Your Heritage - Comparet
Your Heritage - Comparet
Your Heritage - Comparet
By Bertrand L. Comparet
INTRODUCTION
Much is heard in this day of the word ANTI-SEMITIC The word is a
creation of the modern Pharisees who are anti-Christian. The purpose
of the creation was to "smear" or blacken the name or reputation of
Christians seeking to protect and defend their faith from the
onslaughts of those who would destroy it.
That fact is quite obvious. It has been said that Communism seeks to
make black white and white black. The word anti-Semitic is just one
example of such mis-use and intended opposite meaning, in an effort
to attach an ill-sounding term which should be self-applied, to him or
them who are actually quite the opposite in viewpoint.
ISRAEL' S FINGERPRINTS
The Bible is written about, and addressed to, God's people, "Israel."
It is the history of their past, the prophecy of their future, the law of
their relation to their God, and the promise of God's eternal care of
them, The common misconception, that "the Jews are Israel, or all
that remains of them," has made the Bible meaningless, and most of it
apparently false, to those who hold this mistaken belief. It is just as
though you took a good history of the United States, but wherever the
name "United States" appeared therein, you erased it and wrote
"China" in its place. As a history of China, it would be obviously
false; but if you applied it to me right nation, it would be clearly true.
FIRST - Let us briefly review the ancient history of Israel God first
made His promises of wonderful blessings to Abram, changing his
name to "Abraham," meaning "Father of Nations." Note that this is
in the plural - nations. God repeated His promises to Abraham's son,
Isaac; and again to Isaac's son Jacob, whose name God changed to
''Israel,'' which means ''He will rule with God.''
Israel had twelve sons. The descendants of each son became in time a
Tribe, under its ancestor's name: thus, all the descendants of Dan
became the Tribe of Dan, all the descendants of Benjamin became the
Tribe of Benjamin, etc. For many centuries, all members of all the
twelve tribes collectively were known as the "children" - that is,
descendants of Israel. However, do not confuse this with the later
"House," or Kingdom, of Israel, about which I will have more to say
later.
Israel and his twelve sons, with their families, went into Egypt, as you
will remember; and after about 2 1/2 centuries, their descendants left
Egypt in the Exodus, under the leadership of Moses. For several
generations they were ruled by "Judges" appointed by God. Later,
they unwisely copied the customs of the surrounding nations and
demanded a King; so Saul became their first king, ruling the twelve
tribes as a single nation. This unified nation of twelve tribes (like the
United States of fifty states) continued until the death of Solomon, in
975 BC., when it broke into two nations, Israel and Judah
1st Kings 11-12 tell us how Solomon finally fell into idolatry, mis-
governed the people and burdened them with excessive taxes. (Yes,
they babbled about "New Deals" and "Great Societies" in those days,
too!) When his son Rehoboam succeeded Solomon as King, in 975 BC.
the weary people petitioned him to ease their burdens; but being vain
and arrogant, and surrounded by a lot of "bright" young Jewish
advisors (even as today!), he threatened to make their load heavier.
The exasperated people of the ten Northern tribes revolted, and set up
their own. independent kingdom under Jeroboam, the son of Nebat,
which is told in detail in 1st Kings, Chapters 11 and 12 and 2nd
Chronicles 10 and 11 Rehoboam, the son of Solomon had left in his
Kingdom only the two Southern tribes, Judah and Benjamin, with
some of the Levites, who were the priests: and this Southern Kingdom
was never thereafter known as "Israel," but only as the House (or
Kingdom) of Judah. The Northern, ten-tribed kingdom was thereafter
called the House (or Kingdom) of Israel. Just as the Southern
kingdom Judah, took its name from the Tribe of Judah. which WiL5
the ruling Tribe, so also the Northern Kingdom of Israel was
sometimes called "Ephraim" in the prophecies, be-cause the Tribe of
Ephraim was the most powerful tribe in it. The histories and destinies
of the two kingdoms were thereafter separate: they engaged
separately in foreign wars and treaties, and were sometimes at war
with each other, as the Book of Kings and Chronicles record.
From the time of this separation, 975 BC., the Bible very carefully
distinguished between the Southern, two tribed nation of Judah and
the Northern, ten-tribed nation of Israel. This distinction is kept clear,
both in the historical record of what is past and the prophetic record
of what is to come. It would take another volume to cover them all;
but for a few examples, see the following: the distinction is made
historically in 2nd Samuel 19:40-43; 1st Kings 14:19-21; 15:1-33; 16:b;
2nd Kings 3:1-9; 2nd Chronicles 16:1; 25:5-10; and many others. The
distinction is kept clear in prophecies in Isaiah 7:1-9; 11:12-13;
Jeremiah :3:6-18; 5:11; 11:10-17; 13:11; 18:l-6; 19:1-13; Ezekiel
37:16-22; Daniel 9:7; Hosea 1:11; 4:15; 5:9-15; Amos 1:1; Micah 1:5;
Zechariah 8:13; 10:6-8; and many others.
Just as we must carefully distinguish between the two nations of Israel
and Judah, so also we must carefully distinguish between the nation of
Judah and the Jews.
Both Israel and Judah were carried into captivity - but separately,
and at different times, by different conquerors, and taken to different
places. Israel was conquered by Assyria between 740 and 721 BC.,
and by 715 BC. all of its people had been deported and resettled in
what we now know as Armenia, northwestern Iran, and the region
near Baku, around the southern end of the Caspian Sea. The
Assyrians brought in other people and settled them in Samaria, the
southern halt of Israel's old Palestinian land, to which the people of
Israel never returned. See 2nd Kings 17. From this time onward, the
historical parts of the "authorized" or King James version of the
Bible do not record the further history of Israel; but in the
Apochrypha, 2nd Esdras 13:39-46 records their further journey to "Ar
Sereth" (the valley of the River Sereth, a northern tributary of the
Danube River, in modern Romania, which still bears the name
Sereth.") At the conclusion of this deportation of Israel from its
Palestinian home, the Assyrian king Sennacherib also invaded the
southern kingdom of Judah and captured all the smaller Cities in it,
everything except Jerusalem. The people of these smaller cities were
deported, along with the people of the northern Kingdom of Israel.
Sennacherib's own record of this invasion says that he deported
200,150 people from the southern Kingdom of Judah. 2nd Kings 18:13
and Isaiah 36:1 mention his capture of these cities. Thus the Assyrian
deportation of Israel included the entire population of the northern
Kingdom of Israel and a considerable representative share of the
southern Kingdom of Judah. From this time on, these people became
the so-called "Lost Ten Tribes of Israel." (As we shall see, God took
good care of them, as lie had promised, and you who are reading this
are among their descendants.)
The Kingdom of Judah on the other hand, did not go into captivity
until 606 to 585 BC., and was conquered by Babylon, not Assyria.
They were deported to the City of Babylon and settled nearby, a little
south of Bagdad, in what is now southern Iraq. Not quite all of them
were deported, a few of the poor being left behind to cultivate the
land, and no other people were brought in to settle the land. (See 2nd
Kings 24-25.) This Babylonian captivity of Judah lasted 70 years, as
had been prophesied by Jeremiah 20:4-5; 25:11-12; 29:10. After the
fall of Babylon, King Cyrus allowed all who wished to return to
Palestine, beginning in 536 BC. (See 2nd Chronicles 36:20-23.) Ezra1-2
records that only 42,360 returned, and their descendants (who have
never been called "Jews" until their Babylonian conquerors gave
them that name) lived in Palestine until the destruction of Jerusalem
by the Romans under Titus in AD. 70. This reconstructed nation,
sometimes called "Jewish" was the "70 weeks" nation with the evil
destiny "to finish the transgression," prophesied in Daniel 9:24. In
AD. 70, those who had survived the terrible wars ceased to be a nation
at all, and became scattered wanderers in all lands.
There is not one word in either the Bible or secular history to suggest
that Israel either was destroyed or that they went (town to Babylon
and joined Judah in the Babylonian captivity; and the Jews
themselves testify that the genealogy of those who returned from
Babylon shows no one from any tribe but Judah, Benjamin, and Levi,
the members of the Kingdom of Judah. To the contrary, it was well
known at the beginning of the Christian era that Israel THEN
EXISTED IN GREAT NUMBERS: Josephus' great history,
"Antiquities of the jews" Book 11, Chapter 5, speaks of them as "an
immense multitude, beyond the Euphrates River." The prophetic
parts of the Bible still continue to prophecy the great future of Israel
several generations after they had vanished into the Assyrian
captivity: Isaiah prophesied until 698 BC., Jeremiah until 588 BC.
Ezekiel to 574 BC., and Daniel to 534 BC. Jesus Christ was well aware
of the existence of Israel, separate and apart from Judah and the
Jews; see Matthew 10:5-6. Again, compare John 7:35; 11:49-52, which
cannot refer to Judah or the Jews, as the Jews were not yet
"dispersed" or "scattered abroad" and would not be for another 40
years; only Israel was "dispersed" out of its own land.
God did not say that He would do this "IF" or "PERHAPS" - these
were all UNCONDITIONAL promises. Those promises which were
made at Mt. Sinai on condition that men should obey Cod's laws, were
the promises made through Moses, relating to health, prosperity,
peace, etc. The promises to Abraham were UNCONDITIONAL and
absolute; and in the New Testament, Paul tells us that these "the law,
which was 430 years after, cannot disannul, that It should make the
promises of none effect." (Galatians 3:17.) If the Bible is true, if God's
word is good, then these promises must be good.
There can't be any evasion of these promises; and God has always
honored them. Even when the children of Israel worshiped the Golden
Calf while Moses was on Mt. Sinai, receiving the ten commandments,
God did not destroy them, for the sake of these promises. (See Exodus
32:7-14.) In many places, the New Testament recognized these
promises as being still in full effect; for example, in Hebrews 6:13,17,
"For when Cod made promise to Abraham, because He could swear
by no greater, He swore by Himself . . . Wherein God, being willing
more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability
of His counsel, confirmed it with an oath." Again in Romans 11:1-2;
9:4-5; and 15:8 Paul tells us "I say then, Hath God cast away his
people? God forbid! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of
Abraham, of the Tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away His
people which he foreknew... Who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth
the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the
law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the Fathers,
and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ . . . Now I say that Jesus
Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to
confirm the promises made unto the fathers.
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This has covered but a tiny fraction of Biblical proof that the Anglo-
Saxon-Scandinavian, and Germanic people are the Israel of the Bible.
Scholars have found nearly 100 prophecies concerning Israel which
have been fulfilled by this one group of, people. When you consider
that the United Nations now recognizes over 100 member nations, the
odds against any one nation fulfilling the first of these prophecies is
obviously 100 to 1. The odds against that same nation fulfilling both
the first and second prophecies again multiplies this by 100, making
ten thousand to one; and the odds against the same nation fulfilling
the first, second, and third prophecies becomes. one million to one.
Well, you figure it out; keep on multiplying by 100 - oh, even 50 more
times. But even that isn't all; a group of nations all the same blood
have done this. Not a random assortment, like China and Spain, or
Egypt and Brazil; but all of the same racial group. So this again
multiplies the odds. Do you think that this could have happened by
mere accident?
And if you do think that this was pure accident, then WHAT HAS
BECOME OF GOD'S PROPHECIES AND PROMISES? Was he too
ignorant to know that he couldn't make good on His word, that all the
things He had promised to Israel never got there but were all taken by
other people? No, I don't think that God made any failures or any
mistakes. He promised and Prophesied many things about Israel.
They have all come to pass; and they have all been made good to the
same racial group of nations.
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Since it can be answered quickest, let us first take the question - was
Jesus Christ a Jew by RELIGION? The answer is clearly "NO." Jesus
had the true religion of the Old Testament, found in the Law and the
prophets: and He constantly rebuked the Jews for having abandoned
this for Judaism under the Babylonian Talmud (which in His day was
called "The Tradition of the Elders.") In Matthew 5:17-18, he said:
"Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the prophets; I am
not come to destroy, but to fulfill; for verily I say unto you, till heaven
and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law
till all be fulfilled.
Jesus constantly rebuked the Jews for their apostasy, for setting aside
the Laws of God in favor of the Tradition of the Elders. This
Talmudic Judaism was very different from the religion which we find
in the Old Testament. The late Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Chief Rabbi of
the United States, expressed it so clearly that I cannot improve on his
words. He said: "THE RETURN FROM BABYLON, AND THE
ADOPTION OF THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD, MARKS THE
END OF HEBREWISM, AND THE BEGINNING OF JUDAISM."
Since the true religion of the Old Testament was the religion of the
real Hebrews (NOT JEWS), the learned Rabbi was quite right in
calling it "Hebrewism" and noting that it came to its end when the
Talmud (then called the Tradition of the Elders) was adopted; and
that this WAS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW RELIGION -
"JUDAISM," (or BABYLONIANISM.)
Was Jesus a Jew by RACE? To answer this, we must trace the racial
ancestry of both Jesus and the Jews. Jesus Christ was a pure-blooded
member of the Tribe of Judah-and no true Judahite was a Jew by
race, as we shall see. Jesus ancestry is given in both Matthew 1 and
Luke 3. Both of them show that He was a descendant of the Patriarch
Judah, through one of his twin son Pharez; by His mother Mary, He
came through the line of David, and Nathan, the brother of Solomon,
as traced in the 3rd. Chapter of Luke. Jesus Christ was therefore a
pureblooded Israelite, of the Tribe of Judah as Paul says in Romans
9:4-5.
Now, let us trace the racial descent of the Jews. First, let us note that
the Jews were not - and are NOT - Israelites. Yes, I know that you
have been taught that "Jew" and "Israel" as we shall see. Let us get
the first proof of this from Jesus Christ himself. He stated plainly, in
Matthew 15:24: 'I am not sent but unto the Lost Sheep of the House of
Israel. "Therefore, He was sent to those who were of Israel - but not to
others. Accordingly, when he sent his 12 disciples out to preach His
gospel, Matthew 10:5-6 records that He told them this: "Go not into
the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye
not; but go rather to the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel." And He
added, "Ye shall NOT have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of
man be come. (Matthew 10:23.) They could have gone over all the
cities of Judea in a month; so it was obvious that the cities of Israel, to
which he referred were the cities of the so-called Lost Tribes who had
already entered Europe in their long migration. But take careful note
of Jesus Christ's own words: "I am not sent but unto the Lost Sheep
of the House of Israel." If the Jews were any part of Israel then they
would have been some of His sheep; but He says that they are not.
In the 10th chapter of John, Jesus says: "I am the good shepherd, and
KNOW MY SHEEP, AND AM KNOWN OF MINE." But he tells the
Jews - and it says "Jews" - "But ye believe not, BECAUSE YE ARE
NOT OF MY SHEEP, as I said unto you. MY SHEEP HEAR MY
VOICE, AND I KNOW THEM, AND THEY FOLLOW ME." Note
carefully those words: He does NOT say that the reason that the Jews
are not His sheep is that they don't believe, and that they could
become His sheep just by changing their minds: to the contrary, He
says that the reason they don't believe is that THEY ARE NOT OF
HIS SHEEP: He knows His sheep, and knows that the Jews are not of
His sheep.
Since the Jews are not any part of any Tribe of Israel, then WHO
ARE THE JEWS? Let's trace their ancestry. We find that the true
line of His people must be kept free from mongrelization with the
neighboring Canaanite Accordingly, Genesis 24:3-4 records that
Abraham took great pains to see that his son Isaac, should marry of
only a woman of his own people likewise Genesis 27:46 -28:1 records
that Isaac also required that his son, Jacob (the father of the
Israelites) should also marry only within his own race line. This law
had been obeyed for several centuries, to keep the race line pure. But
one of the sons of Israel, the patriarch Judah, father of the tribe of
Judah, violated it by marrying a Canaanite woman, who bore him 3
sons, of whom only one, Shelah, survived and left descendants. (See
Genesis 38:1-5.) This half-breed, mongrel line must be distinguished
from Judah's pure-blooded descendants by his twin sons Pharez and
Zarah. Judah fathered Pharez and Zarah by his daughter-in-law
Tamar; although born out of wedlock, they were of pure, Israel stock
on both sides; and from one of them, Pharez, Jesus Christ was
descended. The descendants of these twins are the real tribe of Judah.
The half-breed son, Shelah, accompanied Judah into Egypt, and in the
following centuries left many descend-ants. They were in the Exodus,
and accompanied the armies of Israel into the promised land. (See
Genesis 46:12 and Numbers 26:20.) However, they bred true to type:
they were half-breed Canaanites, lacking the spiritual insight which
God gave to his own people, so they remained idolaters, Baal-
worshipers, In 1st Chronicles 4:21, you will find them referred to as
"the House of Ashbea." "Ashbea" is a corruption of "Ishbaal" -
"man of Baal" and shows that they were still idolaters, unable to
perceive the God of Israel. So these Shelanites, half-breeds, formed
one of the peoples of the land, who made up the Jews in the time of
Jesus Christ.
Another alien racial group who became part of the Jews were the
"mixed multitude" which Exodus 12:38 says left Egypt along with the
children of Israel The Hebrew word here translated "mixed" is the
word "EREB," meaning half-breed or mongrel. During the two
centuries in Egypt, many had violated the divine law against race-
mixing, and these were the result. On the Exodus, when the going
became hard in the wilderness, the Bible records that this "mixed
multitude" made a lot of trouble, and led some of the Israelites into
rebellion. (See Numbers 11:4-6.) This mongrelized group was still in
the land after the return from the Babylonian captivity; for we find
them listed in Nehemiah 13:3 as still in the land, and still a source of
trouble. They also were among the Jews in Christ's time.
Then there were the various Canaanite peoples who were still in the
land, chief of whom were the Jebusites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the
Perizzites, and the Amorites When the Israelites were about to enter
the Promised Land, God gave them specific instructions to completely
drive out or exterminate all of these Canaanites, saying: "When the
Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to
possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites,
and the Gergashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the
Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater
and mightier than thou; and when the Lord thy God shall deliver
them before thee: THOU SHALT SMITE THEM AND UTTERLY
DESTROY THEM; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show
any mercy unto them . . . But of the cities of these people which the
Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive
nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely,
the Hitties, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the
Hivites, and the Jebusites: as the Lord thy God hath commanded
thee." (See Numbers 33:50-56; Deuteronomy 7:1-6; 20:16-18.)
But the Israelites are often soft-hearted and soft-headed. While they
did exterminate the people of Jericho and a couple of other cities, the
Bible records that they left most of the others alive, merely making
them pay a heavy tribute tax. For example, the city of Jerusalem was
inhabited by the Jebusites at the time the Israelites came in. The Bible
records that the Jebusites were neither killed nor driven out, but
continued to live among the people of the Tribes of Judah and
Benjamin. (See Joshua 15:63; Judges 1:21,27-35; and 19:10-12; and
2nd Chronicles 8:7-8.) Even after the people of the southern Kingdom
of Judah returned from the 70 years captivity in Babylon, the
Jebusites were still in the land, and some of the people were
intermarrying among them. (See Ezra 9:1-2 and Nehemiah 13:23-29.)
And the Bible records the same thing as to the other Canaanite
peoples, Further proof of this is found in various places, such as
Ezekiel 16:1-3: "Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
'Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, and say thus
saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy Nativity is of
the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite. and thy mother an
Hittite." God could not have said this truth-fully to any real Israelites:
BUT He was NOT saying it to Israelites: He said it to the city of
Jerusalem and her people. 'They were in large part Canaanite Jews:
and they had gained power in the manner by which Jews usually gain
it: hence Jerusalem was becoming more and more corrupt, as most of
the prophets record. They surrounded, and because the influential
advisors of, the Kings of Judah: just as today they surround and are
the principal advisors of our President, We find clear proof of this in
Isaiah 3:8-9, where he says: "For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is
fallen: because their tongues and their doings are against the Lord, to
provoke the eyes of His glory. THE SHOW OF THEIR
COUNTENANCE DOTH WITNESS AGAINST THEM; and they
declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul I For
they have rewarded evil unto themselves."
Now in China, where their rulers were Chinese you couldn't say that
"the show of their countenance doth witness against them" - their
faces would be just like those of the rest of the Chinese; and in
Sweden, where their ruling class were Swedes, you couldn't say that
their faces were witness against them, for they had the same kind of
Swedish faces as the rest of the people had. But in Jerusalem, the faces
of the Canaanite-Jebusite Jews identified them, "were a witness
against them." The true Israelites were not hook-nosed. The ancient
kings of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia were very vain about
their military conquests, and left carved stone monuments telling how
they captured this city and that one, killed so many people and
enslaved the others, etc.; and on these monuments they usually had
carved in the stone pictures of the captive people. Whenever they
showed Israelites, the faces had straight noses and were generally of
Anglo-Saxon type; but when they showed Canaanites, the faces were
those of typical hook-nosed Jews. Therefore, the faces of the
Canaanite-Jebusite Jews who had gained controlling power as
merchants, bankers, advisors of the King, the wealthy ruling class,
identified them as separate from the real Israelites - "the show of their
countenance doth witness against them." They had brought ruin upon
the Kingdom of Judah. Now go back and read the many places where
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel condemn the wickedness which was
found in Jerusalem; don't you find the same conditions existing in
New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington DC., where large
numbers of the same people have gained power through their wealth?
You will remember that when the people of Israel left Egypt, they
were accompanied by a "mixed" - mongrel multitude. The same is
true of the return of the remnant of the people of the Kingdom of
Judah from their captivity in Babylon. The books of Ezra and
Nehemiah record the return. They show that the total number who
returned was 42,360; but they also show that among these were many
who were not Israelites of any tribe; they were Babylonians who had
come with them, in order to "get in on the ground floor" as the saying
is; and they had even infiltrated into the priesthood. But it says that
"these sought their register among those that were reckoned by
genealogy, but they were not found:" When you add up the total of all
these other elements listed in Ezra and Nehemiah, they equal 8,381 of
these alien Babylonians - about 1/5 of all the people who returned
from Babylon to Palestine. So they also formed another element of the
Jews in the land of Jesus Christ's time.
One more, and we complete the list; that is the Edomites. You will
remember that Esau and Jacob were twin brothers; but Esau was a
man of such low character that we have God's own testimony, in
Malachi 1:2-3: "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: Yet I
loved Jacob, and I hated Esau." Jacob kept the race-line pure, and
God changed his name to Israel and made him the father of God's
own chosen people, Israel. But Esau married two Canaanite wives and
one Ishmaelite wife, and left only half-breed, mongrel children. (See
Genesis 26:34-35; 27:46; and 36:2.) As his mongrel descendants could
not marry into the true Semitic line, he moved out from among them,
and went down to Mount Seir, the rugged range of mountains south-
east of the Dead Sea, and this land was called "Edom" (or
occasionally by the Grecianized form of the word, "Idumea");
thereafter, his descendants were called "Edomites." (See Genesis
33:16 and Genesis 36:1-9.) There they had a long and troublesome
history. Esau's grandson was Amalek, father of the Tribe of Amalek,
who were such an evil lot that, in Exodus 17:14-16, God said that He
would have perpetual war with Amalek until they were all destroyed.
The Edomites constantly harassed tile southern portion of Israel until
King Saul beat them off, about 1087 BC. But Saul disobeyed God's
command to EXTERMINATE them, and for this disobedience, God
deposed him as king, in favor of David. See 1st Samuel 15:1-26. But
even David didn't exterminate them, and there was a long history of
wars between Edom and Israel (later with Judah.) (You will find It in
2nd Kings, Chapters 8 and 14, and 2nd Chronicles, Chapters 20 and
25.) The whole book of Obadiah is devoted to God's condemnation of
Edom's treacherous at-tack upon the Kingdom of Judah when Judah
was being conquered by Babylon.
His son Herod Archelaus, held the Governorship (the Romans didn't
trust him with the crown) for ten years of astonishingly evil misrule,
from 4 BC. to 6 AD.; after which the Romans convicted him of crimes
and removed him: and thereafter Judea was governed by Roman
Procurators (of whom Pontius Pilate was No. 6.) Nevertheless, the
Romans left practically complete power of local government in the
hands of the Herodian Edomites, who had complete control of the
Temple and power to enforce all their local laws. (Remember how
Pontius Pilate tried to get out of condemning Jesus Christ, telling the
Jews: "Take YE Him, and judge Him according to YOUR law."
(John 18:31.)
Now we know who it was who constituted the Jews in Jesus Christ's
time. If you want to bring it down to date, and find out who are the
Jews in our own day, we must add one more racial element. Of course,
the descendants of the Jews of Jesus Christ's day are among them: but
there is also another element: the KHAZARS. These make up the
Slavic Jews of today.
About the year 150 AD. the Khazars, an Asiatic people related to the
Turks, migrated westward from Central Asia, and established a great
empire which covered what is today southwestern Russia, north of the
Aral Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea, including the Don and
Dnieper Valleys and the Crimea. About 740 AD. Bulan, the Kagan or
King of the Khazars, was converted to the religion of Judaism,
together with some 4,000 of the most powerful nobility of the
kingdom. In those days, it was not healthful for a subject to be in a
religion in conflict with that of the king or with the baron on whose
land he lived; so in due course, most of the Khazars became Jews by
religion. In fact, it became part of the kingdom's constitution that no
one but a Jew by religion could be king. The principal languages
spoken were the Khazar (called "Yiddish" today) and Turkish.
During the great invasion by the Mongols under Genghis Khan, many
of the Judaized Khazars were dispersed into what is now Poland and
Lithuania. These Khazars, Jews by religion, constitute the Slavic Jews
of today, those with names such as Minsky and Baranov and
Moscowitz; (the latter often shortened to "Mosk") also, since much of
the western part of this area has been at one time or another ruled by
Austrian or Germanic peoples who brought in their own language,
these Khazars also took Germanic names, such as Gold or Goldberg,
Rosenberg, Eisler, and so forth. if you are wondering how they can be
so much like the other Jews, historical documents written at the time
the Khazar empire was at its greatest height refer to their tradition
that their ancestors originally came from the region of Mt. Seir, which
is Edom, the home of the Edomite Jews.
If you wish to look up further details, you will find brief articles on
the Khazars in various encyclopedias such as the Britannica, the
Jewish Encyclopedia has 6 pages on it In some it is spelled "Khazar"
and in other Chazar and even other variations. It is also discussed in
"A History of the Jews", by Solomon Grayzel, and "A History of the
Jews," by Prof. H. Graetz, both works being published by the Jewish
Publication Society of America. The most thorough discussion of the
whole problem is found in that magnificent bit of historical research,
"The Iron Curtain Over America," by Col. John Beatty. Col Beatty is
an Historian and Professor of History, whose works are used as text
books in more than 700 colleges and universities. "Iron Curtain Over
America" is one of the most thoroughly documented and accurate
works ever put in print. It should be in the library of every patriotic
American and good Christian.
Perhaps you are wondering, "Why does my Bible some-times speak
well of the Jews? Such as Paul saying in Romans that "the gospel of
Christ . . . is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that
believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek:" and in Acts, Paul
saying that he was "a Jew of Tarsus.'' If you will look up these few
instances in a good concordance, such as Strong's you will find that in
each instance the translators have written the word "Jew" in English,
where it was not used in the original Greek from which they MIS-
translated it. In such in-stances, in the original Greek, the word used
was "Ioudaios' which does not mean "Jew," but simply a "Judean," a
person whose home is in the land of Judea, or southern Palestine. It
has no religious connotation, and it has no racial connotation either; it
is purely a geographic term, like "Californian." A "Californian"
could be white, black, brown or yellow by race; and he could be
Christian, Jew, Buddist or atheist. So also a "Ioudaios" was merely a
person who lived in Judea, where, as we saw, there were some few
Israelites of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin; but there were far more
Canaanite Jews, and also a general mixture of Romans, Greeks,
Syrians, Egyptians, etc. It is true that Christian salvation was first
offered in the land of Judea, hence to those who were living there, the
Ioudaios; and later, as the Apostles traveled from city to city; it was
soon offered to the Greeks. But it was never offered to the Jews as a
preferred class, for you will remember that Jesus Christ taught only
in hard-to-under-stand parables when there were Jews around, and
explained them privately to His Disciples, explaining that He spoke
among the Jews ONLY in parables "Lest at any time they should be
converted, and their sins should be forgiven them." Both Matthew
13:10-15 and Mark 4:10-12 record this. Jesus was taking great pains
to see that the Jews could not understand Christianity and be
converted. He was preaching only "to the lost sheep of the House of
Israel" the members of the Tribes of Judah and Ben3amin, which He
said were his sheep, who knew His voice, and followed Him. The Jews
He rejected as the children of "their father, the devil."
Now to sum it up; the Jews are not, and never were any part of any
tribe of Israel; they include various mixtures of Egyptians,
Babylonians and Canaanites, the Edomites, and - later - the Khazars.
Christ was a pure-blooded Israelite of the Tribe of Judah, without any
Jewish ancestry; and He was NOT a Jew by religion.
Now think this over carefully; the group of nations which we loosely
group under the term "Anglo Saxon," (including the people of the
British Isles, the Scandinavian nations, nearly all of Germany,
Holland and some few of the people of France and Belgium, with the
closely-related people found in Austria, some of the Swiss, Czechs,
some of the Hungarians, North Italians, and Spanish, and their
descendants now living in the United States, Canada, Australia, and
South Africa) are the living descendants of the Israel of the Bible,
blood brothers of our Saviour, Jesus Christ!
If you are descended from these, the true "people of the Book," - "the
Lost Sheep of the House of Israel" - accept gladly the Salvation and
Leadership of your Risen Saviour and King, the Lord Jesus Christ.
You are called as Israelite Christians to stand up for righteousness
and decency in the home, the church, the community, the nation, and
the world, as Jesus directed, ". . . teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you . . ." Don't you appreciate your
Ancestry, your Salvation, and your Calling? That truly is YOUR
HERITAGE.
The word "Gentile" is not even once used in any Hebrew manuscript
of the Old Testament, for the good reason that there is no such word
in Hebrew, nor any word which corresponds to it. Everywhere you
find the word "Gentile" used in the Old Testament, it is a
mistranslation of the Hebrew word "Goi," which means "NATION".
The plural form of it is "GOYIM". Since it means "nation," why
didn't they translate it correctly? Sometimes they did; but for the
most part, they translated it to fit the official doctrines of the church
of their day, no matter what violence that did to the true meaning of
the word. The church hierarchy had long since determined what its
doctrines should be: and if the Bible didn't agree with them, so much
the worse for the Bible. Men were still being burned at the stake for
heresy, in those days: and "heresy" meant any religious idea which
differed from the official doctrines proclaimed by the Bishops. So the
translators did the best the Church would allow them to. Let's take
some examples.
In Genesis 12:2, God said to Abram, "I will make of thee a great
nation". In Hebrew, God said "I will make of thee a great GOI." It
would have been too silly to translate this "I will make a Gentile of
you," so they correctly translated it "nation". Again Genesis 25:23.
Rebekah was pregnant with the twins, Esau and Jacob; and while still
in her womb, the unborn children were struggling against each other;
so she wondered at this, and asked of God what was the meaning of
this? God said to her, "Two GOYIM are in thy womb." Certainly
God was not telling her, "You are an adulteress, pregnant with two
Gentile children, when your husband is not a Gentile." God said
"Two NATIONS are in thy womb," and that is the way it was
translated: but it is that same word, "GOYIM", which elsewhere they
generally translate as "Gentiles."
Now let's take some examples from the New Testament. Here the
word mistranslated "Gentile" is nearly always the Greek word,
"ETHNOS" which means just exactly "NATION", the same as the
Hebrew word "GOY". Luke 7 begins with the incident of a Roman
Centurion who appealed to Jesus Christ to heal his servant who was
sick unto death. The Elders of the Jews praised him to Jesus, saying
"He loveth our ETHNOS, and hath built us a synagogue". These Jews
would never praise anyone for loving the Gentiles; and the Centurion
would not have built a synagogue for Gentiles. So, to avoid complete
absurdity, the translators were forced to translate "ETHNOS"
correctly, as "NATION". Again, in John 11:50, we find that the
Jewish High Priest, Caiaphas, was plotting with the chief priests and
Pharisees, to murder Jesus Christ; and Caiaphas told them, "it is
expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the
whole ETHNOS perish not." Nothing could have pleased this evil Jew
more than for all the Gentiles to perish - using the word "Gentile" as
we do today. Therefore, the translators had to translate "ETHNOS"
correctly, as "nation." Yet in many other places they mistranslate it
"Gentile".
What does this word "Gentile" mean, and from what is it derived? It
is derived from the Latin word "GENTILIS", which means "ONE
WHO IS NOT A ROMAN CITIZEN." If you use the word correctly,
then you would have to say that Jesus Christ and his twelve disciples
were all Gentiles, because none of them was a Roman Citizen. Only
Paul could say that he was not a "Gentile," because in the 22nd
chapter of Acts, Paul says that he was a Roman citizen by birth.
How, then, is it used at present when The speaker means to say that
someone is non-Jewish? About the fourth century AD., its use was
loosely extended to cover more than its original meaning. It was
applied especially to those who were heathen, pagan; it became a term
for those who were neither Christian nor Jewish, for Christians and
Jews were generally called just that, (Christian; or Jew). But this was
centuries after the last book in the New Testament had been written.
The word "Gentile" was never used by the writer of any book of the
Old Testament, because none of them bad ever heard it, as they had
never come in contact with Rome. It was not used by the writer of any
book of the New Testament, for there is no such word in the Hebrew,
Aramaic or Greek languages. They did not borrow the word from the
Latin, for if you will look up every place it is used in your King James'
Version, you will see that it is never used in the correct sense, to say
that someone is not a Roman citizen; and that is the only meaning it
had, the only way anybody used it, in those days. It was put in by the
translators in an effort to make the Bible say what the Translators
thought it should have said. Therefore, it has no authority at all.
In short, wherever you see the word "Gentile" in the Bible, remember
that the correct word is "nation," "race," or "people". Sometimes it is
used when speaking of ISRAEL nations or the ISRAELITE race, as
we have seen in the examples I have given you in other instances, the
context will show that it is being used of a nation which is non-
Israelite. Only the context in which it is used will show you which
meaning to give it. When used of non-Israelite race perhaps "Gentile
is as good a word as any, for we seam to have no other in general use.
But never be deceived by reading the word "Gentile" in your Bible,
for its only correct meaning is "nation" or "race."
Yet, when we show from the Bible, and from history and archaeology
that the Anglo-Saxon and kindred peoples are the modern
descendants of the House of Israel, to whom God has pledged with His
oath so many great privileges and blessings, many say indifferently
"what difference does it make?"
They want only personal salvation. Now the man who has the blessing
of personal salvation is the recipient of a marvelous gift of God in
Jesus Christ. But that doesn't warrant his despising and rejecting the
other God given birthright - the birthright of race.
God, in His wisdom, chose Israel to be used by Him in His great plan
for the transformation of a lost world. He wrote a large portion of the
Bible to tell us about Israel's part in that plan. Allowing ample space
in the Bible for the presentation of the Gospel to the individual, God
wrote about five-sevenths of the Book as his message to the nations.
And related to almost every phase of this revelation, is the great
nation Israel, promised by God to Abraham.
Infidel critics are busy all the time knifing the Scriptures, cutting out
a bit here and a bit there - but the "what difference does it make"
folks throw away five sevenths of the Bible in one lump. Five-sevenths
is a lot of Bible to scrap!
Actually the Israel Truth is the key which opens up the Bible from the
first promise made at the Fall, until Jesus delivers up the finished
Kingdom to the Father. It may be likened to a spiritual thread which
runs through almost every chapter of Bible history, every doctrine,
symbol, promise and covenant. The thread which, when found, makes
possible the unraveling of most of the mysteries of the Word. This is
why the people who see this truth have declared the Bible to be a
"new book;" consistent, harmonious and satisfying to mind and soul.
In Isaiah 51:2, God says "Hearken unto me, ye that follow after
righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are
hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look unto
Abraham your father, and unto Sarah, that bare you: for I called him
alone, and blessed him, and increased him." "Ye that follow after
righteousness", are certainly tbe Christians and we see that God
wants them to see that they are Abraham's seed.
It rejects God's comfort for the last days. God was anxious that His
Israel people should have a clear vision of all that was to come to pass
in these trying times, and consequently, sent prophet after prophet,
telling of world conditions which we would experience in our day. But
right along with the cataclysmic upheavals foretold, there is always a
word of cheer, consolation and encouragement to his people Israel. He
wanted us to have the benefit of knowing what He is doing in the
world, what the world events actually mean, how He is going to make
it all work out to the good of His people Israel, and through all that is
happening bring in the Kingdom of God on earth. The Kingdom of
God on earth is the one theme of the Bible. It is the theme Jesus
preached. In Romans 15:8 Paul tells us that Jesus Christ came to
confirm the promises made unto the fathers.
But there are some people who won't believe God, and will not accept
His identification of these nations. In fact, one clergyman with whom I
discussed this, minister of a church in this county, wrote to me
demanding to know "what other historians of the time, inwhat books,
chapters and verses, record theirmigrationintoNorthem and Western
Europe and the British Isles?" He is but one of many skeptics who ask
this; and to these skeptics, the answer is, "Yes, various historians of
those centuries have traced various steps of this migration." What I
propose to do for you now is to race this migration historically.
Remember that, within the time limits which must necessarily be fixed
on such a talk as this, I can only "hit the high spots" - you know how
large a library can be filled with history books, so I can't quote them
all verbatim. But I will have time enough to show you that the
historians have traced this migration from Israel's old Palestinian
home intotheir European homes as the Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian
and Germanic peoples. Not under their old names, of course but that,
also is the fulfillment of God's prophecy that He would "call His
servants by another name," and surely you now know that the Bible
identifies Israel - and only Israel - as God's servants.
With this preface in mind, let's start tracing the Israelites from their
Palestinian homeland, in the Assyrian conquest and deportation. In II
Kings 15:29 we read, "In the days of Pekah, king of Israel, came
Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, and took Ijon and Bel-beth-maachah
and Janoa and Kedesh and Razor and Gilead and Galilee, all the land
of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria." In 1st Chronicles
5:26 it says, "And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul, king of
Assyria, and the spirit of Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, and he
carried them away, even the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-
tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah and Habor and
Hara and to the River Gozan, unto this day."
Confirmation of this is found in inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser which
archaeologists have dug up and are in our museums today. One of
these says: "The cities of Gala'za (probably Assyrian for Galilee),
Abilkka (probably Assyrian for Abel-beth maacha), which are on the
border of Bit-Humna ** the whole land of Naphtali in its entirety, I
brought within the border of Assyria. My official I set over them as
governor. ** The land of Bit Humna ** all of its people, together with
all their goods, I carried off to Assyria. Pahaka their king they
deposed, and I placed Ausi as king." In confirmation of this change of
kings, we read in II Kings 15:30, "And Hoshea the son of Elah made a
conspiracy against PEKAR son of Remaliah and smote him and slew
him, and reigned in his stead."
Remember that all the people of the 10 northern tribes were already
settled around the south end of the Caspian Sea, in the Assyrian
deportation of Israel; now to them was added a large portion of the 2
southern Tribes of Benjamin and Judah; so that the Assyrian
deportation included all of the ten Tribes and a substantial
representation from the other 2. These were the people who became
your ancestors and mine, whenthev moved into Europe.
The great carving on the Behistun Rock made about 516 BC. carried
inscriptions showing the many different nations who were tributary to
King Tarius I of Persia. These inscriptions were written in Old
Persian. in Median, and in Assyrian. Thev showed that among these
were a Scythian nation called in Assyrian and Babytonian "Gimiri",
which means "The Tribes From "Gimiri" was derived the name of
the "Cimmerians", who settled somewhat to the north and into the
Ukraine. But the Behistun Inscriptions also stated that these people
were called "Sakka" in Persian and Median. Already the later names
are beginning to evolve.
The great Greek historian HERODOTUS, who lived from 484 to 425
BC., and who is generally called "The Father of History", speaking of
these people, says, "The Sacae, or Scyths, were clad in trousers, and
had on their heads tall, stiff caps, rising to a point. They bore the bow
of their country and the dagger; besides which they carried the battle-
axe or sagaris. They were in truth Amyrgian Scythians, but the
Persians called them Sacae, since that is the name which they give to
all Scythians." Incidentally, some of the magnificent carved walls of
the ancient ruins of the Persian palace at Persepolis show illustrations
of those Sacae, in their trousers and pointed caps, bringing tribute to
the Persian king.
We are now getting further clues to these people. Herodotus says that
the Scythians or Sacae first appeared in that land in the seventh
century BC., which is the same period in which the Tribes of Israel
were settled there by their Assyrian conquerors. Their use of the
battle-axe as aweaponisacarry-over from their history as Israel. In
Jeremiah 51:20 God says of Israel, "Thou art My battleaxe and
weapons of war, for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and
with thee will I destroy kingdoms". We will see later that the name
evolved from SAKKE to SAXON; and it is noteworthy that the battle-
axe was the great weapon of the Saxons.
This was but the early part of their expansion, however. when a
century had elapsed since their deportation to this land of Scythia,
they had grown strong enough to begin the long series of harassing
wars against their conquerors, the Assyrians. They lacked the
strength to capture the powerfully fortified group of cities about the
Assyrian capitol; and in turn, their nomadic habits made it easy for
them to retreat before a too-powerful Assyrian army. But generations
of this constant warfare wore down the Assyrians, "bled them white",
so that when the Medes finally overran Assyria and captured Nineveh
in 612 BC., their victory was a fairly easy one against the exhausted
Assyrians.
From this point on, I could refer you to just one historical work which
fully traces the Scythians on to their settlement in England as the
Anglo-Saxons. "A History of the Anglo- Saxons", by Sharon Turner
does a magnificent job of this. As most of you know, I am a lawyer by
profession: and a lawyer soon learns to distinguish between the man
who actually knows the facts and the man who is merely repeating
hearsay - that is, gossip and rumor he has heard from others - and
how do we know whether these others actually know what they are
talking about? Unless a man has seen the occurrence with his own
eyes, his ideas on the subject are no better than the accuracy of the
information he has received. Now no historian living in our times can
have any personal knowledge of what happened 2,000 years ago, so
his writings can be no better than the source material he has obtained
from people who lived and wrote at a time when accurate information
could still be had. Most modern history books are based on rather
scanty documentation from any sources, as it is so much easier for one
historian to copy from another. But Sharon Turner's "History of The
Anglo-Saxons" is one of the most thoroughly documented historical
studies ever produced, and its reliability is beyond question. He traces
the Anglo-Saxons cf Britain back to the Scythians; unfortunately, he
doesn't go the one step further and trace the Scythians back to Israel;
but we can do that from other sources.
Note how God's destiny for these people worked. They would not
leave behind any pockets of their people in the lands where their
conquerors had settled them; but when they had gained great power,
they came back and picked up any who remained, taking them into
the migrating mass. Likewise, history records that they raided
Babylon, after its overthrow by the Medes and Persians, carrying off
with them such of the people of Judah and Benjamin as were not
going back to Jerusalem.
Even in early times, before the final mass movement into Europe, the
Scythians had begun their march to their new homelands, where some
of them had already arrived before the beginning of the Christian
Era. Pliny the Elder, a Roman historian who lived from 23 to 79 AD.,
says this: "The name 'Scythian' has extended in every direction, even
to the Sarmatae and the GERMANS; but this ancient name is now
only given to those who dwell beyond those nations, and live unknown
to nearly all the rest of the world. **Beyond (the Danube) are the
peoples of Scythia. The Persians have called them by the general name
of Sacae, which properly belongs only to the nearest nation of them.
The more ancient writers give them the name of Aramii (Arameans).
The multitude of these Scythians is quite innumerable; in their life
and their habits they much resemble the people of Parthia (Persia).
The Tribes among them that are better known are the Sacae, the
Massagetae, the Dahae, **" etc.
Others have noted this early migration into Germany. For example,
Herodotus mentions a migration and settlement of a people he calls
the Sigynnoe, who them selves claimed to be colonists from Media,
and who migrated as far as the River Rhine. (Remember that among
the places the Israelites were resettled were "the cities of the
Medes"?)
Also note that Pliny the Elder said that "The more ancient writers
give them the name of Aramii" - that is, "Aramean", in modern
language called "Syrian." In Deuteronomy 26:5, every Israelite was
commanded to confess and sojourned there with a few, and became a
nation, great, mighty and populous." Hence, such ancient writers
could correctly identify the Israelite Scythians as "Arameans", for
they had come from a land which was part of Syria.
A land so vast, and not the original home of the Israelite Scythians,
but already having some inhabitants when they were settled there,
must of course show varying types of people. The Nordic or Aryan
Israelite Scythians conquered these other races. while some speak of a
Mongoloid type found in some parts of Scythia, ancient writers pretty
well agree that the dominant Sakka or Massagetae Scythians were a
Nordic people. Dr. Hans Gunther, professor at Berlin University, in
his "Racial Elements of European History," published in the 1920s,
says: "The investigations into the traces left behind them by that
wide-spread Nordic people, the Sacae (Scythians), with its many
tribes, are well worthy of attention. It had been living on the steppes
of southeastern Europe, and spread as far as Turkestan and
Mghanistan, and even to the Indus. The ancient writers, such as
Polemon of Ilium,Galienos, Clement of Alexandria, and Adamantios,
state that the Sacae were like the Kelts and Germans, and describe
them as ruddy-fair. The Scythian tribe of the Alans are also described
as having a Nordic appearance. Ammianus (About A.D. 330-400) calls
them, 'almost all tall and handsome, with hair almost yellow, and a
fierce look.'"
We have seen that the names of the Massagetae and the Thyssagetae
evolved into Goths, the Ostrogoths (or East Goths) and Visigoths (or
West Goths). The historian Ptolemy, who died about 150 AD.,
mentions a Scythian people, descended from the Sakae, by the name
of SAXONS, who had come from Media. Albinus, who lived in the
first century BC., also says, "The SAXONS were descended from the
ancient Sacae in Asia, and in process of time they came to be called
SAXONS." Prideaux reports that the Cimbrians came from between
the Black and Caspian Seas, and that with them came the ANGLI.
The Angli and the Saxons moved up the Danube Valley and settled in
Germany and along the Baltic shores, as is well known; and from
there, the Jutes, Angles and Saxons colonized England after the
Roman legions were withdrawn in AD. 408.
The Tribes which settled along the shores of the Baltic were a great
maritime people - as some of the Israelites had been1 even when still in
Palestine, and as God had prophesied. The Jutes, Angles and Saxons
came from within the Baltic Sea, but their ocean-borne raids on
England were heavy and continuous; later, by invitation of the
British, they settled along the eastern shores, in East Anglia, Mercia,
Northumbria, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, and Kent.
The End