reply by
smart
4/14/2002 (19:13) |
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After many generations of rejecting God, following false gods, and otherwise 'doing evil in the sight of God,' the Assyrians conquered the 10 northern tribes of Israel in 722 BC. They were then exiled to the northern Assyrian frontier. There, the record of the ten northern tribes ends. Although there is much dispute over what happened to them, most historians believe they intermarried and were absorbed into the people living there. They 'perished' as a distinct people of God, probably in fulfillment of the prophecy given in Deuteronomy 8:19, 'If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish.'
According to both Jewish and Christian traditions, the chosen people are today's Jews who descended from the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin. These two tribes escaped the Assyrian captivity because of the God-loving King Hezekiah and others like him that tore down the high places and returned to God's covenant. Nonetheless, they disobeyed God, and though God is longsuffering He must eventually judge sin. He judged His wayward people, first through exile by the Babylonians for their disobedience to God beginning in 605 BC, and then dispersed among the nations of the world after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Roman General Titus.
Upon entering the promised land, God warned the Israelites that if they did not obey Him, He would scatter them among the nations from 'one end of the earth to the other,' where they will have 'no resting place for the sole of (their) foot. There the Lord will give (them) an anxious mind, eyes that are weary with longing, and with a despairing heart'. At the very end God foretold that Israel would 'live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. In the morning you will say, 'If only it were evening!' and in the evening, 'If only it were morning!' -- because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights your eyes will see.' (Deuteronomy 28:64-67) The fulfillment of this curse began in 70 AD with the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple to Rome.
The exile was not to be permanent. God also promised Israel that He would return the remnant of Israel in numerous Biblical prophecies, including Jeremiah 31:7-8, 'This is what the LORD says: ‘‘Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations. Make your praises heard, and say, ‘O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’ See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth.' The Jews and the traditional Christian Church believe this prophecy, and many more like it, was fulfilled as the Jews returned to Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century from Europe and Israel once again became a nation on May 14, 1948--for the first time in nearly 2,000 years.
Two thousand years of Jewish judgment and persecution
It is important to realize that not all the Jews dispersed around the world was the result of Roman exile. The Diaspora of the Jews began with the Babylonian exile. Many Jews spread north and west from Babylon to colonize and trade in those regions while many others stayed in Babylon. During the Greco-Roman period Jews, according to traditional history, settled throughout Asia Minor and southern Europe. Many Jewish prisoners of war were brought to Rome after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Following the 135 AD Bar Kohbah revolt in Israel, Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem upon penalty of death and most Israeli Jews were exiled to both sides of the Mediterranean Sea.
According to traditional history, Jews fled under growing Catholic persecution in Southern Europe from about 600 to 1100 AD to Spain as well as France and Germany. The Christians during the day believed God had shifted His covenant blessing from the Israelites to the Christians, leading to self-righteous persecution of the Jews. During the Crusades from 1095 to 1270, Jews in Southern Europe fled to Spain, England, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe as the result of severe persecution and wholesale massacres of the Jews. England turned out to be the wrong place to go, because in 1290 King Edward I expelled the Jews. King Charles II did the same thing in 1394 in France by forcing all Jews from France. At the same time persecution in Germany forced most European Jews into Eastern Europe, especially Poland and Western Russia. Jews migrating from Western and Central Europe to Eastern Europe were called Ashkenazim Jews.
God warned His people (the Jews), that He would scatter them over the face of the earth if they were not obedient. He first did this with the Babylon exile which then led to the Diaspora in which most exiled Jews did not return home but stayed in Babylon or migrated to other places (blue). Following Christ's warning that God's judgment was about to fall again, the Jews were almost totally removed from Israel and scattered over North Africa and Southern Europe (orange). The rise of the Catholic Church brought a horrible and hounding persecution of the Jews wherever they fled, fulfilling God's curse (red). The persecution eventually forced the Israelite Jews to migrate to Eastern Europe and Western Russia where they met and intermarried with the non-Israelite Khazar Jews (purple). The Czars of Russia then renewed the persecution which forced the Jews to emigrate to other areas of the world (green).
Given the animosity today, many may be surprised that the wandering Jews had peace and flourished under the rule of the Muslims at the time. Therefore, many fled to the Balkans, Turkey and Spain. By the 1400's the Muslims were displaced by the Catholic Church from Spain and Portugal, and the Jews, who had flourished there, were viciously persecuted and slaughtered during the Spanish Inquisition from 1478 to 1497. Jews from North Africa, called the Sephardim, fled Spain and North Africa and some resettled in the Netherlands and Eastern Europe, but most fled to the Balkans, Turkey and Palestine.
The Russian persecution of the East European Jews from 1648 to 1917 once again forced millions of Jews to flee. This time they fled back to England where the Protestant reformation now welcomed them, and to Western Europe, America, Canada, South America and Palestine. Over 2 million East European Jews came to America during the Russian persecution. Those in Western Europe eventually were liberated by Napoleon and prospered until the dark days of Hitler.
Today it is estimated that between 85-95 percent of all Jews are of Ashkenazim ancestry from Eastern Europe. It was these Jews, according to tradition, that returned to Israel in the 20th century to forge the modern state of Israel that exists today. For 1,880 years the Jews were a people of sorrow--a people who had no home and who had 'lived in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of [their] life.' (Deuteronomy 28:66) Yet, with the promise of judgment, God also made an incredible promise to bring Israel back, as a people, to her homeland: '...the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it.' (Deuteronomy 30:3-5, bolding for emphasis)
The Khazar Jews are not Abraham's descendants
There is growing, irrefutable evidence, however, that the Crimean Khazars, whose kingdom extended over what is now the Ukraine to the Caspian Sea, officially converted to pure Mosaic Judaism in 861 under the rule of King Bulan. The Khazars do not appear to have been a people unto themselves, but rather a blend of many races resulting from the heavy trade that was going on at the time. The campaign of the Rus (Russian) Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev effectively broke the back of the Khazarian empire in 965 AD, although Khazar itself continued until at least 1030 AD. Under the growing persecution of Kiev Rus in the 11th and 12th century, the Khazars disappeared as a people. Nonetheless, there is overwhelming evidence that at least a portion of the Jewish Khazars fled to Eastern Europe and north into Poland and Lithuania.
Some people have taken this body of evidence and claim it proves that the Abraham Ashkenazim Eastern European Jews were of the Khazar bloodline, rather than the bloodline. In his book God's Covenant People, evangelist Ted R. Weiland cites mostly third party and circumstantial evidence in a convincing way to conclude the East European Jews were not Semites (blood descendants of of Shem and Abraham). 'Since they are not Semites, then today's Jews certainly can not be of Abraham's lineage because Abraham was a Semite...descended from Shem, the Son of Noah. Following the same line of reasoning, since today's Jews are not Semites, they can not be Israelites either because Jacob/Israel was also a Semite, a direct descendant of Shem through Abraham.' 1
Are the ten lost tribes of Israel the Celtic-Saxons that populated the US?
If today's Jews are not heirs to the Covenant promises to Abraham, then who is? Weiland believes it is the Celtic-Saxon races who populated England. He and others in this movement believe the Celtic-Saxon races are true descendants of the ten tribes of Israel who were assimilated during the Assyrian exile. Weiland provides no direct evidence for this conclusion because evidence of what happened to the ten tribes is even more scarce than what happened to the Khazar Jews. Most historians accept the melting pot theory that the captive ten tribes intermarried with other races, and having lost their identity as Israelites, migrated over the centuries to the southeast, north and northwest.
Those that believe modern Jews are not bloodline Israelites claim the descendants of the ten lost tribes migrated across the Caucasus Mountains through what is now the Ukraine and became the white (Caucasian) Celtic-Anglo Saxon Europeans. It was the British (Celtic-Saxon) that colonized the world, especially that of the United States. For the moment, let us say they did. Weiland then attempts to prove that the British colonization of the world with its Israelite/Celtic/Saxon blood linage, and especially that of the United States, fulfills the various prophecies dealing with the the future of Israel. 2 Therefore, God's real covenant people are white Europeans and the nation of Israel is the United States.
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