assimilated and successful Jews of the Germany of his own time). Rounding Africa we arrive at the great island of Madagascar. A considerable literature was produced particularly towards the end of the nineteenth century on the supposed Jewish origin of some of the island’s population. One proponent of the idea was the French Madagascar expert Alfred Grandidier, another Augustus Keane, a one time professor of Hindustani at University College London. They both claimed that there were great links between Madagascar and the ancient Jews. In The Gold of Ophir, Whence Brought and by Whom (1901) Keane argued that Madagascar had been the off-shore base for the colony of Havilah with Tarshish its port of entry and that Madagascar had links with ancient Israel, “certainly as early as the time of Solomon and possibly even during the reign of his father David.”
Grandidier’s monumental work Histore Physique, Naturelle et Politique de Madagascar, also published in 1901, made similar claims arguing that the parts of the local population were descended from Jewish settlers of Biblical times. Such views continued to be expressed throughout the twentieth century: a suggestion that substantial traces of Hebrew were to be found in Malagasy was made in L'hébreu à Madagascar by Joseph Briant, published in 1946! A little further up the coast of Africa the European discourse enthusiastically endorsed this idea and added, as we have seen, that the Biblical land of gold Havilah was in fact, “the mineralized region between the Zambezi and the Limpopo,” and that, “the ancient gold workings of this region were first opened and the associated monuments erected by the South Arabian Himyarites, (that is Arabs) followed in the time of Solomon by the Jews and Phoenicians.” If the underlying reasons for this discourse were gauntly secular and in part economic they were also associated with the views used to explain populations throughout Africa and the rest of the colonial world.
Further yet up the coast similar views were expressed about the Masai, an East-African pastoral people of Kenya and northern Tanzania. It is interesting to note that in the case of the Masai, the chief work exploring these ideas was written within a year or two of the main contributions on Madagascar and Zimbabwe mentioned above, and were written by a German officer, M. Merker. In his detailed and carefully researched work Merker believed that he had found significant parallels between the Masais’ myths and customs and those of the Biblical Hebrews. Merker discovered parallels between the beliefs and customs of the ancient Jews including: similarities in the names of God; in circumcision; in a belief in the figure of Moses (whom Merker identified with the Masai Marumi or Musana); and in a variety of legends which included the stories of the creation of the world, Adam and Eve and the fall of man; the story of the flood; the theft of the birthright; the bronze serpent; the ten commandments. He concluded that both the Masai and the “oldest” Hebrews originated from the same people. It is interesting to note that the high point of this discourse coincided with a change in the way Jews were being regarded in Europe. I have discussed four German examples, Merker, Peters, Mauch and Frobenius which simultaneously suggest both an idea of the Noble Jew and an anti-Semitic vision of the dirty, money grabbing Jew. It is known that at much the same time Treitschke derided the German Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz as an, “‘oriental’ who could never be expected to understand the German people.”
This internal German trope of alterity was converted into a two edged means of explicating others in colonial circumstances. This trope, while elevating certain native peoples, usually for some specific and self-serving reason, had the incidental effect of removing actual Jews from the frame of sacred history. The Masai, remember, were linked with the “oldest Hebrews,” the Shona with “the good old Jews.” One part of the discourse imposed upon new and unknown societies was a construction of the “other” which colonists had brought with them from Europe. This, in essence, was to try and explain indigenous religions as well as indigenous racial types from the analogy of religious systems and racial types which were known to them. To medieval Europe the two most obvious forms of the religious other were Jews and Muslims and to some extent this binary construct continued into the twentieth century.
The myth of the Moor (synonymous with Muslim in the European discourse) was one of its aspects and stood more or less for wild tribalism and a state of fairly but not entirely irredeemable savagery. The Jew represented a number of features, of which we should note a bucolic traditional way of life, a certain nobility, a more developed intelligence than was to be found among other groups and so on. Frequently the idealization of groups who are given these invented identities contained reflections of the fine qualities of the colonist; here alterity merges with introspection. Throughout this complex and long-running orientalist discourse are many diverse meanings hidden beneath the surface of the image, and often the image is ambiguous and contradictory. Nonethepless, it is clear from this analysis that the imposition of the invented identity of a known other on colonized peoples in the form of the Jew or the Moor with attendant invented languages, cultures and religions was a feature of orientalist colonial discourse. This not only involved colonial countries like Britain and America but others such as France and Germany and served Imperial needs throughout the world from Japan to Quebec from Peru to Zululand.
Ananda, Hindu View of Judaism, (New Delhi: APC Publications, 1996), 2. “The main purpose of this book is…to draw some parallelism between Hinduism and Judaism.” In the aftermath of the September 2001 attacks on the United States a vast array of comment produced comparisons between Indian populations – notably the Pathans – and Jews. See Tudor Parfitt, The Lost Tribes of Israel: The History of a Myth, (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2002).
Frequently in the colonial discourse under review Arabs or Moors are alternative structures of otherness. Although this chapter is concerned mainly with the way in which the Jewish element of the Semitic world acted on the European imagination, the Arabs or Moors as well as other ancient peoples, also played an important role. In mediaeval Europe “Moorishness” like “Jewishness” was the essence of “otherness.” The Arabic languages, like Hebrew (in France “c’est de l’hébreu pour moi” signifies an incomprehensible language) was the epitome of the unknown tongue. When Columbus arrived in the New World on his fourth voyage he observed that the people of the islands each had a different language and that they, “do not understand one another any more than we understand the Arabs.” (ii.102) In the Veneto, which has had a long history of symbiosis with Muslims to this day, parlar turco means to speak gobbledeygook, and cose turche implies things which can scarcely be imagined. Even those not convinced by the Israelite or Moorish origins of strange people still saw Jews and Moors as archetypal others: Vespucci, at a loss to understand who the American Indians might be noted, “they cannot be called Moors nor Jews, but worse than gentiles...I judge their lives to be Epicurean.” In other words, as Vespucci looked around for suitable “others” to express the strangeness of the Indians, the most automatic first choice was a twinning of Jews and Moors.
Williams reaches the conclusion that, “the Supreme Being not only of the Ashanti and allied tribes, but most probably of the whole of Negro Land as well, is not the God of the Christians which, at a comparatively recent date, was superimposed on the various tribal beliefs by ministers of the Gospel: but the Yahweh of the Hebrews, and that too of the Hebrews of pre-exilic times.”
PYRAMID OF PROMISE
When you contrast divine design with human architecture, the differences are awesome. Most revealing is that man is not God. Contemporary pyramid schemes of man promise 'get rich' opportunities, whereas the Great Pyramid of Giza was a promise of God that pointed to a coming Messiah and a wealth of wisdom.
Like so many of God's offerings to mankind, something good has been stolen and perverted. There are known rip-offs like God's glory of the stars found in the original zodiac, which mutated into pagan astrology.
The same can be said about God's Great Pyramid exploited by the occult, the Freemasons, the Illuminati, offbeat religions etc.
Pyramidology became an object of fascination to the British Israel movement in the 19th century and because of their preoccupation with it, lost the dynamics of what these stones signified and became the brunt of ridicule. Although it must be argued that it is rather naive to think that the purpose of the world's greatest pyramid ever built was merely a burial monument to some pharaoh. In fact, no Egyptian can lay claim to it.
Needless to say, the mechanics of this ancient wonder of the world is yet to be explained and cannot be duplicated by the greatest engineers of our time. The greatest pyramid ever built was assumed to have hidden within it, the greatest treasure of all time. However, penetration of its interior passages and chambers by 'get rich' treasure hunters revealed no gold or precious gems. Instead, the Great Pyramid of Giza predates the writing of the Word of God, which we call the Bible, and could only be construed as a divine communication to man. The treasure wasn't materialistic, but rather spiritual.
Are we Christians to believe that the physical appearance of the oldest and largest building in the world, along with its systematic interior, geometric and mathematical intricacies, including scientific calculations of earth and astronomy, is the creation of man alone? The important thing for us to remember today is that Christ is returning again for His Bride, Israel; and we'll see how the Great Pyramid fits into that promise. Surely there would be some calculation for preterists, but alas there is none to be found. Most likely, we'll figure it out after it happens.
The Great Pyramid cries out for proper recognition that its design can only be divinely inspired by the Creator of the Universe. The divine design is as replete as the Holy Bible being the greatest book ever written, having supernatural properties to guide mankind's faith through prophecy. The Great Pyramid has been referred to as 'prophecy in stone' whereby the actual interior measurements correspond to biblical chronology, such as the location and time of the Messiah's birth.
It is not my intent to delve into the complex incontrovertible calculations proving God's call to the world. Throughout the history of our race there has been knowledge imparted to each era that did not fit the period of time. It accelerated our process of civilization. Without our acceptance of God as the source of paradigm shifts, the mysteries of progress will linger in speculation or foolish aberrations.
E. Raymond Capt's book "The Great Pyramid Decoded" does an excellent job of introduction to this subject as it pertains to Christian Identity studies. One should read his book to have an appreciation for this message. Not much has been written about this subject for quite awhile, because of what I believe to be embarrassing interpolations and disinformation planted by the enemies of Christian Identity. But, like the tares sown amongst the wheat, the time of harvest is fast approaching where we can pluck the bad from the good and incinerate that which offends God. Certainly, the adulterations dealing with divine design will collapse like a house of cards.
The Bible and the Great Pyramid harmoniously dovetail into two witnesses focusing on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Some people fail to see the connection between the Great Pyramid and the Bible, not to mention what God promises to His people. Let us therefore indulge in a perspective rarely seen by the casual student of Christianity. When we compare the Great Pyramid to all other buildings ever made, there is no comparison.
I believe it's safe to say that the Great Pyramid was designed in such a way as to corroborate the existence of God and His revelation to mankind. God understands perfectly the pride of a thoroughly materialistic world and thus anticipated humanity becoming boastful of its intellect and thereby trying to destroy what He has created. But no matter how hard man tries to wreck the living written Word of God, it is not dead. By the same token, the Great Pyramid is still standing as an ancient witness. It has survived the ages for a reason.
Daniel 12:4 foretells of a time when many shall travel and knowledge would be increased. It is only in our generation that the great knowledge has been revealed about the Great Pyramid. At this point it is easy to anticipate the foul accusation of being called 'Gnostic' (pretend knowledge), when in fact we are called to grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord Savior (II Peter 3:18). God often provides coincidence for those who would believe false knowledge. Divine promise is the reality for those who have the eyes to see it.The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus and the testimony of Jesus is of promise.
The science, mathematics and astronomy of the Great Pyramid lay dormant for thousands of years until now. We need not praise mystic alchemists, numerologists or astrologers for the preservation of anything. Only now do archaeologists, historians and Bible scholars unlock the door of prophetic times and events from 13 acres of 2,300,000 limestone blocks weighing between 2 1/2 to 50 tons each. It is the divine design that yields the only kind of authority that can make infallible promises.
This may come as a surprise, but modern science did not discover pi. Indeed, the entire geometric structure of the Great Pyramid was designed on the basis of pi (3.14159; it is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, the mathematical ratio upon which the whole physical universe is designed) and the value of y (365.242; the number of days in the Earth's solar year). Those two things alone should get your attention from the Almighty Creator of the universe.
We have an adequate revelation of the signs of the times (Matthew 24:37; Luke 17:28). Here at Giza we have the greatest sign of all times and people are wasting their time reading into the signs of a burial shroud, icons that bleed or cry, hocus pocus codes and pictures of Maryon a tortilla. Christians need to overcome the satanic signs and lying wonders that have usurped God's Pyramid.
God has given His people a plethora of promises many of which have been already granted, while others await being revealed. We shouldn't malign the Great Pyramid with controversy or obfuscate it with mystical shell games. With the exception of a pyramid casino in Las Vegas, pyramids were never intended for habitation or commerce. If we can comprehend anything from the world's foremost pyramid in Giza, it is four isosceles triangular sides which rise to a crescendo at the top. However, the very top piece of this architectural feat is absent. As we shall see, there's a very good reason for this missing component. I must say at this point, that the people whom God has chosen to be His servant race are missing the uppermost priority in their lives. That, of course, is Jesus Christ, often referred to as the head of the body or church.
The body of Christ or the church, from the Greek word ecclesia, means 'the called out ones'. Indeed, the Great Commission was to carry the Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the four corners of the Earth; wherever Israelites dwelled. As the disciples of Christ proclaim Jesus as the Savior of mankind (not humankind), we can read and understand without pollution or corruption, the crystal clear message in both the Old and New Testament.
"Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read the scriptures [Psalm 118:22-23], the stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner; this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?" - Matthew .21:42.
To further verify His divine position we read,
"Jesus Christ Himself being the chief comer stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord" - (Ephesians 2:20-21).
We cannot get much higher in rank than this kind of divine appointment.
The Word made flesh; the deity of Christ is synonymous with the Great Pyramid representing His Kingdom on Earth. We can now take solace in knowing that the old institutions of temple ordinances have been abolished.
"Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" - I Corinthians 6: 19.
"In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit" - Ephesians 2:22.
The body of Christ is as 'fitly framed together' as the immovable blocks of limestone which make the Pyramid the only surviving wonder of the world. The symbolic analogy is as about as profound as it gets. God dwelleth in His people Israel (I Corinthians 3:16).
"And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God... I will dwell in them... and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" - I Corinthians 6:16.
Sounds like God has a plan for us.
Over half the world's population is under satanic control of antichrists and Catholics who wish to rule Jesus Christ out of the universe. The Romans gave a sign that meant life or death, which was thumbs up or thumbs down. As we've seen in this study thus far, Jesus Christ is the capstone of a pyramid or upright triangle, which gives the world life and hope. The opposite of that symbolism would then be a downright triangle representing death and despair, as depicted in the pink triangle of sodomites.
In the process of achieving a synthesis or artificial by-product, the promises of God are then adulterated or vanquished. The Great Pyramid is relegated to a secular National Geographic TV special targeting a third-grader mentality. You will not hear how the Great Pyramid was built to bring forth the glory of God for His servant race to become Christ-like in spirit, character and works.
All other pyramids are inferior in design and purpose.
"For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself; above all people that are upon the face of the earth" - Deuteronomy 7:6.
The missing capstone on the Great Pyramid tells us we lack leadership and suffer from an identity crisis. There are over 100 pyramids in Egypt and perhaps over a thousand worldwide if you include triangular earthen mounds.
"Who hath declared this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that time? Have not I the Lord? And there is no God else beside Me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside Me" - Isaiah 45:21.
"Looking down to the base of the Pyramid, we find unmistakable evidence that the builders erred [or perhaps it was divine intent - MD], laying the lines of the base foundations inside, or short, of the Divinely prescribed lines for the foundation. The symbolism is plain: we have not built upon the foundations which God provided and therefore our entire social structure (the modern Western civilization) is too small to receive the Capstone... We have built a social structure. a civilization upon man-made fondations rather than the God-ordained pattern. And the result is exactly what we now have; it is a society in which there is no place for the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Capstone. It is equally clear that without Him, we have no leadership worthy of the name."
Tens of thousands of sermons are preached each week in most Christian churches, radio and TV programs, books and magazines, while our once great Christian nation slips further into apostasy. God creates tens of thousands of opportunities each week for a direct relationship with Him, where our dogmatic proselytizing doesn't get ahead of His glory. The 1st century Christians were not dependant on 2000 years of sermons or manmade messages, but rather relied on a supernatural focus of what God was doing. We have lost, to a certain extent, some of the miraculous and wondrous intentions of divine design by subordinating the reputation of God with the glory of man. Therefore, you will not hear about the miracle of God's Pyramid in mainstream churches other than to denounce those who do.
The only promises the sheep can look forward to are from crooked politicians who break them once they are elected. The promises aren't very godly to begin with. They are more like the tower of Babel, a sure promise for chaos and confusion, than the Pyramid of promise for order and blessings. Paul well understood what pertained to our race when he said,
"My kinsmen according to the flesh; who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises" - (Romans 9:3-4).
All the writers of the Bible wrote about our inheritance of the divine promises. God's promises stand fast; they stand as solid as the Great Pyramid. God's promises do not pertain to others because God does not change His mind and He is not a liar (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 6: 18). It is man who changes the Word of truth into a lie and inverts the Capstone with a thumbs down. For if the heirs of the promise were free from those who abode not in the truth, they would claim their inheritance and all the families of the Earth would be blessed... as promised!
"Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it" - ( Psalm 127: 1).
Did you know that Joshua "took a great stone" and said,
"This stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke unto us" - (Joshua 24:27)
The tribes of Reuben and Gad were so concerned about losing sight of God that they built an altar, but not for burnt offerings or sacrifices, but rather that it may be a witness for future generations that they serve God (Joshua 22:26-27). The principle here is not that rocks have a mind of their own, but that they serve as a reminder. How much greater then is the Great Pyramid as a witness to God's Creation, that likewise had no need for burnt offerings or sacrifice?
But the average Christian may be wondering where is this Great Pyramid in the Bible specifically? Like so many other treasures of biblical wisdom, the Pyramid is written about covertly, so that only through patience, study and meditation, is its significance revealed at the appropriate time. Isaiah 19:19-20 is the Scripture which comes into play on this subject. Before sceptics try to interpret something other than the Pyramid for this prophecy, we should look at what Isaiah limits it to. The KJV renders it thusly,
"In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign, and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt."
Let's diagram this message piece by piece. "In that day" signifies when the prophecy shall come to pass. Isaiah's writings provide three time frames: his own time, the first advent of Christ and the second advent of Christ. Let us assume for a moment that it is the latter, given the context and perplexity of chapter 19.
It next says there's going to be an altar to the Lord. There are two types of altars in Scripture. One is for sacrifice and the other is for witness. Verse 20 clearly identifies it as a "sign" and a "witness". We should take note that God's Law for an altar of sacrifice must be unhewn,
"For if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou has polluted it" - (Exodus 20:25).
However, for an altar of witness, there is no prohibition; hence there is nothing to prevent it from being built of hewn stone.
"In the midst of the land of Egypt" is a no-brainer, so we need not look anywhere else. Indeed, we are given a specific geographic position "At the border thereof". These seemingly contradictory coordinates of it being in the center and the border of the land is resolved because of the unique configuration of Egypt. Our Pyramid, then and now, was in close proximity to the heart of Egypt's political and social life, in both ancient Memphis and modem Cairo. Until recent times, the boundary of Egypt was determined by cultivated land and desert. The fertile fan-shaped Nile Delta forms a quadrant in which the centre point is marked by the Great Pyramid of Giza. Giza or Gizeh in Arabic means skirt, edge or border. To the east of Giza is a highly cultivated and densely populated land, but to the west is nothing but the sand of the Sahara Desert. There can only be one spot on the face of the Earth that corresponds to Isaiah's description.
But where is the Pyramid in all of this? The word "pillar" in the KJV is misleading as it may suggest a vertical column of sorts. This is rectified with a more accurate translation of the Hebrew word 'matstsebah', which can also mean a memorial stone or monument. We therefore have a hewn monument of the border in Egypt which Isaiah writes for us in our study today. This altar of divine design is a visible sign. This witness in stone is speaking to our generation at the appointed time. Let the sceptic bring forth his venue and artifacts. Let there be a shining light of glory.
At one time, the surface of the Pyramid was like glass, acting like gigantic mirrors reflecting great beams of light. The ancient Egyptians called it Ta Khut, "The Light", and also Ikhet, meaning the "Glorious". We can relate this to Scripture. II Corinthians 4:3-6 says, "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." Gospel means 'good news' and the good news of the 'Glorious Light' of the Pyramid has been suppressed to people who have not found Christ.
"But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them " (verses 3-4).
Now many will say that the "god" of this world is "Satan", however the 1611 KJV capitalized God, so it isn't the so-called devil that blinds. In fact, "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing" (Proverbs 25:2). Some people will voluntarily remain lost. Why? Matthew 13:22 tells us it's the carnal nature of man that chokes the Word which thus becomes unfruitful i.e. a self-imposed darkness upon themselves. Everyone can see the Great Pyramid, but some people are blind as to its greatness.
"For God,who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face [person] of Jesus Christ" (verse 6).
By the same token, the pyramid radiates its light from the sun on the dark continent of Africa. Jesus is referred to as the "Sun of righteousness" in Malachi 4:2.
What do we know about the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ as found in the Pyramid? We hear from people who call themselves Christians speak about their Christian heritage, but it's usually more froth than substance. You know what froth is? It's a head of foam on top of a fresh beer. If your average churchgoer knew something about substance, then their chief comerstone or capstone wouldn't be so frothy; it would be that Rock that was Christ (I Corinthians10:4).When lost Israel, the Christian of today, ceases to be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, like blowing the froth off a mug of beer, then perhaps they will take a new look at the substance of the great monument of divine design and begin to have knowledge of the glory of God and be found built upon the foundation fitly framed together in which Jesus Christ, the chief corner stone and head of the building, declares His dwelling place amongst us. This is our heritage.
These are our promises from God. The Great Pyramid was never meant to be used as a crystal ball or for nefarious purposes. It has gotten a bad rap from charlatans, secret societies and New Agers, just as much as a racial consciousness has become so politically incorrect. Satanic cultures are against Christianity and profanely designed to eradicate it. But the divine design of the Pyramid has survived the test of time as we begin to discover its symbolic signs and parallel witnessing to the written living Word of God.
Let us open our eyes to the great allegory in living stone. In the interior of the Great Pyramid there are an ascending and descending passageway. The upward path leads to the King's Chamber. You can only get there after negotiating the great step at the upper end of the ascending path. It is symbolic of another point of view or level of consciousness. It is the perspective of all power and authority which rightfully belongs only to Jesus Christ on earth and heaven (Matthew 28:18). In this chamber is also found the open coffer (a lidless tomb) in which no royal mummies were ever enshrined; symbolic of the empty tomb at Calvary and the resurrection; first of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ and secondly of His redeemed people Israel, His witnesses (Isaiah 43:10), His servant people (Isaiah 41:8), His inheritance/heritage (I Kings 8:53, II Samuel 7:23), His goveming body of administrating the Law/Word taking dominion of the earth (Revelation 20:6).
The empty tomb indicates eternal life attained through resurrection, the same as Christ risen from the dead. All other pyramids in Egypt have descending passages only, representing the way of death. The way of life, as symbolized in the Great Pyramid, is above ground ascending passages with a ventilation system for life sustaining air.
Let us consider two things here. First, the dead do not breathe and second, the breath of life, the Spirit of God, was breathed into the nostrils of Adam and he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). Who else but God would tell us such things about life and death?
The intricate construction of the interior also reveals a relationship between the lengths of the passages and respective epochs of history. This means that the Pyramid's blueprint was designed according to a given scale of precise mathematical measurements that correspond to prophetic events which have come and gone. There can only be one architect orchestrating so many revelations to mankind and that one is God. May you find Him now.
Look to the rock from whence ye were hewn, Look at what God hath been doin', Look to the prophecy in stone, The Kingdom of God for us alone Look not at what man impugns, Look at the signs for what comes soon Look at the witness that comes and goes, See God's wonder - for us to know.
We should not forget that when our forefathers went out to battle against the heathen, they never forsook the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. The heathen never had any doubt in their mind that they had to deal with stout men who openly professed Jesus Christ. How can an enemy fight against a people whose God promises them victory? They do so by flagrantly getting them to forget the promises or that they are heirs of any promise. They erase any memory of a stone witness. The chief cornerstone is morphed into the 'All-Seeing Eye' of Big Brother watching you.
How wonderful it would be if today's patriots took up the Cross of Jesus Christ and waved it in the face of antichrist vampires. How different the world would be when fearless Christian men raise a standard of the King of kings against an alien force. As it is today, a warrior without the ensign of Jesus Christ is facing the wicked hordes without armor or weapon - they have been spiritually robbed of leadership. They are like the Great Pyramid that has lost its polished limestone surface, still I retaining its identity, but dilapidated from time and desecrated by thieves. But, because of the pyramid's magnanimity, when the sun goes down it still takes on the appearance of a golden mountain.
Why should a Christian or even a nonbeliever understand the Great Pyramid? Because, it will show us the way God's power controls the Earth and the destiny of our people. Take the time to sense the manifest presence of God, for only then is when you will witness a demonstration of His power. We don't have to be in Egypt, physically, to be awe struck with God's Spirit. It will result in a revival towards seeking the Word of God for answers. The more answers we receive, the more our faith is strengthened -the only thing that saves us and pleases God at the same time (Hebrews 11:6). Our great reward is the Pyramid of Promise. The marvel of it is within our sights.
"He shall bring forward the Top-Stone amid shouts of 'Grace, grace unto it'" -Zechariah 4:7.
Conversion of Iranian Jews to Baha’i Faith
It is really astonishing that in most of the countries the first conversion to the Baha’i Faith was from Jews community. Whether it is Hungry, Sweden or US. In Iran too where the Baha’is are being persecuted on charges of carrying out espionage activities for the state of Israel the early converts were Jews.
Shortly after the emergence of the Baha’i Faith, the Iranian Jewish community, along with Iranian Zoroastrians, underwent widespread conversions.
1. The Jewish conversion movement began in Hamadan around 1877, and by 1884, according to the historian of Persian Jewry Habib Levy, involved some one hundred and fifty of the eight-hundred Jewish households there.
2. From Hamadan, the Bahá'í Faith spread to the Jewish communities of other Iranian cities, including Kashan (where half of the Baha’i community was of Jewish origin), Tehran, Isfahan, Bukhara, and Gulpaygan (where seventy-five percent of the Jewish community was said to have converted).
3. According to the Baha’i historian Hasan Balyuzi, Táhirih was instrumental in converting a number of Jews to the Babí Faith in Hamadan.
These conversions do not appear to have had any connection with later Baha’i conversions. It should be noted however, that of all the Babí leaders, Táhirih was the most outspoken in departing from Islamic norms.
The Jewish acceptance movement began in Hamadan around 1877, and by 1884, some one hundred and fifty of the eight hundred Jewish households converted to Baha’i Faith. From there, the Faith spread to the Jewish communities of other Iranian cities.
From 1950s up to the Iranian Revolution, many Jews converted to the Baha’i Faith for various reasons. Quite often the entire Jewish family use to get converted to the Baha’i Faith. Jews, Zoroastrians, and Christians could not get involved in politics except to represent their faith in the Parliament; but Baha’is did not have this restriction as long as they did not advertise their faith. This was one of the reasons why so many Jews and Zoroastrians converted to Baha’i. For example, the longest-serving Prime Minister of Iran, Mr. Amir Abbas Hoveyda, was from a Baha’i family.
During the revolution, most of the Baha’is with birth certificates stating their Jewish Faith, left Iran for Israel and got their Israeli citizenship.
Walter Fischel sees the general ignorance that existed among the Jews of Iran regarding the basic tenets of their religion as a primary determinant of the conversions:
Had Persian Jews possessed the spiritual leaders of a high cultural standing in the last century, had the rabbis and the schools taught and asserted a Judaism free from superstitious notions, empty formalism and medieval prejudices, had they shown a true sense for Judaism and its ethics, the conception of God, its ideas of the messiah, its national aspirations, its contributions to world culture, Bahá'ísm would hardly have won any Jewish hearts.
Contemporary Western accounts of the Jewish community would tend to support Fischel's evaluation. Before the arrival of Christian missionaries the Bible was read in Hebrew, often without any understanding. The earliest translations of the Bible into Persian and Judeo-Persian were made and distributed by the Christians. Even Hebrew Bibles were generally obtained through missionaries. The Talmud was virtually unknown, and the Jewish clergy had little education. The converts, however, judging from their literature, had a good knowledge of scripture, as well as of rabbinical exegesis. One Bahá'í of Jewish background stated that his father carefully taught all of his apprentices "the trade, the Torah, and the Bahá'í Faith" (personal interview with the author). But in none of these accounts have I found any reference to the Talmud.
The Jews observed that the very Muslims [Baba'is] who yesterday had regarded Jews as unclean and infidels and who tormented them even unto death, today, with the utmost affection, showed respect to them. If a Jew went to a Bahá'ís' place of worship there was no danger, the Bahá'í would even invite him and regard him as having the same rank as hirmself; for the leader of the new religion [Bahá'u'lláh] had said that all humanity are the servants of God and there is no difference between them.
Pakistani Muslim Salafi Supporting Israel
In the Quran, there is nothing new against the Jews. The Quran repeats the stories of Bani Israel. The stories which are already mentioned in the holy Taurate (Old Testament) and have been repeated in the Quran by Allah. There are good and bad people in every society, so the bad people are condemned and good people are praised in the Old Testament. The Quran repeated the same stories of the good and bad people of the Bani Israel. Therefore, I cannot understand why people see the verses that condemn the bad people of Israel but don’t see the verses that praise the good people of Bani Israel! This is the common problem in our Muslim community.
They are quick to blame other religious but do not see their own actions that go against the teachings of Islam. The Quran declared the land of Israel to the Jews. It belonged to Bani Israel. Jews are the indigenous people of the land of Israel and they will remain there till the day of Judgement. It is mentioned in the Quran. So it is that Muslim’s religious duty to support Israel and the Jewish community, according to the commandment of Allah.
The social media boarded the minds of both communities. There are many people in both communities who started trusting each other. People see the naked facts that Israel is not their enemy. Thousands of Palestinians enter into Israel to work on a daily basis. They experience the friendly welcome of Israelis and they see that the Israeli market pays them four times better than their Palestinian authorities. They receive insurance, their medical treatment is free in Israeli hospitals, and their basic human life cost is much better in Israel than in Gaza or the West Bank. Once they retire they get full pension from Israeli companies with full employment rights. They see the lifestyle of Arab Israelis.
They see the minarets of Mosques in Israel are still shining, and they hear the loudspeaker of those mosque calls for 5 times of daily prayers. The Palestinian’s new generation is assessing the situation very deeply, but unfortunately their political leaders hijacked them, and their religious leaders blackmailed them. These people need to free themselves from these ruthless political establishments. Israel is ready to give them their state and restore their honour, but they need to accept the fact, which is the reality of Israel’s existence. I hope, that if not in my time, at least the new generation will see these strong relations, so the lives of both nations will live in peace.
Unidentified woman in ancient dress
Apollo holding a laurel branch and libation bowl, next to a palm that represents his birth on Delos (Comacchio Painter, ca. 450 BC)
Victorious charioteer holding a palm branch on a Roman mosaic
Poseidon holding a palm branch on the reverse of a tetradrachm of Antimachus I Theos, king of Bactria (2nd century BC)
Symmachus bearing the palm of triumph over death (4th century)
The Tosher Rebbe of Montreal, Canada waving the Four Species during Hallel
Palms carried on Palm Sunday, 2011, at Sanok, Poland
Palm Sunday in Spain
Eberhard I, Duke of Württemberg (1492). The Duke chose a palm as his personal symbol in commemoration of his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1468 when he became a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.
A Palm Tree (1717) by the Ottoman illustrator Muhammad ibn Muhammad Shakir Ruzmah-'i Nathani
The Levites TodayThe Use of the Jew in Colonial Discourse
A hitherto unobserved feature of colonial discourse is the astonishing way in which a construction of Jews, quite unrelated to any objective feature pertaining to the Jews of the time, was used throughout the world as a means of explicating unknown or little-known peoples of wildly differing characteristics. This was in part because past Europeans were so imbued with the Bible that it was the first thing they turned to when in doubt, and thus the ethnography of the Israelites was the most available. It was also because Western and particularly Protestant missionaries longed for the return of the Christian Messiah, before which long awaited event Jews had to be found in every corner of the globe; thus Jews were ‘invented’ in the most remote regions to facilitate the Second Coming. Finally, it was a means of favoring certain ‘superior’ peoples in the colonial enterprise of divide and rule. This stratagem, particularly in the African context, was a way of suggesting that anything fine or noble came from outside, from Europe or the Middle East. Thus many peoples who appeared to have a more advanced way of doing things or who had ‘noble’ physical or social features were perceived of as coming from elsewhere – very frequently from ‘Biblical lands.’
The factors that were adduced in this discourse vary from place to place and from time to time but they include such features as the supposed similarity of certain languages to Hebrew and, from the seventeenth century on, the physical and moral resemblance of many different peoples to Jews. Religious features supposedly resembling aspects of the religious practices of Israelites were found among just about every society on earth. Colonial discourse is the sum of prejudice, unspoken belief, stated ideology and assumptions that guided colonial societies in their enterprise. It can be reconstructed to some extent through an examination of a wide variety of oral accounts, novels, political pamphlets, essays and colonial reports. Each contributing text builds on its predecessors, creating an interlocking system, although not all texts contribute to a given stream of discourse. What concerns me here is the way in which the encounter between European and ‘native’ frequently gave rise to the creation of imagined and mythic pasts for colonized or foreign peoples. These imagined pasts languages, beliefs and origins, were extracted from notions which colonists carried with them into the field, and frequently served colonial purposes. They were projections born of colonial fantasies which were often far from malignant and which frequently sought to find links of kinship particularly with minority groups within the colonized or foreign populations. It is clear that the European view of ‘elf’ and ‘other’ came under considerable pressure at the outset of European expansion. With the discovery of the American continent in 1492 and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope a few years later Europe was obliged to expand its sense of an essentially binary European-Mediterranean world to include a new and undiscovered Africa as well as a new and distant American occident which kept moving west as the years went on.
As Susanne Zantop has said, “It had expanded any simple self-other, Occident-Orient dichotomies, to include not just many others, but multiple, multivalent, constantly shifting ‘occidents’.” Anxieties about how to define the other in such new circumstances led to a new interest in questions of origin and language among others. The discovery of these new and in some cases unsuspected lands can be seen as heralding European modernity. It literally opened up new horizons for Europeans: “virgin territories” were to be possessed and exploited; “different” realities were absorbed, surveyed, and described; “strange” peoples were to be understood, integrated into existing categories, and subjected to European needs. In the following centuries increasingly sophisticated methods were applied to the dissection and categorization of the new religions, social systems and customs, not to mention the assiduous mapping of the regions themselves and the classification of the flora and fauna found within them. Nonetheless, and this is one of the central arguments of this paper, the process of transformation from a world view which perceived the Orient and Europe as binary opposites, with Europe and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean as poles, to something more complex was accompanied all too often by a utilization of old configurations in new and quite unexpected circumstances.
At the end of the medieval period the general assumption was that there were four main world religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Paganism. In time the more obvious of the great priestly and text-based religions of India, Japan and China could be more or less accommodated as an extension of this as the parallels between them and the known religions were so evident.
Comparisons were particularly frequent between Indian religions and Judaism and the production of texts of comparison has continued to this day. In the nineteenth century such comparisons were almost commonplace. C.T.E.Rhenius, for example, who was sent by the English Church Missionary Society to South India in 1813, noted that “the Vishnu and Siva sects and religious worship exhibit a strong likeness to the Jewish dispensation.” Similarly, as R.Lovett wrote of the Brahmins in his History of the London Missionary Society 1795-1895: “Each is an infallible pope in his own sphere.
The Brahman is the exclusive and Pharisaic Jew of India.” The real problem arose with the religious systems of Africa, the Americas and the Pacific and of the lesser known Asiatic religions. Frequently the beliefs of such systems were compared to the religions or systems of the ancient world more or less known to Europeans, particularly to Judaism, and the religious systems of the ancient Near East, and were assumed to be derived from them.
From the very beginning of European expansion Judaism was employed in the decipherment of religions and Jewish ancestry was used as likely explanations for the peoples Europeans encountered. With the European exploration and conquest of new continents this device was used more and more. In the first stages the derivation of North and South American Native beliefs and customs from ancient Israel was formulated. Certainly the Jews were not the only candidates to be enlisted in the battle to explain the existence and origin of the peoples of the New World, but they were among the first, and the discourse suggesting Israelite origins ran the longest and had the greatest influence. In the case of the Americas, over several centuries, first in the work of the Spanish historians and later in British, French and North American accounts, the idea of Jewish origins for the indigenous peoples of the Americas was the dominant discourse and for much of the 400 year period between 1500 and 1900 commanded the attention of some of the greatest European and American thinkers.
From the fifteenth century on the idea - often fiercely defended - that given peoples were derived from ancient Israel or from some specific tribe of the Lost Tribes of Israel became quite astonishingly widespread and was attached to just about every corner of the globe and to a wide variety of peoples from the Eskimos to the Australian aborigines. These views postulated that various peoples were indeed genealogically connected to the people of Israel and that their beliefs and practices were vestiges of the ancient Israelite religion; often their languages were explained as being cognate to Hebrew or other Semitic languages. The importance of Hebrew in the Medieval world was that it was widely considered as one of the first languages of mankind. It was with the Hebrew words va-yehi or [let there be light], after all, that God had created the world in the first place.
By the time of the Renaissance historical etymology took over as national pride began to assert that modern languages, such as French or Flemish, could be identified as the world’s first language, or, at any rate, were closely connected to it. In De Vulgari eloquentia Dante mocked the remote hamlets wedded to the uplifting notion that their miserable dialect was the language of Adam and that they were privy to the secrets of the language of Paradise. But alongside these vainglorious claims on behalf of one’s own language, nation and village, there were also insistent claims made on behalf of Hebrew. The idea that all languages ultimately derive from Hebrew, developed, for example in Père Louis Thomassin’s work of 1690, La Méthode et d'étudier d'enseigner chrestiennement et utilement la Grammaire ou les Langues par rapport à l'Ecriture sainte en les reduisant toutes à l'Hébreu, no doubt underlay this. As we shall see in the colonial context, the use of Hebrew to explain the unknown languages and civilizations of the world becomes a key feature of the orientalist discourse. In a similar way the myth of the Lost Tribes became a useful channel for understanding unknown peoples and races, and as a means of labeling human entities for whom there was no readily available label. It is extraordinary that in the seventeenth century a Congregationalist missionary, Cambridge educated, could announce that “fruitful India are Hebrewes, that famous civil (though Idolatrous) nation of China are Hebrewes, so Japonia , and those naked Americans are Hebrewes, in respect of those that planted first these parts of the world.”
Of course all sorts of glimpses of strange and exotic peoples had been vouchsafed medieval Europe before the great expansion which followed the age of exploration. Much of the interaction with the Indian sub-continent and the Far East, slight though it was, came about as a result of the spice trade in its various forms. This interaction led to the exchange of desirable goods, and the exchange of strange and unlikely stories, artistic devices and motifs. Travelers’ tales and books added to the store of knowledge and in due course themselves created a rich mulch in which Europeans’ views of much of humanity were grown. However it was only with the establishment of physical (albeit fluctuating) frontier zones with these exotic societies, frontier zones which were created typically at the beginning of the colonial era, that a real symbiosis started to occur. Symbiosis is perhaps not quite the mot juste; certainly in most cases Eastern and African societies were much more influenced by the West than the West was by them, but nonetheless there was a flow both ways. Clearly in the sort of frontier situation typical of the colonial experience, a struggle for political as well as economic mastery is implicit and part of this struggle is the not entirely innocent attempt to better understand the adversary. Both sides were compelled to engage in this difficult exercise of comprehension.
From the moment of discovery of these new worlds and their inhabitants increasingly sophisticated methods were applied to the dissection and categorization of “savage” social systems and customs not to mention the assiduous mapping of the savage regions themselves and the categorization of the peoples, flora and fauna found within them. Europeans undertook the task of explicating the phenomena they discovered through historical models.
Already among intellectual elites the role of history in determining how we should see the world was paramount. It is widely known that conservative figures such as Disraeli and Coleridge attempted to fight against the greed of their society in the recreation of a concept of community salvaged from the Middle Ages. Both William Morris and Richard Wagner at varying points in their very different careers found useful historical models in Nordic myth. Fichte saw the future of Germany through the past of the communitarian morality of the medieval German city, many Zionists a Jewish future through the recreation of a long dead Judean polity.
For the better comprehension of the unknown parts of the world and their perplexing inhabitants two kinds of historical text served more than any others: the Bible and the Greek and Latin Classics. These texts of course were the main educative texts of Europe and it is not therefore surprising that they were turned to with such regularity; indeed it can be said that in some ways they served as maps to these unfamiliar territories and to their inhabitants and their beliefs.
It may in addition be noted that the missionaries who were often the most persistent enquirers in the frontier situation were particularly prone to drawing on their sacred texts for illumination. This was no doubt especially true of the British, American and German Protestants who had been influenced by the Great Evangelical Revival of the nineteenth century and who played such an overwhelming role in world wide missions. In the British context, the missionaries themselves were characteristically of relatively humble origins, members of the upper strata of the working class and the lower ranks of the middle class.
Robert Moffat, the influential missionary who spent important years at the court of the mighty Ndebele king Lobengula, was a gardener. Norman McLeod, who worked in Japan as a missionary, had previously worked in the herring industry. The great Livingstone had started his working life in a cotton mill. The same goes for many of the other missionaries mentioned in the following remarks. Such men had a good knowledge of the Bible, but not perhaps of much else. Practically all the Protestant missionaries explicitly believed in the Bible as an undifferentiated body of information and as their sole and infallible source of authority both for belief and praxis. It was, in every sense, their guide to life. It was natural then that they should have sought in its pages the explanation for the strange things they encountered. Their reading of the Bible was mediated by a European culture in which Enlightenment concepts were present; the Bible was an infallible source but the way it was understood was a way specific to a time and a class. In this case, specifically, ideas equating noble savages with Jews were extracted from scripture and scripture was mined to explain strange peoples’ lives and customs.
The use of the myth of the Lost Tribes as a means of understanding diverse others was no doubt mediated too by developing perspectives on European Jews. It has already been remarked that Masonic lodges may be responsible to some extent for the development of the image of the “noble Jew” and it is this construct very largely which dominates colonial discourse at the time. One colonial stratagem was to argue that in the absence of any direct and obvious connection between an indigenous group and the Jews there were morphological connections to be made, that one custom or another reflected ancient Jewish practice. In the American context there are dozens of examples of this approach: perhaps the most important of these is the memoir of the Jesuit missionary to the Iroquois nation of Quebec, Joseph Lafitau’s Moeurs des Sauvages Amériquains comparés aux moeurs des premiers temps, which set out to dissect the religious system of the Iroquois and made connections between the Indian practices he had observed and aspects both of Jewish and ancient Greek religious systems. (He actually thought they were descended from an ancient Greek population.)
Lafitau’s work, which was published in 1724, had much to do with the development of the ideas of the Noble Savage in the eighteenth century that Voltaire and others were a little dismissive. Lafitau’s basic comparative methodology was used widely throughout the colonized world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and became the predominant methodology in the discussion of little-known religions and peoples. Western Christians, perhaps most acutely British and American Evangelicals, were prone to see traces of the Bible everywhere. As missionaries and others encountered exotic peoples a discourse was generated which potentially served white, Western interests in a variety of ways. One tactic was to single out a particular minority from the mass of “natives”, to argue that this group was in some way connected with the ancient Israelites and to attribute to this minority moral characteristics which were rather close to the self-image held by the British or the Americans of the time. It should be noted that the supposed moral kinship of the British and the Jews has a long history. Suffice it to say that in Evangelical circles, particularly, a kind of philo-Semitism, allied with a fulsome self-regard, created the kind of idea expressed by James Finn (1806-72) who was British consul in Jerusalem from 1845-1862: “From the effect of their domestic morality,” he wrote, “and family affections, these [the Jews] were the people who could best afford to look an Englishman straight in the face.” Some Jews, and other minorities exhibiting these admirable traits, would then be targeted by missionaries and sometimes given educational help. These people could then, at least in principle, be used in the struggle against the majority.
The discourse surrounding the Jews in China has recently been the subject of a fascinating book by Zhou Xun. One missionary wrote about some of his colleagues “whose rigorous training in Bible Studies, and lack of knowledge about social customs among other peoples, led them to imagine that they had found in West China significant survivals of the Biblical traditions that occupied so much of their thinking. Particularly there was a missionary in Kweichow who believed he had found some old Hebrew practices among the Nosu and he also cited another one who claimed to have found among the Miao people an ancient song which described the Flood, the building of the Tower of Babel and the ensuing confusion of tongues and then went on to state their racial origin.”
The most active zealot however was a devout Scots missionary by the name of Rev. Thomas Torrance who was to devote much of his life attempting to prove that the Ch’iang people were Israelites. Torrance had first come across the Ch’iang in 1918. In 1920 he wrote his first article about them where he described the time he had spent in western China working among, “a number of tribes who are little known to the outside world. These are the great Rong with their five states, the wild Goloks, the sleek Sifan, the cross-bred Bolotsze, the thieving Hehshui people, the warlike Nosu or Lolos and the sturdy Ch’iang.” The Ch'iang, already in this opening description clearly his favorite group, were described by Torrance as a, “pastoral, farming folk, the remnant of a once great nation...they live in flat roofed, Biblical looking stone houses....the most wonderful thing about the Ch’iang, next to their long existence as a separate people, is their religion.
It is purely monotheistic and has remained so from time immemorial, in spite of the oppressions and contemptuous treatment of their idolatrous neighbors.... Despised, persecuted, broken, here are the residue of a race who have never bowed the knee to Baal, or forsaken the faith of their fathers.” The difference between the Chinese and the Ch’iang, claimed Torrance, was “subtle but real.” It might be compared with the difference of “spiritual conception” which separated “Esau from Jacob, King Saul from King David.”
David's Kingly anointing with Oil
In addition to being “manly” the Ch'iang were described as “cautious,” “responding to kindness,” “clean”, “moral”, “strong” and “free”. But even more significantly the color white imbued them with a sense of awe. “White,” he noted, “ is regarded as significant of good and black of evil. A white man is their synonym for one who is just and upright; a black man literally denotes a blackguard. Accordingly, their mode of worshipping God, they call THE WHITE RELIGION [capitals in original].”
His description of Ch’iang rituals, of the ritual sacrifice of animals “without spot and blemish”, of the sanctification of the lamb, of white sacrificial robes, sacred groves, purification rituals, moon festivals, of days of sacrifice “reckoned Sabbaths”, scapegoat ceremonies (he uses the Hebrew term “Amaze”), the use of unleavened bread, are all redolent of the Bible and of the religious practices of the ancient Israelites. Somewhat inconveniently the Ch’iang neither abstained from pork and other non-kosher foods nor did they circumcise their young. “Yet,” proclaimed Torrance, “their own judicial regulations often correspond to those in the Old Testament.” Clearly he admires the Ch’iang (“the soul of the man is dead who cannot love them”) and thinks of them as special. He knows that they are a people with an ancient lineage. In the vast sea of Chinese the Rev. Torrance then had found common cause with a people professing “the white religion”, the forbears in his view of the religion of whites in his day. With the publication of his book China's First Missionaries: Ancient Israelites (London, 1937) he took the view - one that he had skirted around in China - that the Ch’iang were actually descended from the Jews. “The purpose of the following chapters” he wrote “is to describe the customs and religious observances of a colony of people descended from the Israelite settlers who came to the Western borderlands of China.”
In subsequent lectures he developed the idea further: the Jews had been appointed by the Almighty as missionaries to teach the world monotheism and those missionaries that got as far as China became the Ch’iang. In his last article the Ch’iang became, quite literally, “West China Jews:” photographs purport to show their Semitic features and a photograph of a Ch’iang village is captioned “A typical Jewish village.” Torrance's 1937 book made quite a splash. It was hailed as, “the greatest missionary book of the century” by the Scottish Geographical Magazine while The English Churchman and St. James' Chronicle opined, “these twentieth century tribes are perpetuating today the actual customs of the Israelites who were contemporary with Elijah, Amos and Hosea...How strange that we should have to go to the Chinese-Tibet borderland for the latest confirmation of the Divine Book.” The Times Literary Supplement observed, somewhat chillingly in view of the fact that this was, after all, 1937. “A close study of their rites and customs has enabled Mr. Torrance to establish the identity of the Ch’iang people and to trace their history...Mr. Torrance’s conclusions are confirmed by the illustrations to the text which show convincingly Jewish types.” Let me turn my gaze to Burma.
The first “authentic” Jew to spend any time in Burma, as far as I know, was a certain Shlomo Reinmann, a native of Galicia, who arrived in Rangoon in 1852 with the British army. Within five years, however, there were sufficient Jews –(Baghdadis and Bene Israel from India) serving the Raj to warrant the construction of a small synagogue in the city, the Matzmiah Yeshurun congregation.
But long before this actual Jewish presence had been established Western missionaries active in the country had formed the view that a particular Burmese ethnic group was itself of Jewish extraction. The Burmese group which was subjected to this reading of local traditions was the Karen people.
Why were the Karens supposed by missionaries and others to have anything to do with Jews? Part of the answer, no doubt, has to do with the mechanics of colonization. In much the same way as I have discussed in the case of the Chi’ang, a particular, often ‘loyal’, minority was picked out and was perceived to have strikingly ‘superior’ characteristics. A way of explaining the group’s ‘superior’ ability was to imagine their origins outside the locus of the inferior majority and to place it in some sense within the sacred history of the colonial power.
Thus it was that, “the loyal Karens of Burma” as one British official of the Bengal Civil Service called them in a book of that name, achieved a special status in British eyes. According to an Indian journalist writing several decades later, no doubt imbued with the ethos of the Raj, the loyal Karens had proved themselves in the most concrete of ways: proportionately they had contributed more troops to British forces during the First World War than any other group in Burma and later their irregulars were particularly active in the suppression of the Burmese rebellion in 1931-2. Their loyalty was mixed with nothing less than reverence for the white colonists.
As the first Karen convert to Christianity put it: “Through the goodness of God, my nation, sons of the forest and children of poverty, ought to praise thy nation, the white foreigners, exceedingly; and we ought to obey your orders...” This “favored group,” as the Bengali civil servant expressed it, was not of indigenous stock. “The skin is naturally fair, like that of the Chinese; and the features of those of pure blood are Caucasian in type - a characteristic which has been deemed by some to support their claim to have been one of the lost tribes of Israel.”
The Karen were not only perceived as being racially superior; their very traditions seemed almost British in nature. Their religious practices were considered so akin to British ones that they “could be recited with propriety in any Christian church in England.” Their culture, too, was reminiscent of British culture: “their music is nearly all wild and plaintive like that of the Scottish and Welsh highlanders.” The Karens’ account of their origins - that they were from the River of Running Sand - no doubt served as a springboard for all sorts of speculation. This was a people with a mysterious past. Quite clearly there were striking and seductive similarities between Karen legends and those of the Jewish scriptures: one such example was the Karen story of creation which “was almost parallel to the Mosaic account in Genesis.” The first to observe the Karen and to note the resemblances between them and the Israelites were the Baptist missionaries who had been forced to move to the Tenasserim coast of northern Burma with the outbreak of the first Anglo-Burmese War (1824-6).
Francis Mason of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society arrived in Burma in 1814 and in time became convinced that the Karen were part of the Lost Tribes. He had certainly reached this conclusion by 1833: on December 6th of that year he communicated his beliefs to the British Government from his headquarters at Tenasserim. The opening words of his account of his missionary endeavors among the Karen set the scene: “Often perhaps had the Christian voyager gazed on the rocky promontories of Burmah, crowned with their whitened pagodas, that glow amid the eternal verdure of tropical climes; but he little thought that ‘the misty mountain tops’ in the distance, threw their shadow over the dwellings of a people that generation after generation had charged their posterity never to worship idols.”
The exploration and colonization of the Pacific was attended by lively speculation about long-lost Jewish communities and the likely existence of the lost tribes in these remote islands.
In the seventeenth century rumors abounded that there was a large island in the Pacific which was rich in gold and inhabited by Jews. The Dutch East Indian Company sent Abel Janszoon Tasman (1603-c.1659) to investigate these rumors and to discover the ‘Great South Land’ but his voyage failed to cast light on the matter, although he did discover Tasmania and New Zealand. Right at the outset of British and French exploration Captain Edward Davis, skipper of the Bachelor's Delight, discovered a fabulously wealthy island. This was taken to be “the coast of Terra Australis Incognita” which by this time had been endowed in the imagination of many people with unimaginable wealth. Subsequent attempts to retrace Davis’s island were frustrated by a lack of more precise information.
Some, however, formed the view that the island of Tahiti was Davisland and on the island it was thought that a white-skinned people were to be found. George Robertson, master of the Dolphin, noted that, “this race of white people in my opinion has a great resemblance to the Jews, which are scattered through all the known parts of the Earth.” This rumor soon spread: in 1767 Jean-François-Marie de Surville set off from Port-Louis in Brittany and arrived the following year at the mouth of the Ganges. His initial plan was to trade between the French settlements in India and China. But then the rumor struck that a fabulously wealthy island had been discovered. As one French observer to all this said, ”I was in Pondicherry in August 1769 when the rumor spread that an English vessel had found in the South Sea a very rich island where among other peculiarities a colony of Jews had been settled.”
In the last two decades of the seventeenth century the great English explorer and adventurer William Dampier (1652-1715) crossed the Pacific twice. According to John Campbell’s map of Dampier’s discoveries there was thought to exist a race of Jews in New Guinea, “suspected to be a remnant of the Ten Tribes of Israel.” The task of understanding the Maoris of New Zealand was not ignored. One way to explain the Maoris’ temporary military success against British troops was to argue that in fact the Maoris did have certain rather impressive innate, inherited racial characteristics after all and that they were descended from the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.
An early champion of the Israelite theory was the Anglican clergyman Samuel Marsden (1765-1838). As early as 1819, after his second visit to New Zealand, Marsden declared that the Maoris had Israelite lineage. His study of the Maoris and of the Jews suggested to him certain striking similarities derived in some cases from a pretty negative view of both peoples: a shared trading prowess - the Maoris like the Jews would “buy and sell anything”; the Maori priest would exhort war parties “in a similar language to that of the Jewish High Priest of old”; a Maori chief would decapitate an opposing chief who was killed in battle, “as David did to the head of Goliath”; even cannibalism was evoked, on the grounds that Jesus had told the Jews, “he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him.” Marsden’s somewhat inchoate views became widely known and soon other missionaries listed dozens of points at which Jewish and Maori practice coincided, from menstruation -related ritual to burial practice. No doubt the reason for these efforts was to place the unfamiliar and unknown Maoris within the familiar context of Christian knowledge, to replace the unknown other with the known.
The attempt to re-type them took in features other than their religion. The very social structure of the Maoris was seen as reflecting the tribal structure of ancient Israel. Arthur Thomson,(1816-60) appointed assistant army surgeon in 1838, was convinced by his experience with them that the Maoris had Jewish physical characteristics, specifically “Jewish noses.” The idea was soon advanced that the Maoris’ languages were also derived from Semitic sources, perhaps from traders in the Malay peninsula, and various supposed lexical similarities were found. The general idea was further promoted in Te Ika a Maui: or New Zealand and Its Inhabitants, (1855) by the missionary Richard Taylor (1805-73). Taylor compared the Maoris with a number of other groups including the Japanese, Polynesians and Malays and concluded that the many points of resemblance in feature, general customs and manners may enable us to discover in the widely spread Polynesian race, a remnant of the long-lost tribes of Israel and when the time arrives for their restoration from all countries in which they have been dispersed from “Hamath and the isles of the sea” that, in that day, it will be found, even to these ends of the world, the fearful denunciation of Divine wrath has driven his apostate people, who forsaking the true light given them and preferring heathen darkness, here to be suffered to dwell in that darkness, until they had fulfilled their appointed times.
We have no reason to suppose that when the ten tribes were carried captive by Assyria that they were all placed in the same spot...on the contrary we have the denunciation that they should be scattered... and we cannot suppose that the mere taking them out of their own land was the termination of their punishment but it that it was only the commencement of it... The two main aspects of the classification of the unknown other were religious and racial. In the context of Southern Africa the attempt to type the locals started at the outset of colonial intervention. The Hottentots, for instance, while generally regarded in completely negative terms as being devoid of any of the characteristics that might have rendered them human, none the less had their very negativity expressed in terms which were culled from a Biblical source. As Thomas Herbert put it in 1627, “The natives being propagated from Ham both in their Visages and Natures seem to inherit his malediction.” Features specific to them, such as scarification, similarly were put in a Biblical context and in 1612 Patrick Copland observed that, “they cut their skinnes like Baals priests.” Not infrequently racial and religious classification merged. This may be seen in the work of a German, Peter Kolb. In 1705 Kolb was sent to the Cape to make astronomical observations, although he did not last long in this job. Eventually he became blind and was dismissed. According to his detractors he spent his time smoking and drinking although he claimed, as scholars often do when slandered in this way, to be doing research. Regaining his vision, Kolb published a book. The German edition was published in 1719 and was subsequently translated into Dutch, English and French.
The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope reached a very wide audience and for the next fifty years was the definitive account of the religion of the Hottentots. Kolb claimed that the customs of the Hottentots were similar to those of the Jews. He enumerated what he saw as the similarities between their sacrificial customs their moon festivals, circumcision rites and soon. But he also asserted that the Hottentots could be counted among the children of Abraham, that they were of Jewish descent. Specifically he maintained that they were descended from Abraham via the troglodytes, issue of his wife Ketura (Gen:25:1-4). Further proof of this was adduced from the fact that, like the Jews, they were so resistant to Christianity. An example of this obduracy was provided by an account of the Governor of the Cape, Simon van der Stel, who became the legal guardian of a Hottentot, raising the child as a Christian, only to be told by his ward that he would live and die, “in the Religion Manners and Customs of My Ancestors.” Recalling this Kolb concluded that as well as everything else the Hottentots were as “stiff as the Jews.”
The Xhosa, one of the most important of the southern African tribes, were viewed in a similar way. It was generally assumed that their religious structure had developed from some ancient Near-Eastern religious system. Analysis of their customs, language and religion suggested to Europeans that the Xhosa were in fact the Arabs of Southern Africa. This view, that this nomadic and unsettled people were Arabs or “Ishmaelitish sons of Abraham,” was common.- This designation was not always absolute.
In 1827 an English settler in the eastern Cape noted that the Xhosa had religious traditions which included, “some Mahometan and Jewish rites.” A similar definition was provided by Robert Godlonton, editor of the Graham's Town Journal, who argued that it was possible to prove the origin of the Xhosa by reference to their language, which he said clearly showed, “traces of its eastern origin in the frequent occurrence of words which are plainly of Hebrew or Arabic extraction.” He concluded that as their forefathers had been intruders into the area the Xhosa did not belong in South Africa.
Following the British annexation of Natal in 1844 the largely British settlers were acutely aware that to the north there was a powerful Zulu state with a considerable military capacity, and as a result interest in Zulu customs and traditions was generated. Serious interest in the Zulus however dates back to the 1830s when a Captain Allen Gardiner had started off from the Cape on a diplomatic mission to forge relations with the new Zulu king. Using the opportunity to preach the Gospel Gardiner made every attempt to inform himself about this new mission field and particularly to find out about local religions. As he explained in his book, Narrative of a Journey to the Zoolu Country in South Africa, what struck him most about the religion of the Zulus was the immanent albeit almost forgotten presence of the memory of a supreme deity. But immediately he took the customs of the Zulus to be “apparently of Jewish origin.” Some of the customs he enumerated included circumcision, the tradition of a younger brother marrying the widow of his deceased brother (levirate marriage), the daubing of the lintels of homes in times of sickness, the festival of the first-fruits and so on. As a way of connecting them with Israelite sacred history while at the same time explaining their distance from the traditions set out in the Bible, he also mentioned that the name 'Ham' was a common one among the Zulus. Ham, son of Noah, was taken to be the progenitor of the African peoples. As British power was extended further east throughout the 1850s the Zulus continued to be identified as Jews. Their settled, pastoral life and their religious and social customs were evidence enough of this. G.R.Peppercorne , the magistrate of Pafana Location, observed to the Native Affairs Commission that in fact the Zulus practiced a sort of ancient Judaism: “A general type of the customs and laws of the Ama-Zulu may be found in the early history of the Hebrews.”
Peppercorne suggested that any European who wanted to understand Zulu customs had only to read the Old Testament. Zulu polygamy, marriage customs, even attitudes towards work were all described in the appropriate Biblical passage. Henry Francis Fynn who had established a small Zulu chieftaincy in the 1820s and who had spent decades living among them noted: “I was surprised to find a considerable resemblance between many of the [Zulu] customs and those of the Jews.” These included: “War offerings; sin offerings; propitiatory offerings; Festival of first fruits...periods of uncleanness, on the decease of relatives and touching the dead; Circumcision; Rules regarding chastity; Rejection of swine's flesh.” Fynn concluded that in view of, “the nature of semblance of many of their customs to those of the ancient Jews, as prescribed under the Levitical priesthood I am led to form the opinion that the [Zulu] tribes have been very superior to what they are at the present time.”
The Brahman is the exclusive and Pharisaic Jew of India.” The real problem arose with the religious systems of Africa, the Americas and the Pacific and of the lesser known Asiatic religions. Frequently the beliefs of such systems were compared to the religions or systems of the ancient world more or less known to Europeans, particularly to Judaism, and the religious systems of the ancient Near East, and were assumed to be derived from them.
From the very beginning of European expansion Judaism was employed in the decipherment of religions and Jewish ancestry was used as likely explanations for the peoples Europeans encountered. With the European exploration and conquest of new continents this device was used more and more. In the first stages the derivation of North and South American Native beliefs and customs from ancient Israel was formulated. Certainly the Jews were not the only candidates to be enlisted in the battle to explain the existence and origin of the peoples of the New World, but they were among the first, and the discourse suggesting Israelite origins ran the longest and had the greatest influence. In the case of the Americas, over several centuries, first in the work of the Spanish historians and later in British, French and North American accounts, the idea of Jewish origins for the indigenous peoples of the Americas was the dominant discourse and for much of the 400 year period between 1500 and 1900 commanded the attention of some of the greatest European and American thinkers.
From the fifteenth century on the idea - often fiercely defended - that given peoples were derived from ancient Israel or from some specific tribe of the Lost Tribes of Israel became quite astonishingly widespread and was attached to just about every corner of the globe and to a wide variety of peoples from the Eskimos to the Australian aborigines. These views postulated that various peoples were indeed genealogically connected to the people of Israel and that their beliefs and practices were vestiges of the ancient Israelite religion; often their languages were explained as being cognate to Hebrew or other Semitic languages. The importance of Hebrew in the Medieval world was that it was widely considered as one of the first languages of mankind. It was with the Hebrew words va-yehi or [let there be light], after all, that God had created the world in the first place.
By the time of the Renaissance historical etymology took over as national pride began to assert that modern languages, such as French or Flemish, could be identified as the world’s first language, or, at any rate, were closely connected to it. In De Vulgari eloquentia Dante mocked the remote hamlets wedded to the uplifting notion that their miserable dialect was the language of Adam and that they were privy to the secrets of the language of Paradise. But alongside these vainglorious claims on behalf of one’s own language, nation and village, there were also insistent claims made on behalf of Hebrew. The idea that all languages ultimately derive from Hebrew, developed, for example in Père Louis Thomassin’s work of 1690, La Méthode et d'étudier d'enseigner chrestiennement et utilement la Grammaire ou les Langues par rapport à l'Ecriture sainte en les reduisant toutes à l'Hébreu, no doubt underlay this. As we shall see in the colonial context, the use of Hebrew to explain the unknown languages and civilizations of the world becomes a key feature of the orientalist discourse. In a similar way the myth of the Lost Tribes became a useful channel for understanding unknown peoples and races, and as a means of labeling human entities for whom there was no readily available label. It is extraordinary that in the seventeenth century a Congregationalist missionary, Cambridge educated, could announce that “fruitful India are Hebrewes, that famous civil (though Idolatrous) nation of China are Hebrewes, so Japonia , and those naked Americans are Hebrewes, in respect of those that planted first these parts of the world.”
Of course all sorts of glimpses of strange and exotic peoples had been vouchsafed medieval Europe before the great expansion which followed the age of exploration. Much of the interaction with the Indian sub-continent and the Far East, slight though it was, came about as a result of the spice trade in its various forms. This interaction led to the exchange of desirable goods, and the exchange of strange and unlikely stories, artistic devices and motifs. Travelers’ tales and books added to the store of knowledge and in due course themselves created a rich mulch in which Europeans’ views of much of humanity were grown. However it was only with the establishment of physical (albeit fluctuating) frontier zones with these exotic societies, frontier zones which were created typically at the beginning of the colonial era, that a real symbiosis started to occur. Symbiosis is perhaps not quite the mot juste; certainly in most cases Eastern and African societies were much more influenced by the West than the West was by them, but nonetheless there was a flow both ways. Clearly in the sort of frontier situation typical of the colonial experience, a struggle for political as well as economic mastery is implicit and part of this struggle is the not entirely innocent attempt to better understand the adversary. Both sides were compelled to engage in this difficult exercise of comprehension.
From the moment of discovery of these new worlds and their inhabitants increasingly sophisticated methods were applied to the dissection and categorization of “savage” social systems and customs not to mention the assiduous mapping of the savage regions themselves and the categorization of the peoples, flora and fauna found within them. Europeans undertook the task of explicating the phenomena they discovered through historical models.
Already among intellectual elites the role of history in determining how we should see the world was paramount. It is widely known that conservative figures such as Disraeli and Coleridge attempted to fight against the greed of their society in the recreation of a concept of community salvaged from the Middle Ages. Both William Morris and Richard Wagner at varying points in their very different careers found useful historical models in Nordic myth. Fichte saw the future of Germany through the past of the communitarian morality of the medieval German city, many Zionists a Jewish future through the recreation of a long dead Judean polity.
For the better comprehension of the unknown parts of the world and their perplexing inhabitants two kinds of historical text served more than any others: the Bible and the Greek and Latin Classics. These texts of course were the main educative texts of Europe and it is not therefore surprising that they were turned to with such regularity; indeed it can be said that in some ways they served as maps to these unfamiliar territories and to their inhabitants and their beliefs.
It may in addition be noted that the missionaries who were often the most persistent enquirers in the frontier situation were particularly prone to drawing on their sacred texts for illumination. This was no doubt especially true of the British, American and German Protestants who had been influenced by the Great Evangelical Revival of the nineteenth century and who played such an overwhelming role in world wide missions. In the British context, the missionaries themselves were characteristically of relatively humble origins, members of the upper strata of the working class and the lower ranks of the middle class.
Robert Moffat, the influential missionary who spent important years at the court of the mighty Ndebele king Lobengula, was a gardener. Norman McLeod, who worked in Japan as a missionary, had previously worked in the herring industry. The great Livingstone had started his working life in a cotton mill. The same goes for many of the other missionaries mentioned in the following remarks. Such men had a good knowledge of the Bible, but not perhaps of much else. Practically all the Protestant missionaries explicitly believed in the Bible as an undifferentiated body of information and as their sole and infallible source of authority both for belief and praxis. It was, in every sense, their guide to life. It was natural then that they should have sought in its pages the explanation for the strange things they encountered. Their reading of the Bible was mediated by a European culture in which Enlightenment concepts were present; the Bible was an infallible source but the way it was understood was a way specific to a time and a class. In this case, specifically, ideas equating noble savages with Jews were extracted from scripture and scripture was mined to explain strange peoples’ lives and customs.
The use of the myth of the Lost Tribes as a means of understanding diverse others was no doubt mediated too by developing perspectives on European Jews. It has already been remarked that Masonic lodges may be responsible to some extent for the development of the image of the “noble Jew” and it is this construct very largely which dominates colonial discourse at the time. One colonial stratagem was to argue that in the absence of any direct and obvious connection between an indigenous group and the Jews there were morphological connections to be made, that one custom or another reflected ancient Jewish practice. In the American context there are dozens of examples of this approach: perhaps the most important of these is the memoir of the Jesuit missionary to the Iroquois nation of Quebec, Joseph Lafitau’s Moeurs des Sauvages Amériquains comparés aux moeurs des premiers temps, which set out to dissect the religious system of the Iroquois and made connections between the Indian practices he had observed and aspects both of Jewish and ancient Greek religious systems. (He actually thought they were descended from an ancient Greek population.)
Lafitau’s work, which was published in 1724, had much to do with the development of the ideas of the Noble Savage in the eighteenth century that Voltaire and others were a little dismissive. Lafitau’s basic comparative methodology was used widely throughout the colonized world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and became the predominant methodology in the discussion of little-known religions and peoples. Western Christians, perhaps most acutely British and American Evangelicals, were prone to see traces of the Bible everywhere. As missionaries and others encountered exotic peoples a discourse was generated which potentially served white, Western interests in a variety of ways. One tactic was to single out a particular minority from the mass of “natives”, to argue that this group was in some way connected with the ancient Israelites and to attribute to this minority moral characteristics which were rather close to the self-image held by the British or the Americans of the time. It should be noted that the supposed moral kinship of the British and the Jews has a long history. Suffice it to say that in Evangelical circles, particularly, a kind of philo-Semitism, allied with a fulsome self-regard, created the kind of idea expressed by James Finn (1806-72) who was British consul in Jerusalem from 1845-1862: “From the effect of their domestic morality,” he wrote, “and family affections, these [the Jews] were the people who could best afford to look an Englishman straight in the face.” Some Jews, and other minorities exhibiting these admirable traits, would then be targeted by missionaries and sometimes given educational help. These people could then, at least in principle, be used in the struggle against the majority.
The discourse surrounding the Jews in China has recently been the subject of a fascinating book by Zhou Xun. One missionary wrote about some of his colleagues “whose rigorous training in Bible Studies, and lack of knowledge about social customs among other peoples, led them to imagine that they had found in West China significant survivals of the Biblical traditions that occupied so much of their thinking. Particularly there was a missionary in Kweichow who believed he had found some old Hebrew practices among the Nosu and he also cited another one who claimed to have found among the Miao people an ancient song which described the Flood, the building of the Tower of Babel and the ensuing confusion of tongues and then went on to state their racial origin.”
The most active zealot however was a devout Scots missionary by the name of Rev. Thomas Torrance who was to devote much of his life attempting to prove that the Ch’iang people were Israelites. Torrance had first come across the Ch’iang in 1918. In 1920 he wrote his first article about them where he described the time he had spent in western China working among, “a number of tribes who are little known to the outside world. These are the great Rong with their five states, the wild Goloks, the sleek Sifan, the cross-bred Bolotsze, the thieving Hehshui people, the warlike Nosu or Lolos and the sturdy Ch’iang.” The Ch'iang, already in this opening description clearly his favorite group, were described by Torrance as a, “pastoral, farming folk, the remnant of a once great nation...they live in flat roofed, Biblical looking stone houses....the most wonderful thing about the Ch’iang, next to their long existence as a separate people, is their religion.
It is purely monotheistic and has remained so from time immemorial, in spite of the oppressions and contemptuous treatment of their idolatrous neighbors.... Despised, persecuted, broken, here are the residue of a race who have never bowed the knee to Baal, or forsaken the faith of their fathers.” The difference between the Chinese and the Ch’iang, claimed Torrance, was “subtle but real.” It might be compared with the difference of “spiritual conception” which separated “Esau from Jacob, King Saul from King David.”
In addition to being “manly” the Ch'iang were described as “cautious,” “responding to kindness,” “clean”, “moral”, “strong” and “free”. But even more significantly the color white imbued them with a sense of awe. “White,” he noted, “ is regarded as significant of good and black of evil. A white man is their synonym for one who is just and upright; a black man literally denotes a blackguard. Accordingly, their mode of worshipping God, they call THE WHITE RELIGION [capitals in original].”
His description of Ch’iang rituals, of the ritual sacrifice of animals “without spot and blemish”, of the sanctification of the lamb, of white sacrificial robes, sacred groves, purification rituals, moon festivals, of days of sacrifice “reckoned Sabbaths”, scapegoat ceremonies (he uses the Hebrew term “Amaze”), the use of unleavened bread, are all redolent of the Bible and of the religious practices of the ancient Israelites. Somewhat inconveniently the Ch’iang neither abstained from pork and other non-kosher foods nor did they circumcise their young. “Yet,” proclaimed Torrance, “their own judicial regulations often correspond to those in the Old Testament.” Clearly he admires the Ch’iang (“the soul of the man is dead who cannot love them”) and thinks of them as special. He knows that they are a people with an ancient lineage. In the vast sea of Chinese the Rev. Torrance then had found common cause with a people professing “the white religion”, the forbears in his view of the religion of whites in his day. With the publication of his book China's First Missionaries: Ancient Israelites (London, 1937) he took the view - one that he had skirted around in China - that the Ch’iang were actually descended from the Jews. “The purpose of the following chapters” he wrote “is to describe the customs and religious observances of a colony of people descended from the Israelite settlers who came to the Western borderlands of China.”
In subsequent lectures he developed the idea further: the Jews had been appointed by the Almighty as missionaries to teach the world monotheism and those missionaries that got as far as China became the Ch’iang. In his last article the Ch’iang became, quite literally, “West China Jews:” photographs purport to show their Semitic features and a photograph of a Ch’iang village is captioned “A typical Jewish village.” Torrance's 1937 book made quite a splash. It was hailed as, “the greatest missionary book of the century” by the Scottish Geographical Magazine while The English Churchman and St. James' Chronicle opined, “these twentieth century tribes are perpetuating today the actual customs of the Israelites who were contemporary with Elijah, Amos and Hosea...How strange that we should have to go to the Chinese-Tibet borderland for the latest confirmation of the Divine Book.” The Times Literary Supplement observed, somewhat chillingly in view of the fact that this was, after all, 1937. “A close study of their rites and customs has enabled Mr. Torrance to establish the identity of the Ch’iang people and to trace their history...Mr. Torrance’s conclusions are confirmed by the illustrations to the text which show convincingly Jewish types.” Let me turn my gaze to Burma.
The first “authentic” Jew to spend any time in Burma, as far as I know, was a certain Shlomo Reinmann, a native of Galicia, who arrived in Rangoon in 1852 with the British army. Within five years, however, there were sufficient Jews –(Baghdadis and Bene Israel from India) serving the Raj to warrant the construction of a small synagogue in the city, the Matzmiah Yeshurun congregation.
But long before this actual Jewish presence had been established Western missionaries active in the country had formed the view that a particular Burmese ethnic group was itself of Jewish extraction. The Burmese group which was subjected to this reading of local traditions was the Karen people.
Why were the Karens supposed by missionaries and others to have anything to do with Jews? Part of the answer, no doubt, has to do with the mechanics of colonization. In much the same way as I have discussed in the case of the Chi’ang, a particular, often ‘loyal’, minority was picked out and was perceived to have strikingly ‘superior’ characteristics. A way of explaining the group’s ‘superior’ ability was to imagine their origins outside the locus of the inferior majority and to place it in some sense within the sacred history of the colonial power.
Thus it was that, “the loyal Karens of Burma” as one British official of the Bengal Civil Service called them in a book of that name, achieved a special status in British eyes. According to an Indian journalist writing several decades later, no doubt imbued with the ethos of the Raj, the loyal Karens had proved themselves in the most concrete of ways: proportionately they had contributed more troops to British forces during the First World War than any other group in Burma and later their irregulars were particularly active in the suppression of the Burmese rebellion in 1931-2. Their loyalty was mixed with nothing less than reverence for the white colonists.
As the first Karen convert to Christianity put it: “Through the goodness of God, my nation, sons of the forest and children of poverty, ought to praise thy nation, the white foreigners, exceedingly; and we ought to obey your orders...” This “favored group,” as the Bengali civil servant expressed it, was not of indigenous stock. “The skin is naturally fair, like that of the Chinese; and the features of those of pure blood are Caucasian in type - a characteristic which has been deemed by some to support their claim to have been one of the lost tribes of Israel.”
The Karen were not only perceived as being racially superior; their very traditions seemed almost British in nature. Their religious practices were considered so akin to British ones that they “could be recited with propriety in any Christian church in England.” Their culture, too, was reminiscent of British culture: “their music is nearly all wild and plaintive like that of the Scottish and Welsh highlanders.” The Karens’ account of their origins - that they were from the River of Running Sand - no doubt served as a springboard for all sorts of speculation. This was a people with a mysterious past. Quite clearly there were striking and seductive similarities between Karen legends and those of the Jewish scriptures: one such example was the Karen story of creation which “was almost parallel to the Mosaic account in Genesis.” The first to observe the Karen and to note the resemblances between them and the Israelites were the Baptist missionaries who had been forced to move to the Tenasserim coast of northern Burma with the outbreak of the first Anglo-Burmese War (1824-6).
Francis Mason of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society arrived in Burma in 1814 and in time became convinced that the Karen were part of the Lost Tribes. He had certainly reached this conclusion by 1833: on December 6th of that year he communicated his beliefs to the British Government from his headquarters at Tenasserim. The opening words of his account of his missionary endeavors among the Karen set the scene: “Often perhaps had the Christian voyager gazed on the rocky promontories of Burmah, crowned with their whitened pagodas, that glow amid the eternal verdure of tropical climes; but he little thought that ‘the misty mountain tops’ in the distance, threw their shadow over the dwellings of a people that generation after generation had charged their posterity never to worship idols.”
The exploration and colonization of the Pacific was attended by lively speculation about long-lost Jewish communities and the likely existence of the lost tribes in these remote islands.
In the seventeenth century rumors abounded that there was a large island in the Pacific which was rich in gold and inhabited by Jews. The Dutch East Indian Company sent Abel Janszoon Tasman (1603-c.1659) to investigate these rumors and to discover the ‘Great South Land’ but his voyage failed to cast light on the matter, although he did discover Tasmania and New Zealand. Right at the outset of British and French exploration Captain Edward Davis, skipper of the Bachelor's Delight, discovered a fabulously wealthy island. This was taken to be “the coast of Terra Australis Incognita” which by this time had been endowed in the imagination of many people with unimaginable wealth. Subsequent attempts to retrace Davis’s island were frustrated by a lack of more precise information.
Some, however, formed the view that the island of Tahiti was Davisland and on the island it was thought that a white-skinned people were to be found. George Robertson, master of the Dolphin, noted that, “this race of white people in my opinion has a great resemblance to the Jews, which are scattered through all the known parts of the Earth.” This rumor soon spread: in 1767 Jean-François-Marie de Surville set off from Port-Louis in Brittany and arrived the following year at the mouth of the Ganges. His initial plan was to trade between the French settlements in India and China. But then the rumor struck that a fabulously wealthy island had been discovered. As one French observer to all this said, ”I was in Pondicherry in August 1769 when the rumor spread that an English vessel had found in the South Sea a very rich island where among other peculiarities a colony of Jews had been settled.”
In the last two decades of the seventeenth century the great English explorer and adventurer William Dampier (1652-1715) crossed the Pacific twice. According to John Campbell’s map of Dampier’s discoveries there was thought to exist a race of Jews in New Guinea, “suspected to be a remnant of the Ten Tribes of Israel.” The task of understanding the Maoris of New Zealand was not ignored. One way to explain the Maoris’ temporary military success against British troops was to argue that in fact the Maoris did have certain rather impressive innate, inherited racial characteristics after all and that they were descended from the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.
An early champion of the Israelite theory was the Anglican clergyman Samuel Marsden (1765-1838). As early as 1819, after his second visit to New Zealand, Marsden declared that the Maoris had Israelite lineage. His study of the Maoris and of the Jews suggested to him certain striking similarities derived in some cases from a pretty negative view of both peoples: a shared trading prowess - the Maoris like the Jews would “buy and sell anything”; the Maori priest would exhort war parties “in a similar language to that of the Jewish High Priest of old”; a Maori chief would decapitate an opposing chief who was killed in battle, “as David did to the head of Goliath”; even cannibalism was evoked, on the grounds that Jesus had told the Jews, “he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him.” Marsden’s somewhat inchoate views became widely known and soon other missionaries listed dozens of points at which Jewish and Maori practice coincided, from menstruation -related ritual to burial practice. No doubt the reason for these efforts was to place the unfamiliar and unknown Maoris within the familiar context of Christian knowledge, to replace the unknown other with the known.
The attempt to re-type them took in features other than their religion. The very social structure of the Maoris was seen as reflecting the tribal structure of ancient Israel. Arthur Thomson,(1816-60) appointed assistant army surgeon in 1838, was convinced by his experience with them that the Maoris had Jewish physical characteristics, specifically “Jewish noses.” The idea was soon advanced that the Maoris’ languages were also derived from Semitic sources, perhaps from traders in the Malay peninsula, and various supposed lexical similarities were found. The general idea was further promoted in Te Ika a Maui: or New Zealand and Its Inhabitants, (1855) by the missionary Richard Taylor (1805-73). Taylor compared the Maoris with a number of other groups including the Japanese, Polynesians and Malays and concluded that the many points of resemblance in feature, general customs and manners may enable us to discover in the widely spread Polynesian race, a remnant of the long-lost tribes of Israel and when the time arrives for their restoration from all countries in which they have been dispersed from “Hamath and the isles of the sea” that, in that day, it will be found, even to these ends of the world, the fearful denunciation of Divine wrath has driven his apostate people, who forsaking the true light given them and preferring heathen darkness, here to be suffered to dwell in that darkness, until they had fulfilled their appointed times.
We have no reason to suppose that when the ten tribes were carried captive by Assyria that they were all placed in the same spot...on the contrary we have the denunciation that they should be scattered... and we cannot suppose that the mere taking them out of their own land was the termination of their punishment but it that it was only the commencement of it... The two main aspects of the classification of the unknown other were religious and racial. In the context of Southern Africa the attempt to type the locals started at the outset of colonial intervention. The Hottentots, for instance, while generally regarded in completely negative terms as being devoid of any of the characteristics that might have rendered them human, none the less had their very negativity expressed in terms which were culled from a Biblical source. As Thomas Herbert put it in 1627, “The natives being propagated from Ham both in their Visages and Natures seem to inherit his malediction.” Features specific to them, such as scarification, similarly were put in a Biblical context and in 1612 Patrick Copland observed that, “they cut their skinnes like Baals priests.” Not infrequently racial and religious classification merged. This may be seen in the work of a German, Peter Kolb. In 1705 Kolb was sent to the Cape to make astronomical observations, although he did not last long in this job. Eventually he became blind and was dismissed. According to his detractors he spent his time smoking and drinking although he claimed, as scholars often do when slandered in this way, to be doing research. Regaining his vision, Kolb published a book. The German edition was published in 1719 and was subsequently translated into Dutch, English and French.
The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope reached a very wide audience and for the next fifty years was the definitive account of the religion of the Hottentots. Kolb claimed that the customs of the Hottentots were similar to those of the Jews. He enumerated what he saw as the similarities between their sacrificial customs their moon festivals, circumcision rites and soon. But he also asserted that the Hottentots could be counted among the children of Abraham, that they were of Jewish descent. Specifically he maintained that they were descended from Abraham via the troglodytes, issue of his wife Ketura (Gen:25:1-4). Further proof of this was adduced from the fact that, like the Jews, they were so resistant to Christianity. An example of this obduracy was provided by an account of the Governor of the Cape, Simon van der Stel, who became the legal guardian of a Hottentot, raising the child as a Christian, only to be told by his ward that he would live and die, “in the Religion Manners and Customs of My Ancestors.” Recalling this Kolb concluded that as well as everything else the Hottentots were as “stiff as the Jews.”
The Xhosa, one of the most important of the southern African tribes, were viewed in a similar way. It was generally assumed that their religious structure had developed from some ancient Near-Eastern religious system. Analysis of their customs, language and religion suggested to Europeans that the Xhosa were in fact the Arabs of Southern Africa. This view, that this nomadic and unsettled people were Arabs or “Ishmaelitish sons of Abraham,” was common.- This designation was not always absolute.
In 1827 an English settler in the eastern Cape noted that the Xhosa had religious traditions which included, “some Mahometan and Jewish rites.” A similar definition was provided by Robert Godlonton, editor of the Graham's Town Journal, who argued that it was possible to prove the origin of the Xhosa by reference to their language, which he said clearly showed, “traces of its eastern origin in the frequent occurrence of words which are plainly of Hebrew or Arabic extraction.” He concluded that as their forefathers had been intruders into the area the Xhosa did not belong in South Africa.
Following the British annexation of Natal in 1844 the largely British settlers were acutely aware that to the north there was a powerful Zulu state with a considerable military capacity, and as a result interest in Zulu customs and traditions was generated. Serious interest in the Zulus however dates back to the 1830s when a Captain Allen Gardiner had started off from the Cape on a diplomatic mission to forge relations with the new Zulu king. Using the opportunity to preach the Gospel Gardiner made every attempt to inform himself about this new mission field and particularly to find out about local religions. As he explained in his book, Narrative of a Journey to the Zoolu Country in South Africa, what struck him most about the religion of the Zulus was the immanent albeit almost forgotten presence of the memory of a supreme deity. But immediately he took the customs of the Zulus to be “apparently of Jewish origin.” Some of the customs he enumerated included circumcision, the tradition of a younger brother marrying the widow of his deceased brother (levirate marriage), the daubing of the lintels of homes in times of sickness, the festival of the first-fruits and so on. As a way of connecting them with Israelite sacred history while at the same time explaining their distance from the traditions set out in the Bible, he also mentioned that the name 'Ham' was a common one among the Zulus. Ham, son of Noah, was taken to be the progenitor of the African peoples. As British power was extended further east throughout the 1850s the Zulus continued to be identified as Jews. Their settled, pastoral life and their religious and social customs were evidence enough of this. G.R.Peppercorne , the magistrate of Pafana Location, observed to the Native Affairs Commission that in fact the Zulus practiced a sort of ancient Judaism: “A general type of the customs and laws of the Ama-Zulu may be found in the early history of the Hebrews.”
Peppercorne suggested that any European who wanted to understand Zulu customs had only to read the Old Testament. Zulu polygamy, marriage customs, even attitudes towards work were all described in the appropriate Biblical passage. Henry Francis Fynn who had established a small Zulu chieftaincy in the 1820s and who had spent decades living among them noted: “I was surprised to find a considerable resemblance between many of the [Zulu] customs and those of the Jews.” These included: “War offerings; sin offerings; propitiatory offerings; Festival of first fruits...periods of uncleanness, on the decease of relatives and touching the dead; Circumcision; Rules regarding chastity; Rejection of swine's flesh.” Fynn concluded that in view of, “the nature of semblance of many of their customs to those of the ancient Jews, as prescribed under the Levitical priesthood I am led to form the opinion that the [Zulu] tribes have been very superior to what they are at the present time.”
A more informed view was given by John Colenso, a Cambridge educated mathematician who was ordained Bishop of Natal in 1853. Colenso was convinced that the two Zulu names for God embraced perfectly the notions of the divine “contained in the Hebrew words Elohim and Jehovah.” So close indeed were the resemblances, according to Colenso, that frequently the point was made that anyone who wanted to really understand the Bible had best study Zulu customs. Zulu “habits and even the nature of their country so nearly correspond to those of the ancient Israelites, that the very scenes are brought continually, as it were, before their eyes, and vividly realized in a practical point of view.”
Practically everything about the Zulus from their lunar calendar to the order of religious feasts seemed to reflect an Israelite past. “The Zulu keeps his annual feasts, and observes the New Moons as the old Hebrew did. The very Zulus have their festivals at the beginning of the Southern Spring and at the end of their Autumn, corresponding to the ‘feast of the first fruits’ and the ‘feast of the ingathering’ of the ancient Hebrews.” By the end of the nineteenth century the white conquest of what is today South Africa was practically complete and the Ndebele and Shona tribes of what was by then called Rhodesia had also succumbed. As white settlers moved into the fertile lands north of the Limpopo River they were astonished to discover stone buildings, old mine workings and most of all the remarkable ruins known as the Great Zimbabwe complex. These ruins had first been discovered by a German, Karl Mauch, in 1871. Immediately Mauch declared his conviction that these ruins had been erected by the Queen of Sheba and were in fact a copy of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem and that this entire area was the Ophir of the Bible - Solomon’s gold lands.
It stood to reason therefore that Jews had once lived here and within a short time the Karanga-speaking Shona people and specifically the Lemba tribe were being defined in precisely the same way as the Hottentots, Xhosa and Zulus. One settler writer, Richard Nicklin Hall, wrote a book about Great Zimbabwe in which he devoted considerable space to the Jewishness of the surrounding populations. He made a list of twenty four supposed similarities of custom and belief and concluded: “Additional parallelisms with Jewish customs could be stated, and all these peculiar practices, together with the lighter skin and the Jewish appearance of the Makalanga, distinctly point to the ancient impress of the Idumean Jews, which can also be traced on the present peoples of Madagascar and of the coasts of Mozambique and Sofala...the Lemba tribe of Makalanga is noted for the preservation and observance of these Jewish practices, which are distinctly pre-Koranic in origin.” Here we see how the supposedly Jewish appearance of the Makalanga was adduced in support of the ethnographic proofs. The theme of the physical similarity of Jews to some Africans was frequent in this discourse: of course part of the project was racial classification.
Some of these constructions of the other emanate from anti-Semitic premises. In a 1962 article Raphael Patai referred to the writings of the German scholar Frobenius about the Lemba tribe of southern Africa. “I could not help being reminded of the impression made upon me by the Galician Jews,” wrote Frobenius, “Their glances can never detach themselves from the small heap of three-pence pieces which was built up before them as a stimulus for their narrative art..” Karl Peters, the founder of German East Africa, who was forced to resign from the German Imperial Service accused of cruelty to the local population and who retired to British South Africa wrote some years earlier of a neighboring group in Rhodesia: “How absolutely Jewish is the type of this people! They have faces cut exactly like those of ancient Jews who live around Aden. Also the way they wear their hair, the curls behind the ears, and the beard drawn out in single curls, gives them the appearance of Aden - or of Polish - Jews of the good old type,”( as opposed to the assimilated and successful Jews of the Germany of his own time). Rounding Africa we arrive at the great island of Madagascar. A considerable literature was produced particularly towards the end of the nineteenth century on the supposed Jewish origin of some of the island’s population. One proponent of the idea was the French Madagascar expert Alfred Grandidier, another Augustus Keane, a one time professor of Hindustani at University College London. They both claimed that there were great links between Madagascar and the ancient Jews. In The Gold of Ophir, Whence Brought and by Whom (1901) Keane argued that Madagascar had been the off-shore base for the colony of Havilah with Tarshish its port of entry and that Madagascar had links with ancient Israel, “certainly as early as the time of Solomon and possibly even during the reign of his father David.”
Grandidier’s monumental work Histore Physique, Naturelle et Politique de Madagascar, also published in 1901, made similar claims arguing that the parts of the local population were descended from Jewish settlers of Biblical times. Such views continued to be expressed throughout the twentieth century: a suggestion that substantial traces of Hebrew were to be found in Malagasy was made in L'hébreu à Madagascar by Joseph Briant, published in 1946! A little further up the coast of Africa the European discourse enthusiastically endorsed this idea and added, as we have seen, that the Biblical land of gold Havilah was in fact, “the mineralized region between the Zambezi and the Limpopo,” and that, “the ancient gold workings of this region were first opened and the associated monuments erected by the South Arabian Himyarites, (that is Arabs) followed in the time of Solomon by the Jews and Phoenicians.” If the underlying reasons for this discourse were gauntly secular and in part economic they were also associated with the views used to explain populations throughout Africa and the rest of the colonial world.
Further yet up the coast similar views were expressed about the Masai, an East-African pastoral people of Kenya and northern Tanzania. It is interesting to note that in the case of the Masai, the chief work exploring these ideas was written within a year or two of the main contributions on Madagascar and Zimbabwe mentioned above, and were written by a German officer, M. Merker. In his detailed and carefully researched work Merker believed that he had found significant parallels between the Masais’ myths and customs and those of the Biblical Hebrews. Merker discovered parallels between the beliefs and customs of the ancient Jews including: similarities in the names of God; in circumcision; in a belief in the figure of Moses (whom Merker identified with the Masai Marumi or Musana); and in a variety of legends which included the stories of the creation of the world, Adam and Eve and the fall of man; the story of the flood; the theft of the birthright; the bronze serpent; the ten commandments. He concluded that both the Masai and the “oldest” Hebrews originated from the same people. It is interesting to note that the high point of this discourse coincided with a change in the way Jews were being regarded in Europe. I have discussed four German examples, Merker, Peters, Mauch and Frobenius which simultaneously suggest both an idea of the Noble Jew and an anti-Semitic vision of the dirty, money grabbing Jew. It is known that at much the same time Treitschke derided the German Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz as an, “‘oriental’ who could never be expected to understand the German people.”
This internal German trope of alterity was converted into a two edged means of explicating others in colonial circumstances. This trope, while elevating certain native peoples, usually for some specific and self-serving reason, had the incidental effect of removing actual Jews from the frame of sacred history. The Masai, remember, were linked with the “oldest Hebrews,” the Shona with “the good old Jews.” One part of the discourse imposed upon new and unknown societies was a construction of the “other” which colonists had brought with them from Europe. This, in essence, was to try and explain indigenous religions as well as indigenous racial types from the analogy of religious systems and racial types which were known to them. To medieval Europe the two most obvious forms of the religious other were Jews and Muslims and to some extent this binary construct continued into the twentieth century.
The myth of the Moor (synonymous with Muslim in the European discourse) was one of its aspects and stood more or less for wild tribalism and a state of fairly but not entirely irredeemable savagery. The Jew represented a number of features, of which we should note a bucolic traditional way of life, a certain nobility, a more developed intelligence than was to be found among other groups and so on. Frequently the idealization of groups who are given these invented identities contained reflections of the fine qualities of the colonist; here alterity merges with introspection. Throughout this complex and long-running orientalist discourse are many diverse meanings hidden beneath the surface of the image, and often the image is ambiguous and contradictory. Nonethepless, it is clear from this analysis that the imposition of the invented identity of a known other on colonized peoples in the form of the Jew or the Moor with attendant invented languages, cultures and religions was a feature of orientalist colonial discourse. This not only involved colonial countries like Britain and America but others such as France and Germany and served Imperial needs throughout the world from Japan to Quebec from Peru to Zululand.
Ananda, Hindu View of Judaism, (New Delhi: APC Publications, 1996), 2. “The main purpose of this book is…to draw some parallelism between Hinduism and Judaism.” In the aftermath of the September 2001 attacks on the United States a vast array of comment produced comparisons between Indian populations – notably the Pathans – and Jews. See Tudor Parfitt, The Lost Tribes of Israel: The History of a Myth, (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2002).
Frequently in the colonial discourse under review Arabs or Moors are alternative structures of otherness. Although this chapter is concerned mainly with the way in which the Jewish element of the Semitic world acted on the European imagination, the Arabs or Moors as well as other ancient peoples, also played an important role. In mediaeval Europe “Moorishness” like “Jewishness” was the essence of “otherness.” The Arabic languages, like Hebrew (in France “c’est de l’hébreu pour moi” signifies an incomprehensible language) was the epitome of the unknown tongue. When Columbus arrived in the New World on his fourth voyage he observed that the people of the islands each had a different language and that they, “do not understand one another any more than we understand the Arabs.” (ii.102) In the Veneto, which has had a long history of symbiosis with Muslims to this day, parlar turco means to speak gobbledeygook, and cose turche implies things which can scarcely be imagined. Even those not convinced by the Israelite or Moorish origins of strange people still saw Jews and Moors as archetypal others: Vespucci, at a loss to understand who the American Indians might be noted, “they cannot be called Moors nor Jews, but worse than gentiles...I judge their lives to be Epicurean.” In other words, as Vespucci looked around for suitable “others” to express the strangeness of the Indians, the most automatic first choice was a twinning of Jews and Moors.
Williams reaches the conclusion that, “the Supreme Being not only of the Ashanti and allied tribes, but most probably of the whole of Negro Land as well, is not the God of the Christians which, at a comparatively recent date, was superimposed on the various tribal beliefs by ministers of the Gospel: but the Yahweh of the Hebrews, and that too of the Hebrews of pre-exilic times.”
PYRAMID OF PROMISE
When you contrast divine design with human architecture, the differences are awesome. Most revealing is that man is not God. Contemporary pyramid schemes of man promise 'get rich' opportunities, whereas the Great Pyramid of Giza was a promise of God that pointed to a coming Messiah and a wealth of wisdom.
Like so many of God's offerings to mankind, something good has been stolen and perverted. There are known rip-offs like God's glory of the stars found in the original zodiac, which mutated into pagan astrology.
The same can be said about God's Great Pyramid exploited by the occult, the Freemasons, the Illuminati, offbeat religions etc.
Pyramidology became an object of fascination to the British Israel movement in the 19th century and because of their preoccupation with it, lost the dynamics of what these stones signified and became the brunt of ridicule. Although it must be argued that it is rather naive to think that the purpose of the world's greatest pyramid ever built was merely a burial monument to some pharaoh. In fact, no Egyptian can lay claim to it.
Needless to say, the mechanics of this ancient wonder of the world is yet to be explained and cannot be duplicated by the greatest engineers of our time. The greatest pyramid ever built was assumed to have hidden within it, the greatest treasure of all time. However, penetration of its interior passages and chambers by 'get rich' treasure hunters revealed no gold or precious gems. Instead, the Great Pyramid of Giza predates the writing of the Word of God, which we call the Bible, and could only be construed as a divine communication to man. The treasure wasn't materialistic, but rather spiritual.
Are we Christians to believe that the physical appearance of the oldest and largest building in the world, along with its systematic interior, geometric and mathematical intricacies, including scientific calculations of earth and astronomy, is the creation of man alone? The important thing for us to remember today is that Christ is returning again for His Bride, Israel; and we'll see how the Great Pyramid fits into that promise. Surely there would be some calculation for preterists, but alas there is none to be found. Most likely, we'll figure it out after it happens.
The Great Pyramid cries out for proper recognition that its design can only be divinely inspired by the Creator of the Universe. The divine design is as replete as the Holy Bible being the greatest book ever written, having supernatural properties to guide mankind's faith through prophecy. The Great Pyramid has been referred to as 'prophecy in stone' whereby the actual interior measurements correspond to biblical chronology, such as the location and time of the Messiah's birth.
It is not my intent to delve into the complex incontrovertible calculations proving God's call to the world. Throughout the history of our race there has been knowledge imparted to each era that did not fit the period of time. It accelerated our process of civilization. Without our acceptance of God as the source of paradigm shifts, the mysteries of progress will linger in speculation or foolish aberrations.
E. Raymond Capt's book "The Great Pyramid Decoded" does an excellent job of introduction to this subject as it pertains to Christian Identity studies. One should read his book to have an appreciation for this message. Not much has been written about this subject for quite awhile, because of what I believe to be embarrassing interpolations and disinformation planted by the enemies of Christian Identity. But, like the tares sown amongst the wheat, the time of harvest is fast approaching where we can pluck the bad from the good and incinerate that which offends God. Certainly, the adulterations dealing with divine design will collapse like a house of cards.
The Bible and the Great Pyramid harmoniously dovetail into two witnesses focusing on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Some people fail to see the connection between the Great Pyramid and the Bible, not to mention what God promises to His people. Let us therefore indulge in a perspective rarely seen by the casual student of Christianity. When we compare the Great Pyramid to all other buildings ever made, there is no comparison.
I believe it's safe to say that the Great Pyramid was designed in such a way as to corroborate the existence of God and His revelation to mankind. God understands perfectly the pride of a thoroughly materialistic world and thus anticipated humanity becoming boastful of its intellect and thereby trying to destroy what He has created. But no matter how hard man tries to wreck the living written Word of God, it is not dead. By the same token, the Great Pyramid is still standing as an ancient witness. It has survived the ages for a reason.
Daniel 12:4 foretells of a time when many shall travel and knowledge would be increased. It is only in our generation that the great knowledge has been revealed about the Great Pyramid. At this point it is easy to anticipate the foul accusation of being called 'Gnostic' (pretend knowledge), when in fact we are called to grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord Savior (II Peter 3:18). God often provides coincidence for those who would believe false knowledge. Divine promise is the reality for those who have the eyes to see it.The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus and the testimony of Jesus is of promise.
The science, mathematics and astronomy of the Great Pyramid lay dormant for thousands of years until now. We need not praise mystic alchemists, numerologists or astrologers for the preservation of anything. Only now do archaeologists, historians and Bible scholars unlock the door of prophetic times and events from 13 acres of 2,300,000 limestone blocks weighing between 2 1/2 to 50 tons each. It is the divine design that yields the only kind of authority that can make infallible promises.
This may come as a surprise, but modern science did not discover pi. Indeed, the entire geometric structure of the Great Pyramid was designed on the basis of pi (3.14159; it is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, the mathematical ratio upon which the whole physical universe is designed) and the value of y (365.242; the number of days in the Earth's solar year). Those two things alone should get your attention from the Almighty Creator of the universe.
We have an adequate revelation of the signs of the times (Matthew 24:37; Luke 17:28). Here at Giza we have the greatest sign of all times and people are wasting their time reading into the signs of a burial shroud, icons that bleed or cry, hocus pocus codes and pictures of Maryon a tortilla. Christians need to overcome the satanic signs and lying wonders that have usurped God's Pyramid.
God has given His people a plethora of promises many of which have been already granted, while others await being revealed. We shouldn't malign the Great Pyramid with controversy or obfuscate it with mystical shell games. With the exception of a pyramid casino in Las Vegas, pyramids were never intended for habitation or commerce. If we can comprehend anything from the world's foremost pyramid in Giza, it is four isosceles triangular sides which rise to a crescendo at the top. However, the very top piece of this architectural feat is absent. As we shall see, there's a very good reason for this missing component. I must say at this point, that the people whom God has chosen to be His servant race are missing the uppermost priority in their lives. That, of course, is Jesus Christ, often referred to as the head of the body or church.
The body of Christ or the church, from the Greek word ecclesia, means 'the called out ones'. Indeed, the Great Commission was to carry the Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the four corners of the Earth; wherever Israelites dwelled. As the disciples of Christ proclaim Jesus as the Savior of mankind (not humankind), we can read and understand without pollution or corruption, the crystal clear message in both the Old and New Testament.
"Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read the scriptures [Psalm 118:22-23], the stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner; this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?" - Matthew .21:42.
To further verify His divine position we read,
"Jesus Christ Himself being the chief comer stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord" - (Ephesians 2:20-21).
We cannot get much higher in rank than this kind of divine appointment.
The Word made flesh; the deity of Christ is synonymous with the Great Pyramid representing His Kingdom on Earth. We can now take solace in knowing that the old institutions of temple ordinances have been abolished.
"Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" - I Corinthians 6: 19.
"In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit" - Ephesians 2:22.
The body of Christ is as 'fitly framed together' as the immovable blocks of limestone which make the Pyramid the only surviving wonder of the world. The symbolic analogy is as about as profound as it gets. God dwelleth in His people Israel (I Corinthians 3:16).
"And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God... I will dwell in them... and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" - I Corinthians 6:16.
Sounds like God has a plan for us.
Over half the world's population is under satanic control of antichrists and Catholics who wish to rule Jesus Christ out of the universe. The Romans gave a sign that meant life or death, which was thumbs up or thumbs down. As we've seen in this study thus far, Jesus Christ is the capstone of a pyramid or upright triangle, which gives the world life and hope. The opposite of that symbolism would then be a downright triangle representing death and despair, as depicted in the pink triangle of sodomites.
In the process of achieving a synthesis or artificial by-product, the promises of God are then adulterated or vanquished. The Great Pyramid is relegated to a secular National Geographic TV special targeting a third-grader mentality. You will not hear how the Great Pyramid was built to bring forth the glory of God for His servant race to become Christ-like in spirit, character and works.
All other pyramids are inferior in design and purpose.
"For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself; above all people that are upon the face of the earth" - Deuteronomy 7:6.
The missing capstone on the Great Pyramid tells us we lack leadership and suffer from an identity crisis. There are over 100 pyramids in Egypt and perhaps over a thousand worldwide if you include triangular earthen mounds.
"Who hath declared this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that time? Have not I the Lord? And there is no God else beside Me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside Me" - Isaiah 45:21.
"Looking down to the base of the Pyramid, we find unmistakable evidence that the builders erred [or perhaps it was divine intent - MD], laying the lines of the base foundations inside, or short, of the Divinely prescribed lines for the foundation. The symbolism is plain: we have not built upon the foundations which God provided and therefore our entire social structure (the modern Western civilization) is too small to receive the Capstone... We have built a social structure. a civilization upon man-made fondations rather than the God-ordained pattern. And the result is exactly what we now have; it is a society in which there is no place for the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Capstone. It is equally clear that without Him, we have no leadership worthy of the name."
Tens of thousands of sermons are preached each week in most Christian churches, radio and TV programs, books and magazines, while our once great Christian nation slips further into apostasy. God creates tens of thousands of opportunities each week for a direct relationship with Him, where our dogmatic proselytizing doesn't get ahead of His glory. The 1st century Christians were not dependant on 2000 years of sermons or manmade messages, but rather relied on a supernatural focus of what God was doing. We have lost, to a certain extent, some of the miraculous and wondrous intentions of divine design by subordinating the reputation of God with the glory of man. Therefore, you will not hear about the miracle of God's Pyramid in mainstream churches other than to denounce those who do.
The only promises the sheep can look forward to are from crooked politicians who break them once they are elected. The promises aren't very godly to begin with. They are more like the tower of Babel, a sure promise for chaos and confusion, than the Pyramid of promise for order and blessings. Paul well understood what pertained to our race when he said,
"My kinsmen according to the flesh; who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises" - (Romans 9:3-4).
All the writers of the Bible wrote about our inheritance of the divine promises. God's promises stand fast; they stand as solid as the Great Pyramid. God's promises do not pertain to others because God does not change His mind and He is not a liar (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 6: 18). It is man who changes the Word of truth into a lie and inverts the Capstone with a thumbs down. For if the heirs of the promise were free from those who abode not in the truth, they would claim their inheritance and all the families of the Earth would be blessed... as promised!
"Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it" - ( Psalm 127: 1).
Did you know that Joshua "took a great stone" and said,
"This stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke unto us" - (Joshua 24:27)
The tribes of Reuben and Gad were so concerned about losing sight of God that they built an altar, but not for burnt offerings or sacrifices, but rather that it may be a witness for future generations that they serve God (Joshua 22:26-27). The principle here is not that rocks have a mind of their own, but that they serve as a reminder. How much greater then is the Great Pyramid as a witness to God's Creation, that likewise had no need for burnt offerings or sacrifice?
But the average Christian may be wondering where is this Great Pyramid in the Bible specifically? Like so many other treasures of biblical wisdom, the Pyramid is written about covertly, so that only through patience, study and meditation, is its significance revealed at the appropriate time. Isaiah 19:19-20 is the Scripture which comes into play on this subject. Before sceptics try to interpret something other than the Pyramid for this prophecy, we should look at what Isaiah limits it to. The KJV renders it thusly,
"In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign, and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt."
Let's diagram this message piece by piece. "In that day" signifies when the prophecy shall come to pass. Isaiah's writings provide three time frames: his own time, the first advent of Christ and the second advent of Christ. Let us assume for a moment that it is the latter, given the context and perplexity of chapter 19.
It next says there's going to be an altar to the Lord. There are two types of altars in Scripture. One is for sacrifice and the other is for witness. Verse 20 clearly identifies it as a "sign" and a "witness". We should take note that God's Law for an altar of sacrifice must be unhewn,
"For if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou has polluted it" - (Exodus 20:25).
However, for an altar of witness, there is no prohibition; hence there is nothing to prevent it from being built of hewn stone.
"In the midst of the land of Egypt" is a no-brainer, so we need not look anywhere else. Indeed, we are given a specific geographic position "At the border thereof". These seemingly contradictory coordinates of it being in the center and the border of the land is resolved because of the unique configuration of Egypt. Our Pyramid, then and now, was in close proximity to the heart of Egypt's political and social life, in both ancient Memphis and modem Cairo. Until recent times, the boundary of Egypt was determined by cultivated land and desert. The fertile fan-shaped Nile Delta forms a quadrant in which the centre point is marked by the Great Pyramid of Giza. Giza or Gizeh in Arabic means skirt, edge or border. To the east of Giza is a highly cultivated and densely populated land, but to the west is nothing but the sand of the Sahara Desert. There can only be one spot on the face of the Earth that corresponds to Isaiah's description.
But where is the Pyramid in all of this? The word "pillar" in the KJV is misleading as it may suggest a vertical column of sorts. This is rectified with a more accurate translation of the Hebrew word 'matstsebah', which can also mean a memorial stone or monument. We therefore have a hewn monument of the border in Egypt which Isaiah writes for us in our study today. This altar of divine design is a visible sign. This witness in stone is speaking to our generation at the appointed time. Let the sceptic bring forth his venue and artifacts. Let there be a shining light of glory.
At one time, the surface of the Pyramid was like glass, acting like gigantic mirrors reflecting great beams of light. The ancient Egyptians called it Ta Khut, "The Light", and also Ikhet, meaning the "Glorious". We can relate this to Scripture. II Corinthians 4:3-6 says, "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." Gospel means 'good news' and the good news of the 'Glorious Light' of the Pyramid has been suppressed to people who have not found Christ.
"But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them " (verses 3-4).
Now many will say that the "god" of this world is "Satan", however the 1611 KJV capitalized God, so it isn't the so-called devil that blinds. In fact, "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing" (Proverbs 25:2). Some people will voluntarily remain lost. Why? Matthew 13:22 tells us it's the carnal nature of man that chokes the Word which thus becomes unfruitful i.e. a self-imposed darkness upon themselves. Everyone can see the Great Pyramid, but some people are blind as to its greatness.
"For God,who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face [person] of Jesus Christ" (verse 6).
By the same token, the pyramid radiates its light from the sun on the dark continent of Africa. Jesus is referred to as the "Sun of righteousness" in Malachi 4:2.
What do we know about the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ as found in the Pyramid? We hear from people who call themselves Christians speak about their Christian heritage, but it's usually more froth than substance. You know what froth is? It's a head of foam on top of a fresh beer. If your average churchgoer knew something about substance, then their chief comerstone or capstone wouldn't be so frothy; it would be that Rock that was Christ (I Corinthians10:4).When lost Israel, the Christian of today, ceases to be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, like blowing the froth off a mug of beer, then perhaps they will take a new look at the substance of the great monument of divine design and begin to have knowledge of the glory of God and be found built upon the foundation fitly framed together in which Jesus Christ, the chief corner stone and head of the building, declares His dwelling place amongst us. This is our heritage.
These are our promises from God. The Great Pyramid was never meant to be used as a crystal ball or for nefarious purposes. It has gotten a bad rap from charlatans, secret societies and New Agers, just as much as a racial consciousness has become so politically incorrect. Satanic cultures are against Christianity and profanely designed to eradicate it. But the divine design of the Pyramid has survived the test of time as we begin to discover its symbolic signs and parallel witnessing to the written living Word of God.
Let us open our eyes to the great allegory in living stone. In the interior of the Great Pyramid there are an ascending and descending passageway. The upward path leads to the King's Chamber. You can only get there after negotiating the great step at the upper end of the ascending path. It is symbolic of another point of view or level of consciousness. It is the perspective of all power and authority which rightfully belongs only to Jesus Christ on earth and heaven (Matthew 28:18). In this chamber is also found the open coffer (a lidless tomb) in which no royal mummies were ever enshrined; symbolic of the empty tomb at Calvary and the resurrection; first of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ and secondly of His redeemed people Israel, His witnesses (Isaiah 43:10), His servant people (Isaiah 41:8), His inheritance/heritage (I Kings 8:53, II Samuel 7:23), His goveming body of administrating the Law/Word taking dominion of the earth (Revelation 20:6).
The empty tomb indicates eternal life attained through resurrection, the same as Christ risen from the dead. All other pyramids in Egypt have descending passages only, representing the way of death. The way of life, as symbolized in the Great Pyramid, is above ground ascending passages with a ventilation system for life sustaining air.
Let us consider two things here. First, the dead do not breathe and second, the breath of life, the Spirit of God, was breathed into the nostrils of Adam and he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). Who else but God would tell us such things about life and death?
The intricate construction of the interior also reveals a relationship between the lengths of the passages and respective epochs of history. This means that the Pyramid's blueprint was designed according to a given scale of precise mathematical measurements that correspond to prophetic events which have come and gone. There can only be one architect orchestrating so many revelations to mankind and that one is God. May you find Him now.
Look to the rock from whence ye were hewn, Look at what God hath been doin', Look to the prophecy in stone, The Kingdom of God for us alone Look not at what man impugns, Look at the signs for what comes soon Look at the witness that comes and goes, See God's wonder - for us to know.
We should not forget that when our forefathers went out to battle against the heathen, they never forsook the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. The heathen never had any doubt in their mind that they had to deal with stout men who openly professed Jesus Christ. How can an enemy fight against a people whose God promises them victory? They do so by flagrantly getting them to forget the promises or that they are heirs of any promise. They erase any memory of a stone witness. The chief cornerstone is morphed into the 'All-Seeing Eye' of Big Brother watching you.
How wonderful it would be if today's patriots took up the Cross of Jesus Christ and waved it in the face of antichrist vampires. How different the world would be when fearless Christian men raise a standard of the King of kings against an alien force. As it is today, a warrior without the ensign of Jesus Christ is facing the wicked hordes without armor or weapon - they have been spiritually robbed of leadership. They are like the Great Pyramid that has lost its polished limestone surface, still I retaining its identity, but dilapidated from time and desecrated by thieves. But, because of the pyramid's magnanimity, when the sun goes down it still takes on the appearance of a golden mountain.
Why should a Christian or even a nonbeliever understand the Great Pyramid? Because, it will show us the way God's power controls the Earth and the destiny of our people. Take the time to sense the manifest presence of God, for only then is when you will witness a demonstration of His power. We don't have to be in Egypt, physically, to be awe struck with God's Spirit. It will result in a revival towards seeking the Word of God for answers. The more answers we receive, the more our faith is strengthened -the only thing that saves us and pleases God at the same time (Hebrews 11:6). Our great reward is the Pyramid of Promise. The marvel of it is within our sights.
"He shall bring forward the Top-Stone amid shouts of 'Grace, grace unto it'" -Zechariah 4:7.
The Symbolism of the Fig Tree
The story the Bible tells is in large part a tree story, as the bible both begins and ends with a Tree in paradise -- and trees figure both practically and symbolically throughout its pages. Also the dividing-line between the messages of the Old and New Testaments, and the fulcrum of the ages, is a Tree -- the tree on which the Messiah was crucified -- for both Peter and Paul refer to the Messiah being "hanged on a tree" (Acts 5:30, 10:39; I Peter 2:24; and Galatians 3:13 from Deuteronomy 21:23). The Messiah was made sin for us on this tree that he might in turn become a Tree of Life for those who look to him for salvation.
In this article we shall focus on the fig tree, which was one of the most important trees in Israel. Its fruit was a staple food and it is very rich in symbolism throughout Scripture. The story of the fig tree begins in the Garden of Eden, where God had placed in the midst of the Garden two special trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam was told that he might eat of every tree in the Garden except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, "for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:9, 16-17). The serpent, in whatever form he may have taken at that time, tempted Eve with the lie, "Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:4-5). And so, beguiled by his cunning, she ate of the fruit, and gave it also to Adam, who likewise partook of it. "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons [or girdles]" (verse 7).
Now there is a certain enigma attached to this scripture as to what the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil really was -- certainly not an apple, as popular tradition has it. But the fact that Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover themselves shows that there is a link between the fig tree and the Tree of Knowledge. I will come back to this link in a moment.
As biblical history unfolds we find that the patriarch Jacob-Israel had twelve sons from whom descended the twelve-tribed nation of Israel. Following their exodus from Egypt they settled in the land of Canaan, their Promised Land, where they prospered into a great kingdom. However, after the reign of King Solomon, the nation was split into two kingdoms -- the northern ten-tribed House of Israel, and the southern two-tribed House of Judah. The House of Israel was symbolized by the olive tree, for speaking of Israel, the prophet Jeremiah recorded, "The Lord called thy name, a green olive tree, fair and of goodly fruit" (Jeremiah 11:16). In a similar fashion, the House of Judah -- some of whose people later became known as Jews --was symbolized by the fig tree. Both kingdoms repeatedly transgressed the laws that YEHOVAH God had given them for their welfare, and worshipped other pagan gods of the surrounding nations. YEHOVAH condemned these practices through His prophets, and Jeremiah was given an especially vivid picture of the iniquity of Judah.
In Jeremiah 24, the prophet was shown two baskets of figs. "One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty [or wicked, evil] figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad" (verse 2). In this parable, the bad figs were those people of Judah who rebelled against YEHOVAH God and refused to go into captivity in Babylon, which the LORD had ordained for that time; while the good figs complied with the direction of the LORD and were saved.
But there is another secret held in this parable of the figs in Jeremiah 24. To repeat, one basket had very good figs, and the other had very evil figs that could not be eaten, they were so evil. These good and evil figs also hark back to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden, showing that the link of the fig with that tree is correct. I believe that in symbol (while the actual tree was an olive) it was this tree on which the Messiah was crucified, as it was the Jewish leaders of his day, the bad figs, who incited the populous and persuaded the Roman governor, Pilate, to order his execution.
House of Israel & House of Judah
But God, in His unfathomable wisdom, ordained that the death of His only begotten Son should atone for the sins, not just of Judah and of Israel, but of all mankind since the day that Adam fell from grace -- that is from the realm of spirit, into the realm of carnality and death. Thus, by the Messiah's sacrifice, atonement was made for the Fall, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which had occasioned that Fall was overcome, once and for all.
Because the Davidic monarchy of the nation was descended from the House of Judah, the monarchy is also associated with the fig tree. It is interesting in this regard that when Hezekiah, King of Judah -- one of the "good figs" who did right in the sight of the LORD -- was sick unto death, the prophet Isaiah ordered a poultice of figs to be placed upon the boil, and Hezekiah recovered (II Kings 20:7 and Isaiah 38:21). This event teaches us the spiritual efficacy of the good figs, which are often overshadowed by the bad, but which nevertheless may be a positive instrument in the hand of YEHOVAH God.
The fig next comes into prominence at the time of the Messiah. A curious incident is recorded in Matthew 21:18-20 and its parallel passage, Mark 11:12-14 and 20-21. Quoting Matthew: "Now in the morning as he [the Messiah] returned into the city, he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever: And presently the fig tree withered away." This incident on the surface seems very baffling as to why the Messiah should curse a defenseless fig tree for having leaves but no fruit. But when the association of the fig with Judah, or Judea, as it was then known, is understood, the meaning becomes perfectly clear.
The fig tree is the emblem of the Jewish nation, which seemed to be thriving -- with an abundance of leaves -- but spiritually it was producing no fruit. The Messiah often rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for this lack of spiritual fruit, and in the same chapter of Matthew, in the parable of the vineyard, he concluded by saying, "Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (verse 43). Verse 45 continues, "And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them."
Thus, the cursing of the fig tree represented a curse on the nation of Judea. In verse 20, Yeshua's disciples, when they saw the fig tree wither away, "marveled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!" This was nothing less than a prophecy of the coming destruction of the Jewish nation by the Roman army under Titus in AD 70, only thirty-seven years later. Indeed, the Judean fig tree was to wither very soon!
The destruction was also prophesied in another parable in Luke 13:6-9: "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down."
The three years of seeking fruit in the parable refer to the three years of the Messiah's ministry, beginning with his baptism at the age of thirty. For these three years the Messiah had sought but found no fruit among the Jews, and so YEHOVAH God was minded to cut the tree down. But the dresser of the vineyard (the Messiah) said to give it one more year, and he would fertilize it (by the preaching of his disciples) to see if any fruit would be produced. But in the fourth year (Hebrew inclusive counting) it was evident there was still no fruit, since they rejected and crucified him, and so there was nothing left for the tree but to be cut down, which YEHOVAH God used the Romans to carry out.
The fall of the Jewish nation was also prophesied earlier by John the Baptist when he said, "And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire" (Matthew 3:10).
Temple of Jerusalem, Herod's one
This was a literal foretelling of the destruction of Jerusalem, which Titus burnt with fire, including Herod's great Temple. The destruction of the Temple is still mourned by Jews every year on its anniversary, the 9th of Ab. (Coincidentally, this was the same date that Solomon's earlier Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians).
There is yet another parable of the Messiah regarding the fig tree, found in Matthew 24:32-34. "Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when you shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." Once again we find the fig tree putting forth leaves but no fruit. This parable of the end times can only be referring to the formation of the modern Jewish state of Israel in 1948. The Messiah was saying that that event would be an important sign of the last days, and that the generation who saw it happen would not pass away before his coming would be fulfilled. A commemorative stamp of the tenth anniversary of the Israeli state was issued there in 1958, featuring a menorah out of which were growing branches and leaves --but again, no fruit. Indeed, how could they produce spiritual fruit, when as a nation they had rejected the only source of that fruit -- the Lord Yeshua the Messiah?
Now going back to the passage about the fig tree in Mark, chapter 11, the wording is a little different from Matthew. When he found no fruit on the tree, the Messiah said unto it, "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever." And the next morning his disciples "saw the fig tree dried up from the roots" (verses 14, 20). This phrase, "dried up from the roots," seems also to refer back to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: in other words, the tree that occasioned the Fall was to be completely eradicated. This is confirmed in the last chapter of the Bible where the Tree of Life is once more revealed to be in paradise, but the Tree of Knowledge is nowhere to be found (Revelation 22:2). In that new Eden, no more will man be tempted to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which results in both good and evil, but only of the Tree that brings forth healing and immortal life. The former tree has served its divine purpose in ELOHIM's great plan, and a new chapter of Life is about to unfold. Such is the parable of the fig tree.
The story the Bible tells is in large part a tree story, as the bible both begins and ends with a Tree in paradise -- and trees figure both practically and symbolically throughout its pages. Also the dividing-line between the messages of the Old and New Testaments, and the fulcrum of the ages, is a Tree -- the tree on which the Messiah was crucified -- for both Peter and Paul refer to the Messiah being "hanged on a tree" (Acts 5:30, 10:39; I Peter 2:24; and Galatians 3:13 from Deuteronomy 21:23). The Messiah was made sin for us on this tree that he might in turn become a Tree of Life for those who look to him for salvation.
In this article we shall focus on the fig tree, which was one of the most important trees in Israel. Its fruit was a staple food and it is very rich in symbolism throughout Scripture. The story of the fig tree begins in the Garden of Eden, where God had placed in the midst of the Garden two special trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam was told that he might eat of every tree in the Garden except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, "for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:9, 16-17). The serpent, in whatever form he may have taken at that time, tempted Eve with the lie, "Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:4-5). And so, beguiled by his cunning, she ate of the fruit, and gave it also to Adam, who likewise partook of it. "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons [or girdles]" (verse 7).
Now there is a certain enigma attached to this scripture as to what the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil really was -- certainly not an apple, as popular tradition has it. But the fact that Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover themselves shows that there is a link between the fig tree and the Tree of Knowledge. I will come back to this link in a moment.
As biblical history unfolds we find that the patriarch Jacob-Israel had twelve sons from whom descended the twelve-tribed nation of Israel. Following their exodus from Egypt they settled in the land of Canaan, their Promised Land, where they prospered into a great kingdom. However, after the reign of King Solomon, the nation was split into two kingdoms -- the northern ten-tribed House of Israel, and the southern two-tribed House of Judah. The House of Israel was symbolized by the olive tree, for speaking of Israel, the prophet Jeremiah recorded, "The Lord called thy name, a green olive tree, fair and of goodly fruit" (Jeremiah 11:16). In a similar fashion, the House of Judah -- some of whose people later became known as Jews --was symbolized by the fig tree. Both kingdoms repeatedly transgressed the laws that YEHOVAH God had given them for their welfare, and worshipped other pagan gods of the surrounding nations. YEHOVAH condemned these practices through His prophets, and Jeremiah was given an especially vivid picture of the iniquity of Judah.
In Jeremiah 24, the prophet was shown two baskets of figs. "One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty [or wicked, evil] figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad" (verse 2). In this parable, the bad figs were those people of Judah who rebelled against YEHOVAH God and refused to go into captivity in Babylon, which the LORD had ordained for that time; while the good figs complied with the direction of the LORD and were saved.
But there is another secret held in this parable of the figs in Jeremiah 24. To repeat, one basket had very good figs, and the other had very evil figs that could not be eaten, they were so evil. These good and evil figs also hark back to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden, showing that the link of the fig with that tree is correct. I believe that in symbol (while the actual tree was an olive) it was this tree on which the Messiah was crucified, as it was the Jewish leaders of his day, the bad figs, who incited the populous and persuaded the Roman governor, Pilate, to order his execution.
But God, in His unfathomable wisdom, ordained that the death of His only begotten Son should atone for the sins, not just of Judah and of Israel, but of all mankind since the day that Adam fell from grace -- that is from the realm of spirit, into the realm of carnality and death. Thus, by the Messiah's sacrifice, atonement was made for the Fall, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which had occasioned that Fall was overcome, once and for all.
The fig next comes into prominence at the time of the Messiah. A curious incident is recorded in Matthew 21:18-20 and its parallel passage, Mark 11:12-14 and 20-21. Quoting Matthew: "Now in the morning as he [the Messiah] returned into the city, he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever: And presently the fig tree withered away." This incident on the surface seems very baffling as to why the Messiah should curse a defenseless fig tree for having leaves but no fruit. But when the association of the fig with Judah, or Judea, as it was then known, is understood, the meaning becomes perfectly clear.
The fig tree is the emblem of the Jewish nation, which seemed to be thriving -- with an abundance of leaves -- but spiritually it was producing no fruit. The Messiah often rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for this lack of spiritual fruit, and in the same chapter of Matthew, in the parable of the vineyard, he concluded by saying, "Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (verse 43). Verse 45 continues, "And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them."
Thus, the cursing of the fig tree represented a curse on the nation of Judea. In verse 20, Yeshua's disciples, when they saw the fig tree wither away, "marveled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!" This was nothing less than a prophecy of the coming destruction of the Jewish nation by the Roman army under Titus in AD 70, only thirty-seven years later. Indeed, the Judean fig tree was to wither very soon!
The destruction was also prophesied in another parable in Luke 13:6-9: "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down."
The three years of seeking fruit in the parable refer to the three years of the Messiah's ministry, beginning with his baptism at the age of thirty. For these three years the Messiah had sought but found no fruit among the Jews, and so YEHOVAH God was minded to cut the tree down. But the dresser of the vineyard (the Messiah) said to give it one more year, and he would fertilize it (by the preaching of his disciples) to see if any fruit would be produced. But in the fourth year (Hebrew inclusive counting) it was evident there was still no fruit, since they rejected and crucified him, and so there was nothing left for the tree but to be cut down, which YEHOVAH God used the Romans to carry out.
The fall of the Jewish nation was also prophesied earlier by John the Baptist when he said, "And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire" (Matthew 3:10).
This was a literal foretelling of the destruction of Jerusalem, which Titus burnt with fire, including Herod's great Temple. The destruction of the Temple is still mourned by Jews every year on its anniversary, the 9th of Ab. (Coincidentally, this was the same date that Solomon's earlier Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians).
There is yet another parable of the Messiah regarding the fig tree, found in Matthew 24:32-34. "Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when you shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." Once again we find the fig tree putting forth leaves but no fruit. This parable of the end times can only be referring to the formation of the modern Jewish state of Israel in 1948. The Messiah was saying that that event would be an important sign of the last days, and that the generation who saw it happen would not pass away before his coming would be fulfilled. A commemorative stamp of the tenth anniversary of the Israeli state was issued there in 1958, featuring a menorah out of which were growing branches and leaves --but again, no fruit. Indeed, how could they produce spiritual fruit, when as a nation they had rejected the only source of that fruit -- the Lord Yeshua the Messiah?
Now going back to the passage about the fig tree in Mark, chapter 11, the wording is a little different from Matthew. When he found no fruit on the tree, the Messiah said unto it, "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever." And the next morning his disciples "saw the fig tree dried up from the roots" (verses 14, 20). This phrase, "dried up from the roots," seems also to refer back to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: in other words, the tree that occasioned the Fall was to be completely eradicated. This is confirmed in the last chapter of the Bible where the Tree of Life is once more revealed to be in paradise, but the Tree of Knowledge is nowhere to be found (Revelation 22:2). In that new Eden, no more will man be tempted to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which results in both good and evil, but only of the Tree that brings forth healing and immortal life. The former tree has served its divine purpose in ELOHIM's great plan, and a new chapter of Life is about to unfold. Such is the parable of the fig tree.
Conversion of Iranian Jews to Baha’i Faith
It is really astonishing that in most of the countries the first conversion to the Baha’i Faith was from Jews community. Whether it is Hungry, Sweden or US. In Iran too where the Baha’is are being persecuted on charges of carrying out espionage activities for the state of Israel the early converts were Jews.
Shortly after the emergence of the Baha’i Faith, the Iranian Jewish community, along with Iranian Zoroastrians, underwent widespread conversions.
1. The Jewish conversion movement began in Hamadan around 1877, and by 1884, according to the historian of Persian Jewry Habib Levy, involved some one hundred and fifty of the eight-hundred Jewish households there.
2. From Hamadan, the Bahá'í Faith spread to the Jewish communities of other Iranian cities, including Kashan (where half of the Baha’i community was of Jewish origin), Tehran, Isfahan, Bukhara, and Gulpaygan (where seventy-five percent of the Jewish community was said to have converted).
3. According to the Baha’i historian Hasan Balyuzi, Táhirih was instrumental in converting a number of Jews to the Babí Faith in Hamadan.
These conversions do not appear to have had any connection with later Baha’i conversions. It should be noted however, that of all the Babí leaders, Táhirih was the most outspoken in departing from Islamic norms.
The Jewish acceptance movement began in Hamadan around 1877, and by 1884, some one hundred and fifty of the eight hundred Jewish households converted to Baha’i Faith. From there, the Faith spread to the Jewish communities of other Iranian cities.
From 1950s up to the Iranian Revolution, many Jews converted to the Baha’i Faith for various reasons. Quite often the entire Jewish family use to get converted to the Baha’i Faith. Jews, Zoroastrians, and Christians could not get involved in politics except to represent their faith in the Parliament; but Baha’is did not have this restriction as long as they did not advertise their faith. This was one of the reasons why so many Jews and Zoroastrians converted to Baha’i. For example, the longest-serving Prime Minister of Iran, Mr. Amir Abbas Hoveyda, was from a Baha’i family.
During the revolution, most of the Baha’is with birth certificates stating their Jewish Faith, left Iran for Israel and got their Israeli citizenship.
Walter Fischel sees the general ignorance that existed among the Jews of Iran regarding the basic tenets of their religion as a primary determinant of the conversions:
Had Persian Jews possessed the spiritual leaders of a high cultural standing in the last century, had the rabbis and the schools taught and asserted a Judaism free from superstitious notions, empty formalism and medieval prejudices, had they shown a true sense for Judaism and its ethics, the conception of God, its ideas of the messiah, its national aspirations, its contributions to world culture, Bahá'ísm would hardly have won any Jewish hearts.
Contemporary Western accounts of the Jewish community would tend to support Fischel's evaluation. Before the arrival of Christian missionaries the Bible was read in Hebrew, often without any understanding. The earliest translations of the Bible into Persian and Judeo-Persian were made and distributed by the Christians. Even Hebrew Bibles were generally obtained through missionaries. The Talmud was virtually unknown, and the Jewish clergy had little education. The converts, however, judging from their literature, had a good knowledge of scripture, as well as of rabbinical exegesis. One Bahá'í of Jewish background stated that his father carefully taught all of his apprentices "the trade, the Torah, and the Bahá'í Faith" (personal interview with the author). But in none of these accounts have I found any reference to the Talmud.
The Jews observed that the very Muslims [Baba'is] who yesterday had regarded Jews as unclean and infidels and who tormented them even unto death, today, with the utmost affection, showed respect to them. If a Jew went to a Bahá'ís' place of worship there was no danger, the Bahá'í would even invite him and regard him as having the same rank as hirmself; for the leader of the new religion [Bahá'u'lláh] had said that all humanity are the servants of God and there is no difference between them.
Pakistani Muslim Salafi Supporting Israel
In the Quran, there is nothing new against the Jews. The Quran repeats the stories of Bani Israel. The stories which are already mentioned in the holy Taurate (Old Testament) and have been repeated in the Quran by Allah. There are good and bad people in every society, so the bad people are condemned and good people are praised in the Old Testament. The Quran repeated the same stories of the good and bad people of the Bani Israel. Therefore, I cannot understand why people see the verses that condemn the bad people of Israel but don’t see the verses that praise the good people of Bani Israel! This is the common problem in our Muslim community.
They are quick to blame other religious but do not see their own actions that go against the teachings of Islam. The Quran declared the land of Israel to the Jews. It belonged to Bani Israel. Jews are the indigenous people of the land of Israel and they will remain there till the day of Judgement. It is mentioned in the Quran. So it is that Muslim’s religious duty to support Israel and the Jewish community, according to the commandment of Allah.
The social media boarded the minds of both communities. There are many people in both communities who started trusting each other. People see the naked facts that Israel is not their enemy. Thousands of Palestinians enter into Israel to work on a daily basis. They experience the friendly welcome of Israelis and they see that the Israeli market pays them four times better than their Palestinian authorities. They receive insurance, their medical treatment is free in Israeli hospitals, and their basic human life cost is much better in Israel than in Gaza or the West Bank. Once they retire they get full pension from Israeli companies with full employment rights. They see the lifestyle of Arab Israelis.
They see the minarets of Mosques in Israel are still shining, and they hear the loudspeaker of those mosque calls for 5 times of daily prayers. The Palestinian’s new generation is assessing the situation very deeply, but unfortunately their political leaders hijacked them, and their religious leaders blackmailed them. These people need to free themselves from these ruthless political establishments. Israel is ready to give them their state and restore their honour, but they need to accept the fact, which is the reality of Israel’s existence. I hope, that if not in my time, at least the new generation will see these strong relations, so the lives of both nations will live in peace.
Palm Branch (Symbol)
The palm branch is a symbol of victory, triumph, peace and eternal life originating in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean world. The palm (Phoenix) was sacred in Mesopotamian religions, and in ancient Egypt represented immortality. In Judaism, a closed frond of the date palm is part of the festival of Sukkot. A palm branch was awarded to victorious athletes in ancient Greece, and a palm frond or the tree itself is one of the most common attributes of Victory personified in ancient Rome.
In Christianity, the palm branch is associated particularly with Palm Sunday, when according to Christian tradition palm branches were waved at the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. It was adopted into Christian iconography to represent the victory of martyrs, or the victory of the spirit over the flesh.
Since a victory signals an end to a conflict or competition, the palm developed into a symbol of peace, a meaning it can have in Islam, where it is often associated with Paradise.
The palm appears on several flags or seals representing countries or other places, with the coconut palm associated with the tropics.
In Assyrian religion, the palm is one of the trees identified as the Sacred Tree connecting heaven, represented by the crown of the tree, and earth, the base of the trunk. Reliefs from the 9th century BC show winged genii holding palm fronds in the presence of the Sacred Tree. It is associated with the goddess Ishtar and is found on the Ishtar Gate. In ancient Mesopotamia, the date palm may have represented fertility in humans. The Mesopotamian goddess Inanna, who had a part in the sacred marriage ritual, was believed to make the dates abundant. Palm stems represented long life to the Ancient Egyptians, and the god Huh was often shown holding a palm stem in one or both hands. The palm was carried in Egyptian funeral processions to represent eternal life. The Kingdom of Nri (Igbo) used the omu, a tender palm frond, to sacralize and restrain.
The palm was a symbol of Phoenicia and appeared on Punic coins. In ancient Greek, the word for palm, phoinix, was thought to be related to the ethnonym.
In Archaic Greece, the palm tree was a sacred sign of Apollo, who had been born under a palm on the island of Delos. The palm thus became an icon of the Delian League. In recognition of the alliance, Cimon of Athens erected a bronze statue of a palm tree at Delphi as part of a victory monument commemorating the Battle of the Eurymedon (469/466 BC). In addition to representing the victorious League, the bronze palm (phoinix) was a visual pun on the defeated Phoenician fleet.
From 400 BC onward, a palm branch was awarded to the victor in athletic contests, and the practice was brought to Rome around 293 BC.
The palm became so closely associated with victory in ancient Roman culture that the Latin word palma could be used as a metonym for "victory", and was a sign of any kind of victory. A lawyer who won his case in the forum would decorate his front door with palm leaves. The palm branch or tree became a regular attribute of the goddess Victory, and when Julius Caesar secured his rise to sole power with a victory at Pharsalus, a palm tree was supposed to have sprung up miraculously at the Temple of Nike, the Greek counterpart of Victory, in Tralles, later known as Caesarea, in Asia Minor.
The toga palmata was a toga ornamented with a palm motif; it was worn to celebrate a military triumph only by those who had a previous triumph. The toga itself was the garment of the civilian at peace, and was worn by the triumphator to mark his laying down of arms and the cessation of war. The use of the palm in this setting indicates how the original meaning of "victory" shaded into "peace" as the aftermath of victory.
The toga palmata was a toga ornamented with a palm motif; it was worn to celebrate a military triumph only by those who had a previous triumph. The toga itself was the garment of the civilian at peace, and was worn by the triumphator to mark his laying down of arms and the cessation of war. The use of the palm in this setting indicates how the original meaning of "victory" shaded into "peace" as the aftermath of victory.
Coins issued under Constantine I, the first Christian emperor, and his successors continue to display the traditional iconography of Victory, but often combined with Christian symbolism such as christograms. The Roman senator Symmachus, who tried to preserve Rome's religious traditions under Christian domination, is pictured on an ivory diptych bearing a palm branch in an allegorical triumph over death.
In Judaism, the date palm (Lulav) is one of the Four Species used in the daily prayers on the feast of Sukkot. It is bound together with the hadass (myrtle), and aravah (willow). The Midrash notes that the binding of the Four Species symbolizes the desire to unite the four "types" of Jews in service of God.
During the Roman Empire, the date palm represented Judaea and its fecundity to both Romans and Jews. Roman sources praise the date as the produce of the province. The date palm was a frequent image for Judaea on Imperial coinage, most notably on the Iudaea Capta series, when the typical military trophy is replaced by the palm. The palm appears also on at least one Hasmonean coin and on coinage issued in 38–39 AD by Herod Antipas. Palm ornaments are found also on Jewish ossuaries.
In 1965, Judean date palm seeds dated at around 2000 years old were recovered during excavations at Herod the Great's palace on Masada in Israel. In 2005, some of the seeds were planted. One grew and has been nicknamed "Methuselah".
Triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a mosaic from Palermo, ca. 1150
In contemporary Christianity, the palm branches carried on Palm Sunday originate in the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem. Early Christians used the palm branch to symbolize the victory of the faithful over enemies of the soul, as in the Palm Sunday festival celebrating the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. In western Christian art, martyrs were often shown holding a palm frond as an attribute, representing the victory of spirit over flesh, and it was widely believed that a picture of a palm on a tomb meant that a martyr was buried there.
Origen calls the palm (In Joan, XXXI) the symbol of victory in that war waged by the spirit against the flesh. In this sense it was especially applicable to martyrs, the victors par excellence over the spiritual foes of mankind; hence the frequent occurrence in the Acts of the martyrs of such expressions as "he received the palm of martyrdom." On 10 April 1688 it was decided by the Congregation of Rites that the palm when found depicted on catacomb tombs was to be regarded as a proof that a martyr had been interred there. Subsequently this opinion was acknowledged by Mabillon, Muratori, Benedict XIV and others to be untenable; further investigation showed that the palm was represented not only on tombs of the post-persecution era, but even on tombs of those who did not practice Christianity.
The general significance of the palm on early Christian monuments is slightly modified according to its association with other symbols (e.g., with the monogram of Christ, the Ichthus (Fish), or the Good Shepherd). On some later monuments the palm was represented merely as an ornament separating two scenes. Palms also represented heaven, evidenced by ancient art often depicting Jesus in heaven among palms.
In the Middle Ages, pilgrims to the Holy Land would bring back palms for deposit at their home churches. Crusaders would carry or wear an image of one, seen today in the Christian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, which still awards a Palm of Jerusalem decoration.
The palm is richly significant in Islamic culture, and the palm symbolizes rest and hospitality in many cultures of the Middle East. The presence of palm trees around an oasis showed that water was the gift of Allah. In the Quran, the palm appears in the paradisical imagery of the Garden (Jannah). In one prophetic tradition, the Dome of the Rock will stand on a palm tree issuing from one of the rivers of Paradise.
Muhammad is said to have built his home out of palm, to have leaned against a palm while speaking, and to have raised the first mosque as a roof placed on palm trees.
The first muezzin climbed palm trees to call the faithful to prayer, from which the minaret developed. In the Quran (19:16–34), Mary is said to have given birth to Jesus under a date palm.
In northern Sudan, the doum palm is the symbol of endurance (doum), and particularly of the Muslim saint who gave his name to Wad Hamid. The palm also appears on a number of coins from Islamic states, for example the 1970 Tunisian 1 dinar issue honoring the Food and Agricultural Organization, and several Iraqi coins of the 1970s.
Lies Against the Jewish People
This is found in the New Testament: "And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth". This verse out of context makes Jew haters think that's why the Jews (they say Zionists) supposedly dominate the world. However it's not even in the Jewish Bible.
The worst regimes in history regarding human rights, nazi & comnunists, were deeply anti Jewish. As time passes by the anti Jewish sentiment has been evolving. After the destruction of the Temple by the Romans they were persecuted by the Christians for killing (alegedly) Jesus Christ. Although the Jews pressured the Romans to kill Him, they were a tiny minority of the Jewish population dwelling in the Holy Land, more so if it's summed up the Jewish population dwelling in the diaspora back then.
That's how some people see the Jews: greedy & prone to conspire. The truth is far from that though. They have given the world the Bible, which is the most influencial book to lead mankind to good. Their persecution through out history has made them develop a survival spirit & that's why they have thrived in so many fields. Are there Jews conspiring against mankind then? Yes, but there are also gentiles conspiring against humankind.
In the 19th century & even more so in the 20th the new form of Jewish persecution was racial, saying nonsense like "the Jews are inferior" or the like. Nowadays there are two more forms of attacking the Jews. One is saying that they are not real Jews, but the offspring of Turkish converts to Judaism.
Another form of anti Jewish persecution is zionism & the State of Israel. Genetics doesn't agree with the lie that Jews are mostly descended from Turkish converts to Judaism, the so called Khazars. According to genetics the great majority of Jews descend from ancient Israelites & are related to middle eastern peoples. Even if the Khazars were Turkish converts to Judaism, the great majority of Jews, including the Ashkenazis, don't have Khazar ancestry.
Lies against the Jewish people
Zionism is just another nationalism, like French nationalism, or Chinese nationalism. If the Jews or even the Jewish zionists dominated the mass media or the world organizations, they would have made, for example, a Disney blockbuster about Jews or about the nation of Israel. They haven't. The Jungle Book is in India, Mulan in China, The. Sword & the Stone in England... Not even a single character in blockbusters is Jewish, let alone the main character. Israel is not even mentioned.
The Jews lost Jordan from the original plan for a Jewish State & it seems like that they will also lose the West Bank (Judea & Samaria) & Gaza. The Palestinian refugees are another topic of contention against the Jewish State. The mass flight of Palestinians after the rebirth of the Jewish State was provoked by the war started by the alliance of the Palestinians & the Arab nations. At the same the combination of Arab nations & citizens attacked (without provokation whatsoever) their own Jewish citizens, causing a million Jewish refugees. Let's not forget that the combination of lands belonging to these Arab Jews was far larger than the actual Israel.
He accepted the proviso and he and his entourage were given a palace of their own. Jesus lived there for seven years even years.
This is found in the New Testament: "And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth". This verse out of context makes Jew haters think that's why the Jews (they say Zionists) supposedly dominate the world. However it's not even in the Jewish Bible.
The worst regimes in history regarding human rights, nazi & comnunists, were deeply anti Jewish. As time passes by the anti Jewish sentiment has been evolving. After the destruction of the Temple by the Romans they were persecuted by the Christians for killing (alegedly) Jesus Christ. Although the Jews pressured the Romans to kill Him, they were a tiny minority of the Jewish population dwelling in the Holy Land, more so if it's summed up the Jewish population dwelling in the diaspora back then.
In the 19th century & even more so in the 20th the new form of Jewish persecution was racial, saying nonsense like "the Jews are inferior" or the like. Nowadays there are two more forms of attacking the Jews. One is saying that they are not real Jews, but the offspring of Turkish converts to Judaism.
Another form of anti Jewish persecution is zionism & the State of Israel. Genetics doesn't agree with the lie that Jews are mostly descended from Turkish converts to Judaism, the so called Khazars. According to genetics the great majority of Jews descend from ancient Israelites & are related to middle eastern peoples. Even if the Khazars were Turkish converts to Judaism, the great majority of Jews, including the Ashkenazis, don't have Khazar ancestry.
Zionism is just another nationalism, like French nationalism, or Chinese nationalism. If the Jews or even the Jewish zionists dominated the mass media or the world organizations, they would have made, for example, a Disney blockbuster about Jews or about the nation of Israel. They haven't. The Jungle Book is in India, Mulan in China, The. Sword & the Stone in England... Not even a single character in blockbusters is Jewish, let alone the main character. Israel is not even mentioned.
The Jews lost Jordan from the original plan for a Jewish State & it seems like that they will also lose the West Bank (Judea & Samaria) & Gaza. The Palestinian refugees are another topic of contention against the Jewish State. The mass flight of Palestinians after the rebirth of the Jewish State was provoked by the war started by the alliance of the Palestinians & the Arab nations. At the same the combination of Arab nations & citizens attacked (without provokation whatsoever) their own Jewish citizens, causing a million Jewish refugees. Let's not forget that the combination of lands belonging to these Arab Jews was far larger than the actual Israel.
Secret Conspiracy Against the Jewish State
Perhaps only several thousand people in all Britain and Israel are aware that British Freemasonry and Royalty are totally convinced that Jesus was King Of Britain and was stoned to death in London, at Ludgate, the location of St. Paul's Cathedral.
This conviction is based on a history many are going to find insulting. Nonetheless, it is vital to understand the thinking that has led to the 20th century slaughter of the Jews and the current attempt to annihilate Israel.
Initiates into the deepest secrets of British Freemasonry are taught that Jesus was born with an identical twin, Judas Thomas.
Their mother Mariamne was the granddaughter of King Herod. She was raped by a Roman soldier named Tiberius Julias Abdes Pathera. In his time, Jesus was known as Yeshua Ben Panthera.
The twins had very different personalities. Judas Thomas was violent and irresponsible. He led a revolt of Galileans against the Romans. The Galileans were, in fact, from Gaul, a captured Celtic Roman province with a highly hostile population. Judas Thomas took his revolt to Rome and in his 33rd year was ordered crucified by Pontius Pilate. However, invoking royal Herodian privileges and a large bribe, his uncle Joseph of Arimathea persuaded Pontius to replace Judas Thomas on the cross with another victim. Judas Thomas was sold into slavery and died much later in India.
Jesus, meanwhile took his priestly vows seriously. He was cousin to John the Baptist, the chief Rabbi of the Essenes and second in line to take over the position. With the executions of John and Judas Thomas, Jesus became the chief rabbi of the Essenes.
During much of his youth, Jesus lived in Britain with his uncle Joseph of Arimathea, who ran a lucrative tin trading business between Cornwall and Phoenicia.
While in Cornwall, Jesus learned the secrets of the Druids, a Celtic religion which was closely allied with the Essenes. Both shared a belief in fraternal love and a strict set of fatal punishments for those who betrayed the mysteries of their faiths. And both demanded a rigorous three stage initiation process for those wishing to be privy to those mysteries.
Jesus was in Rome at the time of his brother's crucifixion. He and his family and followers escaped the city in the wake of the crackdown on Zealots following Judas Thomas's revolt. Most went to Marseilles and from there spread throughout Gaul and Britain. Jesus and his wife fled to Britain.
Yes, wife. According to British Freemasonry, he had four of them. His first, a Nabatean named Cypros, produced five children, the most famous being Caradoc, a future king who would fight Rome with savage success.
But it was the second, Mary Magdelene who was even more significant. Her father was an early British Celtic king and she, a Celtic princess. Their children and all their descendants produced the British royal lineage. With this marriage, Jesus became a Celtic royal and He was given a suite table new royal name, Jesus Cunobeline.
Shortly after his arrival in Britain, Jesus Cunobeline and his family were given royal jurisdiction over a huge tract of land in southern Wales. It is for this reason that the Prince Of Wales is considered a direct anscestor of the first king of modern Wales, Jesus Cunobeline, with privileges that extend to all of Judaism and Israel.
Just before Emperor Claudius attacked Britain, Jesus abdicated his crown to his son Caradoc, who defeated the Romans at every turn. But through trickery, he and his father, Jesus Cunobeline were captured and shipped in shackles to Rome. Caradoc appealed to the Roman Senate for clemency and was granted it on condition that Britain never fought Rome on its soil again.
He accepted the proviso and he and his entourage were given a palace of their own. Jesus lived there for seven years even years.
Then he sailed to Egypt to learn the secrets of the Egyptian mystery schools. He was an honored student and soaked in the secret handshakes, cryptic messages and graduated revelations. The Christianity of Jesus became Freemasonry.
Jesus wanted to share his new complete Essene/Druidic/ religion and that proved his undoing. He was stoned to death in London, aged 63, for betraying his vows and revealing the secrets of the mystery schools.
However, back in Rome, presbyters had combined the lives of Jesus and Judas Thomas to create a rapidly growing religion. The British-born Roman emperor Constantine of York, a direct descendant of Jesus, and his mother Helena saw a great advantage in spreading a publicly accepted story of Jesus to create unity in the empire, while keeping the true story alive amongst the most trusted of British royalty and their closest allies.
Constantine gathered a British army and smashed his way to Rome. Shortly after, in 330, he convened a conference of presbyters in Nicaea to unify Christianity. Final gospels were voted on and a New Testament created. But to assure that his empire's newly official religion never forgot the Israelite roots of Jesus and the British royal line, Constantine tacked the Jewish scriptures onto the New Testament.
As far as British freemasonry is concerned, they are both the true Jews and true Christians. This, they reason, is the right that comes with knowing the secret truth of Jesus.
And when they re-created Israel in their distorted image, the Freemasons had no room in the country for those Jews they considered deluded. They eliminated religious Jews and patriotic Jews from the Zionist movement.
Those who did arrive in Israel were thoroughly inculcated in socialist, secular, occultic values. Israel was to be transformed into a Masonic Jewish state ruled by their rightful leaders, the Freemasons of Britain.
But something unexpected happened during the 1930s. The religious Jews, both of Israel and Eastern Europe, rejected this peculiar Zionism as a foreign growth on G-d's intended Judaism. And non-religious, but patriotic Jews led by the likes of Jabotinsky, Begin and Shamir fought to expel the British from their land.
And they fought so well that the British ordered their Jewish Masons like Teddy Kollek (33rd degree) and Yitzhak Rabin (32nd degree) to betray their fellow Jews and turn them over to the British or to murder them outright.
The British Freemasons and their Jewish quislings managed to do the bidding of the British, to the point of joining them in an attack of Egypt in 1956. The conspiracy was smashed by the election of Menachem Begin as prime minister. Since then, Britain has declared a covert war against an Israel that turned to G-d and Jewish patriotism instead of rule by Masonry. The Oslo process begun in London in November, 1992, was their ultimate revenge.
1. Holiness. The sons of Levi were set apart to perform the holy service. It is an affirmative command for the Levites to be available and prepared to serve in the Temple. The role and laws of the Levites and the Kohanim (who are sometimes called Levites by the Torah) is discussed by Maimonides in his section concerning the vessels of the Temple. A Levite is a holy vessel. The ideal of each Levite is to be doing holy service, the ultimate of which is the Service in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
Levites have an extra measure of holiness. Though they are permitted to come into contact with the dead, in contrast to Kohanim, at the time of the Temple they were instructed to avoid impurity. When the time will come for the purification of the tribes of Israel, the tribe of Levi will be purified first.
2. Genealogy. A Levite is one who is born of a father whose lineage reaches back to Levi, son of Jacob. All families of Jews have an assumed proper lineage unless there is a reason to suspect otherwise; this assumption of unbroken lineage applies to Kohanim and Levites as well.
Common names of Levite families today include Levy, Levin, Lewis, etc.
A Levite does not have the marriage restrictions of a Kohen. He may choose a marriage partner subject to the same qualifications as any other Jew. He may marry the daughter of a Kohen, Levi, or Israelite, including a convert (this is believed to be the origin of the Lembas), divorcee, or daughter of a profaned Kohen.
3. Assisting the Kohanim. In the Temple, one of the major functions of the Levites was to assist the Kohanim in the performance of the Temple service. Today, the Levites pour water over the hands of the Kohanim who are about to give the Birkat Kohanim in the synagogue. This is to recall their role in the Temple service, although it was not actually one of their tasks in the Temple. The Zohar relates that this washing adds the Levite's holiness to that of the Kohen, helping the blessing to be properly delivered in God's honor.
4. Aliya to the Torah. A Levite receives the second aliyah to the Torah, with a Kohen receiving the first. This is to give honor and avoid quarrels. If no Kohen is present, a Levite is not called. A Levite may also receive the maftir or an acharon (additional after the set order of seven) aliyah.
5. Levitical exemptions. The firstborn son of a Levite or a woman whose father was a Levite is exempt from the requirement of Pidyon HaBen (redemption of the firstborn). This is due to the fact that the Levites took the place of the firstborn of Israel and the tribe as a whole was redeemed at that time. Similarly, they need not redeem the firstborn of their donkeys.
Upon slaughtering an animal for his own use, a Israelite must give a portion of the meet to the Kohanim, however the Levites are exempt from this Kohanic gift.
Judaism: Who Is A Jew?
Judaism is a religion as well as a nation and culture. Approximately 13.75 million people worldwide indentify as Jewish, with the vast majority living in either the United States or Israel.
Today, Judaism is comprised of four major movements: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist. Most Israelis are often described as "secular," but the majority observe Jewish holidays and are very knowledgeable about Jewish history and culture, which is taught in public school. The Conservative and Reform movements are particularly strong in the United States, but have yet to make significant inroads in Israel. Reconstructionism is a small and relatively new movement. Orthodoxy has grown in recent years in the United States and remains the strongest movement in Israel. The Orthodox, more so than the other movements, are also divided among different sects.
The Jewish movements have different interpretations of the Torah, which lead to different rituals, spiritual practices and beliefs. The diversity of beliefs and practices has led to different definitions of "Who is a Jew." This question is not just philosophical, it has political and legal ramifications. In Israel, questions of Jewishness have implications for immigration, conversion, marriage, divorce and the allocation of government money.
Origins of the Words "Jew" & "Judaism"
The original name for the people we now call Jews was Hebrews. The word "Hebrew" (in Hebrew, "Ivri") is first used in the Torah to describe Abraham (Gen. 14:13). The word is apparently derived from the name Eber, one of Abraham's ancestors. Another tradition teaches that the word comes from the word "eyver," which means "the other side," referring to the fact that Abraham came from the other side of the Euphrates, or referring to the fact Abraham was separated from the other nations morally and spiritually.
Another name used for the people is Children of Israel or Israelites (although this encompasses all the tribes), which refers to the fact that the people are descendants of Jacob, who was also called Israel.
The word "Jew" (in Hebrew, "Yehudi") is derived from the name Judah, which was the name of one of Jacob's twelve sons. Judah was the ancestor of one of the tribes of Israel, which was named after him. Likewise, the word Judaism literally means "Judah-ism," that is, the religion of the Yehudim.
Originally, the term Yehudi referred specifically to members of the tribe of Judah, as distinguished from the other tribes of Israel. However, after the death of King Solomon, the nation of Israel was split into two kingdoms: the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel (I Kings 12; II Chronicles 10). After that time, the word Yehudi could properly be used to describe anyone from the kingdom of Judah, which included the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, as well as scattered settlements from other tribes. The most obvious biblical example of this usage is in Esther 2:5, where Mordecai is referred to as both a Yehudi and a member of the tribe of Benjamin.
In approximately 722 B.C.E., the kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria and the ten tribes were exiled from the land (II Kings 17), which left only the tribes in Judah's kingdom to carry on Abraham's heritage. The people of Judah's kingdom called themselves and were known to other nations as Yehudim (Jews), a name still used today.
In common speech, the word "Jew" is used to refer to all of the physical and spiritual descendants of Jacob/Israel, as well as to the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac and their wives, and the word "Judaism" is used to refer to their beliefs. Technically, this usage is inaccurate, just as it is technically inaccurate to use the word "Indian" to refer to the original inhabitants of the Americas. However, this technically inaccurate usage is common both within the Jewish community and outside of it, and is therefore used throughout this site.
Who is a Jew According to Halacha (Jewish Religious Law)?
According to Jewish law, a child born to a Jewish mother or an adult who has converted to Judaism is considered a Jew; one does not have to reaffirm their Jewishness or practice any of the laws of the Torah to be Jewish. According to Reform Judaism, a person is a Jew if they were born to either a Jewish mother or a Jewish father. Also, Reform Judaism stresses the importance of being raised Jewish; if a child is born to Jewish parents and was not raised Jewish then the child is not considered Jewish. According to the Orthodox movement, the father’s religion and whether the person practices is immaterial. No affirmation or upbringing is needed, as long as the mother was Jewish.
Besides for differing opinions on patrilineal descent, the various streams also have different conversion practices. Conversion done under the auspices of an Orthodox rabbi, entails Jewish study, brit milah (for men), mikvah (for both men and women) and a stated commitment to follow the laws of the Torah. Conservative conversions use the same requirements as the Orthodox do; however, conversions by the Reform movement and other streams do not have the same requirements. Since the conversion practices are not uniform, many Orthodox Jews do not recognize Reform or Conservative conversions as valid and, hence, do not consider the converts Jews. Once a person has converted to Judaism, he is not referred to by any special term; he is as much a Jew as anyone born Jewish.
About Matrilineal Descent
Many people have asked why traditional Judaism uses matrilineal descent to determine Jewish status, especially because for tribal affiliation, priestly status and royalty, patrilineal descent determines membership.
The Torah does not specifically state anywhere that matrilineal descent should be used; however, there are several passages in the Torah where the child of a Jewish woman and a non-Jewish man is considered a Jew, and several other passages where the child of a non-Jewish woman and a Jewish man is not considered a Jew.
In Deuteronomy 7:1-5, G-d prohibits intermarriage, saying "he [ie, the non-Jewish male spouse] will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others." The Torah does not include a similar concern is for the child of a non-Jewish female spouse. From this, one can infer that a child of a non-Jewish male spouse is Jewish and can be turned away from Judaism, but the child of a non-Jewish female spouse is not Jewish andturning away is not an issue. Also, Leviticus 24:10 speaks about the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man as "among the community of Israel" (i.e., a Jew).
On the other hand, in Ezra 10:2-3, the Jews returning to Israel vowed to put aside their non-Jewish wives and the children born to those wives. They could not have put aside those children if those children were Jews.
Several people have asked how King David could be a Jew given that one of his female ancestors, Ruth, was not a Jew. However Ruth converted to Judaism before marrying Boaz and bearing Obed. (In Ruth 1:16 she states her intention to convert.) After she converted, Ruth was Jewish, and her children born after the conversion were Jewish as well. Even so, Ruth is David's paternal ancestor, so Ruth's Jewish identity or lack thereof would not impact King David's status as a Jew because King David's Jewish status is determined matrilineally.
Implications on Israeli Society
Immigration:
In 1950, the Law of Return was passed in Israel stating that every Jew has the right to immigrate to Israel, and granting automatic citizenship and benefits to any Jew who makes aliyah. Jewish immigrants receive better benefits than non-Jewish immigrants, including guaranteed housing, ulpan (Hebrew language study), full tuition for graduate degrees, and other benefits including discounts on major purchases, such as cars and appliances. The absorption process is more arduous for non-Jews and may take many years, during which they might not have health insurance and other government services.
Three famous cases tested the Law of Return and a Jew’s right to immediate citizenship. The first example involved Brother Daniel (born Oswald Rufeisen), a Jew who converted to Christianity during the Holocaust and had become a Carmelite Monk. During his youth, Rufeisen was active in a Zionist youth movement and fled to Vilna, Lithuania at the start of World War II. There he worked as a slave laborer and escaped to Mir where he worked for the police as a translator. Rufeisen took advantage of his position and smuggled arms to his Jewish friends and helped drive the police out from Mir before it was liquidated, saving nearly 300 Jews. Rufeisen hid in the forest and later a convent, where he decided to convert to Christianity. In 1962, Rufeisen, now Brother Daniel, applied to immigrate to Israel and, after being denied, he appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that despite the fact he was born to a Jewish mother, he had since converted and should not be recognized as a Jew by the State of Israel.
Following the Brother Daniel case, a new regulation was adopted stating that individuals registered as Jews for the "nationality" and ‘religion" section of their identity cards must be Jews according to halacha and they must not practice another religion. The Shalit case challenged this new ruling. Benjamin Shalit married a non-Jewish Scottish woman. Since he was an Israeli, she and their children automatically received Israeli citizenship. The two considered themselves atheists, but part of a Jewish nation and wanted their children’s identity cards to state Jewish for the nationality designation and to remain blank for religion. The Ministry of Interior wanted to keep both designations blank, so the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled in the Shalits’ favor.
The decision sparked controversy and, in 1970, an amendment to the Law of Return passed stating that only persons born to a Jewish mother or who had converted to Judaism were allowed to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return. This amendment did not specify what type of conversion is needed, thereby allowing different interpretations. Since the amendment was passed, religious parties in the Knesset have tried to change it to apply only to Orthodox conversions, a move that angered the Reform and Conservative movements in the United States, which felt that it was an attempt to delegitimize their movements.
The Shoshanna Miller Case in 1980 tested the new amendment. She applied for citizenship under the Law of Return as a Reform convert. Initially her petition was refused and she appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled that she should be granted citizenship, in what became known as the Miller precedent.
Conversion:
Non-orthodox conversions done outside Israel are allowed; however, in Israel, only Orthodox conversions are accepted by the government and the Rabbinate. While the issue of conversion had sparked controversy in Israel for many years, the need for a comprehensive conversion policy was heightened after the arrival of 800,000 Russian immigrants in the late 1980's. They immigrated under the Law of Return, however, about 200,000 -300,000 were not Jewish according to halacha. To find a solution acceptable to Orthodox and non-Orthodox streams, the Neeman Committee was formed. In February 1998, Finance Minister Yaakov Neeman recommended that conversions should be done according to halacha through a special Conversion Court, and that a special institute would be created to prepare applicants for conversion, in which they could take courses offered by all streams of Judaism. The Neeman Committee’s proposal was endorsed by the Cabinet and the Knesset, however it was not accepted by the Chief Rabbinate. Lacking the support of the Rabbinate, the Neeman Committee’s proposals were never implemented.
In December 1998, Jerusalem District Court Judge Vardi Zeiler ruled that Conservative and Reform converts are allowed to be registered at the Interior Ministry as Jews, regardless of where the conversion took place. Following this case, appeals were expected and legislation has been proposed to allow only Orthodox conversions. The conversion issue has yet to be resolved.
The issue of conversion also became controversial after the arrival of thousands of Jews from Ethiopia. Ethiopian Jews did not practice any rituals or laws pertaining to the Oral Torah and, instead, practice a purer form of Biblical Judaism, which is different than mainstream Ashkenazic and Sephardic Judaism. Because of these differences and for other ritual purposes, the Rabbinate proposed a symbolic conversion of all Ethiopian Jews to be done before they married. The Ethiopians refused stating that it delegitimized them as Jews. Eventually the issue was circumvented as a rabbi sympathetic to their cause was able to register their marriages. Ethiopian rabbis still have difficulty gaining legitimacy for their marriages and divorces performed in Israel.
Marriage and Divorce:
Marriage ceremonies and divorce proceedings are not allowed to be performed or issued by Conservative or Reform rabbis in Israel. In fact, only Orthodox rabbis are allowed to marry Jews and many secular Israelis travel to Cyprus and other foreign countries to have a civil ceremony, which they can not receive in Israel. Israel does recognize marriages performed abroad by the Conservative and Reform movements; however, divorces issued abroad by rabbis from these movements are not recognized by the Rabbinate in Israel.
One of the reasons why issues of conversion, marriage and divorce are so important to religious Jews is because of the possibility of mamzerim (illegitimates). In a Jewish divorce, a get must be signed by the husband. If he does not sign, then the divorce is not official and the couple is still legally married according to Jewish law. If the get is not issued, the woman is not free to remarry and have children, and if she does remarry and have children, then those children are considered to be bastards according to Jewish law. (There is no biblical injunction against multiple wives, however, it has been ruled illegal according to the Rabbis.) The bastard child cannot be issued a Jewish identity card and will not be permitted to marry another Jew in Israel. The illegitimate child is only permitted to marry other illegitimate children. Hence, many Orthodox Rabbis claim the reason they want to retain control over conversions, marriage and divorce is to avoid the problem of mamzerim.
Allocation of Funding:
In Israel, another political implication for the "Who is a Jew" question is the allocation of government funds. The government of Israel sets aside part of their annual budget for religious purposes, much of these funds are then distributed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. In 1994, the High Court of Justice ordered the allocation of funds to non-Orthodox institutions in Israel. The Ministry of Religious Affairs agreed to abide by the ruling of the court, however, officials decided that they would not earmark funds for non-Orthodox supplementary religious education or for non-Orthodox Torah culture funds.
In 1995, the Ministry of Religious Affairs gave less than a half of a percent of the available funds to Hebrew Union College (HUC), the Reform Rabbinical Institute in Israel. Angered by the poor funding, petitions were sent to High Court to request increased funding for HUC and other Reform institutions.
Funding is also determined by local religious councils. Until recently, non-Orthodox rabbis were unable to sit in religious councils, which control funds to local institutions.
Alternative sources of funding have been found by the Conservative and Reform movements for their schools and programs. Funding for non-Orthodox schools, such as the Tali schools (run by the Masorti movement in Israel) has received funds from foundations, non-governmental organizations and the Jewish Agency.
A CENTURY TO CELEBRATE: Marking 100 Years Since Balfour
In the new year of 2017, we will pass several important milestones for Christians who support Israel. For instance, it has been 500 years since the start of the Protestant Reformation in October 1517, when Christians could read the Bible in their common languages once again and rediscovered that God still had plans for the Jewish people back in their ancient homeland. Meanwhile, it has been 100 years since the Balfour Declaration of November 1917 committed Great Britain to establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine. Finally, we will mark fifty years since the city of Jerusalem was reunited under Israeli rule during the Six-Day War of June 1967.
The anniversary of Balfour is especially significant for the state of Israel and her Christian friends. The Balfour Declaration, issued on the 2nd of November 1917, is a key document in modern Israel’s legal chain of title to the land. From this decree by the British cabinet flowed a series of international decisions to restore the Jewish nation, including the San Remo Conference of 1920, the League of Nation’s mandate over Palestine in 1922, the UN Partition Plan of 1947, Israel’s own Declaration of Independence in May 1948, and Israel’s admittance into the United Nations one year later.
The Balfour Declaration was the crowning achievement of the “Restorationist” movement in Great Britain. As early as the 1700s, leading Christian figures in England had advocated for a return of the Jews to the Land of Israel according to the divine promises of Scripture. This movement featured such noted clergymen as Charles and John Wesley, Charles H. Spurgeon, and Bishop Ryle of Liverpool, as well as prominent government leaders like William Wilberforce, Lord Palmerston and Lord Shaftesbury. As a result of their preaching and activism, Restorationism had already become the prevailing view even within the Anglican Church by the time the Jewish Zionist movement was launched by Theodor Herzl in 1897.
When it became clear during World War I that Britain and its allies would be able to free the Middle East from Ottoman rule, the government of David Lloyd George recognized it as an historic moment to assist the Jewish Zionists in regaining their homeland. Six of the nine members of his war cabinet, including Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, were openly professing Christian Zionists and they seized the opportunity to issue the modern equivalent of the ancient decree by King Cyrus for Jews to return and rebuild their nation. Because of this solemn commitment, which came to be known as the Balfour Declaration, Britain was granted a mandate to help create a Jewish nation in the liberated province of Palestine.
So, we have much reason to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration this year. This coming November the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem will be sponsoring events and joining with Jewish and Christian friends to commemorate Balfour, including observances in London and Jerusalem.
Yet, not everyone will be hailing the centenary of the Balfour Declaration this year. In fact, Palestinian leaders will be using their internationally-funded PR machinery to assail this “criminal injustice” against their people. They are demanding that Britain apologize for Balfour and are even threatening to bring a lawsuit against the United Kingdom for all the damages caused to the Palestinians ever since. Yet such moves would be untenable and even counterproductive.
The reason is that these actions against Israel would actually undermine the claims to statehood of numerous Arab nations in the region.
Britain’s motivations behind the Balfour Declaration have always been a subject of debate. Some say it was meant to win Jewish favour during the war, or to repay Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann for his valuable contributions to the war effort. Others say it was a gesture of remorse for centuries of Christian anti-Semitism, or simply an act of British expansionism.
The truth is that Balfour was a valid and noble expression of Christian sympathy for a just cause. It also was part of a series of decisions made by the victorious powers during and after the war to create trusteeships in the Middle East and elsewhere as a way of nation-building and granting self-determination to the native peoples of liberated lands. So, Balfour actually is a pivotal marker for the closing of the age of colonialism, a self-imposed end by the Western nations themselves.
One of the architects of this mandate strategy was Jan Smuts, an avowed Christian Zionist. Until that time, the European powers would have just claimed the vacated Ottoman territories of the Middle East as part of their own empires. But Smuts and others felt it was time to let native peoples rule over their own lands and that the role of Western nations was just to assist them on the way to independence. This new approach was inspired in part by American president Woodrow Wilson and his fourteen points for spreading democracy and securing the peace in the post-war era. But, Smuts also described the mandate system as a “sacred trust” meant to free various lands and peoples from foreign rule.
Thus, Britain was granted a temporary mandate in Palestine and Iraq, while France was to oversee nation-building in Lebanon and Syria. In fact every Arab nation in the Middle East today can trace its legal claim to independence back to some of the same documents and decisions which created modern Israel. This was not a case of creating a Jewish state out of nothing. The Jews, like the Arabs, were viewed as indigenous to the region and thus entitled to reconstitute their ancient nation. So, to undermine Israel’s legal chain of title by assailing the Balfour Declaration would also call into question the claims to sovereignty of all its surrounding Arab neighbors. That is not something the Palestinians should really be pursuing.
The Balfour Declaration of 2nd of November 1917 was a letter signed by Lord Balfour which conveyed to British Jewish community leader Baron Walter Rothschild the cabinet’s decision to support the Zionist cause. It stated:
“His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
What Is Happening to Europe?
Three nations in Europe are destined to fall and then followed by the rest of the European Union at the hands of the would-be Antichrist, the ruler coming from old Nineveh, now a place in Iraq;
The EU which many calls a resurrected Roman Empire will assist the Antichrist in defeating all nations and to establish a one world government. That is their goal and they will get it. At that time, the bull on which the harlot is sitting will become a terrifying seven-headed beast with ten horns;
The alliance between Israel, the EU and the US will be broken and there will be civil strife in the US;
After the fall of Europe, then Israel's fall will follow;
Lastly, the US shall collapse, the Antichrist, now at his height of power will set his throne in New York City at the United Nations Building, the New Babylon forming a one-world government and will destroy Christianity;
As the Lord Jesus Christ's coming gets near, the Antichrist will be alarmed by the army from the northeast (Read also about Greenland in chapter 6), kills many and will hand over the governance of ten regions of the world to the ten leaders of Europe but only for a very short period of time because Jesus Christ will finally come to redeem His people.
The dreadful Day of the Lord begins.
It will help to read The Ancient Obelisks of Egypt. Read the other stories in this website so you will understand better. The book will however provide the complete story. Always pray and keep watch for the last days are getting closer...
In order for you to get saved and become a Christian please follow these simple steps.
The Phrygian Jewish Hat
A medieval Jewish hat is usually pointed and in modern academic parlance is often referred to as a pileum cornutum, Judenhut, or a Phrygian cap. The Jewish hats encompass a wide variety of shapes. It has been argued that the Jews had to wear it because it was prescribed in the Talmud to cover one's head.
The red phrygian cap is a symbol of freemen or freemasons representing the enlightened ones. It's also a symbol of liberty. It's a symbol of many countries even found on flags or coat of arms.
Marianne, the personification of the French republic wears one. Columbia, one of the personifications of the United States of America, also wears this cap.
Pointed hats have been a distinctive item of headgear of a wide range of cultures throughout history. Though often suggesting an ancient Indo-European tradition, they were also traditionally worn by women of Lapland, the Japanese, the Mi'kmaq people of Atlantic Canada, and the Huastecs of Veracruz and Aztec (illustrated e.g. in Codex Mendoza).
Interestingly all of those peoples are considered by different sources as Israelites or as having Israelites among themselves, as in the case of the Japanese. It might or might not have an Israelite origin, but it has been used widely by peoples of Israelite origin.
Christian painting of an Old Testament sacrifice, 1483, with various forms of Jewish hat, as well as turbans and other exotic styles. By this date it is hard to judge how illustrations like these relate to actual contemporary dress in Europe, or are an attempt to recreate historically appropriate ancient dress from styles of the contemporary Middle East.
The Jewish hat also known as the Jewish cap, Judenhut (German) or Latin pilleus cornutus ("horned skullcap"), was a cone-shaped pointed hat, often white or yellow, worn by Jews in Medieval Europe and some of the Islamic world. Initially worn by choice, its wearing was enforced in some places in Europe after 1215 for adult male Jews to wear while outside a ghetto in order to distinguish Jews from others. Like the phrygian cap it often resembles, the hat may have originated in pre-Islamic Persia—a similar hat was worn by Babylonian Jews.
Modern distinctive or characteristic Jewish forms of male headgear include the kippah (skullcap), shtreimel, spodik, kolpik, kashkets and fedora; see also Hasidic headwear.
Phrygian hat
The shape of the hat is variable. Sometimes, especially in the 13th century, it is a soft Phrygian cap, but rather more common in the early period is a hat with a round circular brim—apparently stiff—curving round to a tapering top that ends in a point, called the "so-called oil-can type" by Sara Lipton. Smaller versions perching on top of the head are also seen. Sometimes a ring of some sort encircles the hat an inch or two over the top of the head. In the 14th century a ball or bobble appears at the top of the hat, and the tapering end becomes more of a stalk with a relatively constant width. The top of the hat becomes flatter, or rounded (as in the Codex Manesse picture). The materials used are unclear from art, and may have included metal and woven plant materials as well as stiffened textiles and leather.
Basque chapela & Catalan barretina
By the end of the Middle Ages the hat is steadily replaced by a variety of headgear including exotic flared Eastern style hats, turbans and, from the 15th century, wide flat hats and large berets. It might the origin of the Basque chapela, French beret & Catalan barretina.
In pictures of Biblical scenes these sometimes represent attempts to portray the contemporary dress of the (modern) time worn in the Holy Land, but all the same styles are to be seen in some images of contemporary European scenes. Where a distinctive pointed Jewish hat remains it has become much less defined in shape, and baggy. Loose turbans, wide flat hats, and berets, as well as new fur hat styles from the Pale of Settlement, remain associated with Jews up to the 18th century and beyond.
Existence of the conical hat is known as early as the Bronze Age in Middle East and Central Europe. One example is the golden hat worn by members of the priesthood, likely as a ceremonial accessory. In Ancient Greece, the pilos was a common conical traveling hat. Popular among Burgundian noblewomen in the 15th century was a type of conical headgear now called a hennin. Conical hats were also popular in late medieval Vijayanagar, India.
Textile analysis of the Tarim Mummies has shown some similarities to the Iron Age civilizations of Europe dating from 800 BC, including woven twill and tartan patterns strikingly similar to tartans from Northern Europe because both were Israelites. One unusual find was a distinctively pointed hat:
Yet another female - her skeleton found beside the remains of a man -still wore a terrifically tall, conical hat just like those we depict on witches riding broomsticks at Halloween or on medieval wizards intent at their magical spells.
Pointed hats were also worn in ancient times by Saka (Scythians), another group of Israelites, and are shown on Hindu temples and in Hittite reliefs. As described by Herodotus, the name of the Scythian tribe of the tigrakhauda (Orthocorybantians) is a bahuvrihi compound literally translating to "people with pointed hats".
Golden hats are another variant. It is assumed that the Golden Hats served as religious insignia for the deities or priests. They were found in Celtic regions in Germany, France, Spain & Ireland.
Scythian hat
It's interesting that this hat is found or worn in Shinto shrines like this one in Yasaka. Shintoisn is believed to be the remnant of the Israelite religion imported by the Israelite ancestors of part of the Japanese people. It's also interesting that one of these shrines is called Yasaka, because it's remarkably similar to Saka, an ancient Central Asian tribe regarded as Israelite whose name is a deformation of Isaac, forefather of the Israelites. As the scripture says; in Isaac the people of the covenant would be called. Genesis 21:12. Yasaka could be easily a Japanese version of Yitzak-Isaac.
In 869 the mikoshi (divine palanquin) of Gion Shrine were paraded through the streets of Kyoto to ward off an epidemic that had hit the city. This was the beginning of the Gion Matsuri, an annual festival which has become world famous. The aspect & function of the mikoshi is basically the same as the Israelite Ark of the Covenant.
Today, in addition to hosting the Gion Matsuri, Yasaka Shrine (Yasaka Jinja in Japanese) welcomes thousands of people every New Year, for traditional Japanese New Year rituals and celebrations. In April, the crowds pass through the temple on their way to Maruyama Park, a popular hanami (cherry blossom viewing) site. Lanterns decorate the stage with the names of festival sponsors.
Originating from the Japanese Heian period, the kazaori eboshi (風折烏帽子) was worn by aristocrats to indicate rank. Still worn today for ceremonial purposes, this black linen hat was used during a samurai's ceremony in attaining manhood.
The 13th century Cumans commonly wore pointed hats, and are reported to have fought wearing them. Part of the Khazar Israelites intermixed with Cumans & Turkoids, so they might have passed the pointed hats.
The Jewish poet Süßkind von Trimberg wearing a Jewish hat (Codex Manesse, 14th century).
Medieval Jewish men wore distinctive headgear as part of their religious observance. This included the pointed Jewish hat (or "Judenhut") already worn by Jews, a piece of clothing probably imported from the Islamic world and perhaps before that from Persia.
The whirling dervishes from the 13th century wore hats similar to the hennins, and the Ottoman Janissaries wore similar headgear to show their veneration for Hadji Bektash, founder of a Sufi order. Bektashism is believed to be a crypto-Israelite religion.
The Fez (Tarboosh) is considered to come from the Phrygian hat. It was first created by Moroccan Andalusies in the 17th Century. From there went went to other Islamic countries ending up as very fashionable in Turkey & Greece. Eventually the Shriners, a dependence of the freemasons, adopted it as part of their attire.
Kizilbash & Ibo hat
The Kizilbash & Ibo, both Israelites, red hats might have derived them from either the skullcaps or Phrygian hats too.
Three nations in Europe are destined to fall and then followed by the rest of the European Union at the hands of the would-be Antichrist, the ruler coming from old Nineveh, now a place in Iraq;
The EU which many calls a resurrected Roman Empire will assist the Antichrist in defeating all nations and to establish a one world government. That is their goal and they will get it. At that time, the bull on which the harlot is sitting will become a terrifying seven-headed beast with ten horns;
The alliance between Israel, the EU and the US will be broken and there will be civil strife in the US;
After the fall of Europe, then Israel's fall will follow;
Lastly, the US shall collapse, the Antichrist, now at his height of power will set his throne in New York City at the United Nations Building, the New Babylon forming a one-world government and will destroy Christianity;
As the Lord Jesus Christ's coming gets near, the Antichrist will be alarmed by the army from the northeast (Read also about Greenland in chapter 6), kills many and will hand over the governance of ten regions of the world to the ten leaders of Europe but only for a very short period of time because Jesus Christ will finally come to redeem His people.
The dreadful Day of the Lord begins.
It will help to read The Ancient Obelisks of Egypt. Read the other stories in this website so you will understand better. The book will however provide the complete story. Always pray and keep watch for the last days are getting closer...
In order for you to get saved and become a Christian please follow these simple steps.
The Final Days of the Sabbatean-Jesuit-Illuminati-Freemason Zionists Israel
Re. Hon. Winston S. Churchill – “Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world. The conflict between good and evil which proceeds unceasingly in the breast of man nowhere reaches such an intensity as in the Jewish race. The dual nature of mankind is nowhere more strongly or more terribly exemplified. We owe to the Jews in the Christian revelation a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all other wisdom and learning put together. On that system and by that faith there has been built out of the wreck of the Roman Empire the whole of our existing civilization.
Sir Winston Churchill, B. Nov. 30, 1874 - D. Jan. 24, 1965And it may well be that this same astounding race may at the present time be in the actual process of producing another system of morals and philosophy, as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which, if not arrested, would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible. It would almost seem as if the gospel of Christ and the gospel of Antichrist were destined to originate among the same people; and that this mystic and mysterious race had been chosen for the supreme manifestations, both of the divine and the diabolical.
Today, it makes no difference whether we see the true Sabbatean anti-Jew like Senator John Kerry in America or President Nicholas Sarkovsky in France; the allies of the Sabbatian Rothschild Jews; the Bush – Clinton Dynasty, the White Freemasons of Shimon Peres of Israel, the Islamic Freemasons President Hussein of Jordan, Mahmoud Abbas and the late Yasser Arafat of the Palestinians, or the Black Freemasons like Barak Hussein Obama and his alliances with the Black Muslim Brotherhood.
Judah in Prophecy
The Jews who live among the various nations of the Ten Tribes of Israel tend to be in positions of influence and power, and they control much of these nations' wealth. Because of their power and wealth there is a considerable amount of enmity between those of the other tribes and the Jews, yet there is a feeling of kinship toward the Jews of the nation of Israel.
The Phrygian Jewish Hat
A medieval Jewish hat is usually pointed and in modern academic parlance is often referred to as a pileum cornutum, Judenhut, or a Phrygian cap. The Jewish hats encompass a wide variety of shapes. It has been argued that the Jews had to wear it because it was prescribed in the Talmud to cover one's head.
The red phrygian cap is a symbol of freemen or freemasons representing the enlightened ones. It's also a symbol of liberty. It's a symbol of many countries even found on flags or coat of arms.
Marianne, the personification of the French republic wears one. Columbia, one of the personifications of the United States of America, also wears this cap.
Pointed hats have been a distinctive item of headgear of a wide range of cultures throughout history. Though often suggesting an ancient Indo-European tradition, they were also traditionally worn by women of Lapland, the Japanese, the Mi'kmaq people of Atlantic Canada, and the Huastecs of Veracruz and Aztec (illustrated e.g. in Codex Mendoza).
Interestingly all of those peoples are considered by different sources as Israelites or as having Israelites among themselves, as in the case of the Japanese. It might or might not have an Israelite origin, but it has been used widely by peoples of Israelite origin.
The Jewish hat also known as the Jewish cap, Judenhut (German) or Latin pilleus cornutus ("horned skullcap"), was a cone-shaped pointed hat, often white or yellow, worn by Jews in Medieval Europe and some of the Islamic world. Initially worn by choice, its wearing was enforced in some places in Europe after 1215 for adult male Jews to wear while outside a ghetto in order to distinguish Jews from others. Like the phrygian cap it often resembles, the hat may have originated in pre-Islamic Persia—a similar hat was worn by Babylonian Jews.
Modern distinctive or characteristic Jewish forms of male headgear include the kippah (skullcap), shtreimel, spodik, kolpik, kashkets and fedora; see also Hasidic headwear.
Phrygian hatThe shape of the hat is variable. Sometimes, especially in the 13th century, it is a soft Phrygian cap, but rather more common in the early period is a hat with a round circular brim—apparently stiff—curving round to a tapering top that ends in a point, called the "so-called oil-can type" by Sara Lipton. Smaller versions perching on top of the head are also seen. Sometimes a ring of some sort encircles the hat an inch or two over the top of the head. In the 14th century a ball or bobble appears at the top of the hat, and the tapering end becomes more of a stalk with a relatively constant width. The top of the hat becomes flatter, or rounded (as in the Codex Manesse picture). The materials used are unclear from art, and may have included metal and woven plant materials as well as stiffened textiles and leather.
Basque chapela & Catalan barretinaBy the end of the Middle Ages the hat is steadily replaced by a variety of headgear including exotic flared Eastern style hats, turbans and, from the 15th century, wide flat hats and large berets. It might the origin of the Basque chapela, French beret & Catalan barretina.
In pictures of Biblical scenes these sometimes represent attempts to portray the contemporary dress of the (modern) time worn in the Holy Land, but all the same styles are to be seen in some images of contemporary European scenes. Where a distinctive pointed Jewish hat remains it has become much less defined in shape, and baggy. Loose turbans, wide flat hats, and berets, as well as new fur hat styles from the Pale of Settlement, remain associated with Jews up to the 18th century and beyond.
Existence of the conical hat is known as early as the Bronze Age in Middle East and Central Europe. One example is the golden hat worn by members of the priesthood, likely as a ceremonial accessory. In Ancient Greece, the pilos was a common conical traveling hat. Popular among Burgundian noblewomen in the 15th century was a type of conical headgear now called a hennin. Conical hats were also popular in late medieval Vijayanagar, India.
Textile analysis of the Tarim Mummies has shown some similarities to the Iron Age civilizations of Europe dating from 800 BC, including woven twill and tartan patterns strikingly similar to tartans from Northern Europe because both were Israelites. One unusual find was a distinctively pointed hat:
Yet another female - her skeleton found beside the remains of a man -still wore a terrifically tall, conical hat just like those we depict on witches riding broomsticks at Halloween or on medieval wizards intent at their magical spells.
Golden hats are another variant. It is assumed that the Golden Hats served as religious insignia for the deities or priests. They were found in Celtic regions in Germany, France, Spain & Ireland.
It's interesting that this hat is found or worn in Shinto shrines like this one in Yasaka. Shintoisn is believed to be the remnant of the Israelite religion imported by the Israelite ancestors of part of the Japanese people. It's also interesting that one of these shrines is called Yasaka, because it's remarkably similar to Saka, an ancient Central Asian tribe regarded as Israelite whose name is a deformation of Isaac, forefather of the Israelites. As the scripture says; in Isaac the people of the covenant would be called. Genesis 21:12. Yasaka could be easily a Japanese version of Yitzak-Isaac.
In 869 the mikoshi (divine palanquin) of Gion Shrine were paraded through the streets of Kyoto to ward off an epidemic that had hit the city. This was the beginning of the Gion Matsuri, an annual festival which has become world famous. The aspect & function of the mikoshi is basically the same as the Israelite Ark of the Covenant.
Today, in addition to hosting the Gion Matsuri, Yasaka Shrine (Yasaka Jinja in Japanese) welcomes thousands of people every New Year, for traditional Japanese New Year rituals and celebrations. In April, the crowds pass through the temple on their way to Maruyama Park, a popular hanami (cherry blossom viewing) site. Lanterns decorate the stage with the names of festival sponsors.
Originating from the Japanese Heian period, the kazaori eboshi (風折烏帽子) was worn by aristocrats to indicate rank. Still worn today for ceremonial purposes, this black linen hat was used during a samurai's ceremony in attaining manhood.
The 13th century Cumans commonly wore pointed hats, and are reported to have fought wearing them. Part of the Khazar Israelites intermixed with Cumans & Turkoids, so they might have passed the pointed hats.
Medieval Jewish men wore distinctive headgear as part of their religious observance. This included the pointed Jewish hat (or "Judenhut") already worn by Jews, a piece of clothing probably imported from the Islamic world and perhaps before that from Persia.
The whirling dervishes from the 13th century wore hats similar to the hennins, and the Ottoman Janissaries wore similar headgear to show their veneration for Hadji Bektash, founder of a Sufi order. Bektashism is believed to be a crypto-Israelite religion.
The Fez (Tarboosh) is considered to come from the Phrygian hat. It was first created by Moroccan Andalusies in the 17th Century. From there went went to other Islamic countries ending up as very fashionable in Turkey & Greece. Eventually the Shriners, a dependence of the freemasons, adopted it as part of their attire. Kizilbash & Ibo hatThe Kizilbash & Ibo, both Israelites, red hats might have derived them from either the skullcaps or Phrygian hats too.
Women with Hand-Drums, Dancing: Bible
After the Israelites escape from Egypt and from the Pharaoh’s army at the Sea of Reeds (NRSV, “Red Sea”), the prophet Miriam leads a celebration. Accompanied by “all the women,” who are dancing and playing hand-drums (Exod 15:20–21), she sings of YHWH’s victory. Most English translations, including the NRSV, use the word tambourinesin this passage. That word, however, is anachronistic, for there is no evidence that tambourines were invented until the Roman period at the earliest, and perhaps not for several centuries later. The Hebrew word tof represents a hand-held frame-drum, a hoop-shaped drum with a diameter wider than its depth and well known as a popular membranophone (percussion instrument) from artistic representations preserved from the ancient Near East.
The scene of Miriam with her chorus of women drummers and dancers is echoed in several other instances in which song, dance, and drums appear in connection with women musicians. After a victory over the Philistines, David is welcomed by women singing, dancing, and playing frame-drums (1 Sam 18:6–7). Two other passages probably present, elliptically, a similar situation: Deborah sings out after YHWH brings victory for the Israelites over the Canaanites in Galilee (Judg 5:1), and Jephthah’s daughter welcomes her father with dancing and drumming after his God-granted defeat of the Ammonites (Judg 11:34). The elements of drum, dance, and song constitute a women’s performance genre: the musical celebration of military victory. Another elliptical passage, 2 Sam 1:20, claims that Philistine women would perform a victory song if they heard the news that Saul and Jonathan had died. The celebratory nature of the genre is extended, in prophetic eschatology, to the rejoicing that accompanies God’s restoration of Israel (Jer 31:4, 13).
The 2 Sam 1:20 passage, which refers to Philistines, suggests that this performance genre was part of the general culture of the eastern Mediterranean in biblical times. Archaeological evidence supports that possibility. Egyptian wall paintings, scenes on metal and ivory vessels from Cyprus and Phoenicia as well as Mesopotamia, and most notably small terra-cotta figurines from many Near Eastern sites all depict musicians playing a significant repertoire of musical instruments.
Musicologists have assigned them to various categories: wind instruments, stringed instruments, instruments that are self-striking (such as cymbals), and percussion instruments. In virtually every instance, the frame-drum players are female. This evidence, along with cross-cultural materials as well as a reference to the Canaanite goddess Anath with a hand-drum, suggests that the playing of these percussion instruments was a specifically female role in the ancient Mediterranean world.
Musicologists have assigned them to various categories: wind instruments, stringed instruments, instruments that are self-striking (such as cymbals), and percussion instruments. In virtually every instance, the frame-drum players are female. This evidence, along with cross-cultural materials as well as a reference to the Canaanite goddess Anath with a hand-drum, suggests that the playing of these percussion instruments was a specifically female role in the ancient Mediterranean world.
The identification of the frame-drum as a woman’s instrument has implications for the understanding of several biblical texts mentioning musical performance. The Bible mentions dozens of musical instruments of the various types; but only one percussion instrument is named—the tof, or hand-drum—even though other kinds of drum were known elsewhere in the biblical world. Whenever this word is found, it is quite likely that the presence of female instrumentalists is implied. This is particularly true in a series of psalms that depict cultic processions and celebrations in praise of YHWH. In Ps 68:25, a procession into the temple involves singers, female hand-drummers, and other musicians.
The word for drum players is unambiguously feminine. The words for the singers and musicians are masculine, but they may include females and males, given the nature of Hebrew as a gendered language with masculine nouns often used for both genders. The references to musical ensembles in several other psalms (Pss 81:2; 149:3; 150:4) can be interpreted, because they include the hand-drum, as including female instrumentalists in cultic musical performance.
The word for drum players is unambiguously feminine. The words for the singers and musicians are masculine, but they may include females and males, given the nature of Hebrew as a gendered language with masculine nouns often used for both genders. The references to musical ensembles in several other psalms (Pss 81:2; 149:3; 150:4) can be interpreted, because they include the hand-drum, as including female instrumentalists in cultic musical performance.
Clearly the frequent claim that women did not take part in public religious occasions in ancient Israel needs to be contested in light of readings that take extrabiblical artifactual evidence into account. In addition, recognizing the existence of women’s performance traditions allows us to acknowledge that women had the benefit of participating together in professional associations. Gathering to rehearse, compose, and perform provided women with the opportunity to experience leadership and camaraderie, as well as the esteem of their colleagues and also of their audiences. Such experience is empowering.
Merchant and traveler of the ninth century. He professed to have been a citizen of an independent Jewish state in eastern Africa, inhabited by the tribes of Dan (hence his name, "ha-Dani" = "the Danite"), Asher, Gad, and Naphtali. Starting from this alleged state, Eldad visited Babylonia, Kairwan, and Spain, causing everywhere a great stir among the Jews by his fanciful accounts of the Lost Ten Tribes, and by the halakot which he asserted he had brought from his native country. These halakot, written in Hebrew, deal with the slaughtering and subsequent examination of animals. They differ widely from the Talmudic ordinances, and are introduced in the name of Joshua ben Nun, or, according to another version, of Othniel ben Kenaz. Eldad's accounts soon spread, and, as usual in such cases, were remolded and amplified by copyists and editors. There are no less than eight versions with important variations. The following is a summary of Eldad's narrative according to the most complete of these versions:
On leaving the land "on the other side of the river of Kush," Eldad traveled with a man of the tribe of Asher. A great storm wrecked the boat, but God prepared a plank for him and his companion, on which they floated until thrown ashore among a cannibal Ethiopian tribe called "Romrom." The Asherite, who was fat, was immediately eaten, while Eldad was put into a pit to fatten. Soon after a fire-worshiping tribe assailed the cannibals, and Eldad was taken prisoner. He remained in captivity during four years, when his captors brought him to the province of Azanian (according to another version, to China), where he was ransomed by a Jewish merchant for thirty-two pieces of gold. Eldad continued his journey, and fell in with the tribe of Issachar, dwelling among high mountains near Media and Persia, their land extending ten days' journey on every side. They are at peace with all, and their whole energy is devoted to the study of the Law; their only weapon is the knife for slaughtering animals. Their judge and prince is called "Naḥshon," and they use the four methods of capital punishment.
Eldad the DaniteThe tribe of Zebulon occupies the land extending from the province of Armenia to the River Euphrates. Behind the mountains of Paran the tribe of Reuben faces them. Peace reigns between these two tribes; they war as allies and divide the spoils. They possess the Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the Haggadah.
The tribe of Ephraim and half of Manasseh dwell in the southern mountains of Arabia, and are very warlike.
The tribe of Simeon and the other half of Manasseh are in the land of the Chazars. They take tribute from twenty-eight kingdoms, and many Mohammedans are subjected to them.
Eldad ha Dani the Tutsi explorer
The tribe of Dan emigrated to the land of gold, Havilah (Kush), shortly after the separation of Judah and Israel. The tribes of Naphtali, Gad, and Asher joined the Danites later. They have a king called Adiel ben Malkiel, a prince by the name of Elizaphan, of the house of Elihab, and a judge named Abdan ben Mishael, who has the power to inflict the four capital punishments prescribed in the Law. The four tribes lead a nomadic life, and are continually at war with the five neighboring Ethiopian kings. Each tribe is in the field three months, and every warrior remains in the saddle without dismounting from one Sabbath to the next. They possess the entire Scriptures, but they do not read the Roll of Esther (not having been included in the miraculous salvation mentioned in it) nor Lamentations (to avoid its disheartening influence). They have a Talmud in pure Hebrew, but none of the Talmudic teachers is mentioned. Their ritual is introduced in the name of Joshua, who had received it from Moses, who in his turn had heard its contents from the Almighty. They speak only Hebrew (Eldad himself professed not to understand a word of Ethiopic or Arabic).
On "the other side of the river of Kush" dwell the Bene Mosheh (tribe of Levi). The River Sambation encircles their land. It rolls sand and stones during the six working days and rests on the Sabbath. From the first moment of Sabbath to the last, fire surrounds the river, and during that time no human being can approach within half a mile of either side of it. The four other tribes communicate with the Bene Mosheh from the borders of the river. The Bene Mosheh dwell in beautiful houses, and no unclean animal is found in their land. Their cattle and sheep as well as their fields bear twice a year. No child dies during the lifetime of its parents, who live to see a third and fourth generation. They do not close their houses at night, for there is no theft or wickedness among them. They speak Hebrew, and never swear by the name of God.
This fanciful narrative, the origin of which is to be found in the haggadic literature, of which Eldad must have had a very extensive knowledge, was accepted by his contemporaries as true. The inhabitants of Kairwan were, it is true, troubled by the differences between his halakot and those of the Talmud, and by some strange Hebrew expressions used by him; but the gaon Ẓemaḥ ben Ḥayyim of Sura, whose opinion they had asked, tranquilized them by saying that there was nothing astonishing in the four tribes disagreeing with the Talmud on some halakic points. Moreover, Eldad's personality, asserted the gaon, was known to him through Isaac ben Mar and R. Simḥah, with whom the Danite associated while he was in Babylonia. Ḥasdaiibn Shapruṭ cites Eldad in his letter to the king of the Chazars, and Eldad's halakot were used by both Rabbinites and Karaites as weapons in defense of their respective creeds. Talmudic authorities like Rashi, Abraham ben David (RABaD), and Abraham ben Maimon quote Eldad as an unquestioned authority; and lexicographers and grammarians interpret some Hebrew words according to the meaning given them in Eldad's phraseology.
The influence of Eldad's narrative extended beyond Jewish circles. It was the source of the apocryphal letter of the so-called "Prester John," which appeared in the twelfth century. Intending to refute Eldad's assertion of the existence of independent Jewish states—an assertion contrary to the teaching of the Roman Church—the Christian writer told of a priest who ruled over the great kingdom of Ethiopia, to which were subject some Jewish tribes, including the Bene Mosheh who dwelt beyond the River Sambation. The only writers of the Middle Ages who expressed doubts as to the genuineness of Eldad's narrative and his halakot were Abraham ibn Ezra and Meïr of Rothenburg.
Modern critics are divided in their opinions concerning Eldad. Pinsker, Grätz, and Neubauer saw in him a Karaite missionary endeavoring to discredit the Talmud by his statement that the four tribes did not know the names of the Tannaim (does the name of the Ethiopian lake Tana have any relation) and Amoraim, and that their halakot were different from those of the Talmud. This opinion was refuted by Schorr and Jellinek, who observed that Eldad's halakot contain rules concerning the examination of slaughtered animals which are not accepted by the Karaites. P. Frankl regarded Eldad as a mere charlatan whose sayings and doings are not worth attention. Reifmann denied outright the existence of Eldad, and considered the letters of the community of Kairwan and of Ẓemaḥ ben Ḥayyim of Sura to be forgeries. Metz was the first to analyze the contents of Eldad's book in the light of the reports of other travelers. A. Epstein followed Metz's method, and came to the conclusion that Eldad's book is somewhat of the nature of a historical novel in which truth is mixed with imagination. The halakot are, according to him, genuine, and were in use among the countrymen of Eldad, either in a province of eastern Africa or in Yemen, where the Jews at that time knew Hebrew, but not the Talmud. For Eldad could not have been a native of Abyssinia, the country of the Falashas, since there only Geez is spoken; and no trace of this dialect appears in Eldad's Hebrew; there are, however, some traces of Arabic, which Eldad must have known, although he asserted the contrary.
NAZARENES:
Sect of primitive Christianity; it appears to have embraced all those Christians who had been born Jews and who neither would nor could give up their Jewish mode of life. They were probably the descendants of the Judæo-Christians who had fled to Pella before Titus destroyed Jerusalem; afterward most of them, like the Essenes in former times, with whom they had some characteristics in common, lived in the waste lands around the Dead Sea, and hence remained out of touch with the rest of Christendom.
For a long time they were regarded as irreproachable Christians, Epiphanius, who did not know much about them, being the first to class them among heretics. Why they are so classed is not clear, for they are reproached on the whole with nothing more than with Judaizing. As there were many Judaizing Christians at that time, the Nazarenes can not be clearly distinguished from the other sects. The well-known Bible translator Symmachus, for example, is described variously as a Judaizing Christian and as an Ebionite; while his followers, the Symmachians, are called also "Nazarenes". It is especially difficult to distinguish the Nazarenes from the Ebionites. Jerome obtained the Gospel according to the Hebrews (which, at one time regarded as canonical, was later classed among the Apocrypha) directly from the Nazarenes, yet he ascribed it not only to them but also to the Ebionites. This gospel was written in Aramaic, not in Hebrew, but it was read exclusively by those born as Jews. Jerome quotes also fragments from the Nazarenic exposition of the Prophets. These are the only literary remains of the Nazarenes; the remnants of the Gospel according to the Hebrews have recently been collated by Preuschen in "Antilegomena".
Jerome gives some definite information concerning the views of the Nazarenes
Jerome's Account.
"What shall I say of the Ebionites who pretend to be Christians? To-day there still exists among the Jews in all the synagogues of the East a heresy which is called that of the Minæans, and which is still condemned by the Pharisees; [its followers] are ordinarily called 'Nazarenes'; they believe that Christ, the son of God, was born of the Virgin Mary, and they hold him to be the one who suffered under Pontius Pilate and ascended to heaven, and in whom we also believe. But while they pretend to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither."
The Nazarenes, then, recognized Jesus, though it appears from occasional references to them that they considered the Mosaic law binding only for those born within Judaism, while the Ebionites considered this law binding for all men. The Nazarenes therefore rejected Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. Some accordingly declared even that the Nazarenes were Jews, as, for instance, Theodoret; that they exalted Jesus as a just man, and that they read the Gospel of Peter; fragments of this Gospel of Peter have been preserved. Aside from these references, Theodoret, however, makes the mistake of confounding the Nazarenes and Ebionites; he is the last one of the Church Fathers to refer to the Nazarenes, who probably were absorbed in the course of the fifth century partly by Judaism and partly by Christianity.
The term "Minæans," which Jerome applies to the Nazarenes, recalls the word "min," frequently used in rabbinical literature to designate heretics, chiefly the Christians still following Jewish customs; the Rabbis knew only Judæo-Christians, who were either Ebionites or Nazarenes. Hence they applied the name "Noẓri" to all Christians, this term remaining in Jewish literature down to the present time the designation for Christians. The Church Fathers, Tertullian, for instance, knew this very well; and Epiphanius and Jerome say of a certain prayer alleged to be directed against the Christians that although the Jews say "Nazarenes" they mean "Christians". In the Koran also the Christians are called "Al-Naṣara." The name may be traced back to Nazareth, Jesus' birthplace. The Mandæans still designate themselves as "Nasoraya"; and they were formerly incorrectly regarded as the remnant of the Nazarenes.
History of the Crypto-Jews -- National Geographic Education
Hidden History
Rabbi Explains the Identity of the Crypto-Jews
Members of the Avde Torah Jayah synagogue celebrate Shabbat services. Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week, when religious services are traditionally held. Shabbat is observed from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. Rabi Gracía is the one with the long goatee.Raised as a Roman Catholic in Panama, Rabbi Yosef Garcia was 32 years old when he discovered he was Jewish.
Having grown up as an altar boy, Garcia was blown away when his great uncle told him the family was not Catholic. Rather, the Garcias are Crypto-Jews—Jewish people who for centuries appeared to be Catholic in order to avoid persecution.
“I had no idea about anything Jewish,” Rabbi Garcia says. “I didn’t know anyone Jewish. I didn’t know anything about the Jewish history or culture.”
After those initial feelings of confusion, Garcia fully embraced his newfound faith. Eight years later, he became a rabbi, the chief religious official of a synagogue. A synagogue is a place of worship for Jewish people. In 2004, Garcia co-founded The Association of Crypto-Jews of the Americas, whose mission he says is to help Crypto-Jews “return to the Jewish community living a full Jewish life.”
Garcia says the greatest concentrations of Crypto-Jews in the Americas are in Brazil and Mexico, though there is a sizeable population in the U.S. states of Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and California. The association is based in Chandler, Arizona.
Fleeing the Spanish Inquisition
Garcia says many Jewish people decided to conceal their true religious beliefs during the Spanish Inquisition of the late 1400s, when the Catholic rulers of Spain declared that all Jewish people should convert to Christianity or be expelled from the country.
“The Inquisition was designed to find those individuals who had converted to Christianity [but] who were not practicing Christianity to their level,” he says. “If not, then they would be tortured, killed, and their families would be killed as well.”
Thousands of Jews fled Spain. However, according to The Association of Crypto-Jews’ website, as many as 600,000 Jews converted to Christianity by the end of the 15th century. Some of these converted Jews secretly continued to practice Judaism—thus becoming Crypto-Jews, which means “hidden Jews.”
“What the people did is that they got very smart,” Garcia says. “They ate pork. They went to Catholic church. They had statues of the saints. They would make donations to the church. They did not circumcise their children. They never celebrated anything out in the open. They would just celebrate things behind closed doors, behind closed curtains. They got really good at hiding, but they practiced Jewish traditions.”
Hoping to escape persecution, Jews and Crypto-Jews moved to Africa, India, China, and new Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas. Unfortunately, the Inquisition followed the Jews to the “New World,” which meant the transplanted Jewish people had to continue to conceal their religious beliefs.
Family members did not reveal their Jewish heritage, even to their sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters, for fear of persecution.
“You could not tell anyone that you were Jewish,” Garcia says. “And you couldn’t allow your children to see you doing strange things. There were individuals who never realized they were Jewish their entire lives growing up. They simply went to church. A lot of them were altar boys. Some of them were even priests.”
Hidden Rituals
According to Garcia, some of the traditions Crypto-Jews continued to practice in secret concerned funeral customs, which differ from Catholic rituals for burying and honoring the dead.
For example, Jews traditionally attempt to bury the dead as soon as possible, while Catholics allow the body to be visited by loved ones before being placed in the ground. In addition, followers of Judaism are supposed to cover mirrors with cloth in the homes where they are grieving. Crypto-Jews honored both Jewish traditions.
Sometimes, Crypto-Jews found clever ways of following their own customs while appearing to adhere to Catholicism.
“Every family who was under extreme scrutiny would have a statue of the Virgin Mary in their house,” Garcia explains. “Now, what they would do is take the mezuzah, which is a small, square kind of box with the word of God [the Jewish prayer “Shema Yisrael”] on it, and they would carve out the bottom of the statue. And they would put this mezuzah in the feet of the statue. Every time they walked in and out of the house, they would appear to be touching and kissing the feet of the statue, but they were actually touching and kissing the mezuzah.”
Looking back on his own childhood, the rabbi recalls his grandmother lighting candles every Friday night and singing songs in a language he didn’t understand at the time.
“I realized later on,” Garcia says, “that she was actually saying a Hebrew prayer.”
Israel seeks to end ancient Ethiopian Jewish customs
Ethiopian Jews spent millennia isolated from the rest of the Jewish world • Israel's rabbinate seeks to eliminate the kessoch, the Ethiopian Jewish clergy who continued the traditions of biblical priests, sacrificing animals and collecting the first fruits of the harvest.
Abio, an Ethiopian kess, Amharic for priest, attends a wedding celebration in Ashkelon, southern Israel on Jan. 14Nearly three decades after Israel began airlifting Ethiopia's ancient Jewish community out of the Horn of Africa, Israel's rabbis are now working to phase out the community's white-turbaned clergy, the kessoch, whose unusual religious practices are at odds with the rabbinate's Orthodox Judaism.
The effort has added to the sense of discrimination felt by Israel's 120,000 Ethiopian citizens. These sentiments boiled over this month after a group of landlords in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi refused to accept them as tenants, prompting a large rally planned for Wednesday outside the Knesset.
"We are just like all the other Jews. We don't have any other religion," said Kess Semai Elias, 42.
Believed by some to be descendants of the lost Israelite tribe of Dan, Ethiopian Jews spent millennia isolated from the rest of the Jewish world. In most Jewish communities, the priests of the Bible were replaced by rabbis who emphasized textual study and prayer. Ethiopia's Jewish clergy, the kessoch, continued the traditions of the biblical priests, sacrificing animals and collecting the first fruits of the harvest.
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The two traditions diverged so much that the first trickle of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants to Israel were asked to undergo a quickened conversion ceremony to appease rabbis who were dubious about their religious pedigrees.
When Israeli clandestine operations rescued large groups of Ethiopian Jews from war and famine in the 1980s and early 1990s, a rabbinic consensus was reached and the newcomers did not have to convert — except for a group known as the Falash Mura, whose ancestors had been forcibly converted to Christianity generations earlier.
The 58 kessoch who arrived in Israel in those early days maintained their leadership role in the Ethiopian Jewish community, and in 1992 successfully lobbied the Israeli government to grant them salaries and status similar to those of government rabbis. But as the aging clergy began ordaining a new generation of kessoch over the past decade, and those new leaders also wanted recognition, Israel's rabbinate objected.
After public demonstrations and a brief hunger strike, the newly ordained kessoch struck a bittersweet deal last month with Israel's Religious Services Ministry. The agreement will see the ministry finally implementing a 2010 government resolution to recognize 13 kessoch and give them state salaries. But Israel's state rabbis have made it very clear that these new kessoch will be the last.
"It's for the best," said Rabbi Yosef Hadana, 63, of the Israeli rabbinate.
Himself the son of a respected kess, Hadana long ago traded the shash, the white turban of his father's tradition, for the black suit and fedora of ultra-Orthodox Jews.
"After 2,500 years of isolation from the nation of Israel, we have returned. Now we need to find a way to be one people," Hadana said.
Hadana said he had great respect for the kessoch, who had spun tales of Jerusalem's splendor at evening storytelling sessions and had kept Ethiopian Jewry’s religious tradition alive. But he said that anyone in Israel who wanted to continue that tradition had to have rabbinic training. Streamlining their religious practice could help integrate Ethiopian immigrants into Israeli society, he said.
Ethiopian-Israelis have long struggled in Israel, with literacy rates relatively low, the culture gap wide and rates of poverty and domestic violence well above the national average.
Many of the older generation have menial jobs, with the men working as security guards and the women as cleaners.
The immigrants have also long complained of discrimination. In the late 1990s it was discovered that Israel's health services were throwing out Ethiopian-Israelis' blood donations over fears of diseases contracted in Africa.
This is not the first time in history that Ethiopian Jews have been asked to reform. Jacques Faitlovitch, one of the first Jewish outsiders to meet the community, told the kessoch back in 1904 that they would have to stop antiquated Paschal sacrifices if they wanted acceptance in the wider Jewish world.
Polish-born Faitlovitch also pushed the Ethiopians to stop Judaism's last existing monastic tradition. Ethiopia's last Jewish monk spent his final days in Israel, secluded in a synagogue annex and preparing his own food for reasons of purity. He died about 10 years ago.
Other traditions, like priestly tithes and huts for menstruating women, were also given up upon moving to Israel.
Still, the kessoch, easily recognized by their ceremonial fly-swatting tassels and rainbow-colored sunbrellas, are not ready to be relegated to history. First-generation Ethiopian immigrants still call on them to adjudicate family conflicts, lead funeral prayers, and slaughter meat according to tradition.
Israel only recently allowed kessoch into butcheries to slaughter their own animals — even though their method is not considered kosher by rabbinic standards.
But the rabbis have put their feet down when it comes to marriage. To be legal, weddings must be presided over by state-recognized rabbis and include mainstream Jewish practices.
Despite the country's secular majority, Israel’s Orthodox rabbis strictly govern Jewish weddings. Israel does not recognize civil marriages, intermarriages or marriages performed by rabbis from the more liberal Reform and Conservative branches of Judaism, unless they took place abroad.
Israeli rabbis have now agreed to train the 13 new kessoch to perform marriages the mainstream Jewish way. For most of the kessoch, this is such a slap in the face that they cannot bear to show up at the weddings of their own community members. Instead, they perform their own private wedding ceremonies for the newlyweds a few days later — a modest re-enactment of the week-long marriage celebrations they used to hold back in Africa.
At one nighttime ceremony in seaside Ashkelon, women in embroidered cotton robes bounced their shoulders to African beats. Family and friends greeted the couple with the toot of a golden horn. Honey beer flowed from a steel kettle, and an army of men scooped curried lamb — slaughtered by the presiding kess — onto flat injera bread.
Newly ordained Kess Abiyu Azariya, 44, pushed his way to the head of the dance floor. Wearing a white turban and shawl, he recited the wedding blessings in the ancient Ethiopian tongue, Geez. "I am singing these prayers to remind the young people what a wedding was like in Ethiopia," he told the crowd in spoken Amharic.
But the young people were nowhere in sight. Most of the 300 revelers in the room were of the older generation. The dozen young Ethiopian-Israelis who showed up that evening were outside drinking cheap Israeli beer and fiddling with their smartphones. When asked about the practice, they were ambivalent.
"I hope it continues, but it probably won't," said David Nadou, 24, shrugging.
The newly ordained kessoch are trying to work against that tide. Kess Semai says they are close to ordaining yet another group of 30 kessoch — even though Israel vows not to recognize any more.
"We kept this tradition for more than 2,500 years," Kess Semai said. "Our community won't allow in the span of 30 years for this tradition to be erased completely."
The Other Zions
Jewish history has been viewed by two paradigms. The Jews with in their own land enjoying political independence and Jews living in the Diaspora under the yoke of a gentile government. What has been neglected is Jewish state craft outside the holy land. Jews living in communities outside of Israel have often lived in autonomous communities. They would run their day to day affair while religious authorities governed religious life. The community would pay its taxes and be left to run its affairs. The Jewish courts and religious leadership was run by the Rabbis. Rabbinical Judaism eschewed political power. None the less it provided the Jewish people with a model for self governance.
There were many legends that stated the Israelite Tribes had powerful Kingdoms somewhere further to the East. The Red Jews (they were Israelite, not Jews, ancestors of the western Europeans) where supposedly locked up by Alexander the Great behind some big mountain and would one day reappear to wreak havoc on Christian Europe for all the trouble they caused their Jewish minority. Other stories abound about an Israelite Kingdom just beyond the Sambatyon River that roes with stones and only stops on the Sabbath. They are so powerful that Pester John has built fortifications along the river to stop any military advance. To the non-Jews this evoked fantasies of the Israelites taking vengeance or possibly helping them take the Holy Land from the Muslim. For the Jews who were powerless and dispossessed it was a fantasy to be relished.
Eldad Ha Dani was a dark skinned Jew (a Tutsi, to specify) who showed up in Europe according to him around 4 tribes had held dominion somewhere in Africa. They lived under no gentile yolk in the mountains and people paid them tribute. It is questionable how much of what he says is real.
Never the less there was a sort of Jewish autonomy in Ethiopia. In the hill country of Lake Tana there was a tribal federation of Jews that was independent from the king. The big question is where did these Jews come from? Some thought they were from a Union of Queen Sheba and Solomon, others say they were from the Tribe of Dan still even others say they came from Yemen and Elephantine in Egypt. Elephantine island in the Nile river, southern Egypt, was celebrated for its old Jewish community & temple. In ancient times was called Yeb. Ethiopian Christianity and Judaism follow many commandments from the Old Testament. The Ethiopian used a language called Geez and they had no Hebrew document or history of using the tongue. They also hired Christian scribes to write their holy books.
Ethiopian Jews had very little in common with Rabbinic Judaism. They had monastic practices among other differences. They sprung from Ethiopian Christian in defiance to political authority (more so the other way round). Nonetheless they immigrated to Israel because a Rabbi said they were from the Tribe of Dan.
The most famous example of Jewish state craft outside of Israel is the kingdom of Khazaria. They were located around the black sea in Russia. There are various legends as to their origin and how they became Jewish. Hasdai Ibn Shaprut wrote to them and was in contact with the King named Joseph. The King and al the Noble were Jewish. King Bulan was the first king to adopt a simple version of Judaism. It is said that he had a dream from God and from that Dream he chased out all the Wizard and Shamans. It was King Obadiah who brought the Kingdom up to date with Rabbinical Judaism. There are questions as to how Jewish the Kingdom was. Some sources say that the entire kingdom was Jewish but Arab travelers like Ibn Fadlan said that Khazaria had a mix of Christians, Jews and Muslims, along with Pagans. They had a court much like a Sanhedrin which was comprised of members of all faiths. Bulan also staged debates between the three main monotheistic religions in order to determine which one was best for the Kingdom.
Another legend says that a group of Jews fled from Armenia due to oppression by idol worshippers. They had their Torah scrolls hidden in a cave. When the Jews came to Khazaria they melded with the population and their Judaism became watered down. Back then they had warlords who took command when the country was under attack. Once such warlord was Sabriel, a Jew. After being militarily victorious he found the scrolls and was elected king. From that point on he re Jewifies the country.
The Khazars would later fall to the Russ Vikings.
Other examples of Jewish state craft took place in Arabia. In Northern Arabia the Jews many who fled from Roman oppression adopted to the life style of the Arabs. Some Arabs became Jewish and /or borrowed Jewish customs. In Northern Arabia there were city-states that were founded by Jews. Medina and Khaybar are such examples. These Jews were powerful and wealthy. Muhammad and his introduction to Islam would change all that.
In Medina their were three Jewish Tribes and two non Jewish tribes. There were alliances and conflicts. Muhammad was known as an astute judge. Some how the table turned and Muhammad turned against the Jews. The first two tribes were made to leave and they went to Khaybar. The last one chose to fight. They were defeated by Muhammad’s forces after putting up stiff resistance. All the men were killed and the women and children were sold into slavery.
Khaybar soon would fall as well. Expected help would never arrive and there were induced in to platitude by Muhammad's delay of invading them. Eventually he did attack and the Jews of Khaybar put up stiff resistance. Eventually they surrendered and had to give up half their crop in tribute. This impoverished the Jews. Many chose to convert to Islam to escape the heavy tax burden. Eventually the community melted away. There were rumors of Jewish Tribes wandering around Arabia even up until modern times.
Further to the South the Himyarite Kingdom came to fruition. This was located in Yemen. They became a powerful kingdom and had an impact of Arabian society in general. King Tuba went to wage war on Medina the Jewish city state. Instead of invading he ended up meeting two Rabbis and became so impressed with their sagacity that he ended converting to Judaism. Eventually the Whole kingdom became Jewish. He took on a Jewish wife and had several children. Joseph Dhu Nawas either an offspring or grandchild completed the thing and brought the kingdom up to speed with Rabbinical Judaism.
However thanks to Wars against Ethiopia and Christianity that kingdom was soon overrun. A puppet king was installed and Ethiopian soldiers took advantage of the Land. Eventually there was another Jewish uprising against the rule.
Another example of Jewish State craft was the State of Adiabene located in Northern Mesopotamia in the Parthian Empire which was at odds with the Roman empire. The Roman Empire was oppressing the Jews of Judea. Josephus has a story that two Jews came to a province in Parthia and usurped the area and made it their own. The King of Parthia two busy to do other things reluctantly agreed to it. Adiabene was an independent Jewish kingdom, but satellite of Parthia.
Another version has king Monzabus marrying his sister Helena and having a child with her called Izates. in a dream it was determined that he was destined for great things. Monzabus began practicing Judaism or a primitive form of monotheism. When he died Izates took the throne. At first he did not formally convert due to fear of alienating the populace. Helena and Izates would later on be influenced to do a full conversion. They were noted for their scrupulousness in observance of Miztvot.
The Empire of Kitara (also known as Bachwezi, Bacwezi, or Chwezi empire) is a strong part of oral tradition in the area of the Great Lakes of Africa, including the modern countries of Uganda, northern Tanzania, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. This was a Tutsi Jewish empire, but there were in the area several other Tutsi Jewish kingdoms.
Even the celebrated medieval Israelite explorer Eldad ha Dani ben Mahli is regarded as being a Tutsi Israelite. His name even indicates the tribe of Israel that he belonged to. Was Dan obviously.
The final hope for a homeland was in Russia and it was called the Jewish Autonomous republic. On paper it is still there. In reality not many Jews live there (but it's believed that a large amount of gentiles are Jewish really). It was designed to be a buffer state between Russia and China. It never really took off due to antisemitism and primitive living condition. Yiddish was to be it's official language. In Europe at the Time there were three trends regarding the Jewish problem. One was assimilation, another autonomy and the other Zionism. We obviously know who won the day.
The United States Constitution Is Built on the Ten Commandments
(which are also Christian Principles):
Samuel Langdon, The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States (1788)
THE REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED STATES IS BUILT ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. Note that this sermon was preached in 1788---after the framing of the United States Constitution in 1787.
Of that Constitution, Langdon stated: "That as God in the course of his kind providence hath given you an excellent constitution of government, founded on the most rational, equitable, and liberal principles, by which all that liberty is secured which a people can reasonably claim, and you are impowered to make righteous laws for promoting public order and good morals; and as he has moreover given you by his Son Jesus Christ, who is far superior to Moses, a complete revelation of his will, and a perfect system of true religion, plainly delivered in the sacred writings; it will be your wisdom in the eyes of the nations, and your true interest and happiness, to conform your practice in the strictest manner to the excellent principles of your government, adhere faithfully to the doctrines and commands of the gospel, and practice every public and private virtue. By this you will increase in numbers, wealth, and power, and obtain reputation and dignity among the nations; whereas, the contrary conduct will make you poor, distressed, and contemptible."
"[E]quitable" referred to principles of natural equity: i.e., moral law, expressed by the Ten Commandments (and indeed, throughout the rest of the Bible), and discerned by the conscience as a sense of justice, of right and wrong. Therefore, the principles of the Constitution should always accord with the moral law. This applies whether or not one takes an "originalist" or a "living" view of the Constitution, since in the end, both arrive at the same place: The United States Constitution was founded on moral law principles (hence the "originalist" should be devoted to them), and the moral law is universal, literally for all places and all times (hence the "living Constitutionalist" should be devoted to it, as well).
"Soon after this Sermon was delivered, the Convention of the State of New Hampshire, met according to adjournment, and on the twenty-first day of June accepted the proposed general Constitution of government. This being the ninth State which has acceded to this form of national Union, it will be carried into effect; and there is no reason to doubt of the speedy accession of all the other States, which are now debating on the important question. May all rejoice in the Lord, who has formed us into a nation, and honour him as our Judge, Lawgiver, and King, who hath saved us, and will save us from all enemies and fears, if we thankfully receive and rightly improve his great mercies."
"[H]onour him as our Judge, Lawgiver, and King": That's an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of God over human government. Yet at the same time, it was a government of "we, the people", for Langdon wrote in 1788 regarding the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia: "The general form of such a constitution hath already been drawn up, and presented to the people, by a convention of the wisest and most celebrated patriots in the land: eight of the states have approved and accepted it, with full testimonies of joy: and if it passes the scrutiny of the whole, and recommends itself to be universally adopted, we shall have abundant reason to offer elevated thanksgivings to the supreme Ruler of the universe for a government completed under his direction."
The people are given their power by God; the people exercise their power under God's sovereignty ("one nation under God"). This is the definition of republican government; this is the same as the rule of law. "The power in all our republics is acknowledged to originate in the people: it is delegated by them to every magistrate and officer; and to the people all in authority are accountable, if they deviate from their duty, and abuse their power. Even the man, who may be advanced to the chief command of these United States, according to the proposed constitution; whose office resembles that of a king in other nations, which has always been thought so sacred that they have had no conception of bringing a king before the bar of justice; even he depends on the choice of the people for his temporary and limited power, and will be liable to impeachment, trial, and disgrace for any gross misconduct." This is the rule of law.
"Wisdom is the gift of God, and social happiness depends on his providential government; therefore, if these states have framed their constitutions with superior wisdom, and secured their natural rights, and all the advantages of society, with greater precaution than other nations, we may with good reason affirm that God hath given us our government; that he hath taught us good statutes and judgments, tending to make us great and respectable in the view of the world." This is what is meant by the oft-used phrases "America is a Christian nation", "America's Christian heritage", and "America has a Christian government".
"Wisdom is the gift of God, and social happiness depends on his providential government; therefore, if these states have framed their constitutions with superior wisdom, and secured their natural rights, and all the advantages of society, with greater precaution than other nations, we may with good reason affirm that God hath given us our government; that he hath taught us good statutes and judgments, tending to make us great and respectable in the view of the world." This is what is meant by the oft-used phrases "America is a Christian nation", "America's Christian heritage", and "America has a Christian government".
The following are excerpts from: Samuel Langdon (1723-1797), The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States. A Sermon, Preached at Concord, in the State of New Hampshire; Before the Honorable General Court at the Annual Election, June 5, 1788. By Samuel Langdon, D.D. Pastor of the Church in Hampton Falls. Exeter: Printed by Lamson and Ranlet, 1788.
Samuel Langdon also authored Government Corrupted by Vice in 1775. He graduated from Harvard College in 1740 during the administration of Governor Jonathan Belcher (1682-1757), when that governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire was also an Overseer of Harvard College. (The patriot Samuel Adams was also in the class of 1740.) Langdon later went on to become a Harvard College president.
There is a remarkable paragraph in the sacred writings, which may be very well accommodated to my present purpose, and merits particular attention.
You have it in DEUTERONOMY, IV, 5-8. Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, who shall hear all these statutes, and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people: for what nation is there so great, which hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? and what nation is there so great, which hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day.
You have it in DEUTERONOMY, IV, 5-8. Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, who shall hear all these statutes, and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people: for what nation is there so great, which hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? and what nation is there so great, which hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day.
Here Moses recommends to Israel the strict observance of all the laws which he had delivered to them by God's command, relating both to their civil polity and religion, as the sure way to raise their reputation high among all nations as a wise and understanding people; because no other nation was blessed with such excellent national laws, or the advantage of applying to the oracle of the living God, and praying to him in all difficulties, with assurance that all their requests would be answered.
As to every thing excellent in their constitution of government, except what was peculiar to them as a nation separated to God from the rest of mankind, the Israelites may be considered as a pattern to the world in all ages; and from them we may learn what will exalt our character, and what will depress and bring us to ruin.
Let us therefore look over their constitution and laws, enquire into their practice, and observe how their prosperity and fame depended on their strict observance of the divine commands both as to their government and religion.
They had both a civil and military establishment under divine direction, and a complete body of judicial laws drawn up and delivered to them by Moses in God's name. They had also a form of religious worship, by the same authority, minutely prescribed, designed to preserve among them the knowledge of the great Creator of the Universe, and teach them to love and serve him; while idolatry prevailed through the rest of the world: and this religion contained not only a public ritual, but a perfect, though very concise, system of morals, comprehended in ten commands, which require the perfection of godliness, benevolence, and rectitude of conduct.
When first the Israelites came out from the bondage of Egypt, they were a multitude without any other order than what had been kept up, very feebly, under the ancient patriarchal authority. They were suddenly collected into a body under the conduct of Moses, without any proper national or military regulation. Yet in the short space of about three months after they had passed the red sea, they were reduced into such civil and military order, blended together, by the advice of Jethro, as was well adapted to their circumstances in the wilderness while destitute of property. Able men were chosen out of all their tribes, and made captains and rulers of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens: and these commanded them as military officers, and acted as judges in matters of common controversy.
But the great thing wanting was a permanent constitution, which might keep the people peaceable and obedient while in the desert, and after they had gained possession of the promised land.
Therefore, upon the complaint of Moses that the burden of government was too heavy for him, God commanded him to bring seventy men, chosen from among the elders and officers, and present them at the tabernacle; and there he endued them with the same spirit which was in Moses, that they might bear the burden with him. Thus a Senate was evidently constituted, as necessary for the future government of the nation, under a chief commander. And as to the choice of this Senate, doubtless the people were consulted, who appear to have had a voice in all public affairs from time to time, the whole congregation being called together on all important occasions: the government therefore was a proper republic.
Therefore, upon the complaint of Moses that the burden of government was too heavy for him, God commanded him to bring seventy men, chosen from among the elders and officers, and present them at the tabernacle; and there he endued them with the same spirit which was in Moses, that they might bear the burden with him. Thus a Senate was evidently constituted, as necessary for the future government of the nation, under a chief commander. And as to the choice of this Senate, doubtless the people were consulted, who appear to have had a voice in all public affairs from time to time, the whole congregation being called together on all important occasions: the government therefore was a proper republic.
And beside this general establishment, every tribe had elders and a prince according to the patriarchal order, with which Moses did not interfere; and these had an acknowledged right to meet and consult together, and with the consent of the congregation do whatever was necessary to preserve good order, and promote the common interest of the tribe. So that the government of each tribe was very similar to the general government. There was a President and Senate at the head of each, and the people assembled and gave their voice in all great matters: for in those ages the people in all republics were entirely unacquainted with the way of appointing delegates to act for them, which is a very excellent modern improvement in the management of republics.
Moreover, to compleat the establishment of civil government, courts were to be appointed in every walled city, after their settlement in Canaan, and elders most distinguished for wisdom and integrity were to be made judges, ready always to sit and decide the common controversies within their respective jurisdictions. The people had a right likewise to appoint such other officers as they might think necessary for the more effectual execution of justice, according to that order given in DEUT. 16. 18, 19. --- "Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee throughout thy tribes; and they shall judge the people with just judgment: thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift; for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous." --- But from these courts an appeal was allowed in weighty causes to higher courts appointed over the whole tribe, and in very great and difficult cases to the supreme authority of the general Senate and chief magistrate.
A government, thus settled on republican principles, required laws; without which it must have degenerated immediately into aristocracy, or absolute monarchy. But God did not leave a people wholly unskilled in legislation, to make laws for themselves: he took this important matter wholly into his own hands, and beside the moral laws of the two tables, which directed their conduct as individuals, gave them by Moses a complete code of judicial laws. They were not numerous indeed, but concise and plain, and easily applicable to almost every controversy which might arise between man and man, and every criminal case which might require the judgment of the court. Of these some were peculiarly adapted to their national form, as divided into tribes and families always to be kept distinct; others were especially suited to the peculiar nature of the government as a theocracy, God himself being eminently their king, and manifesting himself among them in a visible manner, by the cloud of glory in the tabernacle and temple. This was the reason why blasphemy, and all obstinate disobedience to his laws, were considered as high treason, and punished with death; especially idolatry, as being a crime against the fundamental principles of the constitution. But far the greater part of the judicial laws were founded on the plain immutable principles of reason, justice, and social virtue; such as are always necessary for civil society. Life and property were well guarded, and punishments were equitably adapted to the nature of every crime: in particular, murder stands foremost among capital crimes, and is defined with such precision, and so clearly distinguished from all cases of accidental and undesigned killing, that the innocent were in no danger of punishment, and the guilty could not escape.
How unexampled was this quick progress of the Israelites, from abject slavery, ignorance, and almost total want of order, to a national establishment perfected in all its parts far beyond all other kingdoms and States! from a mere mob, to a well regulated nation, under a government and laws far superior to what any other nation could boast!
It was a long time after the law of Moses was given before the rest of the world knew any thing of government by law. Where kings reigned their will was a law. Where popular governments were formed, the capricious humour of the multitude ordered every thing just according to present circumstances; or their senators and judges were left to act according to their best discretion. It was six hundred years after Moses before the Spartans, the most famous of the Grecian republics, received a very imperfect, and in some particulars very absurd code of laws from Lycurgus. After this feeble attempt of legislation, three hundred years more elapsed before Solon appeared and gave laws to Athens, though a city long famous for arms, arts, eloquence, and philosophy. And it was about five hundred years from the first founding of the celebrated Roman empire, and nearly three hundred years after Solon, before the first laws of that empire were imported from Greece in twelve (after the Israelite tribes? After all part of the Greeks were Israelites)tables, by ten ambassadors sent there for that purpose. But even when that empire had attained the summit of glory, and legislation was carried to great perfection, however well adapted to a government so extensive and complicate their laws might be, they were far from being worthy to be compared with the laws of Israel, as to the security of life, liberty, property, and public morals: and as to their religion, which was from the beginning interwoven with the state, instead of receiving any greater perfection from the increase of knowledge, wealth and power, it only became a more abundant congeries of ridiculous and detestable superstitions. Moreover; when the Roman empire was overwhelmed and destroyed by an inundation of barbarous nations, and many kingdoms were erected in Europe out of its ruins by the conquerors, laws were extinct under the feudal system; the will of the barons was a law for their vassals; and but a few centuries have past since kings began to introduce law into their courts of justice. And now, though legislation has been carried to such perfection in Great Britain, that land of knowledge and liberty, yet in a political and judicial view the laws of that kingdom may be charged with many great faults, which ought not to be copied: particularly, the tediousness, voluminous bulk, intricacy, barbarous language, and uncertain operation of many of them as to equity, ought to be avoided by legislators who wish for an easy and speedy course of justice among a free people. And perhaps our own courts might be so reformed as to prevent cases of inconsiderable value, and easy decision, from rising through all the stages of the law. Against these imperfections good provision was made in the law of Moses, and it might be much for our advantage to pay greater attention to that example.
Upon a review of what has been said, must it not appear quite unaccountable, that the Israelites should so speedily attain to such an height of good policy and legislation, beyond all other nations? Are we not constrained to acknowledge an intermediate interposition and direction of heaven? Had the unexperienced multitude been left to themselves to draw up a system of civil and military government for themselves, it would have been entirely beyond their abilities to comprehend so complicated a subject; they must have committed innumerable mistakes, in attempting to introduce and establish it; they would have been in danger of jarring opinions, tumults, and insurrections; and probably before the design could be effected, discouragement and confusion would have forced them to surrender into the hands of despotism. But their God provided every thing necessary for their happiness, and nothing more was left to their own wisdom than to submit to his authority, and adhere strictly to his commands: by this, their reputation among the nations would have been equal to the excellency of their laws.
Now by the foregoing view of the general state of the nation during the time of the judges, we may plainly see the reason why, instead of rising to fame by the perfection of their polity, religion, and morals, their character sunk into contempt. But let us see whether they conducted better afterwards, under their kings.
It was their crime to demand such a king as was like the kings of other nations, i.e. a king with the same absolute power, to command all according to his own pleasure. In this view God only was their king, and the head of the nation was only to be his viceregent. Therefore as they had implicitly rejected the divine government, God gave them a king in his anger; the consequence of which was, the total loss of their republican form of government, and sad experience of the effects of despotic power. Indeed their religious establishment, which had been very much impaired in the days of the judges, was restored, and brought to its greatest glory, by David the most pious, and Solomon the wisest of kings; and during their reigns, the nation gained the height of grandeur; but no national senate was appointed, and the power of the kings continued to be despotic, and so the days of their prosperity were soon over. As soon as Rehoboam ascended the throne he openly avowed the most despotic principles, so that ten tribes revolted, and made Jeroboam their king.
Nor is it to be wondered at that false religion so easily gained ground; for the people grew very ignorant: no care was taken to instruct them, in their several cities, in the law of God; but, being without teachers, they were very little acquainted with their own religious institutions. For this reason when good king Jehoshaphat resolved upon a reformation in church and state, after having taken a circuit thro' his kingdom to "bring the people back to the Lord God of their fathers, he sent out some of his principal officers, with priests and levites, to teach the people in the cities of Judah; and these carried the book of the law with them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught them that religion which God commanded by Moses." It likewise appears by what immediately follows this account of his proceedings, that there had been a long omission of the administration of justice in the cities; that no courts had been kept up by the preceeding kings, or such as were corrupt, in which the judges paid little regard to law and equity: for the king "set judges in the land, throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city, and said unto the judges, take heed what ye do, for ye judge not for man but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment: wherefore now let the fear of Lord be upon you, take heed and do it, for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts." Repeated attempts were made by the few pious kings, to put a stop to the corruption of religion and morals; but all in vain; the people relapsed again and again into ignorance, idolatry, and wickedness: their vices had increased to the utmost degree of enormity in Jeremiah's time; and their complicated crimes at length brought upon them desolation and a long captivity.
Nor is it to be wondered at that false religion so easily gained ground; for the people grew very ignorant: no care was taken to instruct them, in their several cities, in the law of God; but, being without teachers, they were very little acquainted with their own religious institutions. For this reason when good king Jehoshaphat resolved upon a reformation in church and state, after having taken a circuit thro' his kingdom to "bring the people back to the Lord God of their fathers, he sent out some of his principal officers, with priests and levites, to teach the people in the cities of Judah; and these carried the book of the law with them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught them that religion which God commanded by Moses." It likewise appears by what immediately follows this account of his proceedings, that there had been a long omission of the administration of justice in the cities; that no courts had been kept up by the preceeding kings, or such as were corrupt, in which the judges paid little regard to law and equity: for the king "set judges in the land, throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city, and said unto the judges, take heed what ye do, for ye judge not for man but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment: wherefore now let the fear of Lord be upon you, take heed and do it, for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts." Repeated attempts were made by the few pious kings, to put a stop to the corruption of religion and morals; but all in vain; the people relapsed again and again into ignorance, idolatry, and wickedness: their vices had increased to the utmost degree of enormity in Jeremiah's time; and their complicated crimes at length brought upon them desolation and a long captivity.
And now let us just take a glance at their general state after the captivity in Babylon. When they returned to their own land they endeavored to conform their religion and government to the mosaic standard; idolatry was entirely purged out; they discovered great zeal for the law of their God and the instituted worship; they appointed a general senate of seventy elders, called by them the Sanhedrin, with a supreme magistrate at the head, for the government of the nation; and while their pious zeal continued they grew and prospered. But, according to the common course of things in the world, [...] the affairs of state were badly administered, and the highest honors were gained by favor, bribery, or violence; hypocrisy was substituted in the room of the true fear of God, and the practice of righteousness; all the vices natural to mankind daily increased.
Therefore upon the whole view we see, that the Israelites never attained to that fame and dignity among the nations which their constitution encouraged them to expect, because they took little care to practice agreeably to the good statutes and judgments given them by Moses. Their constitution both of government and religion was excellent in writing, but was never exemplified in fact.
APPLICATION.
And now, my fellow Citizens, and much honored Fathers of the State, you may be ready to ask --- "To what purpose is this long detail of antiquated history on this public occasion?" --- I answer --- Examples are better than precepts; and history is the best instructor both in polity and morals. --- I have presented you with the portrait of a nation, highly favoured by Heaven with civil and religious institutions, who yet, by not improving their advantages, forfeited their blessings, and brought contempt and destruction on themselves. If I am not mistaken, instead of the twelve tribes of Israel, we may substitute the thirteen States of the American union, and see this application plainly offering itself, viz. --- That as God in the course of his kind providence hath given you an excellent constitution of government, founded on the most rational, equitable, and liberal principles, by which all that liberty is secured which a people can reasonably claim, and you are impowered to make righteous laws for promoting public order and good morals; and as he has moreover given you by his Son Jesus Christ, who is far superior to Moses, a complete revelation of his will, and a perfect system of true religion, plainly delivered in the sacred writings; it will be your wisdom in the eyes of the nations, and your true interest and happiness, to conform your practice in the strictest manner to the excellent principles of your government, adhere faithfully to the doctrines and commands of the gospel, and practice every public and private virtue. By this you will increase in numbers, wealth, and power, and obtain reputation and dignity among the nations; whereas, the contrary conduct will make you poor, distressed, and contemptible.
The God of heaven hath not indeed visibly displayed the glory of his majesty and power before our eyes, as he came down in the sight of Israel on the burning mount; nor has he written with his own finger the laws of our civil polity: but the signal interpositions of divine providence, in saving us from the vengeance of a powerful irritated nation, from which we were unavoidably separated by their inadmissible claim of absolute parliamentary power over us; in giving us a WASHINGTON to be captain-general of our armies; in carrying us through the various distressing scenes of war and desolation, and making us twice triumphant over numerous armies, surrounded and captivated in the midst of their career; and finally giving us peace, with a large territory, and acknowledged independence; all these laid together fall little short of real miracles, and an heavenly charter of liberty for these United States. And when we reflect, how wonderfully the order of these states was preserved when government was dissolved, or supported only by feeble props; with how much sobriety, wisdom, and unanimity they formed and received the diversified yet similar constitutions in the different states; with what prudence, fidelity, patience, and success, the Congress have managed the general government, under the great disadvantages of a very imperfect and impotent confederation; we cannot but acknowledge that God hath graciously patronized our cause, and taken us under his special care, as he did his ancient covenant people.
Or we may consider the hand of God in another view. Wisdom is the gift of God, and social happiness depends on his providential government; therefore, if these states have framed their constitutions with superior wisdom, and secured their natural rights, and all the advantages of society, with greater precaution than other nations, we may with good reason affirm that God hath given us our government; that he hath taught us good statutes and judgments, tending to make us great and respectable in the view of the world. Only one thing more remains to complete his favor toward us; which is, the establishment of a general government, as happily formed as our particular constitutions, for the perfect union of these states. Without this, all that we glory in is lost; but if this should be effected, we may say with the greatest joy, --- "God hath done great things for us." --- The general form of such a constitution hath already been drawn up, and presented to the people, by a convention of the wisest and most celebrated patriots in the land: eight of the states have approved and accepted it, with full testimonies of joy: and if it passes the scrutiny of the whole, and recommends itself to be universally adopted, we shall have abundant reason to offer elevated thanksgivings to the supreme Ruler of the universe for a government completed under his direction *.
* Soon after this Sermon was delivered, the Convention of the State of New Hampshire, met according to adjournment, and on the twenty-first day of June accepted the proposed general Constitution of government. This being the ninth State which has acceded to this form of national Union, it will be carried into effect; and there is no reason to doubt of the speedy accession of all the other States, which are now debating on the important question. May all rejoice in the Lord, who has formed us into a nation, and honour him as our Judge, Lawgiver, and King, who hath saved us, and will save us from all enemies and fears, if we thankfully receive and rightly improve his great mercies.
Now our part is to make a wise improvement of what God grants us, and not neglect or despise our distinguishing privileges: for the best constitution, badly managed, will soon fall, and be changed into anarchy or tyranny. Without constant care of your families, you will have bad servants, and your estates will be wasted. So we must pay constant attention to the great family, if we desire to be a free and happy people.
The power in all our republics is acknowledged to originate in the people: it is delegated by them to every magistrate and officer; and to the people all in authority are accountable, if they deviate from their duty, and abuse their power. Even the man, who may be advanced to the chief command of these United States, according to the proposed constitution; whose office resembles that of a king in other nations, which has always been thought so sacred that they have had no conception of bringing a king before the bar of justice; even he depends on the choice of the people for his temporary and limited power, and will be liable to impeachment, trial, and disgrace for any gross misconduct. On the people, therefore, of these United States it depends whether wise men, or fools, good or bad men, shall govern them; whether they shall have righteous laws, a faithful administration of government, and permanent good order, peace, and liberty; or, on the contrary, feel insupportable burdens, and see all their affairs run to confusion and ruin.
Will you hear me patiently a little farther, while I say one thing more of very great importance, which I dare not suppress. I call upon you to preserve the knowledge of God in the land, and attend to the revelation written to us from heaven. If you neglect or renounce that religion taught and commanded us in the holy scriptures, think no more of freedom, peace, and happiness; the judgments of heaven will persue you. Religion is not a vain thing for you because it is your life: it has been the glory and defence of New England from the infancy of the settlements; let it be also our glory and protection. I mean no other religion than what is divinely prescribed, which God himself has delivered to us with equal evidence of his authority, and even superior to that given to Israel, and which he has as strictly commanded us to receive and observe. The holy scriptures are given as the only rule of our faith, worship and obedience, and if we are guided by this perfect rule, we shall keep the way of truth and righteousness, and obtain the heavenly glory.
While I thus earnestly exhort you to religion, it must be understood as equally an exhortation to every branch of morality; for without this all religion is vain. That excellent sentence of the wise king ought forever to be in our minds --- "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is the reproach of any people." --- Sobriety, good order, honesty, fidelity, industry, frugality, and the like virtues must prevail; public crimes against person or property must be restrained and punished; or a people cannot be happy. Therefore let all maintain rectitude of conduct, and practice every thing virtuous and praise-worthy among their neighbours, and be just and true in all their intercourse and commerce. Unite in assisting the government in the execution of all good laws: and let all the members of the body politic consider that their own happiness depends on the welfare of the whole.
Let no laws be wanting which good order, and the proper administration of government and justice require; but make no law which establisheth iniquity. And may I propose it, as worthy of your consideration, whether some reformation may not be necessary as to processes in our courts of justice: whether appeals from court to court are not allowed beyond reason and equity, in the plainest cases, and of too trivial value: by which some of our courts are made mere vehicles, justice is delayed, and the law made unnecessarily expensive, tedious and vexatious; and whether some method may not be thought of to determine the judgment of causes in lower or higher courts in proportion to their value and importance. I beg leave to say one word as to religion. With respect to articles of faith or modes of worship, civil authority have no right to establish religion. The people ought to choose their own ministers, and their own denomination, as our laws now permit them; but as far as religion is connected with the morals of the people, and their improvement in knowledge, it becomes of great importance to the state; and legislators may well consider it as part of their concern for the public welfare, to make provision that all the towns may be furnished with good teachers, that they may be impowered to make valid contracts, and that the fulfilment of such contracts should be secured against the fickle humours of men, who are always ready to shift from sect to sect, or make divisions in parishes that they may get free from all legal obligations to their ministers. Perhaps a little addition to the law already in force in this state might sufficiently secure the continuance of religious instruction, enlarge rather than diminish liberty of conscience, and prevent envyings, contentions, and crumbling into parties. Will you permit me now to pray in behalf of the people, that all the departments of government may be constantly filled with the wisest and best men; that his excellency the President may have the assistance of an able and faithful Council; that the administration of justice may be in the hands of judges and justices well qualified for their offices, who will not take bribes, or in any manner pervert judgment; in a word, that the constitution established may in every respect be well supported by your care, and that the people may know the blessings of good government by the union of your counsels, and the wisdom of your proceedings. May the Almighty King of kings always be in the midst of you, direct and assist you, impress your hearts with his fear, and grant present and future blessings in reward of your fidelity.
And now if I have delivered words of truth, agreeably to my text; and pointed out the sure way to be a prosperous and happy people; may these things sink deep into your hearts, and be accompanied with the divine blessing! May the general government of these United States, when established, appear to be the best which the nations have yet known, and be exalted by uncorrupted religion and morals! And may the everlasting gospel diffuse its Heavenly light, and spread righteousness, liberty, and peace, thro' the whole world. AMEN.
JOSEPH'S COLORFUL COAT
The 'Coat of Many Colors' that Joseph's father, Jacob, made for his favorite son has a symbolic meaning, as well as being a literal article of clothing. The story was leaving 'bread crumbs' for us to follow in order to locate the northern 'lost' tribes of Israel and Joseph's descendants.
The hidden meaning of Joseph's colorful coat can be found in the tartan plaids of the Celtic peoples, such as the Scottish and Irish tartans. These colors are also found in the COAT OF ARMS issued by Great Britain to certain individuals for notable work or contribution.
Before America was colonized, Great Britain was home to the descendants of Joseph, and still is to thousands, but the descendants of Joseph eventually out-grew the borders of the British Isles and today reside in much larger countries, such as the USA, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, as well as Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland.
As most Biblical readers know, Joseph spent most of his life in Egypt, second in command only to Djoser [notice how that name resembles that of our subject].
Joseph's descendants still display many of their ancestors love for Egypt in important symbology that continuously identifies them as Israelites. The Great Seal of the United States of America is an excellent example of revealing Joseph's descendants. Notice the pyramid and the all Seeing Eye - which originally signified the Eye of Horus, who was born of the 'virgin' mother, Isis. This is where the later story of the 'virgin' Mary and baby Jesus originated. Horus was, as the story goes, the son of RA. Notice too, how the name IS-RA-EL displays the letters for the parents of Horus; ISis-RA-EL [El meaning 'god'].
Joseph was an Israelite, aka Hebrew, and his children, Ephraim and Manasseh, were given the name 'Israel' by their grandfather, Jacob. The two grandsons would be tribes unto themselves with a great role to play down through history. For thousands of years, their roles would be far greater than that of Judah's role. Ephraim and Manasseh would become the greatest force in history, and as horns of a Unicorn they would push the nations together at the end of days.
0534 'amiyr {aw-meer'} = could this be the origin of Amer-ica apparently from 0559 (sense of self-exaltation)bough, branch, top, summit of tree, summit of mountain
The Separate Roles of Judah and Joseph
The Lost Ten Tribes will not be part of Judah. Only in the Last days just before or during the Messianic Era will Judah and Joseph re-unite. Until that time they will be separate.
The Lost Ten Tribes must therefore be sought for amongst an entity that is not part of Judah and not recognized by Judah. In the End Times recognition will come but it will not be easy.
Judah has prejudices and historical hang-ups to overcome and so does Joseph. A lot of dislike of Judah and wrong thoughts concerning Judah are still to be found amongst Joseph. I deal with people from Joseph everyday and I meet every extreme. On the whole these experiences serve to strengthen our conviction of Brit-Am truth though at the same time quite a few exceptions are encountered.
In the census figures of Ezra and Nechamia none of the Ten Tribes are mentioned but only people from Judah, benjamin, and Levi. All of the Prophets spoke of the Ten Tribes remaining separate and lost until the End Times. Nachmanides spoke of these issues in the Book of Redemption.
Ezekiel 37 speaks of the re-union of Judah and Joseph in the end times. Isaiah (11:11) spoke of the future re-union of Joseph and Judah. Isaiah in this passage implies that not only will the true halves have been separate until the end times but also a certain amount of antagonism may have existed between them on occasion.
[Isaiah 11:12] "AND HE SHALL SET UP AN ENSIGN FOR THE NATIONS, AND SHALL ASSEMBLE THE OUTCASTS OF ISRAEL, AND GATHER TOGETHER THE DISPERSED OF JUDAH FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH "
One side will not envy or vex the other AFTER the re-union. This implies that before the re-union there were occasions when elements amongst one side or the other were antagonistic to their brothers.
<<Concerning who did Isaiah pronounce this prophecy. He was speaking only concerning Judah and Joseph. Said Rabbi Shmuel son of Nachman in the name of Rabbi Yonathan, when Joseph and Judah were arguing the Holy Angels said to each other, Let us go down and see what is happening. Usually when a bull and a lion confront each other the bull retreats before the lion. In this case a bull (Joseph) and a lion (Judah) are arguing and there is a standoff. Jealousy will continue to abide between these two until the Messiah comes, as it says:
[Isaiah 11:13] "THE ENVY ALSO OF EPHRAIM SHALL DEPART, AND THE ADVERSARIES OF JUDAH SHALL BE CUT OFF: EPHRAIM SHALL NOT ENVY JUDAH, AND JUDAH SHALL NOT VEX EPHRAIM." (Tanchuma, VaYigash, 4).
<<In the past Jeroboam the son of Nebat who was from Ephraim hated King Rehoboam who was from Judah. There was a controversy between them. In the future there will be peace between these two anointed leaders. They will not be jealous of each other. Concerning them, it says:
[Isaiah 11:13] "THE ENVY ALSO OF EPHRAIM SHALL DEPART, AND THE ADVERSARIES OF JUDAH SHALL BE CUT OFF: EPHRAIM SHALL NOT ENVY JUDAH, AND JUDAH SHALL NOT VEX EPHRAIM ."
<<Everywhere you find these two tribes (Judah and Joseph) hating each other and antagonistic to each other, etc. May we infer from this that even the future Anointed Captain of War who will arise from Joseph and the Anointed Messiah who will arise from Judah will (Heaven forbid) be jealous of each other? No. There will be no antagonism between them:
[Isaiah 11:13] "THE ENVY ALSO OF EPHRAIM SHALL DEPART, AND THE ADVERSARIES OF JUDAH SHALL BE CUT OFF: EPHRAIM SHALL NOT ENVY JUDAH, AND JUDAH SHALL NOT VEX EPHRAIM."
EPHRAIM represents all the Ten Tribes.
WHO HARASS JUDAH SHALL BE CUT OFF: Anti-Semites will be punished.
EPHRAIM SHALL NOT BE JEALOUS OF JUDAH: A lot of anti-Semitism is due to jealousy.
JUDAH SHALL NOT HARASS EPHRAIM: Jewish do-gooders and hyper-active individuals etc sometimes antagonize other people.
