Ancient Celts (Fair Use)
Ancient Celts, British-Israelism and Me
By Scout the Gael
I am a conundrum for British-Israelism. I recently got a result from a genetic testing service indicating my haplogroup down to the subclade. Like most people in Western Europe, I am R1b-M269 but that is a summary label. My ancestry follows a certain branch of the R1b tree. So, my full label or haplogroup is R1b1a2a1a2c1f2c1a. Judging from how little history there is about this haplogroup, it must not be very common. Or its members are unspectacular. But the testing service did mention this. A 4,000-year-old burial was excavated in Longniddry, East Lothian, Scotland of a man with this same haplogroup. To geneticists he is known as Gen Scot 22. And he lived back in Bronze Age Britain.
This was, of course, a long time ago. But I feel a connection to him because my haplogroup is a little uncommon. The testing service stated only 1 in 259 people they have evaluated has this haplogroup. And I like Scotland, I have visited there, and by family tradition my father’s family is Scottish. So, nothing disturbing there. And I could actually fit into the crowd shown in the picture above – but with short hair and a ball-cap. But it is significant that my Celtic ancestors were well-established in Scotland at the time of Abraham. And who knows when that haplogroup came into existence. It could have been thousands of years earlier than Gen Scot 22. These mutations are infrequent.
I read somewhere and now cannot find it that the ancient Jews knew about the Celts and did not like them. The Jews mentioned nothing about them being descendants of Israel. They just felt that they were disgusting. This was because the Ancient Celts had no institution of marriage. They copulated freely and the children born of these random unions were raised by the whole tribe. This is a genealogist’s nightmare, if genealogy could reach back that far. No marriage records. No birth records. And the Jews regarded this whole Haight-Ashbury lifestyle degenerate and disgraceful. How does that fit into Riverdance?
I am not sure being a Celt is such a good deal. I connected with a Ph.D. in genetics at a New Zealand University some years back. I wanted to know if my haplogroup was at the center of the Celtic Nation or at the periphery. A little vain, really. He said I was at the nucleus of the Celtic Nation but found the question odd. He stated that most people don’t want to be known as Celtic. It made me feel like White trash or a soccer rioter. But I think he was an English guy or as we Gaels say, a Sassenach (Saxon). For Celts to be labeled the Chosen People could give them a lift although that would be cruelly teasing someone with false hope.
The question is not how did Tea Tephi get to Ireland, the answer to which was always a little too facile for anyone to believe, but how could Scout’s “Israelite” ancestors be in Scotland before any migrations out of the ancient Israel might have happened. That observation can generate a lot of dissonance but you know how the dissonance reducers operate. They would say that the dating system is invalid. Or, these were descendants of other pre-Abrahamic Hebrews. Or I am lying about my results. Conspiracy always finds a way among those who love it. Or as Jesus said, “But wisdom is justified of all her children.”
I enjoy being an incarnate conundrum for British-Israelism. Before Abraham, my people were. So how could we be his descendants? My ancestors were totally Gentile but are now regarded by a few off-beat White Nationalists and religious denominations as Israelites. It’s time for the off-beat types to get a life.
Scout
33 comments:
I read that the Gaelic came from the area of Austria and Switzerland. Austria has been identified by Thiel as Assyria and Gether. Gether seems like a lost son of Shem. Maybe?
Great post Scout.
The Jews are a problem for BI proponents.
Mention Jews and naturally we think of Judah. But the unpleasant reality for them, is it means all Israel, as it was when Jesus walked through the Holy Land.
And the scripture is rather clear on that.
And as Jesus said, the Elijah to come was John the Baptist, clearly and distinctly, yet that is not sufficient for them. Blinkers cover their eyes to what actually is written.
The early practices of the Celtic and early European societies were repulsive and repugnant and brutal to Jewish Israelite sensibilities. They were indeed a different peoples from the Semite populace.
Here we go again with Saul Alinsky's Rules for radicals "Whenever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy." Who has the technical knowledge to challenge Scout's possible technical flaws?
Besides, he ignores the lager picture of Genesis 22:17 which says, "I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies".
These gates included the Panama and Suez canals, and numerous minor gates, such as the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu, Malta, Cyprus, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Cape of Good Hope and the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean. Nazi general Rommel probably would have won in Africa if the British hadn't sunk most of his supply ships using Malta as a airbase. And not forgetting the battle of Midway, which some have labeled as the best case of military good luck in history. Many things conveniently came together timing wise that resulted in three Japanese aircraft carriers being sunk in six minutes by ten bombs. This saved Australian from invasion and turned the tide in the Pacific. The larger picture verifies Anglo-Israelism, and all its detractors can do is go down dubious technical rabbit holes. It's Scout that needs to get a life.
Scout,
I enjoyed reading your post. Genetic testing has been a gold mine for those of us who have pursued our ancestral roots. I had myself tested, my mother, my father, one of my cousins, and my children's mother - the results were interesting and backed up the paper trail that I had created over the last 45+ years of genealogical research.
Like many "white" Americans, my results revealed 99% European ancestry. However, my father's results confirmed the Native American Ancestry my records search had revealed. His test also revealed a sliver of Ashkenazi heritage. My Y-haplogroup is I-M253, so there was a Viking in the woodpile somewhere back there. One of my mother's lines coincided with one of Obama's ancestor's on his "white" mother's side of his family tree: John Punch or Bunch, whom Y testing has revealed was African. Likewise, Darlene's very "white" Alabama ancestry revealed that her paternal ancestor (the one responsible for her maiden name surname) was African.
The point of all of this being that you might be surprised by just how "white" you turn out to be! Likewise, you may be surprised at just how many people of color turn out to be your cousins. The "PLAIN TRUTH" is that "white" America is an illusion, and British Israelism is bullsh-t!
Footnotes, please?
Well, first of the 3 comments had questions.....reminds me of 1Tim 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions.........
And Nero fiddled whilst Rome burned....
It's hard to be precise but I watched this video recently https://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70mXAhyy6Sc&lc=UgyYAKfu5WDdNCJMHyJ4AaABAg.AAKlc3VaLn4AAk6j8uJg01
Most Scottish people live in North America.
There are around 8 million in USA with a Scottish ancestors and another 4 million in Canada. But in Scotland itself there are only about 4 million.
It sounds like both Scout and Lonnie have placed themselves in the universal DNA database. You should have heeded Dana Scully's warning. I hope some elitist doesn't need your organs, lol.
Try the above link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70mXAhyy6Sc&lc=UgyYAKfu5WDdNCJMHyJ4AaABAg.AAKlc3VaLn4AAk6j8uJg01
Nice article, Scout. Important questions asked. How can there be Celts before there were "ten lost tribes"? And how can most people in western Europe be basically the same people? (And how can Anglo-Saxons be German?) And like clockwork, your prediction about dissonance reducers is already proved true.
This all reminds of of the defunct DNA Refutes BI website:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170216173408/http://dnarefutesbi.com/
I can't believe we're still taking about BI in 2024.
As the Israelites moved across the land they surely mixed and mingled with the locals. It's no surprise that not all of the people in the land can be traced back to Israel.
Paul's remarks to Timothy remind me of what Herbert Armstrong and the other proponents of Anglo-Israelism have done with their wild ride into mythology and endless speculation:
I Timothy 1:3 When I left for Macedonia, I urged you to stay there in Ephesus and stop those whose teaching is contrary to the truth. 4 Don’t let them waste their time in endless discussion of myths and spiritual pedigrees. These things only lead to meaningless speculations, which don’t help people live a life of faith in God.
5 The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith. 6 But some people have missed this whole point. They have turned away from these things and spend their time in meaningless discussions. 7 They want to be known as teachers of the law of Moses, but they don’t know what they are talking about, even though they speak so confidently.
Anonymous 7:46
Thiel is probably referring to the Hallstatt Culture. I think you are suggesting that I might be a descendant of Shem but not of Abraham. Hence, my Israel-like genetics prior to Abraham. Where do I begin? The people of Europe are all descended from the same ancient groups. They all have the same genetic constituents. All have the same migrational history. One cannot say that a certain nation is Assyria or Gether, whoever that is. Such a designation is sheerly arbitrary.
The other half of this equation is that the people in the so-called Table of Nations in Genesis (the Bible refers to it as the clans of Noah), if that table is not simply allegory, would biologically have to be of the same haplogroup. So the real Assyrians and the real descendants of Gether were y chromosome haplogroup J and had nothing to do with the Hallstatt Culture.
So, the fact that I am Celtic in no way connects me to the Assyrians or the Getherites - whose modern day descendants are probably people that we think of as being Arabs.
Short answer. Much more to this.
Scout
Genesis 22:15 Then the angel of the Lord called again to Abraham from heaven. 16 “This is what the Lord says: Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your son, your only son, I swear by my own name that 17 I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants[a] beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies. 18 And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me.”
a. 22:17 Hebrew seed; also in 22:17b, 18.
This promise to Abraham was fulfilled through Jesus Christ and his disciples, NOT through the Jews or English-speaking peoples of the earth alone. It looks forward to the Kingdom of God.
BP8,
Being in those DNA databases means that none of my cousins better be committing any crimes, lol.
Anonymous 8:19 wrote, “The Jews are a problem for BI proponents.”
You are right on that score. As more genetic data emerges, the total separation between the Northwest Europeans and the Jews will become more and more apparent. But none of the BI fans will capitulate. Their egos a too much tied up with being part of the Chosen People – something that Paul inveighed against as Christian praxis, saying instead that we are all followers of Christ. Paul first divided people into two categories: Jews and Gentiles. So that if you are not a Jew, then you are a Gentile. He was not overlooking anything. He himself was of the Tribe of Benjamin. Paul said the partition between Jews and Gentiles had been ended. So, looking around for the Lost Tribes of Israel has interesting historical value but is otherwise nonsignificant.
I have noticed that frequently people who are challenged by facts that show the contradictions in British Israelism, will declare that the Jews are not really Jews but are an imposter nation. This began to happen in the WCG back in the Seventies. Some people believed that the Tribe of Judah was somewhere on the North American continent. You know, like some WCG members used to believe the facetious notion that the people of Kentucky were the Tribe of Simeon. I asked about the evidence for this and some one in Big Sandy said that the people of Kentucky “are just different.” No scientific method there. So, I expect to see more BI advocates claim that the Jews are not really the Jews. That way the genetic issues are swept away. But they are not innovators. The Christian Identity Movement from the Twenties and Thirties is way ahead of them.
Scout
Anonymous 8:20 wrote, “Here we go again with Saul Alinsky's Rules for radicals "Whenever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy." Who has the technical knowledge to challenge Scout's possible technical flaws?”
The Appeal to Ignorance is an Artful Dodge that comes up at least once in discussion on BI with Armstrongists. Yes, Genetics as a body of knowledge is highly technical and difficult to understand. But some of the fundamental ideas are easily understood and accessible to the average reader.
The Appeal to Ignorance always comes up because the Artful Dodger wants other readers to believe there are flaws in the whole theory of genetics and so you are stupid if you are taken in by it. Better believe HWA and Hoeh. But, alas, genetics is a real science. Its principles have been tested. It is not a theory. There are anomalies in nature, always, but you are not going to read a newspaper headline that one day says “Genetics Now Debunked and Discarded” any more than you can expect to read that for Physics or Chemistry.
The “gates of your enemies” argument comes up as well. Here is a standard response:
https://armstrongismlibrary.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-gates-of-your-enemies-anglo.html
I can assure you that denying science and believing fantasy is not going to end well for you.
Scout
Anonymous 10:28 wrote, : "...reminds me of 1Tim 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions..."
Genetics is a science that puts to an end the fables and endless geneaologies. First, it gives us a tool to understand the fabled Table of Nations in Genesis. If it is a real genealogy like literalists believe, then it is exactly what it says it is, a list of the clans of the sons of Noah. The Bible does not call it the Table of Nations but calls it the clans of the sons of Noah. This means that the people listed are the descendants of one man - Noah. Noah had a y chromosome haplogroup and passed it down to everyone of the men that you see in the Table of Nations. The haplogroup was haplogroup J - dominating Jewish and Arab genetics today. This marks the Flood as a local event and the Table of Nations a misnomer.
Genetics, further, sacks fabled British-Israelism. The haplogroup of the Northwest Europeans is R and the haplogroup of the Jews is J. Though all people are related, you cannot get these two haplogrous from Noah and later Abraham. Every man has only one y chromosome haplogroup to pass to his male offspring.
I think Paul would have liked genetics. It would silence many gainsayers and racists.
Scout
Anonymous 8:20 wrote, “Besides, he ignores the larger picture of Genesis…”
This is not the “larger picture” as if I am ignoring unassailable evidence. What you cite is, in fact, an idiosyncratic interpretation of a Biblical scripture devised by HWA to serve a particular eisegesis supporting BI. This interpretation of the promise of population and gates does not trump the science of genetics. Similar in error to the so-called population and gates promises, the Louisiana Purchase was not turned over to “Israel” at the end of a certain prophetic time period. It already belonged to France, whom the BI advocates claim to be Reuben and, therefore, descended from Israel. If you look in HWA’s booklet on this, you will find that he does not mention this fact about France.
So, you have not constructed a counterpoint to the question I raised in my essay: How could my ancient Scottish kinsman have been in Britain at the time of Abraham yet be a descendant of Israel? Factor in that the y chromosome haplogroup had to have already been in existence for some time and is a part of a tree of haplogroups that runs back into history for tens of thousands of years.
Scout
Incidentally, there is an obvious reason for this!
Oh man don’t let white nationalist, I mean Christian nationalist get a hold of British Israelism. Oops too late. I guess we gotta watch out for them once they get into politics. Now will those politics take place in Rome or America? I guess America isn’t an empire, I guess to ACOGs it’s an Israelite darling.
Anon 8:20:30 PM PST
Sorry bro, the ‘gates of your enemies’ and ‘offspring as the stars of heaven in number’ is a tried but failed argument in flavour of BI by Armstrongism. Doesn’t add up at all, and the scripture is clear on that. This website has more than sufficient detailed explanations on these ‘verses’ and guess what you lose. BI arguments are weak, deeply flawed easily refuted and those who continue to promote this nonsense expose their lack of credibility.
Yep, the problem with Armstrongism is that it rejects science and history when it contradicts their doctrine. Since they are closet republicans, they don’t believe in global warming, or DNA. And by the way DNA is the ultimate proof science. So they are dismissive of individuals who are experts with doctorates and masters in those areas. They don’t like a certain history, they side with republicans as critical race theory. Their BI is critical race theory that can be disproven.
Exactly, even Paul used that scripture to correlate it to the gospel for the Gentiles for salvation.
Galatians 3:8-9 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
He wasn’t using those passages in Genesis to justify a race of people. These were not Israelites he was writing to. Armstrong was in error here.
Miller Jones 9:12 wrote, “The point of all of this being that you might be surprised by just how "white" you turn out to be!”
Or how non-White. When you come out of an organization like the WCG which is burdened with many memes that can only be described as White Supremacist, it is humbling but also liberating to have a genetic ancestry test. I think there were many Armstrongists who believed that they were racially pure because they had no history to tell them otherwise and they looked the role. But all of us had Neanderthal ancestry except for Blacks who did not encounter the Neanderthal and interbreed with them. But, then again, almost all American Blacks are part White. So, they got the Neanderthal strain, too. I watch Dr. Henry Louis Gates on PBS.
If genetics had been more public back in the days of Gerald Waterhouse, he would not have been bragging about HWA’s racial purity, like Noah. HWA was part Neanderthal just like the rest of us. If Mark Armstrong ever took a genetic test, the truth would emerge. My guess is that will never happen, at least, that the Armstrongist denominations will now about.
Some of us are also part Denisovan – a people that were contemporaneous with the Neanderthal but which we know very little about. The Germans thought they were racially pure but the guy who spouted all that, Adolf Schicklgruber, had a North African haplogroup. Nobody knew it. Many people have claimed that Jews were nearly a pure race. My Dad told me that when I was a kid. But they are mixed like everyone else. The Ashkenazi, for example, are a good part Southern European and are genetically close to the Italians. Bernie Sanders is 100 percent Ashkenazi by genetic test. But being 100 percent Ashkenazi does not mean that you are 100 percent Jewish. It just means that you are like other Ashkenazi – a mix of Jewish and Southern European. The same is true of Native Americans, some of whom pride themselves in being Full Bloods. When they crossed out of Beringia 20,000 years ago, they were already as much as 30 percent European – that’s why they do not look entirely Asian.
What you do after you leave the Armstrongist-pure-Israelite viewpoint, is acquire an appreciation of other peoples in the world. I am part Basque. I like that. I am also a little part Sephardic Jewish. I also like that. It connects me with Jewish history. It connects me with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But I try to be a realist. It could also connect me with people who knew and rejected Jesus. At one time back in the WCG, I would be ashamed that I was not a pure Manassite. I am glad those spiritually impoverished days are over.
Scout
Anonymous 11:57 wrote, “It's hard to be precise but I watched this video recently …”
I watched the video on Irish Genetics that you have cited. Their presentation is a little confusing. I will not do a full review of it and this brevity may leave some questions that I would be happy to try to answer later. Thiel refers to the Hallstatt Culture. This was a mainland Celtic society in south-central Europe. Racially, the Hallstatt Celts differ little from the British Celts. They are both predominantly y chromosome haplogroup R1b. I believe Hoeh claimed that the Hallstatt Celts were Gentiles whereas the British Celts were Israelites. But this is incorrect. They are racially the same people with similar historical migration patterns. Both the British and Halstatt Celts are Gentiles.
The video makes the claim that the Irish became a composite of people as new waves of peoples invaded Ireland. But they remained genetically stable. This is because what happened to Ireland is what happened to all of Western Europe. Western Europe was anciently occupied first by Hunter-Gatherers who are identified with Haplogroup I. There is a big concentration of these people now in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark. Next came an invasion out of Anatolia of Neolithic Farmers. They are identified with Haplogroup G. Then all of Western Europe was overrun by massive invasion of cowboys from the Pontic Steppe. These people were herdsman who developed the use of the horse. They are called Steppe Pastoralists. They spread their genetics far and wide. They settled the Hallstatt area and also the British Isles and pretty much everywhere else in Western Europe. They were haplogroup R1b in Western Europe and R1a in Eastern Europe. From that point forward the Irish were a stable R1b population. But so was the rest of Europe. All of Western Europe is a mix of mostly haplogroup R1b and a little I and a little G. And that is how the Irish experienced invasions but had a stable genome. The video describes this in an oddball way as if it were a great mystery. I have already gone too long.
My remote kinsman at 2000 BC was probably was a member of the Beaker People Culture. They were racially R1b-M269 like the Celts but are considered Proto-Celts. They did not come from Israel but migrated over generations from the Pontic Steppe.
Scout
"Here we go again with Saul Alinsky's Rules for radicals "Whenever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy.""
I don't think this is Alinsky so much as you loudly announcing that you do not understand what Scout is talking about.
Scout @ 11:46:19
You are quite correct. Ashkenazi Jews are genetically close to the Italians.
Dr Henry Abramson in his series (on YT) on Jewish Ashkenazi roots goes into great detail with this subject. Perhaps that is why I have always admired Italian cars, ha ha, and with my Czech Ashkenazi background would love to own a Skoda vehicle. No Skoda jokes please lol. Israel is an incredible melting pot of peoples and cultures, yet we all share a common ancestry of Semitic origins, while our physical appearances reflect a great diversity. BI proponents lose big time.
"You know, like some WCG members used to believe the facetious notion that the people of Kentucky were the Tribe of Simeon."
You know, thats funny, I remember hearing that claim in passing, but nothing else about it. What did you hear about it?
These are the clans that descended from Noah’s sons, arranged by nation according to their lines of descent. All the nations of the earth descended from these clans after the great flood - Gen 10:32 NLT
I'll stay with "all" of the nations. The flood was universal.
Many commenters are ignoring that BI isn't a HWA invention. What he did is plaguerize J H Allen's 1902 book 'Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's birthright'.
Queen Victoria and her advisors believed in BI, and during her era there were BI societies that put out literature on the topic. There are other tell tail signs supporting it such as a English speaking Indian entering the failing founding fathers compound and teaching them how to farm the local land.
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