Armstrongism and the Neanderthal Key

Because the vital key that unlocks prophecy to our understanding had been lost. That KEY is the IDENTITY of the United States and the British peoples in Biblical prophecy. That KEY has been found!

Herbert W. Armstrong,
The United States and Britain in Prophecy

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There is no use trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Lewis Carroll,
Through the Looking Glass

It would be unexpected to anyone that the discovery of bones in Germany in 1856 would lead to the identification of a prehistoric hominid species, the Neanderthals, and this discovery could have a profound effect on Armstrongism over a century later. Neanderthals have been the subject of intensive research and the body of scientific literature on them is large. They will not be described further in this writing but it is important to mention that the entire Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010 and evidence of admixture with the ancestors of modern humans were identified. A foundational belief in Armstrongism is British-Israelism. The Neanderthal component in the modern human genome makes a highly significant statement about British-Israelism.

Genetics, Neanderthals and the Armstrongist Story of Israel

HWA maintained that a collection of modern nations comprise the people known in the Bible to be descended from Jacob (Israel). This includes the people of the British Isles, Jews, and various Northwest European peoples. The assertion that these people are all descended from Jacob is genetically impossible. Relying on the Biblical account, we know that Jacob was haplogroup J (“haplogroup” means y-chromosome haplogroup throughout the text) by noting that he is a descendant of Abraham. The Jews and the Adnani Arabs both claim descent from Abraham and both are haplogroup J (see work of Dr. Spencer Wells). This means that Abraham’s male descendants, including Jacob, will be haplogroup J. Y –chromosome haplogroups are inherited in the masculine line only. The peoples of the British Isles and the peoples of Northwest Europe are principally haplogroup R1b. The Jews are haplogroup J. Israel could not have been the father of Judah, Levi, and Simeon (haplogroup J) and also the father the other brothers (haplogroup R). This can only happen if there was what genealogists call a “non-parental event.” Non-parental events would include adoption or illegitimacy. 

As we have seen, if we apply principles of genetics to the Biblical genealogies, all the descendants of Israel are haplogroup J. (Note that all peoples have absorbed outsiders over time. The modern-day Jews also harbor other haplogroups besides J but J is the principal modern and ancient Jewish haplogroup.) This decisively excludes the British and other Northwest Europeans from the House of Israel. Among believers in British-Israelism, much is made of the fact that the Jews are not Israel. But this is a trivial point of nomenclature and has no genetic bearing. And it is not possible that the British and Northwest Europeans mutated from haplogroup J to haplogroup R in the generations after Jacob. The genetic distance between R and J is too great for that to be a possibility and rates of mutation are not remotely that rapid. Also, a hard biological constraint is that human haplogroups in the genome are related to each other in a hierarchical structure and this supposition would violate that structure. In addition, there is a well-defined archaeology connecting the Western Europeans to the ancient Steppe Pastoralists who came out of the north Russian steppes (see Dr. David Reich’s book “Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past,” 2019)

Though we know from genetics that British-Israelism is a myth, as discussed above, the validity of this conclusion is corroborated by Neanderthal ancestry among the people of Europe and the Middle East. Asians have more Neanderthal ancestry than other races. Next, are Europeans. The people with the least Neanderthal ancestry are sub-Saharan Africans. Some tribes in the sub-Sahara have no Neanderthal ancestry. This is because modern humans originated in African and did not encounter Neanderthals until they migrated to Europe and Asia where Neanderthals lived. The haplogroup J people of the Middle East have less Neanderthal ancestry than Asians and Europeans but more than sub-Saharan Africans. The spectrum difference in the relative proportion of Neanderthal ancestry points out that Europeans, including the British and Northwest Europeans, derive from a different source than the haplogroup J people of the Middle East. These two groups, the Jews in this case and Northwest Europeans, have different long-duration migrational and genetic histories vis-à-vis Neanderthals. This leads to the inescapable conclusion that the British and other Northwest Europeans are not descended from Israel. 

The Missing Dimension in Armstrongist British-Israelism

Herbert W. Armstrong and Herman Hoeh did not have the benefit of the science of genetics at the time they developed the Armstrongist canon on race.  Perhaps, if there could have been a primer on genetics in the library in Des Moines, British-Israelism would never have been incorporated into Armstrongism.  But it was adopted and this was an influential factor in setting the direction of the development of Armstrongism in belief and practice.  British-Israelism has unfortunately attracted a significant number of people to Armstrongist congregations who want or who have grown to be comfortable with a racialized belief system, who want to believe they are special to god above others not because of their faith but because of their racial status.  Perhaps, in time the Armstrongist churches will evaluate the scientific evidence and eject from their beliefs this odd blend of mythology, racism and conspiracy theory that is British-Israelism.    One key that supports that ejection is the Neanderthal heritage in the modern human genome. 

NEO