Asher and Phoenicia

The first mention of Tyre in The Bible is in Joshua 19:29 as a City in the Allotment of Asher.

There is a lot of overlap between what the Greeks and later Romans called Phoenicia and what was allotted to the Tribe of Asher in the days of Joshua.  Zidon/Sidon itself is listed in Joshua 19:28.  Dor was basically the southernmost city of what they called Phoenicia and Joshua 17:11 lists it as a City originally meant for Asher but that Manasseh wound up taking.  And Aphek/Aphik of Joshua 19:30  is Apheca up in the Jibel district of Lebanon east of Byblos and west of Baalbek.

I also have a hunch the name of the nearby Jezzine District of Lebanon comes from the Jesuite clan of Asher from Number 26:44.  Of course a few verses later there are a couple clans of Naphtali with arguably more similar names but I feel Jezzine is to far east to be Nephtali.

Of course many of these are cities the Canaanites weren’t chased out of, as we’re told of Dor in Judges 1:27 and five proper Asher allotted cities in Judges 1:31, and the five in that verse weren’t even made tributaries like the others, they were fully independent.  That verse lists Zidon, Acco/Acho (the city known today as Akka and to the Crusaders as Acre but in Acts was Potlemias), and Aphek.  The Asherites are also described different then the tribes preceding them in Judges 21, they dwell among the Canaanites rather then the Canaanites dwelling among them.

But it doesn’t mention Tyre, and that gets me to wondering, was Tyre an Asherite city for more of its ancient history than we usually think?

Hiram was the King of Tyre contemporary with David and at least the early reign of Solomon.  1 Chronicles 22:4 and 1 Kings 5:6 refers to Hiram and his kingdom as distinct from the Zidonians, not from Sidon as a city but from the Sidonians as a tribe.  It seems weird that he is merely allied with the House of David and not part of their Kingdom if he’s an Israelite, but maybe being surrounded by so many Canaanite cities cut them off.

Isaiah 23 refers to Tyre as the Daughter of Sidon, meaning the population of Tyre had become Sidonian by then.  And other Prophets like Joel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Zechariah constantly pair Tyre and Zidon together as practically twin cities, but all these are much later, so when did the change happen?

Ethbaal/Ithobaal the father of Jezebel you may have seen referred to as a King of Tyre, but The Bible in 1 Kings 16:31 calls him king of the Sidonians and never mentioned Tyre in its Ahab & Jezebel narrative at all.  The source for him being a King of Tyre is chiefly the Phoenician Historian Meander as quoted by Josephus in Against Apion.  These sources also tell us he did not descend from Tyre’s prior Kings but founded a new Dynasty, he was a Priest of Astarte who killed the previous king Phelles implying this was a Coup d'etat perhaps religiously motivated.  

But that also wasn’t the first time this happened, Phelles’s own dynasty gained power the same way decades earlier.  According to Meander Hiram/Hirom was succeeded by a Son then a Grandson but then his Dynasty ended.  Meander’s names for the Father, Son and Grandson of Hirom seem to imply Tyre was already worshiping Baal and Astarte even then, but those names could have been altered by the later Baalist record keepers.

When you study the Etymology of Phoenicia and why the Greeks gave that name to this region, you'll discover it's tied to a Greek word for Purple and to Phoenicia being a source of Dates and a rare Purple Dye, and that this is also tied to how Purple became a color associated with Royalty, this Purple is even specifically associated with Tyre being called Tyrian Purple.  

So Jacob's blessing for Asher in Genesis 49:20 is arguably fulfilled by Asher being Phoenicia, the Royal Dainties are the Dates and Tyrian Purple Dye.  Moses' blessing from Deuteronomy 33:24 can fit as well.

I also think the Rehob paired with Aphek in Joshua 19:30 and Judges 1:31 is probably the same as the Bethrehob in Judges 18:28, and I suspect that site is Yanouh north of modern Afik in the Byblos District.  The Asherites never drove out the Canaanites there but Dan after leaving their original allotment did.  This region is also where The Greeks believed the Adonis mythology happened, the Canaanites preferred Baal to Adonai as a word for Lord applied to the Divine, so I think the Adonis cult had its origins in Polytheistic Israelites.

1 Kings 15:18 in the Hebrew and Young's Literal Translation says Giblites (people of Byblos) were involved in building The Temple.  These were workers supplied by King Hiram of Tyre and led by the very similarly named half Danite Architect.  That architect's Danite mother was also a Widow of Naphtali.

Just as Asher was allotted Western Lebanon up to the Byblos region, Naphtali included Eastern Lebanon directly parallel.  I think the Bethshemesh allotted to Naphtali in Joshua 19:38-39 that they didn't drive the Canaanites out of in Judges 1:33 is Baalbek, because the Greeks called Baalbek Heliopolis like they did the Bethshemesh of Egypt, simply changing House of The Sun to City of The Sun.  As for the Bethanath of those verses, of the already proposed sites for Beth-Anath I favor Aynata or Safad El Battikh both in the Bint Jbeil District of the Nabatieh Governorate of Lebanon.

The Phoenicians had a major influence on the early Prehistory of Ancient Greece.  The Greek Alphabet is basically an adaptation of the Phoenician Alphabet, Aphrodite was basically just Astarte coming to Greece via Phoenician colonies on Cyprus.  This is reflected in Greek mythology in a number of ways but with the Aeolians specifically linking themselves to Tyre, Thebes was supposedly founded by Cadmus (credited with inventing the Alphabet) son of Agenor and brother of Phoenix King of Tyre, while the Heroes of Thesely descend from a woman named Tyro.  

Later in the Hellenistic era Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus of Cios were Hellenized Phoenicians who were core to founding the Stoic School of Philosophy which would be the dominant Theistic school of Greek Philosophy during the era of The New Testament.

I don’t believe in British Israelism so I don’t see this as evidence that the Ancient Greeks as a whole literally primarily genealogically descended from Asher or Dan.  But the cultural influence is interesting, and perhaps adds some poetic symmetry to how, if my theories are correct, the modern Descendants of Asher follow liturgically Greek Rites of Christianity.

As I discussed in my last Lost Tribes post, DNA research seems to show that the Christians of Lebanon are kin to The Jews.  My focus in that post was on arguing for the Maronites being Dan.  But I also think the Christians in the Tyre, Sidon, Jezzine and Nabatieh Districts of Lebanon, as well as the Haifa and Akko districts of Israel mostly descend from Asherites who converted to Christianity at some point in the first four centuries AD.  Those that follow Greek Rites from Asherites who were Hellenized by the First Century, and the Syriacs those who were not Hellenized.  The Melkite Greek Catholics are the largest Christian group in these districts followed by the Greek Orthodox as a somewhat close second.

Acts 11:19 tells us that one of the regions the Hellenized Jewish Christians we met in chapters 6-7 were scattered to during the persecution following the Martyrdom of Stephen was Phenice in the KJV which is a well known shortened form of Phoenicia, these Christians in Phenice are mentioned again in Acts 15:3, 21:3-7 and 27:3-12 where in this time Acco was called Ptolemais.

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.

Rome as Ephraim

It’s interesting how Rome is the one nation left out of attempts to say Western Nations come from the Lost Tribes.  The Lost Tribes get identified with people in Greece, and then associated with people west and north of Rome, yet Rome itself in-between them is not.  Troy is often made a stepping stone in this process yet Rome was the first to claim descent from Tory, all the others were just copying Rome, and Britan's claimed Trojan connection is deliberately derivative of Rome as it also comes via Aeneas.  Since I no longer so strongly think Rome is Edom, I’m interested in exploring this possibility.

Now I have already talked about how some myths of Troy make it perhaps the same place as Joppa, though I also now think Homer wrote the Iliad under the pretense of Iion being Pergamon.

Some things about the myths of Romulus might first make one look to Benjamin to be the Israelite Tribe they're connected to, first the Wolf association (Genesis 49), then how the story of the Rape of the Sabine Women echos Judges 21.  But those could both be about this Tribe’s relationship with Benjamin as opposed to Rome being Benjamin.  Judges 21 also involved Ephraim.  And being nursed by a She-Wolf could be a Prophecy that it would be a Benjamite who’d bring The Gospel to Rome, in the apocryphal Acts of Paul when he’s beheaded in Rome milk rather then blood spills from his wounds.  Actually in 1 Corinthians 3 and 1 Thessalonians 2:7 Paul does use the imagery of a mother nursing her children with Milk to describe his nurturing of young Gentile believers.

My most recent speculations on the Fourth Beast of Daniel argue for it being Joseph who is a Bullock and a Calf and a “Unicorn”, the Ten Horns being Ephraim and the Little Horn Manasseh.  Ephraim is foretold to become the Fullness of the Gentiles in Genesis 48, and Paul uses that term in his Epistle to the Romans.  And I’ve also argued for Ephraim being the Horse Rider which can be interesting for the Troy connection.

In Greek Mythology the ultimate progenitor of the Trojans and Dardanians is Dardanus.  Attempts to give him an Israelite origin suggest Dan, as well as Dara son of Zerah in 1 Chronicles 2:6 aka Darda of 1 Kings 4:31.  Those names are evidence the name is Semitic in origin regardless of if he can be identified with a specific Biblical figure.  Maybe Dardan means “Pearl of Dan/Judgment” like how Darda means “Pearl of Wisdom”, a fitting title perhaps for the Shrine the Ephraimite King Jeroboam built at Dan.

Dardanus is sometimes said to have his origins in Arcadia, which when comparing Pelops to Jehu I argue is sometimes code for Samaria, Micah 1 used an Eagle as a symbol of Samaria which became a symbol of Rome.  Later Roman writers would however attempt to say Dardanus came from Italy.

Iasus is a name that pops up in Greek Mythology multiple times.  While Iesous is how Joshua is transliterated into Koine Greek, Iasus could be a much more ancient Greek form of that name (just look at the difference between Iapetos and how Japheth is rendered in the LXX). Dardanus had a relative named Iasus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus said Iasus was his older brother but Virgl in the Aeneid (3.163f) seems to make Iasus his father.  But it’s also easy to look at the biography of Dardanus and see him as partly based on Joshua himself.  The Mountains of Ida could be Girezim & Ebal in this analogy, the city of Dardanus founded at the foot of Ida could then be Shechem or Shiloh.  Analogies that also work for seeing Dardanus as Jeroboam.  Or you could look at Dardania’s placement in Anatolia as making it the northernmost key city of the Trojan Empire which would again make it Dan in the sense of Dan’s importance to Jeroboam.  Which would then perhaps make Ilion/Pergamos equal Bethel.

The Ephraimites carried away by Assyria I still believe were settled east of the Euphrates.  Of those left after the captivity, the ones who rejected Hezekiah’s Passover Invitation I think mingled with gentiles to become the Samaritans.  But some did accept the invitation.  1 Chronicles 9:3 says Jerusalem’s population included people form the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh.  Joel 3 says the Philistines and Tyrians sold as slaves to the Ionian Greeks people of Judah and Jerusalem.  Some Ionians and Greeks colonized southern Italy possibly before Rome was founded.

The Roman Republic was founded around 508-504 BC, but since 244 years seems too long a time for only 7 kings, the traditional 752 BC date for the founding of the city may have been exaggerated.  Meaning Rome could have been founded after the Northern Kingdom fell.  Joel is traditionally a contemporary of Jeroboam II.

The name Rome could have a Semitic origin in Strongs Numbers 7312-7319.  Remus the brother of Romulus could come from Reem the Hebrew word translated Unicorn in Moses blessing on Joseph in Deuteronomy 33.

So adjusting something I argued before about Native Americans and the Lost Tribes.   I think the Many Nations from Ephraim are the Latin Nations, the Iberian Penensula, Italy & Corsica, Mesoamerica and the Philippines.  While Manasseh is the United States.

How Many Lost Tribes will be Restored?

I like Peter Hiett's Sermon interpreting the Parables of Luke 15 from a Universal Salvation perspective.
http://www.thesanctuarydenver.org/sermons/sin-and-what-to-do-about-it/

Now I would never start with these parables in building a Doctrine of Universal Salvation since I know to most Christians the Coins/Sheep/Sons never represented all of Humanity to begin with, but just Believers or "The Elect" (whatever that means). But here I'm mainly addressing various forms of Two House Theology and Lost Tribes focused theories and the Hebrew Roots Movement, who would view these parables as just Israel and the Lost as Ephraim.  So it's interesting then that in none of those parables is the total number 12.  (Also it doesn't fit many places where Samaria/Jospeh is the first born, like Ezekiel 16 and Jeremiah 31:9, and the North had 8 out of 12 tribes, two thirds inheritance.  No the Older Brother here is Israel as a whole as God's Firstborn among the Nations, Exodus 4:22).

Michael Heiser does not technically seem to be teaching any of those Soteorlogies, but he is obsessed with viewing The Bible, especially The Old Testament from an "Ancient Near East perspective", and even connects that to his rejection of Universal Salvation.  Well I don't believe in The Bible because I want to worship an ancient local near eastern tribal deity, I believe in The Bible because I believe it's god is the True God who created ALL of Humanity..

We tend to summarize the history of God's chosen people as Him first choosing Abraham in Genesis 12, but then the chosen line gets narrowed down to Isaac and then Jacob.  And then the 12 Tribes are the chosen people until Solomon's failures cause the North to break off and it falls into sin repeatedly until it is carried away in captivity in II Kings 17.  But Bible Prophecy says that Ephraim will be restored, and so Christians have frequently disagreed on how that fits into The New Testament.

However the Book of Genesis doesn't begin with Chapter 12, it begins with Chapter 1, where Adam is made in God's Image and Likeness and given Dominion over The Earth, something reaffirmed in Psalm 8, so the Chosen line begins with Adam and Eve who's Seed was chosen to Crush The Serpent.  But then because of the Fall and various subsequent Sins it was narrowed down to Seth and Enosh, and then to Noah and Shem and Heber and then Abraham in chapter 12.

And so likewise perhaps Ephraim/Samaria isn't the only disinherited branch that is going to be restored.  I already talked on my other blog about how Esau, Jacob's Brother, is not as cut off as people think.  There are Prophecies of the coming Millennium and/or New Heaven and New Earth that mention Nebojath and Kedar, the first two sons of Ishmael.  Jeremiah foretells how Moab and Ammon will be brought back from their captivity, and there are also Prophecies of the Messianic Era mentioning Sheba.  Jeremiah 49 has Elam being restored from their captivity, and Isaiah 19 speaks of Asshur showing that Semites not form Aprhaxad are still part of the plan.  And there are also references to Javan and Tarshish showing Japheth isn't left out, and Isaiah 19 mentions Mizraim, Isaiah 18 and Zephaniah speak of Cush bringing Gifts to the Messiah's Kingdom, and Ezekiel 16 says even Sodom will be restored, which means Ham and even Canaan isn't left out.  1 Peter 3&4 tell us Jesus Preached The Gospel to the very same men who rejected Noah when He went down into Sheol.

Romans 5 tells us all who became Sinners in Adam are made Righteous in Christ, and this is backed up by 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Timothy 2&4.  And Romans 11 says the Fullness of the Gentiles will be grafted into Israel and then All Israel shall be Saved.

This is also the point of Robin Parry's First Fruits and The Nations study.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ybft7WMgXY&t

The Far East and The Lost Tribes

In the KJV of Genesis 9:27 Noah prophecies that God shall "Enlarge" Japheth.  The traditions identifying Japheth mainly with European nations have taken this to refer to Europe's political dominance of the rest of the world over the last 500 years or so.  While those who seek to associate Japheth mainly with the Far East say it refers to Japheth's descendants becoming the most numerous.

Asia east of Iran and south of the former USSR is less then an Eight of the Earth's Surface but contains over half of the population of Humanity.  And that's not even counting how the Native Americans are now mostly agreed to have previously been in this region.

Here is the problem though.  "Enlarge" is a mis-translation in that verse.  The Hebrew word is Pathah which is also the root the name Japheth comes from.  But that word as a verb occurs many times in the Hebrew Scriptures but is translated "Enlarge" only here, other times you see "enlarge" or a form of that word in the KJV it's a different Hebrew word.  Pathah is usually translated allure, persuade, entice, and in negative contexts deceive.  In Genesis 9:27 this is followed by saying Japheth will dwell in the Tents of Shem, it was also in Shem that YHWH set up His Tabernacle.

As far as Bible Prophecy predicting certain people to be the most numerous, those promises are made exclusively to certain descendants of Shem.  In Genesis 15:5 and 22:17 Abraham is promised his Seed will be multiplied as the stars of heaven and the sands of the sea shore.  And this promise is repeated to Isaac in Genesis 26:4, and to Jacob in Genesis 32:12, and it's reaffirmed in Exodus 32:13, Deuteronomy 1:10, 10:22, 1 Chronicles 27:23, Nehemiah 9:23 and Isaiah 10:22 (quoted in Romans 9:27), and Hosea 1:10 which is specifically about the Northern Kingdom, and Hebrews 11:12.  (Jeremiah 33:22 even says this specifically of the Seed of David, via Solomon's Daughters in 1 Kings 4 David's Seed did exist among the Northern Kingdom's population, but this promise's applicability to David could be fulfilled in how all Christian are made the Seed of Jesus regardless of actual biology).

Also Genesis 24:60 foretells Rebecca's Seed will be Thousands of Millions, that's Billions.

But we can get even more specific then that.  Deuteronomy 33's blessings on the Tribes seem to give a particular promise of large populations to three of them.  First in verse 6 "Let Reuben live, and not die; and let not his men be few."

Then verse 17 talking about Joseph seems to predict Ephraim to have a much larger population then Manasseh, which is also consistent with Genesis 48.  But this never happened during the recorded Old Testament history of the Tribes, every Biblical Census has Manasseh being larger then Ephraim in population, and Manasseh also had twice the land Ephraim did being on both sides of the Jordan.

Finally verse 20 says Gad will be enlarged, and this Hebrew word does mean that, being translated that way most of the time in the KJV.

I've talked before on this Blog about how the Deported Northern Israelites were most likely taken east of the Euphrates River.  But also how it wasn't really all of the Northern Kingdom deported by Assyria.  The first Deportation was of Naphtali and the Trans-Jordan Tribes, and the second focused on part of Ephraim and some of Western Manasseh near the border with Ephraim.  The Trans-Jordan Tribes were Reuben, Gad and the eastern half of Manasseh.  Gad as I've talked about before is often who the Japanese are identified with.

Now I do think Japheth and Ham probably both contributed to the early populations of the Far East.  The deported Israelites were mingled among the Gentiles.

Jacob Fathered Two Sets of Twins

Read Genesis 29 and 30 carefully and you'll notice most of the time each child's birth is preceded by an account of that child's conception.  But Chapter 30 has two exceptions to this, Asher in verses 12-13 and Dinah in verse 21.

Now with Dinah it's tempting to say the patriarchal bias of the culture was less interested in detailing her birth, but why record her birth at all given I feel there is later evidence she wasn't Jacob's only daughter?  It could be because she's important later to chapter 34 but David's daughter Tamar didn't need a prior account of her birth.

So I think Gad and Asher the sons of Zilpah were twins, and later so were Zebulun and Dinah who were borne by Leah.

Why not detail their twin births the way Jacob and Esau or Pharez and Zarah were?  Those are narratives about issues complicating who would qualify as the first born.  None of these were eligible to be a paternal first born.  With Zebuln and Dinah we're dealing with possibly Leah's last children, and Zilpah's were going to be kind of counted among Leah's so wouldn't have likely had even a Maternal first born status.  The significance of being a Maternal firstborn isn't about any kind of inheritance.  And regardless if there was no ambiguity on who came out first it wasn't an issue.

Similar logic to what I just argued can be used to say Cain and Abel were twins.  Which of course is a claim that gets used by Serpent Seed theorists but with the intent of saying they didn't have the same father.  The text of Genesis 4:1-2 is if anything the opposite of them on who was definitely fathered by Adam, it directly attributed Cain to Adam more then it does Abel.  I'm certain Abel was also Adam's son however.  I've already refuted the Two Seedline theory.

The births of Joseph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim are not recorded in a similar manner to these two chapters at all.

Apparently the odds of conceiving twins if you are a twin yourself are not higher for identical twins but are for fraternal twins.  Jacob we know was a Fraternal Twin.  And some rabbinic traditions suggest Leah and Rachel were also twins.

When Mazzaroth theorists are trying to align the Zodiac constellations to the Tribes of Israel, different models get proposed.

The first version I stumbled upon identified Levi and Simeon with Gemini not because of any evidence they were twins but because their role in Genesis 34 can be compared to Castor and Pollux killing Theseus over his abduction of Helen, and because of that incident Levi and Simeon are grouped together in Genesis 49, and Levi had no land allotment or camp surrounding the Tabernacle since Levi had The Tabernacle itself (and Simeon is mysteriously absent from Deuteronomy 33).  If it's Dinah who was a twin that would be interesting, given how Helen is said to be a twin of Clytemnestra.  I have argued for possibly linking Clytemnestra to Athaliah who was a daughter of the house of Omri.  The Tribal identity of the Omrids is never clearly stated in Scripture, but Jezreel was in land originally allotted to Issachar who's often grouped with Zebulun.  Also Omri first appears in the narrative as an army commander of the Issacharite House of Baasha.

I have not seen a version make any of the three sons I have argued could be Twins the Gemini, it seems sometimes Benjamin is Gemeni which I don't get at all.

More speculation on The Little Horn

This Daniel 7 speculation could be made compatible with the Daniel 7 theory I posted a couple days ago.  But it arguably works better in the context of the theory before that.  And should definitely be compared with my last post on The Little Horn.

It derives from one of my earliest Lost Tribes posts.  Where I suggested that the Fourth Beast proper is Edom but the Horns are Ephraim.  That drew on connections between Edom and Ephraim made in Obadiah, and also Amalek being in Mount Ephraim during the Midianite oppression.  And in the context of Daniel 2 that sees the Iron as Edom and the Miry Clay as Ephraim.

Now initially the main reason I had for associating the number 10 with Ephraim was that Jeroboam was given 10 Tribes.  But I've noticed something else compelling.

In Deuteronomy 33 Moses gives Blessings to the Tribes of Israel, like Jacob did in Genesis 49.  Verses 13-17 are the blessing for Joseph, one of the longer ones.  This is one of the foundations of the Messiah Ben-Joseph doctrine taught in Rabbinic Judaism.  Other aspects of this blessing I may talk about in future posts, but here I'm going to focus on a specific part of verse 17.

"his horns are like the horns of Aurochs: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh."

Mostly the numbers here are seen as just about how Ephraim has or will have a larger population then Manasseh.  Genesis 48 says Ephraim would become a multitude of nations (or the fullness of them) while Manasseh would simply be one great people.  But what I notice is this is specifically about the Horns of Joseph.  If each Horn is a "thousands", then Ephraim is 10 and Manasseh is 1, making a total of 11.

In the prior Little Horn post, one theory I suggested was seeing the Little Horn as The United States of America.  And I have a prior post about America possibly being Manasseh.

But I also talked about seeing it as Modern Greece.  On my Revised Chronology blog, I talked about possible links between ancient Greece and Northern Israelites, I may talk about that more in the future.  That speculation has included specific figures of Greek mythology who might have been based on Jehu, a king who first arose in Gilead.  But also the possibly of the Dorians coming from Dor, a city linked to Manasseh and Asher.

As far as the recent theory about the Fourth Beast being Arabia and Islam.  The Little Horn being Jordan fits well, a recently created nation at the same time as modern Israel.  It includes the core of ancient Edom and most of the land of the Trans-Jordan Tribes, in fact the capital of modern Jordan is arguably land given to Gilead in-spite of it's modern name making us think of Ammon.  And Jordan also originally had the West Bank territories, which included Shechem, Samaria and Tirzah. And all Palestinians technically have Jordanian citizenship.

When it comes to Genesis 48, people talk a lot about Ephraim, but I think we might be overlooking Manasseh.

The Books of Tobit and Judith

Originally I was going to do this on my Revised Chronology blog.  But the theories about these books relevant to that are mainly the ones I'm going to be the most critical of.

I don't consider them Canon, as I already explained in my post on the Deutercanonical Books.  But they can be historically interesting to contemplate.

These books have in common being clearly mainly fictional narratives, that at least in the forms we have them contain some difficult to explain geographical errors, and much more so with Judith, apparent historical anachronisms.

Damien F Mackey attempts to explain the geographical issues in Tobit by saying Media is actually regions in Arabia, (Midian, Medan, Medina).  However this ignores the context of it clearly being about the deported Northern Israelites.  II Kings is clear, many were taken to Media and all of then to east of the Euphrates.

 I've mentioned before about how Tobit as we know it is the product of a time where First Cousin marriages were strongly encouraged.  But I also have reasons to suspect Tobias's bride maybe wasn't his cousin originally before it was revised.

With the references to Ahikar we are told exactly how he fits into Tobit's genealogy, even though that character is only someone refereed to and not really part of the story (like the Author of Tobit wanted to create a Shared Apocryphal Universe).  However we're not told how Sarah or her father Raguel fit into it, just that she is Tobias' cousin somehow.  That could be consistent with her being a cousin being a detail added to the text later.

Sarah is the Hebrew word for Princess.  According to Herodotus it was around the time frame depicted in this book that the first King of Media lived.  And she is living in Ecbatane the capital of Media.  Could the original narrative have been about Tobias marrying a Median Princess?  And maybe the book of Judith calls the king of Media Arphaxad because they descended from Arphaxad via deported Northern Israelites?

The last verse of the book refers to the fall of Nineveh to "Nabuchodonosor and Assuerus".  A lot of people assume Ahasuerus here is another name for Cyaxares I of Media.  But there is evidence his son and future successor Astyages was also involved in the taking of Nineveh, and Nebuchadnezzar was also at that time the Crown Prince of his father Nabopolassar.  Ahasuerus being a name for Astyages would agree with Josephus calling the Darius son of Ahasuerus of Daniel 5 a son of Astyages.  Which in turn agrees with that Darius being the same as Cyaxares II of Xenophon's Cyropedia.

Damien F Mackey's theory about The Book of Judith is that the "Nebuchadnezzar" of that book is really Sennacherib under his Babylonian Throne Name.  And that this is the same attempted invasion of Judah recorded in 2 Kings and Isaiah 36-39.  My main problem with that theory is Judith doesn't record an Angel destroying Assyria's Army.

His argument for this largely begins with theorizing that the Ahikar of Tobit and the Story of Ahikar is the same person as Achior of the Book of Judith.  I see why those names seem kind of similar, but not enough to be a smoking gun.

The revised Chronology comes into it via saying Sennacherib is the same as Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon, conventionally dated to the end of the 12th century BC.  And if I were still inclined to agree with that theory, I'd consider identifying Holofernes, a name often said to seem Egyptian, with Horemheb based on Velikvosky's view of Horemheb.  But I'm not.

Three major mainstream theories about what historical context might have inspired Judith are Nebuchadnezzar as Artaxerxes III, as Ashurbanipal and as Tigranes The Great of Armenia.  Of those three the Ashurbanipal one is the main one I want to talk about here briefly.

It speculates the lack of a King in Judah is because it's while King Manasseh was being held in Babylon.  Which makes it interesting that Judith is called the Widow of a Manasseh. The only wife of King Manasseh mentioned in Scripture is Meshullemeth the mother of King Amon.  But the Kings of Judah frequently practiced Polygamy.  And some have speculated the name of Judith itself to be a symbol or code, as a feminine from of the name of the Southern Kingdom.

And since Tobit lived to see the fall of Nineveh, Ahikar could likewise have lived into the reign of Ashurbanipal.

Even if I were willing to consider changing when Nebuchadnezzar I lived.  He actually fits the time of Ashurbanipal better.  Ashurbanipal's brother Shamam-shum-ukin was King of Babylon during some of his reign.  A similar event involving a statue of Marduk being returned to Babylon transpires during this period.  Nebuchadnezzar I celebrated a victory over Elam that seems similar to Ashurbanipal's.  And Nebuchadnezzar I conquered the "land of the Amorites" which could well refer to Canaan, where the Amorites originally came from, even Jerusalem specifically was sometimes linked to the Amorites.

However my own revised chronology theories generally leave the Mesopotamian Kings Lists unaltered, as supported by Vellikvosky's own writing about Hamurabi and the 12th Dynasty of Egypt.

The city or village refereed to as Bethulia, which is not otherwise known to have existed but seems to be near Jerusalem, I think is possibly meant to be Bethlehem.  Both names begin with Beth. Bethulia seems to come from a Hebrew word for Virgin, Micah 4-5 tells us Bethlehem is where The Messiah will be born.  And in the context of my argument that Bethlehem is Zion which is the City of David, three Bible verses refer to the Bethulah daughter of Zion, (2 Kings 19:21, Isaiah 37:22 and Lamentations 2:13).  Micah 4-5 also refers to the Daughter of Zion giving birth in Bethlehem.  And if Judith was a wife of King Manasseh, it ties into the element of Bethlehem remaining a city linked to the house of David all through the Kingdom Period.

Now for my own personal theory.

Today a Jewish tradition has developed to read the Book of Judith during Hanukkah.  And to identify the character of Holofernes with Nicanor, both wind up beheaded for example.  I haven't yet however read any theory that the Maccabees were the original inspiration for the book.  But Judith 4:3 does seem to allude to The Temple being recently rededicated following a desecration. 

Syria is a Greek name derived form Assyria, so calling the Seleucid Empire an Assyrian Empire is just as valid as calling the Ptolemies Egypt.  And the Megalit Antiochus conflates the different Seleucid kings together in a way that explains how Judith could have one Assyrian ruler ruling over the entire career of Nicanor.

Who is Judith in this context?  Well in II Maccabees in particular in 14:24, Nicanor seems to be attracted to Judas Maccabeus.  Judith is the feminine form of the name Judah, which often becomes Judas in Greek Texts.

Did the author(s) of the book of Judith swap out a woman for Judas because of heteronormativity?  Or is it the product of some tradition the more mainstream historians who wrote the books of Maccabees and whatever other sources Josephus used would have ignored, that Judas Maccabeus was what we'd today call a Trans Woman?

Of course a potential Queer subtext for the Book of Judith on it's own is Judith and her unnamed maid.  If I made a film based on the story, I'd rename the city of Bethulia as Bethlehem, and give the name Bethulia to the maid.

Update July 2018: Or maybe it makes more sense to interpret Judas as a Trans Masculine rather then a Trans Woman?

It is natural that one's first assumption is such an Ancient History would record a Trans Person under their Assigned Gender, and it'd be left to something more poetic to regard their true identity.  But those assumptions could be wrong.

Whatever their true inner Identity or assigned Biology was, Judas Maccabeus was definitely publicly presenting as male during his political and military career.  And Judas was regarded as being particularly Masculine, and that it seems is what Nicanor was attracted to.

About Ephraim, All means All

So last year I did my post on Ephraim and the Fullness of The Gentiles.  I stand by that in terms of my rejecting Two House Theology.  The Church is part of Israel but not one specific Tribe.  Ephraim's role in Bible Prophecy is in Revelation 16 in the 6th Bowl.

But I'm more understanding now of the argument that Ephraim becoming "a Multitude of Nations" should be translated "the Fullness of the Gentiles".

Here is what people are missing in terms of connecting Genesis 48 to Romans 9-11.  If Ephraim became the "Fullness" of the Gentiles.  And if ALL Israel will be Saved.  Then logically Everyone will be Saved.

Hence more proof of Unviersalism.

Is Ezekiel 39 a Prequel to Ezekiel 38?

[Update April 2023: I've mostly abandoned this theory and now just place both chapter after The Millennium.  That said there is I feel some value in some of the observations I made here.]

The name Gog is in The Bible outside Ezekiel and Revelation.  Everyone knows Magog is, as a son of Japheth.  However I have realized that Gog is as well (and I'm not referring to those Septuagint additions either, this is in the KJV and the Masoretic Text).  But first the main topic for this study.

I did a post on Ezekiel 38 and 39 being after the Millennium, in the context of Chris White's argument.  I wavered there a bit but ultimately came to agree with Chris.  Back then I still supported identifying Magog, Rosh, Meshech and Tubal with Russia, but I've now come to be more willing to agree with White's identifications for the locations of the nations involved also.

I alluded in that post to having once seen but forgotten where an assessment that Ezekiel 39 takes place before Ezekiel 38.  I've now found a website making that argument but I don't think it's what I originally saw.  It argues Ezekiel 39 is Armageddon and Ezekiel 38 is the post Millennial invasion.

https://escapeallthesethings.com/gog-magog/
I haven't looked at other articles on that site.  I suspect there is plenty I disagree with, I'm here endorsing only possibly this article.  I left a Comment that may or may not ever get approved where I made some incorrect statements since I didn't think them through well enough.  I'll try to say what I meant to better here.

First, when making an argument like this, it's useful to state that you're aware the modern chapter divisions aren't in the original text.  In this case the first verse of Chapter 39 does make sense as a partial change of topic, and the last verse of 38 does sound kind of like a conclusion.

Now I have dedicated this Blog to arguing Revelation needs to be interpreted Chronologically.  But the reason I emphasis that is because it's what's distinct about Revelation from other Prophetic books.  Others aren't even all one vision unless it's really short.  And even within one vision or revelation there are reasons why it could suit Yahuah to show some things out of order.  The difference in Revelation is John is being shown a clear sequence of events.  And that the Book defines itself as how to make sense of the rest of The Bible.

So I'm not 100% sure I agree with this view of Ezekiel 38 and 39 yet, but I want to have a conversation about it.

As for why would God show Ezekiel these battles out of order?  Why do so many Historical movies not start at the beginning of what they're going to show?  Why did Star Wars start with Episode IV?

The core argument for seeing Ezekiel 39 as Armageddon is that Revelation 19 :17-21's language of the birds devouring the flesh of the defeated armies is borrowed from Ezekiel 39.  Indeed people who argue both chapters are about Armageddon have this as their strongest argument, while I defending a Post-Millennial view argued that could be generic battle aftermath imagery, what's more important is John used proper names from Ezekiel 38&39 in chapter 20 not 19.  However that was always the one exception to my strong conviction that when Revelation is explicitly drawing on imagery from an Old Testament Prophecy, it is depicting that same Prophecy.  Now a solution to that problem exists, and so I can point out how language of Ezekiel 39 is drawn on in Revelation 19 before the Millennium and language of Ezekiel 38 is drawn on in Revelation 20 after The Millennium.

To the objection that implies it's inaccurate to define Armageddon as an invasion from the north, I wouldn't address that how this article did at all.  The Hill of Megiddo is not the site of the battle but the gathering place of The Beast's Armies.  They are planning to attack Jerusalem, though they may be cut off at Bethel before they get there.  Or they are headed to The Woman's hiding place in The Wilderness (Arabia).  Either way, they are coming to their target from the North, Megiddo was in the Northern Kingdom, close to the northern extremity of what was allotted to Western Manasseh.

It's possible, though maybe a stretch, that Gog is only really an individual in chapter 39, that Ezekiel 38 means Gog as a geographical or tribal indicator.  Some things said in 38 might be a little difficult to interpret that way, but it's possible.  There are other Prophecies where Yahuah seems to speak to nations as if they were individuals.  Also remember that translators sometimes add more pronouns than the original Hebrew directly justifies.

Revelation 20 definitely seems to be using Gog not as a person but as a location or tribe, that is why it (and never Ezekiel) says the three word phrase "Gog and Magog", they are refereed to as two of the same kind of thing.

Meanwhile Ezekiel 39 describes the place where Gog will be buried being named after him.  That will be important later.

Also Ezekiel 39 never directly refers to Magog as being part of the invasion, it says that when the invaders are destroyed he'll also send fire on Magog and "them that dwell carelessly in the Isles".  39 also never mentions Persia, Cush, Phut, Gomer and Togarmah, Tarshish or Sheba and Dedan.

Revelation 20 gets mistakenly claimed to have all nations involved.  It just says the Nations in the four Corners, it doesn't say all.  Ezekiel 38's alliance represents all four corners, Phut in the West, Cush in the South, Persia in the East, and Gog, Gomer and Togarmah are associated with the north.

I also think Armageddon may not be as absolutely everyone as people assume.  I've talked on this blog about how I view the 6th Bowl of Wrath in Revelation 16 as being about the Scattered House of Ephraim returning to their land, in Northern Manasseh.

The idea that one or both Gog and Magog invasions are about the scattered Northern Israelites in some capacity is supported by the Four Corners terminology, as God said Israel would be scattered to the Four Corners, and also by Revelation 20:8 saying their Number was as the Sand of The Sea, an idiom repeatedly used of Israel's numbers in God's Promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and of specifically the North in Hosea.

Meshech and Tubal can both be associated with ancient Uratu, in modern Kurdistan, near where the Assyrians took the Northern Tribes they deported, and where the Kingdom of Adiabene emerged in the first century.  Uratu also had four ancient Kings named Rusa.  So maybe "Prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal", should instead be "Prince Rosh of Meshech and Tubal"?  But also one of these Rusa had a location named after him, Rusahinili.  There is also a Rosh of the tribe of Benjamin mentioned in Genesis.

This article unlike others seeking to identify a Gog invasion with Armageddon, insists Gog can't be The Beast since The Beast is cast into the Lake of Fire, and not killed or buried.  Indeed, it may instead be that Gog is one of the Kings of The East, along with Rosh.  But maybe there are other ways to look at it, who knows.

There is no doubt in my mind that Ezekiel 38 is about the post Millennial Gog and Magog invasion of Revelation 20.  Ezekiel 39 is either more on that, or it's Armageddon, but there is no Pre-Trib or Mid-Trib Gog and Magog invasion.

Ironically we are now in an era where it's liberals/leftists who are paranoid about Russia.

Now what about that reference to Gog I promised?  It's in 1 Chronicles Chapter 5 verses 4-6.  The context is talking about the Tribe of Reuben at the time they were deported by Assyria in about 745 BC.

The sons of Joel: Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, Shimei his son, Micah his son, Reaiah his son, Baal his son, Beerah his son, whom Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria carried away captive: he was prince of the Reubenites.

So it seems Joel was a Prince of Reuben at the time of the captivity, and he and his seven sons were carried away into captivity.  And his second son was named Gog.  The word for Prince used here is Nasi, same as in Ezekiel 38 and 39.

Why am I certain this isn't just a coincidence of names?  Because Ezekiel 39:11 says the place where Gog is buried is east of the sea, all scholars agree the Dead Sea is meant here.  Reuben was one of the trans-Jordan tribes, and the only one who was far enough south to be east of the Dead Sea.  My English language Jerusalem Bible has a footnote here implying that the river Arnon is specifically mentioned.  I'm not sure why it thinks that, might be something lost in translation, but I mention it because it's consistent with what I just said, the Arnon was meant to be the southern border of Reuben, the border between Reuben and Moab.

So the reason Gog is being associated with persons or peoples separated by over a Thousand Years is I think because it's identifying descent from Gog ben Joel of the Tribe of Reuben.

People who want to interpret Ezekiel as just referring to his own time like to see Gog as Gyges of Lydia.  Well Gyges, who was called Gugu in Assyrian inscriptions, died before Ezekiel's time.  But I do think Gyges could be the same individual as the Gog of 1 Chronicles 5.

The deportation of the Trans-Jordan tribes was in 745 BC.  Gyges reigned from 716 to 678 BC.  If he was Joel's second born son he could have been between 7-20 years old when deported.

Gygyes' story in Greek sources has a lot of myth mingled in.  Needless to say I don't think he was the son of a Dascylus.  The story of him being a Bodyguard could be plausible, sometimes kings have used foreign mercenaries as Bodyguards, like Caligula, and Israelites living in Exile could have been attracted to such a job.

The version of his rise to power that involves him sleeping with the prior King's wife, have the potential to remind a Biblically literate reader of Reuben's sin.  That could mean one of two things.  The story is made up but Gyges encouraged it out of affinity with his ancestor. Or that it's a trait he inherited.

Gyges could be an ancestor of Cyrus.  A later king of Lydia from his dynasty, Alyattes, had a daughter named Aryenis who married Astagyes of Media and may have been the mother of Cyrus's mother Mandane.  A daughter of Cyrus married Dairus I and was the mother of Xerxes, who was probably an ancestor of Apamea royal wife of Seleucus I, who I've shown were ancestors of Charlemagne.  In that line from Seleucus to Charlemagne were princes of Galatia.

Cyrus went on to conqueror Lydia, ending Gyges' dynasty.   At that point you could argue he fully became a successor of Gyges.

Making a Reubanite prince an ancestor of Charlemagne would be interesting to Britam supporters, since they like to make France Reuben.  France having it's own River Arnon is an interesting coincidence.  And it's also interesting here how both Eugene Sue in Les Mysteries du People and Paul Feval in Anne of the Isles (Translated into English by Brian Stableford published by BlackCoatPress) construct fictional narratives with a mythical patriarch of a clan of Pre-Christian and Pre-Roman Gallic (specifically Bretan) France named Joel.

But as interesting as that all is, I think the Gog(s) of Ezekiel and Revelation will be attacking from Turkey or Northern Iraq.

Update: More on Lydia

The city of Sardis wasn't always called that it seems.  Homer called it Hyde, and I agree with the theory that Homer was contemporary with Gyges.  The oldest surviving reference to it being called Sardis is in the 470s BC.

I've talked on my Revised Chronology Blog about the Sherden/Shardana of the Seas Peoples being linked to both Sardis and Sardinia and possibly descending from the Sardite clan, descendants of Sered of the Tribe of Zebulun in Numbers 26:26.

In Gyges time however the Sherden were not yet native to Sardis, but were among the foreign mercenaries he was using and also recommended to Psamtick I of Egypt (Seti I in my chronology).  The son of a Reubanite prince using members of other Tribes as mercenaries would certainly be interesting.

The Masoretic Text's Hebrew spelling of Gog is Gimel-Vav-Gimel, and Magog is Mem-Gimel-Vav-Gimel.  But the vav like yot was sometimes used like a vowel in the Masoretic text, so some people theorize for words like this the vav might not have been used originally.  This factors into two theories about the etymology of Gog and Magog.

One is the idea that Magog is a Hebrew code for Babel (Babylon).  If the Vav is dropped then you get Magog from taking the next letter after it in the alphabet for each letter of Magog and then turning it backwards.  Gog then becomes just Bab, which means gate in the pagan etymology of Bab-El.  Makes me think of the Persian false prophet known as The Bab (but there was also Babai The Great an important 7th Century leader of the Church of The East).

The other is the theory that Agag might be a related name.  The Septuagint replaces Agag with Gog in Balaam's oracles, in Numbers 24:7, and I've heard the Samaritan Pentateuch does as well, the Samritians don't regard any of the Prophets so had no bias to want to add a name made famous by Ezekiel (or possibly Amos).

In the context of looking for Gog in Media or Persia, it's interesting to remember that Haman was called an Agagite (technically his parent, presumably father, was).  The Septuagint additions to Esther has the Persian King call Haman a Macedonian.  Maybe Makedon could be related to Magog somehow?  But also a Macedonian princess named Gygaea married a Persian noble and was the mother of another Persian noble.  Gygaea was also an ancient name for Lake Mamara in Lydia.

Update April 2020: Maybe Ezekiel 37's relationship is the same, maybe it's the Bodily Resurrection and final regathering of Israel that doesn't happen till the White Throne Judgment leading into the descent of New Jerusalem.  So we have three straight chapters that perhaps should be read in reverse?

The Second Captivity of Samaria?

When prophecies like Jeremiah 32 and Ezekiel 16 were foretelling the coming Babylonian Captivity of Jerusalem, they compared and contrasted it to the Assyrian Captivity of Samaria.  The thing I note about this is that Judah ultimately had two captivities and returns, while Samaria has thus far had one Captivity and not yet a return.

Meanwhile I also feel many difficult to fully understand Prophecies are implying a conflict between Ephraim and Judah in the End Times.  From Isaiah 28, (and possibly Isaiah 7-11 which may or may not have Eschatological significance).  And Jeremiah 4, and Zechariah 9-11.  Like how they were often at war during the divided Kingdom period.

Which is a problem for how Two House Theology and British Israelism like to see the Eschatological role of Ephraim.  I should also point out that Mormonism teaches a form of Two House Theology.

I'm not a Dispensationalist as that is usually defined, I agree that The Church is grafted into Israel.  But we're not grafted into a specific Tribe, Ezekiel 37 says Joseph and Judah both have companions joined to them.

Now people might ask, if the "Lost Tribes" returning is a part of the End Times, where is it in Revelation?

Well it's in Chapter 16, in the Sixth Bowl of God's Wrath.  The Euphrates River is dried up to make way for the Kings of the East, East of the Euphrates is where Assyria first took them.  But it also describes people coming from all four corners of the Earth, just as Israel was ultimately scattered to all four corners.  And they are gathered at Megiddo, Northern Kingdom territory, in the valley of Jezreel which had been one of their capitals.

I think it's possible part of the point of The Millennium is so the Northern Kingdom can have a second Captivity.

Chris White talks about reasons that the Antichrist could resemble the Rabbinic expected Messiah Ben-Joseph, an idea that some Hebraic style Christians have also accepted.  But does so leaving the Lost Tribes aspect of that doctrine completely out of it.

I've been talking a lot about The Antichrist possibly ruling from Egypt.  How can that and a false Messiah Ben-Joseph claimant go together?

Well between lots of maps online confusing the Brook of Egypt with The Nile, thus expanding Israel's rightful borders to include much of Egypt.  And fringe history theories hijacking legit Revised Chronology research to say many Kings of Israel and Judah were really Pharaohs of Egypt.  And people trying to claim The Great Pyramid was built to honor Yahuah.  And my arguments that some nations believed to be of the Lost Tribes may really be of Exiled Egyptians (or perhaps both).  And Hosea foretelling that Ephraim would return to Egypt.  And that Jeroboam was a vassal of Shishak.  And Leviticus 24 talks about a Blasphemous Israelite who's mother was Danite and Father was an Egyptian  There is a lot to work with.

But also that Joseph himself, viewed as the first type of Messiah Ben-Joseph, was essentially placed Second in Command of Egypt by Pharaoh.  I think there are a lot of pieces to this puzzle I'm still trying to put together.  And Joshua 10:41 says Joshua conquered all the way to Goshen.  Either that's a different Goshen, or he conquered the same land they had lived in as slaves.  Whichever answer is true, a Messiah Ben-Joseph wanna be claiming to b a new Joshua could well use the latter interpretation.

The 390 years and 40 years of Ezekiel.

 Ezekiel 4:4-6.

 Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity.  For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.  And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.

I've talked on another blog about how I feel these time-periods make most sense as ending with the Captivity of Judah, rather then beginning with a Captivity.  And I've mentioned on this blog before how this does NOT support the Historicist Day=Year theory logic because a period of Days did still happen.

Still, it remains popular for variations of both Zionism and British Israelism & Two House theology to insist the 390 years points to some relatively modern event.  This is done by misusing Leviticus 26.  Problem is Leviticus 26 is about the Jubilee, and it uses Times as a synonym for Years like Daniel and Revelation do for certain prophecies.  If Leviticus 26 has any eschatological significance, it is in terms of expanding the "Tribulation period" from the usual expected seven years to a full Jubilee.  Or perhaps a Jubilee separating the end of the Millennium and descent of New Jerusalem.  And that is something I may talk about more in the future.

But for now, I want to talk about how these time periods were fulfilled if they indeed began rather then ended with their captivities.  Perhaps as a second fulfillment.

The Babylonian captivity is commonly refereed to as 70 years.  Chuck Missler has talked about how there were really two overlapping periods of 70 years, 608-538 BC and 588-518 BC.  The Captivity and the Desolation of Jerusalem.  From that however, I notice it becomes possible also to say that there were 40 years from the final Captivity of Judah, to the initial decree to rebuild it issued by Cyrus and return from Captivity under Zerubabel and Jeshua.  So Ezekiel's 40 years for Judah was fulfilled without needing to multiply anything by 70.

 [Update January 23rd 2017:  Well my generally solid math skills totally betrayed when I made this and allowed me to think 588-538 BC was 40 rather then 50 years.  That puts a hole in this premise. But given that later then the Temple's destruction many Judeans fled to Egypt as Jeremiah records.   And Ezekiel also talks about a 40 year Captivity of Egypt.  Maybe that's how the 40 years for Judah can fit?]

722 BC being the usual date for the final fall of Samaria, makes 390 years later the year 332 BC.

That is the year Alexander The Great first came to the land of Israel and Judah.  Early in that year he finished besieging Tyre, and by the end he'd entered Egypt.  So anything he is recorded as doing in the lands of the 12 Tribes before going to Egypt would have happened in 332 BC.

Much is made about Josephus account of Alexander's activities in this year in Antiquities of The Jews Book 11 Chapter 8.  Many say Josephus made it all up, but I believe the account is true.  And I certainly believe Josephus over The Talmud which gets the High Priest wrong.  Alexander was shown Daniel's Prophecies of him like how Cyrus was shown Isaiah 44 and 45.  And he honored Yahuah in The Temple in Jerusalem.

Less talked about however is what Josephus tells us about Alexander and the Samaritans, chiefly in section 6.  Josephus does so from a perspective of hostility towards the Samaritans.  It was a bit more complicated then his relationship with The Jews.  But most importantly the building of the Samaritan Temple was sanctioned by Alexander, that happened earlier in Section 4.

Jesus of course agreed with the account in 2 Kings 17 that the Samaritans descended from Gentiles, when he called them not Israelites.  But some remnants of Ephraim and Manasseh may have intermingled with them.

Could Macedon have been another nation descended form the Lost Tribes?  Dan is linked to Greece in Ezekiel 27, and I've argued that possibly is backed up by Daniel 8.  I've also argued for linking Asher, Western Manesseh, and Zebulun & Isshacar to Celtic tribes, and Macedon had a Celtic element.  The Slavic elements of modern Macedonia come from Slavs migrating south during medieval times and later.

Joel 3 also refereed to Judeans being sold into slavery to Greeks.  And God says that from there God shall raise them up to bring Judgment to Tyre and Sidon and Philista.  Alexander besieged Tye and Gaza, and totally destroyed the latter.

Most historians and archeologists think the earliest Macedonian King likely to be historical was Perdiccas I.  Dates for him vary but he seems to emerge around 700 BC.  After the fall of the Northern Kingdom.

Whether the ancient Macedonians counted as fellow Greeks was a mater of controversy, it seems most Greeks didn't want to claim them till after Alexander became so important to Greek History.  Yet The Bible agrees with calling them Greeks at least in the context of Daniel 8.

Zechariah 9-11 is like 12-14, three Chapters that are all one Prophesy.  It's perhaps even more confusing to interpret, many isolated verses are important and well known, but how they all fit together is difficult.

Zechariah 9 also alluded to The Resurrection in verses 11 and 12.  And I have argued Alexander was among those Resurrected in Matthew 27:52-53, without mentioning Zechariah 9. 

Chuck Missler has argued much of Zechariah 9 could be about Alexander The Great, Greece is mentioned.  But Ephraim is mentioned as well, and others have seen this Prophecy as being important to figuring out how Joseph and Judah will finally be reunited.  Britam sees the later part as a double fulfillment Prophecy about both the Maccabean revolt and a future Messiah Ben Joseph.

Zechariah 9:13

 When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man.

Could this be poetically linking Greece to Ephraim similarly to how Zion is to Judah?

John R. Salverda has attempted to argue legends about Sisphus in Greek mythology are partly inspired by Joseph of Genesis.  He and Britam in general make lots of Arguments I would not support.  But his argument that Ephyra, the name of a couple of ancient Greek cities, could be linked to Ephraim is interesting, given how Ephraim is technically a plural or dual form, the singular would be close to Ephyra or Ephrya.  Ephrath was the feminine plural.  One Ephyra was a city of Epirus, the homeland of Alexander's mother Olympias.

Salverda's arguments also bring up the possible Salmoneus and Solomon connection, which I mentioned in my last Song of Solomon post.

But just as Cyrus decree was only the beginning of Judah's return from Captivity, so 332 BC was only the beginning of Ephraim's.

My view on Modern Israel in Bible Prophecy

I don't believe in traditional Dispensationalism, or Two House Theology, or Catholic and Mainline Protestant understandings of "Replacement Theology".  So what do I think about Modern Israel?

I agree that most of the Bible Prophecies that Dispensationalists and Christian Zionists want to cite as being about 1948 like Isaiah 11:11 are clearly about something far more Supernatural and Messianic, where they return in belief.  However I disagree with Rob Skiba that they are about the Millennium.  I think they are about the New Heaven and New Earth and the descent of New Jerusalem.

Well, Ezekiel 37 is an exception, that is the one directly linked to the Resurrection, so that is possibly about the Millennium, though I think it may be possible it'll take the entire Millennium for all of it to be fully fulfilled.  And then Ezekiel 38 is about what happens between the end of the Millennium and the White Throne Judgment.  And then Ezekiel 40-48 are about the New Heaven and New Earth.

Psalm 48 is about New Jerusalem.  I've already argued that Isaiah 65-66 define themselves as being about the New Heaven and New Earth.  Leviticus 26&Deuteronomy 29 is where Bible Prophecy about the regathering of Israel begins, they I have come to view as not fully finally fulfilled until the descent of New Jerusalem.

I have talked before about how The Millennium is not as Utopic as people are assuming it will be.  For Believers it'll certainly be better then the world is now.  But most of the World will be obeying Jesus out of Fear not Love during this time.  This is where I think Zechariah 14 ends.

The Rothschild involvement in the 1948 birth of modern Israel is grossly overstated by Conspiracy Theorists.  Some of them financially supported it, but they were not the masterminds of it.  And to this day some Rothschilds are still Anti-Zionists.

Anti-Zionist Christians like to say it can only be God doing it if it's blatantly Supernatural.  And when we remind them about Cyrus they dismiss that by saying that God would tell his people through his Prophets if he was going to do it that way.  Well I'm a Continuationist, and the fact is throughout the 19th and early 20th Century many Christians seemed to know the time of Israel's return was approaching, and history vindicated them.

God tells us it was Him who scattered them, even though to terrestrial eyes it was Gentile Nations.  So who says their return can't be done the same way?

The Roman Captivity was very much a repeat of the Babylonian Captivity, right down to events playing out on the same days.  Chad Schafer has been talking a lot about Egypt's overlooked significance to the Roman Captivity, well Egypt was very vital to the Babylonian Captivity as well.  Jeremiah tells us that many Jews went to Egypt after Jerusalem fell, and that is part of why Egypt was carried away into Captivity by Babylon.

So it makes sense that the Return from the Roman Captivity would be very similar to the return from the Babylonian Captivity.  Truman however was not the Cyrus of 1948 like he sought to claim to be, he had nothing to do with making it happen.  Great Britain was in the role of Cyrus, and it's King at this time interestingly had Arthur in his full name.  Great Britain cemented their status as a modern successor to Rome when they defeated Napoleon and erected the Wellington Arch.  Just as Cyrus had taken the throne of Nebuchadnezzar.

However another layer of Typology is that I see the Seven Years King David ruled from Hebron as a type of the Seven Year period over which much of Revelation will play out.  And the time David Ruled from Zion and Jerusalem a type of the Millennium, and the early Reign of Solomon, when he was doing well, as a type of the full Messianic Kingdom.  In which context it's interesting to remember that before that was the reign of King Saul.

Could Modern Israel's destiny be to become the House of Saul to the Returning Jesus's David?  It's interesting that the current Prime Minister is named Benjamin, after Saul's Tribe.  I also alluded to reasons based on Jeremiah 6 for associating modern Israel with Benjamin in a Revelation 12 theory I came to last year.  In which case it's interesting that Ishbosheth ruled in the Trans-Jordan, near Mount Hermon.

The secular Capital of Modern Israel is Tel-Aviv.  The Ancient City that Tel-Aviv is adjacent to is Joppa/Jaffa.  Acts 9:32-28 refers to Lydda as being nigh to Joppa.  Lydda is in the Hebrew Bible Lod which is identified as a town of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 8:12; Ezra 2:33; Nehemiah 7:37; 11:35).

It's interesting that most Ahskenazim (and to a lesser extend many Shephardi) families that claim descent from David, do so via Rashi who did so via Hillel The Elder.  Hillel claimed through his mother descent from David's son Shaphatiah by Avital.  But Tribal Identity was traditionally determined paternally, and Hillel's father was a Benjamite, since he was born in Babylonia he may have come from the same Benjamite clan that Esther and Mordecai did, which came from a relative of Saul.  Gamaliel was Hillel's grandson, Paul claimed to have studied at his feet, and we know Paul was a Benjamite and originally a namesake of Saul, could Paul have been a relative of the House of Hillel?

The Khazar myth about where the Ashkenazim come from can be easily debunked, like in this video by Chris White.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDWUZ6EqWHc

[Update: or this one from Casual Historian.]

There is a small truth to it in that yes some Khazars intermarried into Jewish families, so many Ashekanazim may have some Khazars in their ancestry, but that does not contradict also descending from Jews who were in Israel at the Time of Christ.

Some like Britam and Veilikovsky (in Beyond the Mountains of Darkness) have sought to claim Lost Tribes descent for the Khazars.  But I find it more interesting that Benjamin had a son named Rosh (Genesis 46:21), and that the name of Rosh can also be linked to the same region as Meshech and Tubal, which is the land where the Khazars emerged, between the Black and Caspian Seas (something Chris White has also talked about).

I obviously disagree with the aspects of Velikovsky's argument that involve reinterpreting where Assyria first took them, I've built much of this Blog on that they were taken to parts of eastern Iraq and northern Iran.  But it's also possible that just as some remnants of the northern Tribes existed in Judah, that some Benjamites might have been among those deported when Samaria fell.  When the division first happened the border was mostly Benjamite territory on Judah's side.  But later there were times were Israel was winning in it's wars with Judah and so the border moved further south.

There is at least one website out there seeking to argue the Spanish came from Benjamin.  What they wound up making is a strong argument for the Shaphardi Jews coming chiefly from Benjamin, but Shaphardi Jews are genetically distinct from the gentile populations of Spain in-spite of how much they may look the same.  Another connection between Benjamin and Spain is Paul himself who in Romans expressed a desire to go to Spain which later traditions say he did.

The term Mizrahi Jews refers to Jewish communities of Iraq/Persia, and the Mountain Jews also associated with the same region as the Khazzars and Rosh.  Also the Oral Traditions of the Mountain Jews claim they came specifically from Jerusalem.

As far as the Jewish communities of Iraq/Persia go, we know the family of Esther and Mordechai dwelt there coming from a relative of Saul.  And that the Descendants of Hillel were based there during the time the Babylonian Talmud was composed.  The Exilarchs (traditionally descendants of David via Zerubabel) were also in Iraq for a long time.  But the Rabbinic Jewish traditions about them skip right form when the TNAK ends to the time of Hadrian, maybe their claimed David descent was not unlike Hillel's.  At any-rate most families today claiming descent from the Exilarchs do so via a lot of intermingling with the descent from Rashi.

Temani/Yemenite Jews I theorize mainly descend from Simeon (probably from the clan of Jamin) Simeon and Levi were both destined to be scattered among the other tribes.

I also see a poetic logic in the early Jewish Communities of Rome (who existed at least as early as the first Pentacost) coming from Benjamin.   Given the wolf association of both.

I think some remnant of Judah may exist among them.  But mostly I think Judah went to Africa after 70 AD.  Though I also think the descendants of the half-siblings of Jesus, and of Jesus Apostles, inevitably became absorbed into gentile populations.

David promised Johnathon Ben Saul that his seed would be preserved.  And we see him keep that later when he spared Johnathon's son Mephibosheth from the killing of descendants of Saul done to appease the Gibeonites.  Often such promises correlate to that line having a role to play in Eschatology.

Benjamin was the only son born in the Promised Land.  Maybe that is a reason for it to make sense he would be the only one who's Nation at the time of the Regathering would be already in Israel.