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
86 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
One of the reasoning processes prevalent in the Christian community totally boggles the mind. Christians freely admit that "we don't know everything there is to know. God will resolve these mysteries for us in the Kingdom (or alternately, when we get to heaven)"
Yet, some answers are readily available through science, right now, and because they conflict with tradition or agenda, they are either rejected, or people claim that they are unable to be understood. Science is a path of discovery of (and many scientists will not admit this) God's creation and how it came into being and functions. Some of it is as yet theory (scientists also admit that "we don't know everything there is to know." However, much of it is quantifiable, because the metrics are measurable and have been tested way beyond the theoretic.
It is the rare Christian who will modify his or her world view based on science when it conflicts with what they believe. As an example, it seems so obvious that God used evolution as part of His creation process. Evolution and relativity are quite compatible with the simplified poetic language of Genesis 1. What Christians should reject is not evolution, but Godless evolution.
We can know so much from genetic science. It can actually set the mind free from fear. Armstrongites insist on persisting in the fear mongering associated with British Israelism and German Assyrianism even though they have no basis in fact. In fact, those theories are at least as damaging as evolution. People use them self-righteously as lies for God. It's so disingenuous.
BB
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.
Considering the huge number of proselytes over the millennia it's no surprise that the Jews are not of one bloodline. Add to that the fact that they've mixed with the local populations as they traveled (as someone commented on earlier) and DNA testing is almost useless. I imagine that pinpointing the original bloodline would be quite a challenge.
That's not "tell tail" at all. Europeans were making contact with natives in the Americas (even taking them back to Europe) well before the American "virgin birth" myth-event ever happened in Massachusetts.
RSK 3:38
The amount of information about the people of Kentucky being the Tribe of Simeon is miniscule. It was just an unsupported conclusion held by some people. The only data was that the people of Kentucky were “different.” I asked around a bit and could find no history of this viewpoint but one longtime WCG member told me that the people of Kentucky were cruder than other Americans. It would actually make more sense if Kentucky were just a surrogate for the people of Appalachia. But I heard a Kentucky guy get up in Spokesman Club in Gladewater and claim to be a Simeonite back in the Seventies.
The people of Appalachia are Scots-Irish and are also known as Lowland Scots, Ulster Scots or English Borderers. They were the Celts who lived in southern Scotland and northern England. They were a problem in Britain and they became a problem in America. In Britain they spent most of their time stealing cattle from each other. In America, they were the vanguard in exterminating Native Americans and rebelling against the government. My ancestors were Quakers and the Quakers were appalled at the deplorable behavior of the Scots-Irish when they arrived at port Philadelphia. Even their women used foul language. But they were not genetically different so as to form a separate tribe. They were just backwoodsy.
In the Hoeh Legendarium, Hoeh notes that Simeon is to be scattered in Israel and believes it is possible that they are a collection of small tribes in Western Europe. He mentions this in a 1957 article titled, “Location of the Tribes of Israel.”
The Simeon thing is a just another BI fable.
Scout
Anonymous 5:30 wrote, “Considering the huge number of proselytes over the millennia it's no surprise that the Jews are not of one bloodline.”
The fact that the Jews are not 100 percent pure is the basis for a notable dodge that BI advocates use. I argued with a guy on this blog years ago about the ancestry of Abraham. Spencer Wells had identified Abraham as y chromosome haplogroup J because this haplogroup dominates in the Jewish population and in the Adnani Arab population. The Adnanis are Ishmaelite Arabs who claim descent from Abraham. What the two populations have in common and in a dominant way is haplogroup J.
The BI advocate insisted that I could not deduce the haplogroup of Abraham. He did not make a claim that Abraham was haplogroup R like Western Europeans but I think he wanted to leave that door open. I think what he saw was that some Jews are haplogroup R1b. And some Arabs are haplogroup R1b. These are not large percentages in either case. But it is enough to provide a hook for the BI folks. They could claim that the haplogroup R among the Jews and Arabs was the real haplogroup of the Semitic people and it was nearly drowned out by haplogroup J which is indigenous to the Middle East. Therefore, Abraham and his descendant are all Western Europeans based on small percentages of R (that mostly and in reality came from intermarriage in modern times).
This is why archaeogenetics is so important. It gives us a backward look into times before international travel resulted in the migration of so many haplogroups around the globe. From ancient excavated skeletons, we know that the Assyrians and Canaanites were haplogroup J. Since both these peoples are closely related to Jews (if we are to believe the “Table of Nations” in Genesis) and because of the way that y chromosome haplogroups are inherited, we can deduce that the original ancient Jews were haplogroup J even though the modern Jewish population contains elements from haplogroups E, T, R and others.
The Biblical history that supports haplogroup J has to do with Jesus Christ. He came to his own and his own received him not. He stated that he came for the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel. If the Middle Eastern haplogroup J is a Gentile haplogroup, as some BI advocates assert, and the Western European haplogroup R is the real Israelitish haplogroup, why did Jesus come to the Jews of the Middle East? Why did he not go to Britain? The Brits were, according to BI, both Lost Sheep and Jesus’ true racial brothers. And the Middle Eastern Jews would then have to be an imposter people posing as Israelites when they were really Gentiles. Jesus made the decision as to who was right, fabled British-Israelism or actual Judaic History.
Scout
" I asked around a bit and could find no history of this viewpoint but one longtime WCG member told me that the people of Kentucky were cruder than other Americans."
That's some Kallikak-sounding shit.
Thank you again Scout. Yes Jesus came to His own. He was sent to Israel and that was no mistake. There was no side trip to Britain or Western Europe.BI has an element of underlying anti semitism within, a troubling phenomenon especially at this time. Just look at Amsterdam last week. There are a vocal few, still too many, who claim the Jews of Israel are imposters, not ‘real’ Jews/Israelites. More and more Jews are becoming anonymous in their appearance, by not wearing any think that marks them as belonging to the ‘tribe’ etc. That is the unpleasant reality for many today. The cog Armstrong movement doesn’t know what persecution and real fear are. Keep up the job of exposing the fallacy of BI.
"Yes Jesus came to His own. He was sent to Israel and that was no mistake. There was no side trip to Britain or Western Europe." Anon 3:55
Ah, but you forget that Jesus made a pit stop in N America to minister to the lost tribes that had wondered there- it's all in the Book of Mormon.
Look it up!
Anon 8:20:00, it's highly speculative that the British empire having control of ports and sea passages is the fulfilment of Genesis 22:17. In 100 or 200 years, who knows what other nation might become an empire that controls these?
The world has had a long string of various nations rising to prominence, having their day as a global power, and then fading out. Babylon, Rome, Spain, France, the Ottomans.
In the future, who might become powerful, as their circumstances or ambitions facilitate it? China? India?
Lots of people might want to read the Bible and insert themselves into the narrative, biased by our short-term view of our brief window of relevance and egotistical feelings of grandeur. It might prevent us from being able to see the many possible alternative interpretations of the scriptures.
British Israelism might seem like the only nation that could possibly fit the criteria in these end times. But that is also a big question — are we in fact in the end times, within 15 years of Jesus Christ's return, as Armstrong and WCG and various COGs have dogmatically taught?
Anonymous Friday, November 15, 2024 at 5:46:00 AM PST,
Excellent observations :)
Good counterpoint for the BI advocate, Scout. "He came to His own, and His own received Him not." That indicates a people that were cognizant of their genealogy and we know that started with Abraham and through the root of Jesse.
The annual Lord Majors show of London City has just been held once more, for 2024.
Pride of place went to the effigies of Gog and Magog, the giant ancient lord protectors of London. Quite a spectacular event with all the officers and officials marching in splendour and colours honouring their lord protectors.
Steeped in mystery and legend, many point out that this event does awaken the gentile peoples of the UK to their historic pagan roots. Many other events are held throughout the British isles marking and celebrating their ancient Druid traditions and heritage, and pre Druid pagan festivities. The peoples who over the centuries invaded and settled within these islands share a brutal bloody and savage history far removed from what Armstrongism would have us believe. Archaeological evidence plus the science of DNA witness to this history.
Anonymous 6:07
According to the Book of Mormon, those tribes were Native Americans. I believed they were referred to as Lamanites and were wicked Israelites.
Actually, Native Americans were y chromosome haplogroup Q pretty uniformly. Q comes out of asia. The history that genetics captured is that a group of people called Ancient North Eurasians encountered a group who were Ancient East Asian. The two groups united, interbred and the outcome is the Native Americans back in East Asia. The Ancient North Eurasians were a wi' peepul and the Ancient East Asians were typical Asians.
Native Americans were about 30 percent European in genetic heritage when they set foor in North America. The Ancient North Eurasians also contributed to the ancestry of Western Europeans. Scientists were puzzled when they were studying a French population and discovered that the French had some genetics in common with Native Americans. This is the reason why.
Mormons have the same issue that Armstrongists have. They believe in an anthropology that has been invalidated by genetics. I am not sure how they handled it. I was never that interested.
Scout
I did a similar test years ago too and found I was R1b1b2a1a1a or R-M405. It's all very interesting, but how much of it is true is moot in my opinion. The way I feel at present re the British-Israel theory is not unlike the "true Church" theory. Hence:
1) I don't believe any one single man-made Christian organization, like the RC Church or the Anglican Church or the WCG etc. comprises God's true Church or the Kingdom of God on earth;
2) I don't believe any one single group of people, like the Zionist nation of Israel or the secularist nations of Australia, Canada, NZ, UK, USA, etc. comprises the true ethnic descendants of the 12 tribes of Jacob-Israel. I cannot state with complete certainty who or where the physical descendants of Jacob-Israel are.
And I don't think it really matters since the more important issue to me is spiritual Israel or the "Israel of God" (Gal 6:16) ie those who call themselves Christians and claim to follow Christ. Those who claim to be physical "Israelites" or "Jews" (Rev 2:9) means nothing like Jesus said: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing" (John 6:63) and John the Baptist said: “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham” (Luke 3:8). Their works will reveal their true faith if they say one thing and do another contradicting the divine law and gospel of God and Christ who will judge all. So I don’t need to concern myself with who physical Israel is. Just be a “spiritual Israelite” following the true Shepherd of true Israel ie Jesus Christ.
It's funny. The HWA concept of Manassite identity was never a point of pride to me, and on my own, I really didn't care who my ancestors were beyond my grand parents. You couldn't talk to the dead ones who came before you anyway.
The topic was totally unimportant to me until the mapping of the human genome obliterated British Israelism. It did occur to me that intermarriage would eventually blur or eliminate the different races as we know them today, and that would also serve as the ultimate cure to racism.
Back in the '60s, at Ambassador College, it seemed that all of the students were preoccupied with discovering possible Jewish ancestors in their backgrounds. Since HWA also spoke highly of Germans and their discipline and industriousness, Heinz 57 generic white AC students were also fascinated with them. We did have "foreign" students back in those days, and I would imagine that those from Germany got tired of being asked what would provoke their countrymen to attack, enslave, and punish the US in the near future. The most intelligent response I heard was "Look around you!"
Being overly race conscious, even if you are assigning special talents to certain races, is a form of racism. That is something most people don't realize. Stereotyping robs people of their individuality. Black and white, or i-o (binary) thinkers like to create monoliths and straw men where there are none.
Rush Limbaugh used to say that multiculturalism does not work. And, yet, those of us who work with the public, and know great numbers of people, know that it can and does. It only doesn't work for people who don't believe in it or deliberately hate it. Children don't naturally hate other children who are of different races. They are taught such hatred by members of their own families.
BB
Anonymous 7:12 wrote, “I did a similar test years ago too and found I was R1b1b2a1a1a or R-M405. It's all very interesting, but how much of it is true is moot in my opinion.”
I am not sure what you mean by “true” but you can be certain that your haplogroup reflects molecular reality as much as to say salt is sodium chloride. Your genome contains molecular structures that give rise to your haplogroup. If you have a genetic test ten years from now, you haplogroup will be the same. It is a repeatable experiment with the same results. I don’t think you are moot about salt being sodium chloride - like maybe it is or maybe it isn’t.
What a haplogroup means is a different question. A haplogroup has a meaning but it does not define you in a big way. Y chromosome haplogroup defines your masculine line of descent, whatever value you place on that. All of Noah’s male descendants will have the same haplogroup until mutations occur but changes over time are traceable. There is a logical progression. That is why we know that Noah was not the biological progenitor of all of mankind. Abraham could not give rise to both haplogroup R (Western Europe peoples – read British) and J (Middle Eastern peoples – read Jews). Everyone has much more to their genome than haplogroup. That is why autosomal tests have been developed. Autosomal results reflect the large picture of genetic configuration and migrations, even, and not just your masculine line. Genetic testing services use a type of autosomal reporting.
The reason why I am jumping on this is because I know that there are Armstrongists who will conclude that genetics is bogus science and merrily go on their way. If you have spent much time around Armstrongists, you know the deal. Most of the people in the congregations are blue-collar and believe that education and the scientific method are elitist and should be ignored in favor of HWA and Hoeh.
Scout
Byker wrote, “It did occur to me that intermarriage would eventually blur or eliminate the different races as we know them today, and that would also serve as the ultimate cure to racism.”
This would seem to be so but it is not. Racial intermixing gives rise to new races with the accompanying racial attitudes. Western Europeans are a combination of three different groups of people with different haplogroup affiliations that merged into a single group of people pretty much. Mexicans are a mix of Spanish and Native American and they seem to be a new race. Ancient Native Americans are a mix between Eurasian and East Asian people (read as White and Asiatic). Ashkenazi Jews are widely thought of as Jews but they are a mix Southern European and Jewish.
There is this false notion that a long time ago, people were racially pure as God intended them to be and in modern times, like the last 100 years, they have gotten all mixed up. That has never been the case. Interbreeding always finds a way. That’s why Europeans and Asians both have Neanderthal heritage. And people who claim they are pure are people who have never had a genetic ancestry test.
Scout
Amen brother!
Exactly BB,
I used to hear ministers in the LCG quote all the time "multiculturalism doesn't work", and it doesn't for those who don't want it to work who have respect of persons within themselves. But when you look at sport teams and even some musical groups that have diversity where everybody brings their talents to the group for a goal, well then amazing thing that happens. When it comes to the arts, or interior design, people somehow don't mind to dabble in other peoples culture.
If some of the Asian culture doesn't come to the west coast, do westerners get to participate in yoga, Taekwondo, sushi, certain tea, anime.
Correct, you see little kids on a playground and they don't see race, they play and have fun. Yet we are to humble ourselves as little children. You can't do it, if one has the "we are of Israel and you are not" attitude.
When I think of diversity in the church , I think of: Acts 13:1
Acts 13:1 Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
‘Multiculturalism doesn’t work’ is an interesting observation.
I recall watching a young Muslim, now a German citizen, saying very clearly, when asked about the difficulties that immigrants face in Europe “we are not here to integrate”. This is on YT, unfortunately I cannot find the clip. I was rather startled by her comments. A friend commented to me that multiculturalism is simply replacement of indigenous populations with outsiders. Humans are very tribal and as such we see that in population settlements in cities around the globe, especially in Europe at this time. Over time mankind reverts back to their inherent tribalism as we are witnessing and that spells trouble ahead for multiculturalism. Me thinks Europe and many others will regret they have allowed the ethnic makeup of their towns and cities to change in the way they have by massive immigration by migrants who so often don’t share European values and are often hostile to them. Time will tell.
The physical descendants of Jacob-Israel are scattered abroad - James 1:1.
Well 10:56 "Invade the world, invite the world". Those Europeans who went into Africa such as Germany colonizing Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Namibia, Cameroon, Togo and Ghana in the 1880's till WWI sure didn't mind a thing about stopping their multiculturalism. In addition, they also had no problem procreating creating mix races within those African nations.
Of course they are not there to integrate, and even if their children tried (who speak the European language now), it's frowned upon. So if you want to go back to the crossing of Jacobs hands, I can at least go back to the 1800's.
If you don't want diversity or multiculturalism, don't bring millions of slaves over, stop allowing illegals to work for cheap labor, stop extracting resources from the global south and expecting those people from those lands to just remain in their lands. Quit destabilizing nations through the military industrial complex such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria and not building back their infrastructures like what America did under the Marshall Plan with Europe and Japan. But westerners can't.
Well, 10:56, the example you cited was of a young Muslim, who did not want multiculturalism to work. He and his group refused to participate.
People of different ethnicities do hold on to their tribal identities. That is only natural. They're going to have their unique support groups, like say the Latin Businessmen's Association. That's to help them in achieving to higher levels in the local culture. As they become a part of the greater ecosystem, and more successful, the tribal identities fade. Kids marry outside of the tribe, learn to speak perfect English in school, and have discussions about the old folks and their ways. Most of the rhetoric I have heard from people who are against diversity either have no experience in multicultural settings, or have avoided it. When you get to know and appreciate a wide variety of people, you begin to realize that we're more alike than we are different. Muslims are not the only ones who refuse to integrate. Many members of the white majority refuse as well, possibly even more so than do minorities.
I'm interested to know your position on this? Do you avoid and refuse to participate in multiculturalism? Have you earnestly tried to apply it and make it succeed, but been disappointed because it has failed? Your tone was not one of deep inner sadness as you described it not working.
BB
Exactly 12:17, And since James wrote that, think about it. He wrote a letter to them and he wasn't picking two tribes out and singling them out. He also wasn't sending the letter to one specific country. And this was even before 70 AD before the scattering of Judea and the Jerusalem Church. They would be scattered even more.
I like reading the NIV version
James 1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:
other translations are pretty interesting as well.
Anon 3:27:58 PM PST
James 1:1
‘to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations’, yes indeed Israel was scattered among the nations after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A D.
But this can not be or is validation for BI.
Ezra and Nehemiah attest to this. And Jeremiah on the return of Israel after the collapse of Babylon.
And John the Baptist was manifested to ‘all Israel’.
The jury is in and BI is out.
Does the phrase "...tread down of the gentiles..." ring any bells?
Yes 7:59, I am in total agreement, as I am the same as (3:27). BI is a false narrative. As they haven't been racially pure for thousands of years before and after 70 AD. Ezra and Nehemiah attest to it. Everybody that came back during the days of Ezra and Nehemiah was considered Israel and they repopulated throughout the first century. I was agreeing with you, BI is out. It's about making disciples among all nations, great commission. Take care
Herman Hoeh wrote in his article “Where did the Twelve Apostles Go?” that when James mentions the “…the twelve tribes in dispersion”, he is talking about the Lost Tribes of Israel as defined in British-Israelism. There are some problems with this.
The first is logistical. How does one in the First Century expect a letter to be delivered to the Twelve Tribes? Does each tribe have a specific location in the Diaspora with a post office box? Jews might have retained some idea about their personal tribal affiliation in the First Century. Paul knew he was a Benjamite. But I don’t know of any history that relates that the descendants of Israel retained any kind of tribal organization. Josephus states something about “the ten tribes beyond the Euphrates” but that does not mean there was a tribal organization, just that he believed there were Jews out there in the north somewhere who originated in the twelve tribes.
The second issue is spiritual. Clearly, James is writing to Christians. Are we then to assume that the “twelve tribes” in the First Century have all converted to Christianity? He explicitly cites the name of Jesus Christ. He delivers a Christian message. He does not limit his audience to just those who have become followers of Christ among the twelve tribes. But he addresses the twelve tribes without restriction.
The restriction is implicit. He is directing his words to Christians. His use of the “twelve tribes” wording is literary and not literal like John of Patmos does in Revelation. He is addressing those Jews in the Diaspora that have converted to Christianity as a result of missionary work. This is not a letter to the Tribe of Ephraim living in the British Isles and the Tribe of Asher living in Belgium and so on. In the “Jewish Annotated New Testament”, the Jewish scholars write that the Twelve Tribes refers to “… the followers of Jesus, appropriating imagery from Israelite history, pictured the messianic ideal of the return of the exiled tribes…”
Scout
Or, the letter was delivered by courier to the seven churches in Asia, and probably elsewhere, who had members from all 12 tribes, and James wanted his letter not to be addressed only to Christians but to all in the tribes who were considering to become a Christian. It's difficult to believe James sat down to write his letter knowing it would go nowhere.
Yea I remember that Herman Hoeh article, and other related articles that came with that same erroneous conclusion. James primary audience like other NT writers were Christians. Armstrong programed his ministers to keep the 12 tribes organized within the Christian NT era. Even after the birth of Christ, Anna the Prophetess (from the tribe of Asher) was there in Jerusalem, which is far from the northern ancestral location. They were scattered .
There are several possibilities including:
1. Herman Hoeh’s view: James was writing to the BI Lost Sheep of Israel, that is, Britain, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, France, etc.
2. He was writing to the Jews who had become Christian and were attending various Christian congregations.
3. He was using the twelve tribes as an allegory to refer to Body of Christ or the Ekklesia. I prefer this interpretation because it is most like the usage of John of Patmos when he wrote of the tribes of Israel in Revelation 7.
The first two points focus on physical tribes. Point 1 is an easily disprovable BI fantasy. Point 2 suffers from a scope issue. Why would James write hyperbolically to the full twelve tribes when in fact he meant a small assortment of Jews who attended Christian congregations? I believe he knew who he was writing to and it is reflected in Point 3.
Scout
“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:
Greeting.
“If James were to post his letter today it would be marked ‘Return to sender’ on the grounds of being insufficiently addressed. He names no names and specifies no place as destination: twelve tribes contain a lot of people and the Dispersion, in its special sense of the scattered people of God, was in principle worldwide.
“Yet, as first sight, is any great problem really involved? Twelve tribes reminds us of the Old Testament people of God, the children of the twelve sons of Jacob (e.g., Ex 1:2-5). Even in the New Testament Paul can still speak of ‘our twelve tribes’ (Acts 26:7), referring to those who can trace their descent back to the twelve patriarchs. Dispersion, too is a term with a clear meaning. From the time of the return from exile in Babylon, the people of God were in two locations: those who had come back to live in the promised land (e.g. Ezr, 1: ; 2:1ff) and those who remained living among the nations. The later group were seen as ‘dispersed’ throughout the world, and the word ‘dispersion’ came to be used both of scattered people and the world-wide area, outside Palestine, where they lived.
“But no sooner do we feel our problem is clarifying than fresh difficulties arise. There are two. First, by the time of James, the physical descendants of the people of the Old Testament had long since become ‘the Jews’. James, however writes as a Christian to Christians. Both he, the writer, and they, the readers, acknowledge Jesus as Lord. James is a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ (1:1) they are his ‘brethren’ (1:2) whom he further describes (2:1) as united with himself in ‘the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ’. Secondly, as James sees it, the whole of the twelve tribes are in the Dispersion. The words have lost their characteristic contemporary use among the Jews; they no longer contrast some who are ‘abroad’ with others who are ‘at home’. Everyone of the tribes addressed is away from their homeland, dispersed in the world.
“We would seem, therefore, to be back to square one! Who are these twelve tribes? To answer this question we must follow another line — the straight line from the Old Testament into the New. Our Lord Jesus chose out twelve apostles (Mk. 3:13-14) and looked forward to the day of his glory when they would sit on twelve thrones ruling the twelves tribes of Israel (Mt. 19:28). In doing this he was not creating a ‘new’ Israel (either alongside or replacing an ‘old’ Israel); he was leading the Israel of the Old Covenant on into its full, intended reality as the Israel of the New Covenant, the apostolic people of our Lord Jesus Christ, those whom Paul calls ‘the Israel of God’ (Gal. 6:16). In a word, ‘Israel’ is the name of the people of Jesus; it is the true and alienable title of his church. Because of this Paul teaches that Christians are children of Abraham (Gal. 3:7) and that Abraham is our father (Rom 4:11, 16). He does not qualify this relationship by saying, for example, that we might think of ourselves as it we were children of Abraham, or that we might find it helpful to draw an analogy between ourselves and those who are Abraham’s children, or anything like that. He asserts a fact: those who have put their faith in Jesus for salvation are Abraham’s children and the Israel of God.
Part 2
“Peter brings us a step even nearer to James. He writes his first letter (1) to ‘the exiles of the Dispersion’ and goes on (1:2) to define themselves as people who known God ... and have experienced the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Old Testament terms again describe the New Testament people; they are God’s exiles of the Dispersion. No adjustment of meaning is made, no compromise with truth, for they are God’s Israel.
“James brings these lines of Bible truth together and so sets the scene for his letter. Better than any other description could, the twelve tribes places the church firmly within the pressures and persecution of this life. We can think of our ancestral tribes in the storm and stress of Egyptian slavery (Ex. 2:23), redeemed by the blood of the lamb (Ex 12:13), on pilgrimage with God through ‘the great and terrible wilderness’ (Dt. 8:15; cf. Ex. 15:22), battling to enter into what the Lord had promised (Jos. 1:2) and struggling ever after to live in holiness amid the enticements of a pagan environment. These are the experiences through which James would have his readers understand their pilgrim path. They are the Lord’s twelve tribes and they are dispersed throughout a menacing and testing world. Their homeland is elsewhere and they have not yet come to take up their abode there. Their present lot is to feel the weight of life’s pressures, the lure of this world’s temptations and an insidious, ever-present encouragement to conform to the standard of their pagan environment. They are the Lord’s people indeed, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb himself — but not yer home” (Alec Motyer, The Message of James, BST, pp.23-25).
And if James meant for his letter to go to each tribe as in Hoeh’s view, where/what nation would the tribe of Levi belong to? What they (acogs) haven’t tapped into is that the OT prophets chose the one tribe that would represent his church at the end times, and that would be the Levitical. The OT prophets didn’t have the terminology of NT ekklesia so they used a tribe.
The (Levite) tribe who would personify the priestly duties having the temple (holy spirit) within ourselves being refined.
Malachi 3:2-3 “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire And like launderers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, And purge them as gold and silver, That they may offer to the Lord An offering in righteousness.
Daniel 11:35 And some of those of understanding shall fall, to refine them, purify them, and make them white, until the time of the end; because it is still for the appointed time. (Rev. 3:18)
I agree with your third point (Body of Christ).
Correct, even the man Apollos was a jew that was living in Egypt (Alexandria) in the first century. So yea, some were scattered.
Acts 18:24 Now a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus.
And if one wasn't descended from those tribes, they are Abraham's children through faith as a Christian. As you mentioned Peter's letter, he understood that as Christians we are now a holy nation, royal priesthood (unlike the physical levites), who were not a people but now are the people of God (1 Peter 2:9-10).
Armstrongs emphasis was on "tribal descended nations" doctrine that fosters division.
A question that arises regarding the Celts is if they are not Israelites who migrated out of the Middle East to Western Europe, as BI maintains, then who are they? Their origin is well-established and is not really much of a mystery, even though one of HWA’s Mysteries of the Ages is the Mystery of Israel. It is only a mystery if you don’t want to believe the scientific evidence. So, this is the train of events.
1. A mutation from y chromosome haplogroup P occurs giving rise to haplogroup R. It is believed to have arisen 27,000 YA. A burial in Siberia dated at 24,000 YA contained an early version of haplogroup R. The people who bore this haplogroup are called Ancient North Eurasians.
2. The Ancient North Eurasians gave rise to the Yamnaya People who were Pastoralists during the Bronze Age ranged across the Pontic Steppe. The Yamnaya were horsemen and had an economy based on herd animals. Archaeogenetics indicates that the Yamnaya haplogroup is principally R1b-M269.
3. The Yamnaya gave rise, in part, to the Corded Ware people – people who developed a special kind of pottery. The Corded Ware Culture was a larger tent and included R1a and R1b.
4. The Corded Ware people gave rise to the Bell Beaker People. They eventually became principally R1b-M269 as more people migrated in from the East. R1b-M269 is associated with the Steppe Pastoralists.
My distant relative that was found buried in East Lothian, Scotland in about 2000 BC was a member of the Bell Beaker Culture. He was found in a Cist Grave along with two other individuals. One person was an elderly woman. His matrilineal haplogroup is H2a1a. This indicates that his mother was of Yamnaya or Steppe origin.
The points above show that there is an unbroken line across 24,000 years established through Archaeogenetics that the Celts originated in Eurasia well before the patriarchs of the Old Testament. The idea that they originated in relatively recent times in the area of the Ten Tribes in ancient Palestine is simply fictional.
Scout
Scout @ 4:19:57 PM PST
Thank you for your post. Very informative. Homosapiens are certainly are a mixed and diverse species. A visit to any synagogue, most anywhere globally, shows an astonishing diversity. Israel was shattered worldwide and that shows itself in the Jewish communities. Israel, where I lived for two years and have family is a remarkable melting pot. It is truely a multicultural society. A big problem for BI. Thank you for your work.
"I know there are wars amongst you",....... So Scout...... where in the Roman Empire....
PAX...... was war then???
Nck
NCK 9:16 wrote, “"I know there are wars amongst you",....... So Scout...... where in the Roman Empire....
PAX...... was war then???”
I recall this aged argument in support of British Israelism but not in detail. I tried to find something on it to refresh my memory but didn’t locate anything. But the idea is that the world was at peace when the Epistle of James was written except that the Romans were at war with Britain. The Roman Conquest of Britain took place from 43 to 96 AD. From this we can make the clever deduction that the Twelve Tribes in James 1:1 is a reference to Britain and is a support for British-Israelism.
This view fails in a number of ways. The war in Britain would represent only one tribe, or two half-tribes, not all twelve. The Romans were not at war with Norway (Benjamin) during this time, for instance. If this secular war was James’ interest, it leaves us wondering why he would involve himself in bellicosity among nations in an epistle to Christians. Does he suddenly switch from Christian praxis to politics among nations? I think not.
The fact is, James is not talking about secular wars. He is talking about the wars of the flesh. These wars are fought "among you" and not with external powers. These wars stem from “pleasures waging war in you bodily members (NT, Hart)”. In v. 5 James writes about the “spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy.” This understanding makes James’ epistle consistent throughout. There is no odd sidebar in which he talks about the mundane conflict in Britain. And, or course, the text itself reveals what James is really writing about.
I don’t know if Hoeh or someone else came up with this little eisegesis supporting BI. It has the appearance of grasping at straws. While I could not find the original argument, I did find a lecture that Donald Ward gave on the Epistle of James in which he denies that James’ topic is war between people and asserts that it is the spiritual war within.
Scout
As to tribes: Dan but not Manasseh is mentioned in Gen 49; Manasseh but not Dan is mentioned in Rev 7.
Anon 8:53:48 AM PST
My understanding of this is that the writer/scribes writing Gen 49 and Rev 7 unfortunately run out of ink as they were about to commence inscribing those names in the ancient texts. And hence many do speculate as to why the omissions. And speculation is something that the Armstrong remnant’s excel in lol. There may well be nothing that can be inferred by the omission.
And that leaves to the question of Rev 7, the tribe of Levi is listed, what nation that they end up possessing and becoming christian? since now Christ is the High Priest and the levitical priesthood is no more.
8:53
Re Dan's omission in Rev 7 I recall reading in vol 1 of the "Bible Research Handbook" a couple of decades ago now the possibility was put forth that the original list list in Rev 7 included Dan, in the place of Manasseh, and in support of this view the "Pulpit Commentary" was cited. Whether this is correct or not I cannot say with certainty, but ever since it has always remained in my mind and, even now, I still remain open to the possibility.
Anonymous 4:10 wrote, “Re Dan's omission in Rev 7 …”
This is far afield from my little article on the Celts. But many times, blog comments have the look of free association and that is not necessarily a bad thing. It can expand the scope of the topic rather than be a disintegration into rabbit paths.
There are apologetic reasons as to why Dan was not included in the list the John of Patmos wrote out. The Armstrongist reason is that Dan was so pagan, being Irish and Roman Catholic, that the tribe could not be included and I think there is a little proof-text that is usually cited. This doesn’t work because by Armstrongist standards, all the modern-day tribes of Israel are pagan (the tribes as defined in BI). Armstrongists regard Protestants as pagans also.
There is a neglected reason as to why Dan is not included. It is a hint for us to process. John of Patmos is not writing about the real, literal Tribes of Israel. He is writing about a spiritual collection of people. Of course, I would like to talk to John of Patmos and ask him what he was writing about but that’s not going to happen in this lifetime for any of us. John wrote some very arcane stuff that generates a lot of opinion but little clarity. Further, the Book of Revelation barely made it into the canon. About half the churches held the opinion that it was not scripture. Luther put it at the end of the New Testament because of this historic uncertainty.
So, the exclusion of Dan, I think, is telling us that this is not a literal list of tribal members. Otherwise, John of Patmos would have been a better accountant. Further, Ephraim may be excluded. The list includes Manasseh and Joseph but we don’t know what part of Joseph is being addressed. In the past Armstrongists have made up a rule about this without foundation. The data is the data. We don’t know if Ephraim is included at all. Ephraim is not specifically called out. Manasseh is. All this arithmetic leads to the question:The 144,000 seem to be a special group of people but does that include physically and biologically belonging to a tribe of Israel?
More arithmetic. After John of Patmos envisioned the 144K, he saw a great multitude out of all nations receiving salvation. Maybe this is where Dan comes in. Maybe the Danites made the cut to receive salvation but could not make the cut to get into the 144K. This, of course, invalidates the Armstrongist view of the exclusion of Dan for paganism.
We could also use this as an argument that the Tribulation already happened and will not happen again. (I happened to believe that is the case.) Perhaps, back in the First Century, Jews had tribal affiliation and assembling 12,000 of each tribe would not be a stretch. Now Jews have so thoroughly intermixed I doubt there are any tribal affiliations. I had a Jewish friend whose father thought that their family was from the tribe of Levi but just opinion hardly accounts. I have heard Levi being claimed as a tribal affiliation but never Naphtali, for instance. All the Ashkenazi, the people that are thought of when the word Jew is mentioned, at least in the West, are at least 30th cousins. This kinda dilutes the whole concept of tribal affiliation. If we want to be literal, if the Bible says the Tribe of Gad in Revelation 7, it means that everyone in the tribe is a full-blooded Gadite. Maybe full-bloodedness existed in the First Century but it doesn’t exist now. So, the Tribulation was a done deal back in the First Century. Can’t be repeated according to that Millerite favorite: type-antitype. Because there is no longer tribal identity and no longer full-bloodedness.
Let’s see what kind of rationalization Armstrongists can come up with.
Scout
Yea Scout, Armstrongists like to refer to the prophets like Hosea to point out Ephraim is used to represent all of the House of Israel. But how do they get around: Hosea 5:5 The pride of Israel testifies to his face; Therefore Israel and Ephraim stumble in their iniquity; Judah also stumbles with them. Then theyr start referencing the temple in Ezekiel.
Yea their proclamation of “Mother of harlots” decries that protestant churches are just as pagan as catholic churches. So you can’t just single Dan/Ireland out of the physical/spiritual equation. This also creates a problem with BI or AI (American Israel), with England breaking away from the Church of Rome and becoming the Church of England (which is almost the same thing except for a pope). Or many of the early American churches who were also primarily being protestant and were not a part of their concept of the COG lineage from apostolic christianity. So they are pagan too, or just as guilty as Irish catholics.
I remember reading GTA’s 144K booklet a couple of decades ago, and at that time I was impressed. But I have reservations about it now since I have studied more. What’s interesting is that the word “tribulation” is used three other times in Rev. pertaining to God’s church in Rev 2 in the letters of the churches in the first century. That booklet, I will admit, had a few decent points. However if one's premise is BI, then your 144k conclusion is going to be off.
Part 2
The one thing that I concurred how GTA put it was he would say about the 144K: he would say; “there is not one christian organization that has 12,000 jewish people that are converted with the holy spirit.”
Not just any christian organization, but according to Armstrongism, you have to be in their organization to be a true christian and converted with the holy spirit. So not only does one have to have 12K from the tribe of Judah, there has to be 12K from each tribe that are in their christian organization or be in their organization in the future. They have to be of pure blood, Gadites, Asherites, Reubenites etc. who are converted and sealed with the Holy Spirit. That’s far-fetched and highly unlikely with all the migrations intermarrying and captivity that have occurred throughout millennia.
Scout writes:
“We could also use this as an argument that the Tribulation already happened and will not happen again.”
The phrase “and will not happen again” would be right at home in OT apocalyptic hyperbole.
“The language of "never before, and never after" is common hyperbole, and should not be pressed to a literalness beyond that which was intended in any of its uses” — from article below:
Jesus Never Predicted The End Of The World
While I disagree that the Olivet prophecy was only for AD 70 some valid points - hence editing, including bracketed material.
Keith Giles, February 8, 2018:
"Immediately after the distress of those days, ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'" – Matt. 24:29
The apocalyptic language that Jesus uses to describe the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem...
In this context, the "coming of the Lord" is similar to what is said about the Lord riding on the clouds as He brought judgment against Egypt:
"Behold, the LORD is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them." – Isaiah 19:1
Did God saddle up a cloud and come riding through the sky when He judged the nation of Egypt? No, that's not what happened.
What did happen was that armies from another nation attacked Egypt and they experienced the "coming of the Lord" who was "riding on a swift cloud" against them.
This is what Jesus intends to communicate when, in the context of pronouncing a similar judgment against Jerusalem and their Temple, he says:
"At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory." – Mark 13:26
...
What about where Jesus refers to the things like the sun and the moon not giving their light? What about His prophecy about the stars falling from the sky? Doesn't that mean the world and the universe are being destroyed?
Yes, and no.
Much like the previous use of the "fire is not quenched and their worm does not die" language mentioned above, this is apocalyptic hyperbole.
Here's a few examples:
Isaiah prophesies against Babylon:
"For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible." – Isaiah 13:9-11
Ezekiel prophesies against Egypt:
"And when I shall put thee [Pharaoh] out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God." – Ezekiel 30:18; 32:7-8
Amos prophesies against Israel about how the Assyrians will destroy them:
"in that day, declares the Sovereign Lord, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight" – Amos 8:9
Isaiah prophesies against Edom:
"…Hearken, ye people: let the earth hear….All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll….For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold it shall come down upon Edom, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment….For it is the day of the Lords vengeance." – Isaiah 34:1-8
Notice anything?
Did you see how these prophets pronounced a very real-world judgment against them and yet used cosmic destruction-language?
Part 2
Notice how they each promise that the stars will go dark, or the heavens will be dissolved and rolled up like a scroll? Notice how they foretell that this destruction will be marked by the sun and moon not giving their light?
All of that? It's apocalyptic hyperbole. Prophetic and poetic overstatements about the cosmic-level judgment that is about to come upon them all.
Poetic, not literal.
No stars were harmed in the destruction of Edom. No moons or suns were actually extinguished when Babylon and Egypt got sacked. No heavens were actually rolled into a taco.
Hyperbole.
Now, go back and read what Jesus says about the destruction of the Temple and the "end of the age" that is coming to Jerusalem within a single generation. If you do, you'll notice he uses the exact same phrases, and when he does the disciples understand that the moon, and the sun, and the stars and the sky will not literally turn to blood, or be extinguished, or fall, or be rolled up in a rubber band.
They knew – where we do not seem to know – that this was very common Old Testament-style apocalyptic language used to communicate a very real day of destruction and judgment that was about to come to pass.
The language is figurative, but the destruction is very, very real.
Notice a few more examples of this type of apocalyptic hyperbole:
"I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth, declares the Lord…The wicked will have only heaps of rubble when I cut off man from the face of the earth" – Zephaniah 1:2-3
[Ge 8:21b And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done].
Note: Zephaniah prophesied against Judah prior to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. God did not destroy the entire planet or wipe away everything from the face of the earth, in this event.
When the prophet Joel prophesies against Judah he says this about the armies that will be used to bring the Lord's judgment:
"The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining…" – Joel 2:4-11
Once again, this is not a promise to snuff out the sun and the moon, or to extinguish the stars in the sky. It's a promise to bring a cataclysmic level of doom upon Judah because of their sins.
When Jesus says:
"For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again" [in Matt. 24:21]…
…you already know what he's trying to say here, right?
Of course you do. Because in the Old Testament this sort of language was used over and over again to overstate the severity and horror of the judgment to come:
"And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations." – Ezekiel 5:9
This was about the impending destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Jesus applied the same language to the impending destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 (Matt. 24:21). Both events, in the common hyperbole of the day, are spoken of as if they were each uniquely horrendous, but this is simply for emphasis.
[Ex 10:14 they invaded all Egypt and settled down in every area of the country in great numbers. Never before had there been such a plague of locusts, nor will there ever be again. (NIV).
[Joel 2:2b Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come (NIV)].
The same language is used of the locust plague mentioned in Exodus 10:14, yet the language in Joel 2:2 seems to be describing another locust plague, also uniquely horrendous and "unequaled since the beginning of the world", etc.
But can these three events all be the worst of all time and never to be equaled again? Of course not, but that's not the point here. The hyperbole is not literal, but the destruction is.
Part 3
1Ki 3:12 Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.
Similarly, Solomon was said to have been uniquely wise and magnificent, using the exact same hyperbole (1 Kings 3:12-13). Yet we know of one [Jesus] who is "greater than Solomon" (Matt.12:42).
The language of "never before, and never after" is common hyperbole, and should not be pressed to a literalness beyond that which was intended in any of its uses.
In Daniel 9:12, he says of the destruction of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar:
"You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing on us great disaster. Under the whole heaven nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem."
Really? Well, maybe up to that point, but certainly not for all time.
The point – and I do think I have made it – is that hyperbole is never literal, but the destruction always is [but see Jer 50-51 where there was no destruction]. End.
[Ps 18: For the director of music. Of David the servant of the LORD. He sang to the LORD the words of this song when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said: (NIV).
Ps 18:6 In my distress I called to the LORD? I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.
Ps 18:7 The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook;
they trembled because he was angry.
Ps 18:9 He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet.
Ps 18:9 He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet.
Ps 18:10 He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. (NIV).
"In such a psalm, the imagery of the visitation at Sinai is applied in purely poetic terms to a visitation of God by which he enables his servant to escape the threat of death" (George Eldon Ladd, The Presence of the Future, Rev. ed., p.50).
Mk 13:24 But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
Mk 13:25 And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.
Mk 13:26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
"The question arises of the extent to which such language is to be taken literally or symbolically. We have already discovered that the language of divine theophany which looks back to God's visitation at Sinai can be used poetically both of visitations to deliver his servant from personal danger and of historical visitations to bring judgment upon an erring people (see pp. 50 ff). Does this not give us reason to interpret all such language about the eschatological shaking of the world, collapse of the heavens, etc., as poetical language used to depict the indescribable glory of the final theophany? The importance of this question can be seen by the fact that this terminology provides the conceptual material for the "apocalyptic" of the New Testament eschatology with it view of a cosmic catastrophe bringing this age to a close and introducing the age to come (See Mark 13:24 and parallels; Acts 2:19-20; II Pet 3:11-13; Rev 6:12-17; 20:11; 21:1). Is such language anything more than traditional language of Old Testament poetry used to describe the majesty of God?" (George Eldon Ladd, The Presence of the Future, Rev. ed., p.62).
A tangent on missing tribe/s:
1Chr “2:1-2 Although there are numerous lists of the 12 tribes in the OT, only four are given in genealogical form: (1) Ge 29:31-30:24; 35:16-20; (2) Ge 35:22-26; (3) Ge 46:8-27; (4) here. Other lists of the tribes are found in 12:24-37; 27:16-22; Ex 1:2-5; Dt 27:12-13; 33; Eze 48:31-34. In other lists the tribe of Levi is omitted, and the number 12 is achieved by dividing Joseph into the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (Nu 1:5-15; 1:20-43; 2:3-31; 7:12-83; 10:14-28; 13:4-15; 26:5-51). In this passage the Chronicler appears to follow Ge 35:22-26 except for the position of the tribe of Dan, which is found in seventh instead of ninth place. The list here does not set the order in which the Chronicler will take up the tribes; rather, he moves immediately to his major concern with the house of David and the tribe of Judah (2:3-4:23), even though Judah is fourth in the genealogy. In the lists of these chapters the Chronicler maintains the number 12, but with the following names: Judah, Simeon, Reuben, Gad, half of Manasseh, Levi, Issachar, Benjamin, Naphtali, Ephraim, Manasseh and Asher. Zebulun and Dan are omitted” (NIV Study Bible).
The tribe of Dan misses out again.
Below are the tribal allocations for the Messianic Age. In the “teruma” is the Temple, City and lands for the Priests and Levites. There are seven tribes above the “teruma” and five below. In the parallel in Joshua, the setting up the tabernacle at Shiloh is paralleled with the “teruma,” but in that case five tribes are mentioned before Shiloh and seven after.
The location pf the tribes is determined by:
(1) social status. In Israelite thinking social statues, is not how high one is up the ladder, but how close one is to the “teruma”.
(2) The tribes of Leah have been rehabilitated and so gain higher status than Ephraim and Manaseh.
(3) Judah and Benjamin have pride of place due to their past loyalty; but Judah is now a northern tribe.
(4) It follows that the tribes descendant from the handmaidens have the lowest status and so are further away from the “teruma”. Dan is the furthest away and has the lowest social status.
Dan
Asher
Naphtali
Manasseh
Ephraim
Reuben
Judah
Teruma
Benjamin
Simeon
Issachar
Zebulon
Gad
For a bit of trivea, this is part of the way I remember the order of the tribes with the 4 points above in mind and the use of English.
Dan, a three letter name is furthest away on the north and Gad, also a three letter is furthest away on the south. Asher, the second from the top, starts with the first letter of the alphabet, while Zebulon, the second from the bottom starts with the last letter of the alphabet.
Dan is also an anagram for the first three northern tribes.
With Judah and Benjamin having pride of place, and the rehabilitation of the sons of Leah the two oldest sons of Leah Reuben and Simeon have the second pride of place, Reuben to the north and Simeon to the south. With Ephraim and Manasseh staying as northern tribes one has only to remember the name of Leah’s younger son. Issachar has the same social status as Ephraim.
Apologies. The second last sentence should have read:
“... one has only to remember the name of Leah’s second youngest son.
Yea Scout, I am reminded of the other verse in Daniel.
Daniel 12:1 “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.
Is this talking about one nation (70 AD) or ACOG (Commonwealth of nations)? The Bible uses the singular verbiage (in the KJV and NKJV).
I don't know about the stars, but I used to hear from ministers in ACOG that their was a lunar eclipse when Christ died that made the moon like like it turned into blood. But that maybe a different context than the "end times."
good points and correlation from OT to NT hyperbole,
Tank
"The question arises of the extent to which such language is to be taken literally or symbolically.”
This is a challenging issue. Everyone seems to acknowledge that the Bible contains figures of speech, even literalists. Literalists spend more time stressing over what is literal and what is figurative than others. But they do acknowledge figures of speech. My guess is that they don’t see as much poetry in the Bible as your average reader so their reading of the Bible conveys less meaning.
If I read that “the moon becomes blood”, to me that is metaphor. I don’t think the prophet really thought the moon was going to change to blood cells and plasma. In fact, he knew nothing about blood cells and plasma. So, I am strongly inclined to think such language is poetical. But it does occur to me that what we see as poetical in the physical realm may express something that is quite real in the spiritual realm. I don’t know how to make that translation but it is a possibility. The real question is what does a literary motif of uncertain meaning for us have to do with loving God and your neighbor. I think that principle gives us the ability to assign relevance to the metaphor.
The varying lists of the tribes of Israel may have some profound meaning. Maybe Dan and Ephraim are omitted for very good reason. But we don’t know what reason is. At least, incontrovertibly. I still think John of Patmos was off in his tribal roll because the physical wasn’t that important to him and didn’t feel it should be important to his readers either.
You have to also see it from the point of view of John of Patmos who is writing in a challenging apocalyptic style. He needs twelve tribes and there are actually thirteen if one considers the two half-tribes. And he did consider one half-tribe – Manasseh. But he had to get a size thirteen foot into a size twelve shoe so he could come up with a special number. So, he ejected Dan and Ephraim from the list of explicit members to make everything rhyme. Go figure.
And we have not even delved into the salient fact that these tribes do not even exist any longer. If you are a BI weenie, you have to pretend that the political units in Western Europe correspond to tribes. Really a half-baked idea. And you have your own mysteries, like If Dan and Ephraim are omitted from John’s list then that would be that Denmark, Ireland and England are somehow different and excluded. What makes them different?
Scout
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