
This latest disclosure, "The
Lost Hebrew", is one of the
most torturous projects we have
ever had to put together.
You see we are a group who like
the definitive answer. We like
to know that there is a start
and a finish, a beginning and
end. We have never liked open
ended subjects where there
cannot be a definitive
conclusion.
The Lost Hebrew blows all
of these wants and hopes out of
the water as we were faced with
a subject matter so complex that
it was impossible to come to a
definitive conclusion. Instead
what we were able to do was
establish a broad perimeter of
what we felt was acceptable and
unacceptable, as far as the
truth was concerned, but having
to accept that much of the finer
and granular details had to be
left open to the spirit of
discussion and debate, in
regards to the identity and
anomalies regarding who modern
day Israel are.
Fascinating subject.
Colin

We
are not sure whether you know
the impact that Herbert
Armstrong had during the
twentieth century but we wanted
to consolidate your
understanding right now as it
provides the foundation needed
for some of the things we will
address much later on.
 |
Herbert W. Armstrong (July 31,
1892 – January 16, 1986) was an
American Christian evangelist
whose study of the Bible led him
to conclude that
Jewish holy days, festivals, and
dietary restrictions (Leviticus
11) should be observed, and that
the Sabbath should be honoured
on Saturday. He joined a branch
of the Church of God (Seventh
Day) that practiced Sabbatarianism (Saturday
worship).
In 1933 he established an
independent radio ministry in
Eugene, Oregon, the Radio Church
of God, and a magazine, The
Plain Truth, to disseminate his
ideas. In 1947 Armstrong moved
to Pasadena, California, where he
oversaw the continued growth of
the church and changed its name
to the Worldwide Church of God. |
In
the 1960s he established a
television ministry, The World
Tomorrow, which specialized in
biblical interpretations of
contemporary events and featured
his son, Garner Ted Armstrong.
The program would eventually
expand to 382 U.S. television
stations, and 36 television
outlets internationally,
dwarfing televangelists Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Oral
Roberts, and Jim Bakker.
Under Armstrong's leadership,
the Worldwide Church of God
was accused of being a cult with
unorthodox belief systems, and to most
Christians, heretical teachings.
Critics also contended that the
Worldwide Church of God
did not proclaim salvation by
grace through faith alone, but
rather required works as part of
salvation. The late Walter
Martin, in his classic The
Kingdom of the Cults,
devoted 34 pages to the group,
claiming that Armstrong borrowed
freely from Seventh-Day
Adventist, Jehovah's Witnesses
and Mormon doctrines.


Until Armstrong's death, the
Worldwide Church of God had
simply adhered to it's founder's
teachings without question even
though the Church held a
significant number of
controversial beliefs. When
Hebert Armstrong died in 1986,
his successor, Joseph W Tkach,
decided to use it as an
opportunity to conduct a review
of the teachings of the
Church in response to criticism
that it was a Christian cult.
The
church's new leadership began a process
of theological revision in order to gain
acceptance by the North American Evangelical
Alliance
whom they had been in dialogue with for
many years after the death of Armstrong.
The process led to Tkach and his
leadership admitting that many of their controversial and unorthodox
beliefs were wrong and led to them embracing the more orthodox
aspects of Christian theology which they
had previously disagreed with. They also
dropped the name "the Worldwide Church of
God" and adopted the new name "Grace
Communion International"
You can
imagine what happened next.
A
significant power struggle arose
as supporters of Herbert
Armstrong, unsuccessfully, tried
to legally stop these changes,
leading to a mass exodus of
ministers and members.
This resulted in the formation
of many splinter denominations
all claiming to teach "all" of
the truths restored through
Herbert W. Armstrong, most
notably the Philadelphia Church
of God (1989). Others include
the Global Church of God
(1993), the
Living Church of God (1998),
the United Church of God
(1995), and the Restored Church
of God (1998). In fact you
probably will be aware of a
bible prophecy broadcast called
"Tomorrow's World" which
is actually a broadcast of the
Living Church of God.


One of the most controversial
theological views of Herbert
Armstrong is a belief known as
British Israelism. With roots in
the 16th century, British
Israelism was inspired by
several 19th century English
writings such as John Wilson's
1840 Our Israelitish Origin.
Numerous British Israelite
organisations were set up
throughout the British Empire as
well as in America from the
1870s.
The core position of this belief
was that modern day Britain,
America and some of the European
nations (notably Ireland,
Denmark etc) are descendants of
the lost tribes of Israel.
Within this is also the belief
that the Tribe of Ephraim and
the Tribe of Manasseh can be
identified as modern day Britain
and the United States of
America. They did however
believe that the Jews living in
Israel were of the house of
Judah and Benjamin, the tribes
which actually migrated back to
Israel after being in captivity
to the Assyrians during ancient
times.

The British-Israel doctrine held
the
theological claim that
particular blessings were
bestowed upon three of the
tribes of Israel, in that the
tribe of Judah was to be the
'chief ruler' e.g. King David,
and that Ephraim was to receive
the birthright. Adherents believe that
these blessings have continued
down through the ages to modern
times, with the British Monarchy
identified as the continued
blessing upon Judah, and both
Britain (Ephraim) and the USA
(Manasseh) as recipients of the
national birthright blessing.
They cite passages such as 1 Chronicles 5:1-2 and Genesis 48:19-20 as
supporting this.
Some adherents further claim the
British Royal Family is of
lineal descent from the house of
King David via a daughter of
Zedekiah, the last king of
Judah. According to this legend,
the prophet Jeremiah, and his
scribe, Baruch, escaped with
"the king's daughters" (Jeremiah
41:10; 43:6) to Egypt. They
later travelled to Ireland,
where one of the surviving Judahite princesses, Tea Tephi,
married a local High King of
Ireland. From this fabled union
the Davidic throne was
supposedly preserved, having
been transferred to Ireland,
then Scotland and later England,
whence the British monarchs are
alleged to have descended. The Stone of Scone, used in the
coronations of Scottish, English
and British monarchs for
centuries, is claimed to be none
other than the pillow stone used
by the biblical patriarch,
Jacob.
It
is important to note that this
view is also espoused by a
number of conspiratorial
researchers such as Fritz
Springmeier ("Bloodlines of
the Illuminati") and also Robin De
Ruiter ("Worldwide Evil and
Misery") who also believe the lost
tribes of Israel are found
within certain European nations.

The remaining legacy splinters
of the original Worldwide Church
of God are not the only groups
who hold to British Israelism as
a key aspect of their theology,
believing that Caucasian peoples
of America and Great Britain are the true
modern day Jews.
There is another movement known
as Christian Identity which adopts a white supremacist
interpretation of Christianity, not only holding
the the view
that only Germanic, Anglo-Saxon,
Celtic, Nordic, Aryan people and
those of kindred blood are the
descendants of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob and hence the
descendants of the ancient
Israelites, but also hold Jews
as the cursed offspring of Cain,
the "serpent hybrid" or serpent
seed and also believe that those
of African descent are the
result of a curse
that God gave to the descendants
of Canaan, notably Ham.
Christianity
Identity evolved out of British Israelism, a theology which was essentially philo-Semitic,
still believing that the present
Jews in Israel were of the
house of Judah.
But that changed in the hands of
American racists, who by the
1940s and ’50s had concluded
that contemporary Jews were not
descendants of the biblical
Hebrews at all, and that they
were lying when describing
themselves as the chosen people.
Christian Identity is not a
central denomination but a
belief system that covers the Klu Klux Klan, some aspects of
the Christian Militia movement
and
very far right conservative
Christian groups. It
is also safe to say that some
elements of Christian Identity
theology may have also seeped
into the
subconscious of some mainstream
evangelical churches.
Christian Identity theology also
holds that all non-whites
(people not of wholly European
descent) will either be
exterminated or enslaved in
order to serve the white race in
the new Heavenly Kingdom on
Earth under the reign of Jesus
Christ. Its doctrine states that
only "Adamic" (white) people can
achieve salvation and paradise.

Whilst British Israelism has
been a movement claiming the
blessings of Abraham for the
white Anglo Saxon nations,
another movement has also grown
significantly over the decades
known as the Black Hebrew
Movement.

The Black Hebrew Movement
(Black Israelite Movement) is
rooted in Black Judaism, a
belief system birthed in the
late 1800s by black Christians
from the South's Pentecostal
"Holiness" movement. They
claimed to have received a
revelation: America's recently
emancipated slaves were God's
chosen people, the true Hebrews.
Much is made of the parallels
between the 400 years of
Israelite slavery in Egypt and
the Transatlantic slave trade
involving the slavery of
millions of Africans.
According to Black Judaism
doctrine, when the Kingdom of
Israel was destroyed, the
Israelites were first scattered
across the African continent and
then selectively targeted by
enemy African tribes who
captured and sold them to
European slave traders for
bondage in the New World. Other
elements of this belief system
claim that the Israelites were
actually black people and not
"Arab" like. The
group has done much to point out
valid and credible issues like
"the perception of a white
European looking Jesus with
blonde hair and blue eyes" in
both art and many Christian
movies and the fact that there
is more representation and
influence of black people in
Bible history than we have been
led to think. However, much
of their good is undermined by
the theological hurdles they go
through to then lay claim that
black people are actually the
"true Israel".
The notorious white supremacist
leader Tom Metzger once remarked
of extremist Hebrew Israelites,
"They're the black counterparts
of us." The belief system of
extremist Hebrew Israelites is
basically the reversed-color
mirror image of the Christian
Identity theology embraced by
many white supremacists, which
holds that mainstream Jews are
the descendants of Satan and
that white people are the chosen
ones, divinely endowed by God
with superior status over "mud
people," believers' term for
non-white individuals.
Affirming the seriousness of
this groups claim to Jewish
heritage is the fact that one of
the sects within the movement were granted
citizenship in Israel.

The African Hebrew Israelite
Nation of Jerusalem is a
spiritual group now mainly based
in Dimona, Israel, whose members
believe they are descended from
the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The
community now numbers around
5,000. Their immigrant ancestors
were African Americans, many
from Chicago, Illinois, who
migrated to Israel in the late
1960s. The group was initially
very militant during its early
years but in softening its
attitude over the decades has
managed to become assimilated
and respected within Israeli
life.
Black Hebrews Recognized By
Israeli Government
In
2011, the Georgia General
Assembly passed a resolution
which "recognize(s) the Hebrew
Israelite Community for its
service to the nation of Israel
and commends their 40 years of
history." Citing the fact
that the Dimona-based community
is "one of the largest urban
kibbutzim in Israel" and "has
attracted visitors from around
the world because of its healthy
lifestyle and organic
agriculture," the Assembly
concluded and declared that "the
culture and tradition of the
Hebrew Israelite Community is a
rich one, and the Community's
numerous contributions are
worthy of recognition."
In August 2008, the Village of
Peace received a visit from
Israel's president, Shimon
Peres, who told the Hebrew
Israelites "Your community is
beloved in Israel...You give the
country happiness and song and
hope for a better world"
And in March, 2012, during the
community's annual "New World
Passover" celebration in honor
of their historic "exodus" from
America in 1967, the Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu expressed appreciation
for "the cooperative society
that is working towards the
inclusion of the Hebrew
Israelite community in Israeli
society at large," and he also
declared that their experience
in the land is "an integral part
of the Israeli experience."
|
When they began emigrating to
Israel, the religious officials
and the state did not consider
them Jewish and as a result,
they were asked to convert. In
2003, the remainder of the
existing community (those who
had not received residency
permits earlier) were granted
official Israeli permanent
residency and later were
entitled to acquire Israeli
citizenship by naturalization,
which does not imply any Jewish
status. Since 2004, some members
of the community (both men and
women) have enlisted to the
Israel Defense Forces.
Today, young men and to a lesser
degree women from the African
Hebrew community of Jerusalem
serve in the Israeli Defense
Force, and they have
entered international sporting
events and academic competitions
under the Israeli flag, as well
as having represented Israel
twice in the Eurovision song
contest

It
is well known that, sometime in
the eighth to ninth centuries,
the Khazars, a warlike Turkic
people, converted to Judaism and
ruled over a vast domain in what
became southern Russia and
Ukraine (an area predominantly
known today as Crimea). What happened to them
after the Russians destroyed
that empire around the eleventh
century has been a mystery. Many
have speculated that the Khazars
became the ancestors of
Ashkenazi Jews who form the
majority of the populating
living in Israel today.

Contrarian Hungarian
ex-communist and scientist
Arthur Koestler brought the
Khazar hypothesis to a wider
audience with The Thirteenth
Tribe (1976), in the hope that
disproving a common Jewish
“racial” identity would end
anti-Semitism. Clearly, that hope
has not been fulfilled.
Most recently, left-wing Israeli
historian Shlomo Sand’s The
Invention of the Jewish People
took Koestler’s thesis in a
direction he had not intended,
arguing that because Jews were a
religious community descended
from converts they do not
constitute a nation or need a
state of their own. Scientists,
however, dismissed the Khazar
hypothesis because the genetic
evidence did not add up.
However in 2012, an Israeli
researcher published a study
claiming to prove that Khazar
ancestry is the single largest
element in the Ashkenazi gene
pool. New DNA analysis
technology he found showed that Yiddish,
the historic language of
Ashkenazi Jews, may have
originated in northeastern
Turkey.
The study by the University of
Sheffield’s Dr. Eran Elhaik,
which was published in
the scientific journal Genome
Biology, used a Geographic
Population Structure (GPS) tool
to locate the origins of Yiddish
speakers’ DNA. The researchers
then used the GPS algorithms to
analyze participants’ DNA and
predict their most likely
geographical origin.
The results, Elhaik said, showed
that many of them came from the
vicinity of four ancient
villages in northern Turkey
whose names are conspicuously
similar to “Ashkenaz” — Askenaz,
Eskenaz, Ashanaz, and Ashkuz —
and which are all located near a
crossroads of the ancient Silk
Road trade route. The
researchers have surmised that
the language may have been
invented by Iranian and Slavic
Jews who traded on the Silk Road
around the 9th century.
This view has been popularised
by a number of leading
prophetical scholars. such as
Texe Marrs and his "Power of
Prophecy" radio show which
published the following book "DNA,
Science and the Jewish Bloodline" a
number of decades ago which
marginalized him from much of
the bible prophecy community.
His book states,
 |
"Today, DNA Science reveals that
almost all the Jews in the world
come from Khazaria. They are not
of the the blood lineage of
Abraham and the prophets, but of
King Bulan and the pagan peoples
of the Caucasus. The ancestors
of today's Jews are not
Israelites but are
Khazarians.Khazaria's people, in
the 8th century, converted from
paganism to Judaism.
In the 10th
century, these Khazarian
"Jewish" converts emigrated to
Eastern Europe, and especially
Poland and Lithuania. In 1948,
the Khazars, erroneously
believing themselves to be
"Jews," arrived in the territory
of Palestine and set up the
state of Israel. The people of
Israel today are virtually all
of Khazar (Turk/Mongol stock)
extraction. The Jews have no
genetic claims to the land of
Israel and no family connection
whatsoever to historical Israel.
DNA science joins recent
discoveries in history and
archaeology to present the world
with a correct and remarkable
picture of the Jewish people.
Now, everything changes!" |

Before the end of the first
century of its existence, the
church had become predominantly
Gentile in membership and
began to experience significant
changes from what it had been
when it was mainly Jewish in
membership. Within one hundred
years after the apostles of
Christ were gone, the “majority
of Gentile Christians regarded
the Jewish Scriptures as
authoritative,” but began to
think “of themselves as the true
spiritual heirs of Israel,” and
“claimed for themselves the
promises which the Hebrews held
that God had made to them.”
Some anti-Semitic Gentile church
leaders played a key role in
this significant shift from the
original understanding of the
Scriptures regarding the nation
of Israel’s relationship with
God. In response to Jewish
attacks against Christian
beliefs, some resorted to new
methods of Biblical
interpretation and wrote
rebuttals with varying degrees
of anti-Semitic content.

Most of the men who are seen as
the Church Fathers were
previously disciples of Plato,
Socrates and other Greek
philosophers – Ignatius, Origen,
Justyn Martyr, Marcion and John
Crystostom. They began to teach
that because the majority of the
Jewish people rejected Yeshua,
God had rejected them and now
the Church was the true Israel
or the New Israel of God. They
left the curses for the Jews and
took the blessings and promises
for the New Israel. They taught
that the Torah was superseded by
the New Testament laws and that
the Sabbath, the Feasts and the
commandments were now obsolete.
-
For
example, Justin Martyr (AD 100–165),
who defended Christianity against a
Jewish enemy, claimed Christians
“are the true Israelitic race,” and
asserted that the Biblical
expression “the seed of Jacob,” when
properly understood, now refers to
the Christians, not the Jews.
-
Tertullian (AD 145–220), prominent
church theologian from North Africa,
interpreted God’s statements to
Rebekah concerning the twins (Esau
and Jacob) in her womb (Genesis
25:23) in the following manner:
Esau, the older brother, represents
the Jews; and Jacob, the younger
brother, represents the Christians.
He indicated that God thereby
revealed that the Christians would
overcome the Jews and that the Jews
would serve the Christians.
-
Origen
(AD 185–253), the president of the
school of theology in Alexandria,
Egypt, greatly influenced the
church’s acceptance of the
allegorical, or spiritualizing,
method of interpreting the Bible in
contrast to the literal,
historical-grammatical method. This
method allowed him to claim that the
word “Israel” in the Bible can mean
the church, not national Israel.
-
Cyprian (AD 195–258), bishop of
Carthage, stated that he
“endeavoured to show that the Jews,
according to what had before been
foretold, had departed from God, and
had lost God’s favour, which had
been given them in past time, and
had been promised them for the
future; while the Christians had
succeeded to their place, deserving
well of the Lord by faith.”
The natural affinity Jews and
Christians enjoyed in the second
and third centuries alarmed the
Church fathers who borrowed from
both Justin and Marcion to
support an anti-Judaic Christian
theology of Israel. This would
not only result in thousands of
assaults upon Jewish people over
the next 1,500 years or so, but
also cripple Christianity's
attitude towards ot Jewish
heritage.


This Christian elitist antipathy
toward Jews and Judaism became
woven into the fabric of
Christian theology and thereby
into Western civilization. The
Roman Catholic Church spent a
significant amount of effort
during the middle ages in
seeking to detach the Jewish
heritage of the Christian faith
with a theology known as supersessionism, a theological
view on the current status of
the church in relation to the
Jewish people, holding that the
Christian Church had succeeded
the Israelites as the definitive
people of God or that the New
Covenant had replaced or
superseded the Mosaic covenant.
During the protestant
reformation Martin Luther and
the other reformers inherited
this theological posture and
cultural prejudice. Luther,
heralded as the Father of the
Reformation and an avid student
of Paul, is credited for his
justification by faith emphasis
as newly discovered in Romans.
But in the processing of his new
insights, he took severe
liberties to castigate the
Jewish people. During the final
decade of his life Luther wrote
horrific sermons about the Jews
going as far as to calling for
all their synagogues to be burnt
to the ground.

Luther's impact on the Nazi
regime to come 400 years later
was profound. Martin Luther's
late work Von den Jüden und iren
Lügen is a blueprint for
Kristallnacht and reads like an
issue of Julius Streicher's Der
Stürmer - the Nazi anti-Semitic
hate weekly, and so it is no
surprise that references to
Luther’s late anti-Jewish works
increased markedly in Nazi
Germany during the period up to 1938.
Today the Roman Catholic Church,
Orthodox Church, Lutheran,
Methodist, Anglican,
Presbyterian and various groups
within the charismatic and
evangelical movement hold to the
belief that there is no
prophetical role for the state
of Israel as the Church is now
the new Israel. The Church had
now inherited the promises that
God gave to Abraham and as such
there is no distinction between
gentile and Jews. Events such as
the restoration of the nation of
Israel in 1948, Israel winning
the 7 day war against the Arabs
in 1967, the 1973 Yom Kippur war or even the recent
recognition of Jerusalem
as the capital of Israel by the
United Sates, is given very
little significance or
recognition within much of the
Christian world.

The Lost Hebrew is our
latest disclosure which takes a
really deep and insightful
exploration of the debate
regarding who is true Israel. As
we have journeyed in our
discovery it has become
increasingly clear that there
are some fixed boundaries to
what we believe. We strongly
assert that we are not in favor
of believing that the true Jews
of today are wholly the white
Anglo Saxon nations or wholly
the African American and
Caribbean negroes. However we do
recognise that there is proof of
a connection where some of the
tribes did make their way into
Europe and we also recognise
that there are groups of black
people with proven ancestral
links to the tribes of Israel.

Come with us on a 20 hour journey of
stunning insights and major visual
illustrations across 4 powerful online video
documentaries, as we explore the most
pressing questions from a conspiratorial and
biblical perspective and make sense of an
age old debate about the identity of the end
times Jews and tribes of Israel.
BROUGHT TO EGYPT
Just as John 3:16 is the most
critical scripture for the
Christian faith, the most
pivotal case for the Black
Hebrew movement rest on
Deuteronomy 28:68 "And the
LORD shall bring you into Egypt
again in ships, by the way of
which I spoke unto you, You
shall see it no more again: and
there you shall be sold unto
your enemies as male and female
slaves, and no man shall buy
you." Like a pack of cards
the theology of the Black Hebrew
Movement collapses should a
natural exegesis of this
scripture prove that their
interpretation of this is out of
context. In this online video
documentary the movement is put
under the spotlight where is
nowhere to run in terms of
sidestepping the numerous issues
facing their belief about who
the true Hebrews of today are.
|
THE QUEST FOR THE TEN LOST
TRIBES OF ISRAEL
The puzzle of the 10 lost tribes
of Israel is a difficult one to
solve. The belief that the white
European nations are a modern
day reflection of Israel is a
belief that we simply cannot
theologically support yet there
is proof of connections between
some of the tribes of Israel and
migrations to Denmark, Ireland
and other European nations after
being released from Assyrian
captivity.
 |
What historical records confirm
that one of King Zedekiah's two
daughters married into Irish
royalty? |
 |
Is there a historical
connection between the
Vikings, Denmark and the
tribe of Dan? |
 |
Did British Israelism influence
biblical justification for the
Transatlantic slave trade? |
 |
Are their links between the 10
lost tribes of Israel, the North
American Indians, |
 |
Did you know that Israeli
journalist Hillel Halkin was
shown texts that convinced him
that an indian community, which
calls itself the Bnei Menashe,
has roots in the lost tribe of
Menashe. The documents included
a will and words to a song about
the Red Sea? |
 |
Did you know that under
Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th
century B.C. some of the
banished Israeli tribes headed
east, settling near Esfahan in
Iran, in a city called Yahudia,
and later moved to the Afghan
region of Hazarajat? |
 |
Did you know that some members
of the Lemba, a South African
tribe that claims to be a Lost
Tribe of Israel, have the
genetic Cohan marker. Cohanim
are members of priestly clan
that trace their paternal
lineage back to the original
cohen, Aaron, the brother of
Moses and a high Jewish priest? |
This online video documentary
also addresses the challenges
facing a young
earth model, as well
as what is also called "Theistic
Evolution", the idea that
God used
evolution as part of his
creation process. |
THIRD TEMPLE
An
absolutely fascinating online
video documentary which reveals
the latest insights on the plans
to rebuild the 3rd Jewish temple
on the temple mount in
Jerusalem.
|
THE NEW EARTH AND THE 144,000
The 144,000 that the apostle
John referred to in the book
of Revelation is one of the
most controversial topics in the
Bible. One understanding is that
the 144,000 are recently
converted Jewish evangelists
sent out to bring sinners to
Jesus Christ during the seven
year tribulation period.
Preterists believe they are
Jewish Christians, sealed for
deliverance from the destruction
of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
Dispensationalist Tim LaHaye, in
his commentary Revelation:
Illustrated and Made Plain,
considers the 144,000 in
Revelation 7 to refer to Jews
and those in Revelation 14 to
refer to Christians. Added to
this you have other groups such
as the Jehovah Witnesses
claiming ownership.
How can we cut through the
noise? and have a truly accurate
understanding of the 144,000,
what they represent and how
their mission will impact the
world, not only during the reign
of the Antichrist but also
during the reign of Jesus Christ
during the Millennium in which
the earth will return back to
the near conditions of Eden.
|