The Lost Tribes of Israel Claims by Herbert Armstrong

The Lost Tribes of Israel Catholic. com Around 926 b. c. , the kingdom of Israel split in two. Up to that point, every last(predicate) twelve populations of Israel (plus the priestly tribe of Levi) had been united under the monarchies of Saul, David, and Solomon. But when Solomons son Rehoboam ascended to the thrvirtuoso, the go Federal tribes rebelled and seceded from the union. This left only two tribesJudah and Benjamin (plus much of Levi)under the control of the king in Jerusalem. From that eon on, the tribes were divided into two nations, which came to be called the signaling of Israel (the Northern ten tribes) and the House of Judah (the S step forwardhern two tribes).This office continued until around 723 B. C. , when the Assyrians conquered the Northern kingdom. To keep conquered nations in subjection, it was Assyrian policy to break them up by deporting their autochthonic populations to separate atomic number 18as and resettling the land with newcomers. When the H ouse of Israel was conquered, most people belonging to the ten Northern tribes were deported and settled elsewhere in the Assyrian kingdom, including places near Nineveh, Haran, and on what is now the Iran-Iraq border.They were replaced by settlers from locations in or near Babylon and Syria. These settlers intermarried, together with the remain Israelites, and became the Samaritans mentioned in the New Testament (a a couple of(prenominal) hundred of whom still survive to daytime). The Israelites who had been deported also intermarried with the peoples of the places where they had been resettled. They eventually at ocean their distinct identity, disappeargond, and their culture was lost to recital. Some refer to them as the lost tribes of Israel. A movement called British Israelism claims to have found the ten lost tribes, however, and in whatsoever very unlikely places. For many years, one of the leaders in the British Israelism movement was Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of th e self-proclaimed Worldwide Church of God. Especially for Ameri give the bounces, Armstrong was just or so the only person they ever heard advocating British Israelism. With his own paid television program, Armstrong regularly advertise his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, which advocated the view. British Israelism was not Armstrongs only eccentric view.Among other things, he believed in Saturday rather than Sunday worship and, most seriously, he rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and claimed that aboutone humans could be added to the Godhead. After Armstrongs death, the Worldwide Church of God did a serious retrospect of the doctrines it had taught up to that point and moved to a more biblically and theologically orthodox position. Today, the organization is basically some other(prenominal) Evangelical Protestant church (they have even been admitted to the National Association of Evangelicals), though with a few distinctive practices.Many of their congregati ons still worship on Saturdays, for example, but they no longer regard keeping the Judaic Sabbath and feasts as points of doctrine. They have emb track downd the doctrine of the Trinity, denied that created beings can become part of the Godhead, and acknowledged that other churches contain authorized Christians. They have also rejected the distinctive idea behind British Israelismthe claim that the lost tribes of Israel are to be specially identified with the Anglo-Saxons.Unfortunately, there are still advocates of British Israelism out there (including some groups that split off from the Worldwide Church of God when it underwent its doctrinal renewal), and, though the book is out of print, Herbert W. Armstrongs The United States and Britain in Prophecy continues to circulate. The United States and Britain in Prophecy teaches the notion that the Lost Tribes of Israel are sincerely the descendants of Anglo-Saxons, which is to say the British and Americans of British extraction. Th is exotic doctrine had been around for decades before Herbert W.Armstrong founded his church in 1933, and it appeals, naturally enough, to those of British heritage. After all, who wouldnt want to be a member of the chosen race (assuming there is one)? And according to Armstrong, thats precisely what the Anglo-Saxons areGods chosen race, where can be found the direct descendants of King David and, even forthwith, the true heirs to King Davids throne. The United States and Britain in Prophecy opens with this epigraph The prophecies of the Bible have been grievously misunderstood. And no wonderFor the vital key, needed to unlock oracular doors to understanding, had become lost. That key is a definite knowledge of the true identity of the American and British peoples in biblical prophecy. Only the first sentence of this epigraph is strictly correct, and a good share of the grievous construe is by people who put faith in the writings of Herbert W. Armstrong. The Argument Begins We k now Bible prophecies definitely refer to Russia, Italy, Ethiopia, Libya, and Egypt of today. Could they then ignore modern nations like Britain and America?Is it reasonable? This is how the contestation begins, and notice what physique of argument it is. If these lesser findries are mentioned in record book, would it be fair for God to ignore us, important as we are? (We wont examine here the highly dubious premise that Russia is mentioned in Scripture. ) You great power call this an appeal to pride. Never fear, says Armstrong. The fact is, the British and Americans are mentioned more often than any other race sic. Yet their prophetic identity has remained hidden to the many. Why is that? you ask. Because the Bible doesnt refer to them by their modern names, but by an ancient name. And what is that name? None other than Israel. Hold it you say. The people who came from Israel are Jews. Britons and Americans, for the most part, arent Judaic. How can one claim otherwise? Eas ily. Armstrong assures us that, The house of Israel is not Jewish Those who constitute it are not Jews, and never were That fact we shall now consume conclusively, beyond refute. Actually, there is something of a point here.The term Jew originated as a course of referring to the people of the Confederate kingdom of Judah, whether their own tribe was Judah, Benjamin, or Levi. The term appears late in Israels history afterwards the division into northern and southern kingdomsand it can be fairly claimed that the term does not apply to the members of the ten northern tribes, who are correctly known as Israelites since they belonged to the House of Israel rather than the House of Judah. Armstrong asserted Certainly this proves that the Jews are a divers(prenominal) nation altogether from the House of Israel, claims Armstrong. The Jews of today are Judah They call their nation Israel today because they, too, descend from the paterfamilias Israel or Jacob. But remember that the Hous e of Israelthe ten tribes that separated from Judahdoes not mean Jew Whoever the lost ten tribes of Israel are today, they are not Jews By the year 721 B. C. , the House of Israel was conquered and its people were soon driven out of their own landout of their homes and citiesand carried captives to Assyria, near the southern shores of the Caspian Sea So it was in 721 B.C. that the Lost Tribes got lost. The stratum Nothing Happened Had the tribes remained faithful to God, all would have been well, Armstrong explains. But, if they refused and rebelled, they were to be punished seven timesa season of 2,520 yearsin slavery, servitude, and want. They did rebel, and Armstrong theorizes that their punishment extended from 721 B. C. to A. D. 1800. And what remarkable thing happened in 1800? Well, if we dont count the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency of the United States, not a whole lot.In fact, 1800 was a pretty hushed year for history. But Armstrong disagrees, saying that from that date, Britain and America became world powers the former (at that time) politically, and the latter economically (and later, also politically). accord to Armstrongs scheme, the figure of 2,520 years of punishment is arrived at by multiplying the seven years of punishment by 360the number of days in the year as it was reckoned by the ancientson the principle that each day of punishment really stood for a whole year of punishment.If you think this is convoluted reasoning, just wait until you find out the remainder of the argument in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Its enough to note here that Armstrong determines from Scripture that the Lost Tribes ended up on islands in the sea, and these islands are northwest of Palestine. Were told, for example, that the forty-ninth chapter of Isaiah begins with, Listen, O isles, unto me. Do you see how this suggests the British Isles? Armstrong says, Take a map of Europe.Lay a line due northwest of Jerusalem across th e continent of Europe, until you come to the sea, and then to the islands in the sea This line move backs you direct to the British Isles The skeptic might note that the line first comes to the Aegean islands, which are also in the seathe Mediterranean Seabut this would mean the Greeks are the Lost Tribes, therefore, the theory would not play into the desires of some British or Americans to identify themselves with the lost tribes. Linguistic Legerdemain You want more proof? Armstrong has it. The House of Israel, he explains, is the compact car people. The Hebraic backchat for covenant is brit brith. And the parole for covenant man, or covenant people, would therefore sound, in side word order, Brit-ish (the word ish means man in Hebraical, and it is also an English suffix on nouns and adjectives). And so, is it mere coincidence that the true covenant people today are called the British? And they reside in the British Isles This reasoning may impress some, but no linguist w ould take this seriously.The word British is not derived from Hebrew but from the Celtic word Brettas. Its significant that the Celtic Brettas referred to the Britons, who were inhabitants of England before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons that Armstrong claims were Israelites. One possible reason for Armstrongs linguistic confusions may be that in Websters Diction-ary (for example, in the 3,200-page unabridged edition published in 1932an edition Armstrong may have had glide path to) the entry for brith (Hebrew covenant) appears sandwiched between the entries for Britannic and Briticism. Perhaps he simply didnt hold guardedly enough and assumed, wrongly, that brith must somehow be etymologically connected with the other the words before and after pertaining to things British. Neither does the common English suffix -ish derive from the Hebrew word for man. Instead, it derives from the Greek diminutive suffix -iskos It was bad enough to suggest that the word British is Hebrew, but h e also made another claim If you take the name Isaac, you see its easy for someone to drop the I when utterance quickly and to end up with Saac as the name of the patriarch.He had descendants, of course, and these may be called Saacs sons, from which we get the word Saxons. Is it only coincidence, asks Armstrong, that Saxons sounds the same as Saacs sonssons of Isaac? This doesnt even qualify as a coincidence, since Armstrong had to adopt up the nickname of Saac in order for the coincidence to exist. In reality, the term Saxon is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word seax, which means knife or dagger, not the Hebrew word Isaac (Yitskhaq), which means laughter (cf.Gen. 171519, 18915). Another Remarkable Coincidence? Armstrong found other coincidences. When the Lost Tribes were scattered, he says, they brought with them sealed remarkable things, including a harp and a wonderful stone called lia-fail, or stone of destiny. A quaint coincidence is that Hebrew reads from right to left, while English reads from left to right. Read this name either wayand it still is lia-fail. Another strange coincidenceor is it just coincidence? is that many kings in the history of Ireland, Scotland, and England have been coronated sitting over a remarkable stoneincluding the present queen sic. The stone equalizers today in Westminster Abbey in London, and the coronation chair is built over and around it. A sign at once beside it labeled it Jacobs pillar-stone. Here Armstrongs argument becomes even weaker. After all, one could note that Hebrew and English are not the only languages which, when contrasted, are read in different directions. For example, Arabic is read right to left, while Gaelic is read left to right.What does that prove? Nothing Just as Armstrongs muddled reasoning proves nothing at all about a connection between Hebrew and English. If it did, one could just as easily prove that the Lost Tribes were also responsible for bringing the blabber Stone with them. And thats just plain blarney. Armstrongisms Appeal What makes Armstrongs notion so kind to some folks? First, it appeals to their nationalistic vanity Im of English descent, and now I see that Im right in the thick of things, biblically speaking.Having English blood in my veins makes me special. It puts me above the rest of the crowd. It also perpetuates ethnic prejudice Thank God Im not Italian I never liked Italians anyway, and now I see they arent descended from the Lost Tribes and so are only secondary players in the divine dramasomething I always suspected. At first glance, Armstrongs argument seems to be based on a sophisticated understanding of Scripture Armstrong provides lots of citations, and I cant find fault with his argument. Its so convoluted and technical it