The Lost Tribes are the Kurds, Maronites and Armenians

I have decided to abandon my past flirtations with more epic and sexy theories about the Lost Tribes and simply focus on who makes the most sense based on the DNA evidence.

A lot of the discussion of Jewish DNA online has been in the context of refuting the Khazzar Conspiracy theory, Casual Historian and Chris White both have good YouTube videos on that subject.  Studies of the DNA of various Jewish communities have shown them to be genetically closer related to other Jewish communities who might look different from them "Racially" then they are the Gentiles who do look like them "Racially".  And have likewise shown them to be closely related to the Arabs.  This applies equally to the Ashkenazim, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Maghrebi, Temani and other Middle Eastern Jewish communities, as well as the Persian Jews, Georgian Jews, Mountain Jews, Igbo Jews the Lemba and others.

What interests me today however are a handful of Gentile communities that are observed to be Genetically closer related to the Jews even then the Arabs.  Since the Arabs are predominantly the descendants of Ishmael and Abraham's sons by Keturah, groups closer to the Jews then them must be either Edomites or fellow Israelites, but I think the Edomites were mostly absorbed into Ishmaelite populations when the Nabateans conquered ancient Edom.

Those groups are the Kurds, Armenians and the Lebanese Christians.  

Sometimes Georgians and Anatolian Truks are added, but both those groups are today closely related to Armenians because probably many of them have Armenian ancestors somewhere within the last 2,000 years.  Ancient/Medieval Armenia was larger then modern Armenia and in fact included a good chunk of western Turkey, and during the Crusades era there was an Armenian splinter state in Cilicia.  Georgia's relationship to Armenia is uniquely complicated, they for a long time had a royal family that was a cadet branch of Armenia's Bagratid Dynasty.

Armenians actually classified as such are a smaller group today then they used to be largely because of the Armenian Genocide committed by the Young Turks during WWI. 

I should note the fact that some of those Khazzar theorists out there will try to claim the genetic similarities Jews have to Armenians and Georgians is evidence for the Khazzar theory, however legitimate scientists know that doesn't work.  They are on the wrong side of the Caucasus, the core of the Khazzar kingdom was way north of the Caucasus and then when it expanded it at it's greatest extent touched the norther slopes of the Caucasus, but they never held any dominion over Georgia much less Armenia.  Also the Khazzars were a Turkic tribe, so like the other Altaic peoples their dominant Y Haplogroup would have been C which just so happens to be one that has never been found in a Jewish population, even as a tiny minority.

The Anatolian Turks however are genetically speaking not actual Turks, that's what all the discussion of studies of their DNA I've found show even when they don't bring up this relation to Jews.  They are people who started speaking the Turkish Language after the Seljuks and Ottomans conquered the region, but they still more genealogically descend from those who were already there, the people of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Samaria=Kurds

1 Chronicles 5:26 refers to the Trans-Jordan Tribes being carried away by Assyria to Halah, Habor and Hara by the River Gozan.  2 Kings 17:6 and 18:11 also refer to those locations minus Hara but adds "Cities of the Medes" (some have argued it originally read "Mountains of Media", still implies the same general area) as being where the Captives of Samaria under King Hosea were taken.  Then 2 Kings 19:12 and Isaiah 37:12 mentions Gozan and Haran as among nations Assyria had destroyed previously.  From studying similar words in the Hebrew texts I think Hara is a shortened form of Haran, so it's like they're going full circle and being taken back to where Abraham was before he was called.

The River called Gozan in those verses is most likely the Khabur a significant tributary of the Euphrates that has tributaries of it's own, Guzana/Gozan is the name of an ancient city on that river who's remains are now called Tell Halaf, it may be a translation or scribal issue that switched the name of the river and city, or maybe they just were more interchangeable in Antiquity.  Edessa and Nisibis are both cities on rivers that are tributaries of this river as are many other important cities of Syrian and Turkish Kurdistan.  Antiochus Epiphanes renamed Edessa/Urfa as Callirrhoe or Antiochia on the Callirhoe, I'm not sure what exactly Callirhoe refers to here, but it could come from Halah given how Harran is similarly called Carrhae in Greek. 

Ancient Media meanwhile overlaps with modern Iranian Kurdistan, and the Kurdish Language is classified as a Northwestern Iranian language closely related to the Median Language (as are the Zaza-Gorani Languages spoken by some Kurds).  During classical Greco-Roman times this region included Corduene/Gordyene, Media Atropatene and Osroene, it's complicated however because multiple ethnic groups existed in those regions.

These were all territories at least partly under Assyrian Control in 740-720 BC, the more fanciful identifications for these places like Velikvosky's theories and those of British Israelism have Assyria somehow deporting Israelites to places Assyria never controlled.

The passages including Naphtali in the Captivity don't specifically refer to these locations,  But the Deuterocanonical book of Tobit gives us good reason to believe Naphtalite clans were actually living in the heart of Assyria itself (I know that the main protagonists of Tobit are in Media, but it established Ahkir an important Vizer of Assyria as their cousin), and 2 Kings 17:23 also refers to captives being taken to Assyria.  So I think they are the ancestors of first century Adiabene who's capital was Arbela and through them the Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan who's chief city is Irbil.  

Corduene/Gordyene was inhabited by a people called the Carduchoi/Carduchi who are also popularly proposed to be ancestors of the Kurds.  There is a medieval Jewish legend that the Corduene were the result of Solomon marring some of his Jinn to 500 Jewish Women.  That is a weird legend which is certainly not correct, but it does show that ancient Jews thought of these people as in some way related to them.  It could partly have it's roots in 1 Kings 4's account of Solomon marrying two of his daughters to Northern Governors, one of them being governor of Naphtali.

A region in Media Atropatene called Cadusia may have also been named after Gad.  A city in northwestern Iran is called Zabad, possibly related to the Zabad of 1 Chronicles 7's Ephraimite Genealogy.  There is also a city in Iranian Kurdistan called Salmas who's name could be related to the Biblical name Salma or to Shillem a clan of Naphtali from Number 26:49 and Genesis 46:24.  Salmas first appears in the historical record right at the same time the Parthian Empire was conquered by the Sassanids.

The proper Kingdom of Media of classical antiquity didn't actually begin till just after when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered.  Deioces is the name given in Classical sources for it's first King, there are conflicting dates for their reign between the different sources, but when analyzed they can be explained by Deioces being a Median name given to King Hosea.  Deioces is also speculated to be the same person as Hushung in the Sahanameh, Hushung is a name that both phonetically and in meaning could be a poetic adaptation of the name of Hosea.  So Media Atropatene could be the Arsareth that II Esdras says King Hosea lead some of the exiles to.

Dejoces is a direct ancestor of Astyages who's daughter was the mother of Cyrus.  Media Atropatene was the one former Persian territory not fully conquered by the Greeks under Alexander, it remained Semii-Independent till the 1st century when their Royal Family became the main Parthian Royal Family and through them of Armenia as well.

Saladin was of Kurdish ancestry.

The rest of the Northern Kingdom was not carried away into captivity.  Those who accepted Hezekiah's Passover invitation in 2 Chronicles simply became Jews (citizens of Judah/Judea), and is known to have included people of Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun and Asher. (Anna the Prophetess of Luke 2 was of the Tribe of Asher.)  For the most part though in NT times they became the Galileans and Jews of southern Phoenicia. Those of Manasseh and Ephraim who rejected Hezekiah' invitation became partial ancestors of the Samaritans by mingling with the gentiles Assyria settled there.  And the Tribe of Dan's unique History had them mostly separated from the rest of the Northern kingdom well before the captivity happened.

Actually even Assyria's deportation of Naphtali seems to have been the core Natphalite settlements along the Sea of Galilee, while Naphtali's allotment included much of Eastern Lebanon, where there were places they never drove the Canaanites out of.

Dan=Maronites

Most Christians in Lebanon are Maronites, the Maronites are also seemingly the oldest Christian community in Lebanon.  

Among the parts of Lebanon demographically dominated by the Maronites are places on the southern Border just north of Israel's Northern Border.  And the oldest Maronite Community within Israel was in a village north of Mount Meron just south of the Lebanese border.  Thus fitting Dan's Biblical association with Israel's northern border.  

Lebanon is the region that in Biblical Times was the homeland of the Sidonians known to the Greeks as the Phoenicians who's chief cities were first Sidon then Tyre.  The Tribe of Dan had a unique relationship with the Sidonians and their territory from Joshua 19 to Judges 18 to Hiram architect of Solomon's Temple.  

The last time I talked about this theory of mine I tied it into rejecting Tel-Dan as being Biblical Dan, but that I've changed my mind on.  I now know that we've found the ruins of an old Temple at Tel-Dan likely to be where Jeroboam's Calf was worshiped.  There used to be a more significant Maronite presence in the Golan Heights but now they've dwindled to just a small community in Ein Qiniyye not far from Tel-Dan.  [My opinions continue to fluctuate on that subject.  But now even the more Northern sites I'm considering are also in Maronite territory.]

In the KJV of 1 Kings 5:18 "stonequarers" is a translation of Giblites, which is the spelling also used of inhabitants of Gebel the Semitic name for Byblos, the YLT translates this verse correctly.  Since these Giblites are implied to be involved in the construction of The Temple which was overseen by the half-Danite half-Phoenician Huram, I'm willing to consider this circumstantial evidence for significant Danite presence in the region of Byblos, which is today the core of Maronite Lebanon.  Gebel/Byblos was also a port city, so the seafaring Danites mentioned in the Song of Deborah might be who settled there.

There is a tradition among some Maronites that they at least partly descend from the Maradites, a group of Byzantine Christians who migrated from the Taurus Mountains region of Turkey into Syria during the 7th Century.  Of course there are also theories about the Tribe of Dan that suggest some of them wound up in the Adana region as the Denyen.

But I am also skeptical about traditional narrative of Maronite origins.  I think the actual origin of their name is probably connected to Mount Maron in Nothern Israel, a village between that Mountain the Lebanon border was one of the oldest Marontie communities in Israel.  

I also theorize that the liturgically Greek Christians of Tyre, Sidon and Ptolemais/Acre/Acco/Akka clerically at least descend from the Hellenistic Jewish Deacons of Acts 6 who Acts 11 implies some of fled to Phoenicia, and later on Acts mentions all three of those cities specifically.  My broader theory is that the Greek Rite Christian communities of Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon to some extent descend from Hellenized Jews who converted to Christianity in the First Century, there are references to the Galileans being more open to Hellenization then the Judeans.  And related to that I think the Aramaic Rite Christians of the same region distinct from the Maronites likewise descent from Aramaic speaking Jews who converted to Christianity in the First Century.  In this region they were probably usually remnants of Asher, Zebulun and Issachar, and maybe also those Manesseites in Asher and Issachar referred to in Joshua 17:11, Judges 1:27, 1 Kings 4:11-12 and 1 Chronicles 7:29.

The non Maronite Christians of Eastern Lebanon could be those left behind remnants of Naphtali like the Melkite Catholics of Zahle.  There are also Maronites in the East, Dan and Naphtali as brothers of the same handmaiden often got along.

How does Armenia fit in?

During much of the divided Kingdom Period the city of Lachish was the second largest city in Judah, and in fact the largest within Judah's proper Tribal allotment since Jerusalem was originally a city of Benjamin.  Assyria failed to conquer Jerusalem, but in it's war with Judah during the reign of Hezekiah it did capture and carry away into captivity the population of Lachish.

There are no Biblical clues to where the Judeans of Lachish were taken like there are for the Northern Kingdom's Captivity.  However where Assyria settled the northern captives made sense in the context of what their other recent conquests were, Assyria liked to move populations from one conquered region to another to weaken local national identities.  So it's notable that between the Northern Kingdom's captivity in the 8th century BC and when Lachish was taken in the 7th century BC the Assyrian Empire had conquered Urartu extending it's borders further north.  And the Armenians first began to emerge in the former Urartu lands after Assyria conquered it.  It took awhile however, the Orontid Kings don't show up till 570 BC, and nothing is known to have been written down in the Armenian language till their translation of The Bible in the 5th Century AD.

Armenia's traditional claim to descent from sons of Gomer (chiefly Togarmah but Ashkenaz is also mentioned) I think refers to some of the ancestors of the Urartu who lived in the region before them and who they intermingled with.  Or maybe the Armenian Language being Indo-European is their influence.

It's possible additional Jewish migrations to this region happened later, like during the Babylonian Captivity or when it ended.  Two patrilineal descendants of Herod The Great were Roman Client Kings of Armenia as Tigranes V and Tigranes VI.  And then Jewish Christians of the first couple centuries eventually brought The Gospel to Armenia, Armenia even claims to have beaten Rome to making Christianity their State Religion in 301 AD. I think it actually happened a little later probably at the same time as Iberia in the 330s and like them perhaps partly because of diplomatic relations with Constantine. 

Both the Six Pointed Star and a Red Lion are among Armenia's National Symbols.  Many insist the Six Pointed Start didn't become a Jewish Symbol till fairly recently, but archeological evidence does exist of it being used in Ancient Israel, and I have a hypothesis that the Hebrew Bible's Lily Imagery is partly where it comes from.  

It is sometimes claimed that only the Georgian Bagratuni claimed Davidic descent, but their heraldry was a Lion already in Armenia.  There is also an Armenian folk hero named David of Sassoun who's father was called Lion Mher meaning "lion like".  The current official genealogy of the Georgian branch connects them to David in a way that excludes the Armenian branch, but that link alone may not be the whole story.

The Eagle was also an ancient symbol for Armenia.  I've often pointed out how there is no Biblical support for an Eagle being a symbol of Dan, that came from later Targums.  I had in the past mistakenly thought the Eagle imagery of the last verse of Micah 1 was in reference to Samaria, but the proper context is actually Lachish named in verse 13 and nearby towns of Judah.  Micah 1 is a Biblical reference to the Assyrian Captivity of Lachish which I had trouble finding when looking for it strictly in the historical books.

One theory on the claimed Davidic origins of the Bagratid Dynasty I've already discussed on this blog is that they descend from one of the Maternal Half Siblings of Jesus (I'm thinking of making a post arguing that Cleopas was married to a Sister of Jesus).  However other theories on their origins connect them to the Babylonian Exilarchs.  I also am controversially willing to agree with Nicolas of Damascus over Josephus that Herod was of Davidic ancestry not Idumean.

But maybe Lachish itself was simply a frequent home to Cadet branches of the House of David, like Orleans was for France and York for England?  David himself, Rehoboam and Abijah are all known to have had a lot more children then just the Son who followed them on the Throne.

Plato's Myth of Er son of Armenios is probably an adaptation of Armenian legends about their local hero Ara The Beautiful.  That draws attention to the possibility that the Armenian name Ara could be related to the Hebrew Er.  In Genesis 38:3-7, 46:12, Numbers 26:19 and 1 Chronicles 2:3 the name of Er is given to Judah's firstborn son who died childless.  I believe Er's widow Tamar did eventually marry Shelah after the events of Genesis 38 end and that she's the mother Shelah's children (in addition to Zerah and Pharez).  In 1 Chronicles 4:21 the name of Er is given to the firstborn son of Shelah.  

It could be the real story behind the myth was this second Er being thought of as a symbolic rebirth of the first Er.  I don't think Semiramis was ever part of the Ara mythology prior to Hellenistic influence in the region, and Plato we also know would change the myths he talked about to suit his rhetorical purposes.  However if a literal belief in Reincarnation was part of the Pre-Christian Paganism of Armenia, my current theories about the origins of that belief suggests it would have came not from the Jewish element of their ancestry but from the same people responsible for their language being Indo-European.

Perhaps I should give some more thought to Armenia's close relationship to Georgia however.  The oldest civilization in what is today called Georgia was Colchis.  Certain classical Greek writers like Diodorus Siculus (in Section 28) said that the Colchi descended from the same "foreigners exiled from Egypt" that the Jews descended from, and that they also practiced circumcision. "The nation of the Colchi in Pontus and that of the Jews, which lies between Arabia and Syria, were founded as colonies by certain emigrants from their country; and this is the reason why it is a long-established institution among these two peoples to circumcise their male children."  The Georgians were called Iberians during Greco-Roman times, a name which could derive from Eber/Hebrew.  So maybe the Colchi were the lost clan of Calchol son of Zerah son of Judah?  

The Colchi definitely existed on the shores of the Black Sea before the captivity of Lachish however, so we'd need an additional route for how they got there.  They could have just been a colony founded by Judean sea faring merchants.  However Joel 3 speaks of Tyre & Sidon and the Philistines selling children of Judah and Jerusalem to Ionians(Javan) as slaves.  Ezekiel 27:13 speaks of Javan, Meshach and Tubal trading in commodities including Slaves that they got from Tyre.  Meshach and Tubal are the names of two ancient cities in Georgia.  

Herodotus also claimed the Colchi practiced Circumcision though his theory on why was that they were an Egyptian colony.  Modern scholars tend to dismiss these Greek references to Circumcision in Colchis because none of the Karvelian tribes seem to have ever practiced it.  However the Georgian Jews were already present in the region by the time of Nebuchadnezzar, so it could be they were who these Greek authors were thinking of.

Be Flexible.

There is a lot of overlap between Armenia at it's greatest extent and Kurdistan, before the Armenian Genocide there were over 2 Million Armenians in Turkey many of them essentially right next to the Kurdish communities.  The Armenian offshoot Kingdom of Sophene was entirely within modern Kurdistan.  The Armenian Historian Moses of Chorene for some reason considers the history of King Abgar of Edessa to be relevant to the History of Armenia, he talks about him far more then the actual Armenian Client Kings of that time.

So being super rigid about which part of Ancient Israel each is descended from is of course a bit silly.  But I found it fun to talk about the often overlooked subject of Lachish in the context of Armenia.

Gad in Deuteronomy 33 has Lion symbolism parallel to that of Judah in Genesis 49. 

The traditions the Armenians have that they descend from sons of Gomer son of Japheth could have it's roots in there being an ancient major city called Gyumri.  However in Scripture the name of Gomer isn't limited to that genealogy, in Hosea it's also the name of a Woman who's story is supposed to typologically represent the Northern Kingdom.

Update 2022: Anatolian Turks

I kind of dismissed them as one of the DNA results at the start as mostly insignificant.  I didn't really realize that Anatolian Turks are in fact the majority ethnic group in modern Turkey.

In addition to how they might be related through various intermingling they've done with Armenians and Kurds, there is Joel 3's reference to Philista, Tyre and Sidon selling people of Judah and Jerusalem as slaves to the Ionians (commonly translated Greeks or Grecians) Ionia was in Anatolia.  1 Chronicles 9:3 says Jerusalem's population has people of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh.  I connected Joel 3 to Ezekiel 27's Meshech and Tubal reference in the Georgia section above, but many argue Meshech and Tubal actually point to locations in Anatolia, chiefly Cappadocia and Tyana.

Then there is how some "Sea Peoples" are connected to both Anatolia and Israel, like the Denyen to both Dan and Adana, and the Sherden to both the Sardite clan of Zebulun and Sardis.  To mainstream historians who see a connection it is usually seen as them starting in Anatolia then migrating to Palestine, but I of course think the other way is more likely.  However I still think most of those tribes mostly stayed in Israel and Lebanon as laid out above, it'd be small groups who left little seeds in Anatolia that eventually grew to great significance.

And then there is my theory that the Gog son of Joel a Cheif of The Tribe of Reuben in 1 Chronicles 5 was a child when Reuben was deported in the late 700s BC and is the same person as Gyges of Lydia.

Dan to Beersheba

Beersheba might seem like an odd Biblical location to question the traditional identification of.  But I really feel the modern Israeli city of Beerhseba is too far north to work for how often Beersheba is an idiom of Israel's southern border.  And maybe it's too far west too, this idiom should perhaps be the middle of the border otherwise it's more of a corner.

Part of the confusion comes from Gerar, I think Biblical Gerar includes the modern traditional location but extents further to cover a descent chunk of the southern Negev.  It's a region not a city.

There are three chapters of The Bible that define the Southern Border without reference to Beersheba or Gerar.  Numbers 34, Ezekiel 47 and Ezekiel 48, all three can be difficult to interpret because of how they use place names that appear only in these three chapters, plus other aspects that are translated inconsistently.  The Lamsa translation of the Peshita version of Ezekiel seems to make Tamar and Meribah-Kadesh different names of the same location, and I think of all the versions I've read that makes the most sense in the context of other aspects of Biblical geography.

Numbers 34's use of Zin further confirms that Barnea is the same Kadesh (the Wilderness of Paran I think refers to everything west of the Arabah while the Wilderness of Zin is a more specific sub section of Paran.)  I think the reason Numbers 21 at first looks like it's saying they just arrived at a new location is because they did move slightly, but in the grand scheme of things are still on the same dot on a map of Jordan small enough to fit on my Labtop's computer screen.

So all three of these chapters place Kadesh on or very near the eastern edge of the Southern Border.  While the Western part of the border is the Wadi al-Arish.  Kadesh as I've already argued is Petra in Jordan.  The name Beersheba is not introduced till Genesis 21 but it's still implied to be pretty much where Abraham and Sarah settled at the start of chapter 20.  So the information in those chapters of Genesis combined with other references to Kadesh and Paran further support Beersheba being close to the same latitude as Kadesh.  And also about halfway between Kadesh and the Egyptian border.

Frankly I currently think Avdat is about where Beersheba should be.  The ruins at Avdat standing today (you can see them in the 73 film version of Jesus Christ Superstar) are Nabataean ruins contemporary with the Greco-Roman period, as is the name Avdat itself.  Biblical Beersheba I do not expect to have been a bustling Metropolis, it was probably a pretty humble village with no major buildings, the construction of Nabatean Avdat could easily have eliminated whatever remains older Beersheba had.  Avdat did have a Well which was the water source of it's Roman Bathhouse.

Avdat was an important stop on the road connecting Gaza to Petra. That fits pretty well with the picture I've painted above of the relationship between Beersheba and Kadesh.

Then I learned about Shivta, another city on that trade same route who's name actually seems connected to Beersheba's original name in Genesis 26:33 and Joshua 19:2.  

I now think Beersheba was in the area of either Shivta/Sobota/Subeita, Ruheiba (which seems to have the most notable Well in the area according to Dan Gibson) or Elusa.  And that Avdat/Obodat to their south was the ancient settlement of Abida son of Midian.

Possible Davidic Descent of British Royalty

The main Tea Telphi legend used by British Israelism is most likely not true.  And the means suggested by Britam doesn't hold up under scrutiny either.

But, I read something interesting on a certain Genealogy website.

http://www.geni.com/projects/Descents-from-Antiquity/12283

Pagano Ebriaci

Pagano Ebriaci (?-c1091), of Pisa, ancestor of the Christian Ebriaci family, might have been a convert from Judaism, a son of Joseph of Fustat. The relationship is conjectural, and seems to have originated in the suggestion that the surname Ebriaci means "the Hebrew". Another theory is that the name Ebriaci might derive from a Latin word meaning drunk.

If Pagano Ebriaci was a son of Joseph of Fustat, then he was a grandson of Hezekiah IV, 38th Exilarch and a descendant of King David.

Pagano Ebriaci was an ancestor of Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel, through Manfredo III, marchese di Saluzzo."

EdmundFitzAlan is through his son Richard an ancestor of Henry V of England as well as Elizabeth of York, Queen-Consort of Henry VII and thus ancestor of James VI of Scotland and I of England and thus all modern British and Netherlands Royalty. Also through his Granddaughter Alice Holland, Countess of Kent he is an ancestor of Henry VII himself through his mother.

Richard FitzAlan also has more then one connection to the Dukes of Norfolk, making him an ancestor of both the current Norfolk Family and Anne & Mary Boleyn.

Elizabeth of York I have shown in an earlier post to have possible Bagartid Ancestry.

On my Conspiracy blog I have a post on The Bolyen family including Mary Bolyen's descendants.

Christians have long suspected The Antichrist could claim Davidic descent.  I think it's not impossible he could legitimately have Davidic Descent.  Two of David's direct sons were arguably types of The Antichrist, Absalom and Adonijah (one of those is more sympathetic then the other).  And even Solomon himself after he back slid is directly connected to the number 666.  And we could also look at some of the worst Kings of Judah, especially Manasseh who we're told placed Idols in the Holy Place.

There is a tradition in the Talmud that says the Messiah would be Maternally of Dan and Paternally of David.  The reverse of Samson.  Since the Anglo-Saxons and Normans both likely descend from Dan.  And the current Queen and her Husband both descend from Danish Royalty.  It looks like such a mingling is taking place.

Update 5/14/2017: I now have this sort of follow up post.

The Tiburtine Sibyl and The Last Roman Emperor Constans

A Prophecy attributed to the Tiburtine Sibyl in 380 AD forms the embryo of the Last Roman Emperor tradition.

Of all the false prophecies I view as Antichrist seeds, The Last Roman Emperor is perhaps the most directly like the Biblical Antichrist, being defined as Greek and Roman at the same time, since it developed largely in the Byzantine Empire, it easily reconciles the way Daniel points to both Rome and Greece as the nations the Antichrist will rule.  And in some of the 7th century apocalypses he's said to conquer both Syria and Egypt, which is interesting if you still think Daniel 11:40 is about the Antichrist.

Usually, when dealing with these false prophecies my view is that the Antichrist figure within said Prophecy is in the role of a Decoy Antichrist.  And that is certainly the case with the later elaborations of the Last Roman Emperor tradition.

But this is short, and it's attributed to a pagan Oracle.  Oracles usually give cryptic prophecies, that could have two potentially opposite meanings, or an unexpected meaning that in hindsight should have been obvious.  "A Prophecy that misread could have been"-Yoda, Revenge of The Sith.

So let's look at what this Prophecy says closely.

THE LATIN TIBURTINE SIBYL
Then will arise a king of the Greeks whose name is Constans. He will be king of the Romans and the Greeks. He will be tall of stature, of handsome appearance with shining face, and well put together in all parts of his body. His reign will be ended after one hundred and twelve years. In those days there will be great riches and the earth will give fruit abundantly so that a measure of wheat will be sold for a denarius, a measure of wine for a denarius, and a measure of oil for a denarius. The king will have a text before his eyes that says: "The king of the Romans will claim the whole Christian empire for himself." He will devastate all the islands and the cities of the pagans and will destroy all idolatrous temples; he will call all pagans to baptism and in every temple the Cross of Christ will be erected. "Then Egypt and Ethiopia will be eager to stretch their hands to God." ~ Whoever does not adore the Cross of Jesus Christ will be punished by the sword. When the one hundred and twelve years have been completed, the Jews will be converted to the Lord, and "his sepulchre will be glorified by all." In those days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell with confidence. At that time the Prince of Iniquity who will be called Antichrist will arise from the tribe of Dan. He will be the Son of Perdition, the head of pride, the master of error, the fullness of malice who will overturn the world and do wonders and great signs through dissimulation. He will delude many by magic art so that fire will seem to come down from heaven. The years will be shortened like months, the months like weeks, the weeks like days, the days like hours, and an hour like a moment. The unclean nations that Alexander, the Indian king, shut up (i.e., Gog and Magog) will arise from the North. These are the twenty-two realms whose number is like the sand of the sea. When the king of the Romans hears of this he will call his army together and vanquish and utterly destroy them. After this he will come to Jerusalem, and having put off the diadem from his head and laid aside the whole imperial garb, he will hand over the empire of the Christians to God the Father and to Jesus Christ his Son. When the Roman empire shall have ceased, then the Antichrist will be openly revealed and will sit in the House of the Lord in Jerusalem. While he is reigning, two very famous men, Elijah and Enoch, will go forth to announce the coming of the Lord. Antichrist will kill them and after three days they will be raised up by the Lord. Then there will be a great persecution, such as has not been before nor shall be thereafter. The Lord will shorten those days for the sake of the elect, and the Antichrist will be slain by the power of God through Michael the Archangel on the Mount of Olives.
Translated from the edition of E. Sackur, Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen. pp. 185—86.

1. It never describes Constans as actually fighting the Antichrist, the enemy he goes to war with is Gog and Magog.

2. Although the Antichrist is mentioned while Constans is still reigning, it's not till after Constans puts down his Crown in Jerusalem that the Antichrist is "openly revealed", and reigns in the House of God in Jerusalem.  Same place we were just told Constans was.

I think this prophecy, even as it's author originally intended, is open to a reading where Constans and The Antichrist are the same individual.  That he will "give up" his authority to beings that present themselves as being God and Jesus but are perhaps actually Satan and The False Prophet.

Constans is an interesting name, it's a diminutive form of Constantine and Constantinius (but a few lesser known Emperors are known by that name exactly).  The seventh century Syrian elaborations on the Last Roman Emperor figure didn't give him a name.  And the Western Catholic tradition of the Great Catholic Monarch removed the Greek affiliation altogether saying he'll descend from Clovis, the Merovingian.  However...

When Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453 AD.  Emperor Constantine XI removed his royal garments on the battlefield when he knew it was lost so no one could tell who he was.  After the battle was over the Turks identified a body as his and marched it around the city in victory, but the people failed to recognize it as Constantine.  No body was ever indisputably identified as Constantine.  A rumor spread that an Angel had saved him and turned him into a marble statue and hid him beneath the wall of Constantinople, and that one day God would revive him to drive out the Turks.  The legacy of this legend remained important to the Greeks ever since, it was rekindled during their War of Independence in the 1800s and lingers to this day.

You may be thinking of course, "How can the same person be both  King of the Greeks and a Prince from the Tribe of Dan?"

Ezekiel 27 speaks of Dan and Javan having a connection.  And indeed Greek mythology speaks of the Danoi.  This further leads to speculation about connecting Dan to the Tutha de Dannan who in Irish mythology came from Northern Europe.  I'm highly skeptical of most British Israelism claims, but the Tribe of Dan is very interesting.

Britam identifies Dan with Denmark (which is the only Britam identification I kinda agree with). The Royal family of modern Greece from George I on are also Danish Royalty by virtue of their direct Pater-lineal descent from Christian IX of Denmark.  Every modern King of Greece (King of the Hellenes as they call themselves) is also officially a Prince of Denmark.  King of the Greeks and Prince of Dan.

I discus the genealogy of George I of Greece and Christian IX of Denmark on a different blog.  That information can be overlapped with my Genealogy of The Antichrist study to show that they descend from the Seleucid Dynasty. as well as probable Merovingian descent from Clovis.  This family is also taking over the British Royal family, involving a few of the lines different people have in different ways sought to connect to the House of David.

The current King in exile is Constantine II and is often called by his supporters Constantine XIII, viewing the modern Greek Kingdom as heir to the Byzantine Empire, and evoking the mythology about Constantine XI.

Constantine II has 4 children, Pavolos the oldest son is the Crown-Prince.  Pavolos has 5 children, 4 of whom were born in the United States.  Princess Maria-Olympia, Prince Constantine-Alexios, and Prince Achileas-Andreas all three of whom were born in New York.  Prince Odysseus-Kimon and Prince Aristidis-Stravos who was born in Los Angeles.

The pieces are in place for some charismatic leader of this royal family to bring together the Byzantine Last Roman Emperor tradition, the Great Catholic Monarch Tradition, and the British Israelite understanding of Messiah Ben-Joseph and/or the Talmudic tradition that says Messiah Ben-David will also be half Danite, like how Samson was half Danite and half Judean.

Modern Greece had 7 Kings when it was a Kingdom.  Now that is certainly not what the 7 Kings of Revelation mainly mean as I've firmly shown elsewhere, but it's interesting how patterns repeat.

Long ago when I hadn't settled on my current view of the 7 heads, when discussing a possible connection to the Kings of Rome, I argued that the 7th reigning a little while might not be about reign length so much as implying being driven from his position rather then reigning till he died as a King normally does.  Which also happened to Constantine II.

From there it is interesting that it was during the reign of the Sixth King that Israel was reestablished in 1948.

Update Feb21st2016: Another option I just considered re-reading the Oracle is maybe the "Antichrist" there is really The False Prophet.

Could Antiochus Epiphanes claim descent from the Lost Tribes?

I've already talked a lot about the possible familial connections of the Seleucid Dynasty in my three part Genealogy of The Antichrist study.

In light of my recent speculation that the Eight King could be Antiochus Epiphanies himself.  As well as my other speculation that The White Horseman could claim, validly or not, Ephraimite descent and try to claim he's Messiah Ben-Joseph.  This is an interesting speculation.

As I said before, I don't think he'll admit to being the hated Epiphanes, I think it's possible if he is open about being someone from the past, he might claim to be his more fondly remembered father.

I do not necessarily endorse Lost Tribes became Western Europeans theories in general.  But the nature of tribal migrations is complicated.  And Dan certainly had an interesting history.  Also my theory is more about him claiming such a lineage then if it's actually true.

Antiochus Epiphanes is not usually someone advocates of such theories seek to claim.  But I have a different perspective.

The Macedonian Royal family claimed descent, like the Spartans, from the sons of Herakles and through him to Perseus and Andromeda of Joppa and the Danoi.  All allowing possible connections to Dan or Edom.  But the Seleucids have no provable direct connection to the Agrid line however.

The sons of Herakles whom the Spartan and Macedonian royal families claim descent from supposedly intermarried with the leading family of the Dorian tribes.  Some engaged in Lost Tribes related theories have speculated that the Dorians could have a connection to Dor, a port city of Manasseh, one governor of Dor had married a daughter of Solomon.  Dor is also associated with the Tjekker of the Sea Peoples.

The Macedonians were distinct from the other Dorian derived classical Greek nations in also having some Celtic stock to them.   So Oliver Stone was not being completely random casting Irish and Scottish actors as Macedonians in his Alexander The Great film.  The relationship between the Celtic and Cimmerian peoples is complex.

Apama the wife of Seleucus I was the daughter of Spitamenes, a Perisan Satrap.  He had in his ancestry Persian and Median rulers and through them Assyrian ones too.  The mother of Esarhaddon was possibly an Israelite.  Further back there were Assyrian Kings named Asshur-Dan about whom we know little, making me wonder if connections between Assyrian Royalty and the Denyen might have taken place.

The City of Antioch itself is pretty much in the heart of the Danuna/Laish Dan area.

The Crimmerians are at the center of the main Lost Tribes became Europeans theories.  Most critics of the view just point to the obvious connection between the Cimmerians and Gomer son of Japheth, that Bill Cooper documents well in After The Flood.  He covers it in both the Where to Begin chapter and Appendix 3.

Thing is, the name Gomer also appears in Hosea as the name of the prostitute God has Hosea marry who becomes a symbolic type of Ephraim/Israel.  So advocates of the theory suggest using that name could also be a prophecy about a future intermingling of the descendants of Gomer and the Northern Kingdom.

Khumri is how the Assyrians rendered the name of Omri, which they used to refer to the Northern Kingdom in general even well after the House of Omri fell. The basis for connecting the northern Kingdom exiles to the name of the Cimmerians has often been just based on arguing that Khumri could've become Ghumri and Gimri and so on.  That I think is largely what makes it look silly to people.  Though more implausible things have happened in etymology.

Our pre-history of the Cimmerians is pretty speculative, drawing mainly form Herodotus and other heavily contrived Greek accounts.  But a connection between their name and Crimea I do consider likely.

The first appearance of the Cimmerians in Assyrian records is during the reign of Sargon II, dated to about 714 BC.  After the first two main deportations of the Israelites.  At this time they seem to be "In the midst Mannae" a buffer state between Assyrian and Uratu, rather then where they usually were later.  They assisted Sargon in his war with Uratu.  Mannae is mentioned in The Bible as Minni in Jeremiah 51:27.  Their kingdom was located south and east of Lake Urmia.  Firmly within Median territory where many exiles had been taken according to II Kings 17:6.

Later the Cimmerians during the reigns of Esarhaddon and Asshurbanipal would become enemies of Assyria, and ally with other traditional enemies of Assyria.  It's not implausible that descendants of exiled Israelites would have been attracted to joining up with the Cimmerians.

The Cimmerian nation at it's greatest extent expanded into many other regions of Turkey, like Pontus and Cappadocia.  In Hellenistic times the Cimmerians who remained in the region were known as the Galatians.  The Hellenistic kingdoms of Galatias, Cappadocia and Pontus royal families intermarried a lot with the Seleucid Dynasdty, as well as Pergamon and Commagene.  The mother of Antiochus IV Epiphanes was the daughter of Mithridates II of Pontus.

The Feast of Jeroboam and Halloween

This is my 100th post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  How perfect that it's on the subject of my Birthday,  (I was born October 31st).

1 Kings 12:26-33

 Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.   And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan.  And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. 

 And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.  And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.  So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.

This tells us that when Jeroboam chose to fall into idolatry he created a major Feast Day for the Northern Kingdom on the 15th of Cheshvan, a month after Tabernacles. He was clearly making his own replacement for that Biblical Holiday, but it also basically corresponded to the Pagan Mid-Autum festival season, from which Samhain and our modern Halloween derive.

It's also two days before the Anniversary of the beginning of the Flood which if you read Genesis 7 and 8 you'll see it began on the 17th.  Before Exodus 12 changed the calendar this month was the 2nd rather then 8th.  Jubilees is apocryphal so I wouldn't build doctrine on it.  But it's interesting that it says soon after the Flood Norah told his descendants to observe holy days on the New Moons of the 1st, 4th, 10th and 7th months (corresponding to the Equinoxes and Solstices), and additionally one on the 17th of the 2nd month, the anniversary of The Flood starting.  This may have been a fanciful story they made to explain the origin of Pagan holidays.

People who believe in certain Lost Tribes becoming Europeans theories sometimes see the Celtic Samhain deriving from this directly, becoming dated where it is now when they switched from a Lunar to Solar calendar. I don't believe those theories (they're mostly advanced by Anit-Semites, but Britam is an exception to that), but I do believe the Tribe of Dan had an interesting history (part of it is them being connected to the Tutha De Danann, who are also said to have brought Samhain to Ireland), one of Jeorboam's major Calfs was set up in Dan.   Bill Cooper dates the arrival of the Danann in Ireland to 701 B.C.

My interest in that theory derives in-part from the theory that the Antichrist might come from Dan (This was the nearly universal view of the Early Church Fathers). Jeroboam is also in a sense a Prototype of The Antichrist being given 10 Tribes as the Little Horn will be given 10 Kingdoms, and his Right Hand becoming "Dried up" (Zechariah 11:17).  I agree with Chris White's theory that it's likely during the first half of the 70th Week The Antichrist may claim to be (or be claimed to be) Messiah Ben Joseph.

So it might be possible this date will be important Prophetically as well.  It's also near the anniversary of The Flood, and Jesus said "As the days of Noah where, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be" A statement that I think means many things. It should also be noted that the 15th is believed to be the day Matthias father of the Maccabees died. And it's the day the Novemberpogrome happened, considered by many the start of the Holocaust.

Some have suggested a parallel between The Flood timeline and the Fifth Trumpet in Revelation 9.  That the 40 days the smoke covers The Earth correlates to the 40 days of Rain.  Which could mean it it's from the 17th of Cheshvan until during Chanukah.  And the 5 months the weird Locusts are allowed to torment mankind ends on the 17th of Nisan, same day the Ark rested which I view as the day of Jesus Resurrection on First Fruits in 30 AD.

If the 2030-2037 70th Week theory I've considered is correct, that 5 month time period could correlate closely to the Lunar Eclipses that occur in October 2032 and April 2033.  But that is a conjecture that could very likely be wrong.

1 Maccabees tells us Antiochus Epiphanes set up his Idol in The Temple on the 15th day of the 9th month.  And then did the ritual formally consecrating it on the 25th ten days latter.  Some people think that the Hebrew calendar is sometimes a month off.  The Samaritans and Karaites indeed are often observing everything a month later.  It's later then the Hasmonean time the Calender entered it's current system (attributed to Hillel The Eldar).  But the origin of this potential margin of error really is from the days of Hezekiah at the latest.  So maybe the original Abominaiton of Desolation was set up on the Feast of Jeroboam?

I still however do not doubt the 9th month is the when The Temple was rededicated 3 years latter.  Chris White's Daniel 8 study on the 2300 Morning and Evening Offering suggests a good reason for a month discrepancy occurring during that time.  Hosea 2 predicts the 24th of Kislev to be a time for rededicating The Temple.

The 2300 mornings and evenings is 3 years and 1 month.  So that fits also.