During the late War and for some years thereafter, everyone in Britain had to possess and carry with him an Identity Card, bearing his or her name and address. My Card, how ever, never proved that I was myself. It might have been stolen from another person.
My problem now is to demonstrate who I am, and whence I am. Is there any way in which I can prove which race of mankind I belong to ? Sometimes when I have been in the city of London, where there are many Israelites, I have spoken a little Hebrew in the markets. But none of these Israelites gave me the secret sign to shew that they recognized me as a cousin or relative. They could only stare in silence. Obviously I was one of the Gentile dogs to them. Why did their sense of kinship, which is very strong among themselves, not extend to me?
Perhaps it might be much easier for me to prove that I am one of the Gentiles, than to prove that I am an Israelite. Or would it be possible for me to prove that those who are universally known and recognized as "Jews" are really Gentiles in disguise?
Let us enquire of the only exact records, the sacred Scriptures, for any information upon the subject. There only may we find unimpeachable scientific statements on this matter. In the Song of Moses we are informed that the Most High (Elyon), in allotting or giving inheritance to the nations. in His parting the sons of Adam, set up the boundaries of the peoples, with relation to the number of the sons of Israel (Deut. 32:8). Thus, there were specific Gentile nations, and a glance at a map will shew that the Land of Israel lies at the junction of three huge continents.
In ch. 10 of Genesis Moses details the descendants of Noah, according to their nations. Verse 32 finishes up by stating that "from these were parted the nations in the earth after the Flood." And lest there should be any dubiety regarding these nations, Moses states in ch. 9:19, "These three are Noah's sons, and from these was overspread all the earth." All the present nations on earth are therefore descended from Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
As regards the identity of the few Shemite nations, there never has been any doubt. Apart from Israel, they have always remained in their own part of the world, in South West Asia. As nations they have not been expansive or colonizing. Had Israel become a Nation of Priests, to lead the Gentiles to God, they would never have gone in for commerce and finance.
What of Japheth? Who is he, and what are his characteristics? Why did he get his name?
We submit, therefore, that none of the restless, expansive, "globe-trotting," bee-hive nations can belong to Shem; they must be sons of Japheth.
In a special way Shem's characteristic was that he possessed for his God Jehovah. "Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem." In a special sense the great characteristic of Japheth was to be enlargement, by God, as God, that is, Elohim.
As for the general direction of the Japhethic race movement, the 10th of Genesis indicates that they spread West and North. Gog or Gug and the land of Magog, lay to the far north of Palestine. Yavan, the name by which the Hebrews knew the primitive inhabitants of Greece and the Ionian (i.e. Yavonian) Sea, were a people who moved Westwards. Homer calls them Iavones. Tarshish is understood to have gone to Spain.
As quite a few of the Hamite nations named are darkskinned or reddish-brown, it may be they are all more or less dark, if not yellow.
These spread Eastwards into India and Southwards through Africa.
It is therefore only reasonable to believe that the nations of Europe in general, and all their descendants, are of Japhethic stock. No one could ever say of the European nations what Dean Farrar wrote of the Shemites, "The character of the Semitic race has always been its 'inveterate isolation.'"
In our search for Israelites, it is only reasonable that we should consider, not only the question of language and physical features, but also the question of temperament and mentality. So far back as the Egyptian monuments and paintings can take us, they always depict the Israelite with exactly the same features as the known "Jew" of to-day possesses. This argument, of course, is never recognized by those whose views are moulded by wishful thinking alone. The Scriptures recognize the blasphemy from among those professing them selves to be Jews, who are not (Rev. 2:9; 3:9). They recognize such people as "a synagogue of Satan." As the Greek puts it, these people are "saying" themselves to be Jews. For some reason they want to pass as Jews, although they may possess not one of the natural marks of the Jew. There seem to be many who want to say themselves Israelites.
Every nation possesses a great variety of physical expression. To me, every Negro seems very much alike. Yet if I lived among Negroes for a time, I would soon discover great differences among them. At the same time, every nation possesses certain "typical" features which belong only to itself. Often such typical features are not at all common. The Israelites or Jews are no exception; they have something about them which belongs to no other race. An eminent ethnologist (Gunther) denies they are a race at all, because "a casual glance at once shews men of greatly differing appearance among the Jews." Just so; but the glance has been too casual. Every race shews greatly differing features. Yet on his next page the same writer says "in the Jewish people as a whole there are always somatic and psychological characteristics recurring, and with such uniformity for the great body of Jews in every land, that it is easy for the impression of a 'Jewish race' to be formed."
What is of much greater importance for us to-day is the mental characteristic of the Jews or Israelites. The same writer says "their inherited characteristics are the source of that strangeness which they themselves feel within the racially different European peoples, and which these peoples feel with regard to the Jews—a reciprocal strangeness that has always been attested from the time of the first appearance of the Jew in Europe."
Balak king of Moab fetched Balaam from the mountains. of the East, to curse Jacob, to defy Israel (Num. 23:7). But Jehovah had put a statement into Balaam's mouth, and he said, "From the top of rocks I am seeing him, and from hills I am regarding him! Lo, a People alone (or separate; isolated; l'badad) will he tabernacle, and among the nations. will he not reckon himself (v. 9). With Rotherham and Young we give the full force of the final reflexive verb.
Israel always knew he had to be isolated. And in his heart still, in spite of his dense spiritual darkness, he knows that he is still in isolation.
Another beautiful Hebrew theme claims our attention. In Ex. 19:5; Deut. 7:6; 14:2; 26:18, and Psalm 135:4, Israel is represented as a "peculiar treasure" to Jehovah. They Were to be "to Him for a people sgullah." What does this Hebrew word signify? Frequent researches into Hebrew Etymology have shewn that this word, S-G-L corresponds exactly with the Latin singul-aris, singular. This word means "one at a time; alone; single; solitary; alone of its kind; unique." The insertion of N before G is quite a common feature in some languages.
Israel, though still mostly scattered, still dwells alone and unique among the Gentiles, a singular people. Even when an Israelite marries one who is not Semitic, the offspring soon reverts by the law of atavism to the two original types. No new type is formed. One descendant will be born with Hebrew features, another with Gentile features. The same law operates when two distinct races mingle. It was God who brought into being the three great divisions of the human race, and it is God who still preserves their distinctions. About thirty years ago I suggested that these physical and mental distinctions were probably brought into being through the extraordinary physical and climatic changes which existed after the Flood. Children about to be born are often affected throughout life by any extraordinary experience the mother has undergone before they were born. Rainfall was probably a new phenomenon at the Flood; likewise the seasons. Tremendously different physical conditions probably helped to produce great diversities in the family of Noah and their descendants. Yet the great prime divisions of mankind remain.
In the realm of thought, the religious Israelite or Jew was marked off from the more civilized Gentiles, such as the Greeks (literally Hellenes), by the fact that he was essentially a seer, rather than a reasoner. As the custodian of the Law and the Revelation, it was not his place or his right to reason about these. He did not need to search for Wisdom or Science, as the Greek did, because he possessed as a national treasure a Revelation which told him all he required to know in this life. The Hebrew seers were not philosophers; as Paul told the Corinthians (1. Cor. 1:22) the Jews were asking for signs, and Hellenes (or Greeks) were seeking wisdom (sophia). Well did the Hebrews know that some of their forefathers had seen and even talked with God. Was not one brief glimpse of Jehovah worth far more than all the Science or Wisdom of the nations?
If we have to identify Israel, let us not seek him in a nation which runs after so-called Science. And let us seek him as scattered among all nations (Luke 21:24). Peter, in Acts 4:27 enumerates four human agents or factors as conspiring to bring about the death of Messiah—Herod, Pilate, "together with Gentiles, and peoples of Israel." These last cannot be other than Israelites.
About the year 1873 a book was published in London by Edward Hine called "The British Nation Identified with Lost Israel." On the final page (296) this amazing statement is made, "One of the most beautiful results of this theory is that the Royal race of David is emancipated from the sin of crucifying the Messiah. They were in Ireland, and were not consenting to the act of the remaining race of Judah." Surely Paul's long sorrowful lament for his people Israel found in the 9th chapter of Romans, and down to the end of the 11th chapter of Romans, cannot mean that they were innocent of the crime of murdering their Messiah. If in the first century these Israelites were in what is now known as Ireland, or in Britain, why should Paul's great sorrow for them be unceasable and painful (9:2)? Why should he quote Isaiah as crying over Israel that a remnant (only) would be saved (9:27)? Why again does he quote from Isaiah, who was very daring in declaring that God was found by those not seeking Him, while towards Israel God says, "The whole day do I spread out My hands towards an unyielding and gainsaying people"? (10:20-21). Why does he write that only the chosen ones encountered what they were seeking, while the rest of Israel were made callous? (11:7). Is it not by the lapse of Israel that "The Salvation" comes to the Gentiles, so that Israel may be provoked to jealousy? It is the "casting away" of the same Israel that is "world-conciliation."
The disciples ought to have known better than ask the question found in Acts 1:6. But had they asked the Lord whether He was about to restore the kingdom to a people dwelling 2,000 or 2,500 miles to the West of Palestine, in the British Isles, we feel sure the Lord would have doubted their sanity.
This again raises another historical point. Are we to go back to the original and primitive people who settled in Britain, and if so, who were they? The date of the erection of the huge monoliths which make up "Stonehenge" in Wiltshire is calculated as being about 1500 B.C., by means of astronomical measurements. If the people who erected such huge structures, about such a time, were indeed Israelites, why did they build what are obviously pagan "Temples of the Sun" throughout all Britain? And how did these Israelites' make their Exodus from Egypt (about the same time), settle in their own God-given land after 40 years of wanderings in the Wilderness, then cross Europe in another Exodus, as a nation, or travel by sea, to Britain, and become settled there by about 1500 B.C.? Moreover, if such temples were really shrines for the worship of Jehovah, it ought to be demonstrated that similar temples of the same age or earlier existed in the Holy Land.
How comes it also, that the descendants of this same people have completely abandoned these temples, and do not know assuredly for what purpose they were erected? And how did it happen that these Hebrews completely lost every trace of their pure Hebrew speech, so that in the days of Paul they spoke a tongue akin to the language of the opposite coasts of Gaul?
Why, in many parts of Britain to this day, "counting-out rhymes" are still used for counting sheep, which preserve the primitive numerals of the ancient Britons. These numerals are not a bit like ancient Hebrew, but some of them come close to modern Welsh, as "pimp" for five, "pethera" for four, and "dik" or "dek" for ten. These come very close to Greek. These ancient words for five are specially interesting, being so different from Hebrew chamesh. When a Greek counted by means of his fingers, the whole hand signified "all-all," or pan-pan, from which the numeral pente or pempe, and the name Pompey (a fifth child or son).
A further complication arises if we have to reckon as Israelites not only the ancient Britons, but the nation of the Angles, who, owing to Slavonic pressure, cleared out of the northern part of the old Kingdom of Hanover, along with many of the Friesians, in the fifth century or earlier, and came to Scotland and the country which they named Engle-lond. It is claimed that these were another part of the nation of Israel. It is often stated that they were pagans. No One can prove that they were all pagans. A great many people in Britain to-day are just as much pagan. For all we know, Wulfila's translation of the Greek Scriptures into the Gothic language in the middle of the fourth century may have made a profound impression upon the Angles, who spoke a tongue very close to Gothic.
Were the ancient Britons and the Angles one and the same people by race, that is, all Israelites? If so, if two branches of Israel were now, after perhaps almost two thousand years, celebrating their reunion, why did wars continue between them for a few hundred years?
The Venerable Bede (died A.D. 735) wrote that in his day the Scriptures were read in all the languages of Britain, five in number-Latin, Angle, British, Scottish (Gaetic) and Pietish. Language is no true test of race, yet it seems odd that two branches of Israel should talk languages so very different as ancient British and Angle, while the people universally known as the Jews have retained some knowledge of the Hebrew language wherever they have wandered.
As for the physical differences between the "Israelites" of Britain and those always known as Jews all over the world, Edward Hine set forth the extraordinary theory that these Jews, whom he called Judah, or the two tribes, had been under the curse since the Crucifixion (while the Israelites had not), and as part of this awful curse the Jews' features had been altered. "The change has been entirely with the Jews." Before the Crucifixion, presumably, the features of the "Jews" were similar to those now found in Britain. Hine was a most clever and cunning writer, but very unscrupulous. It is so easy to hold as "proved" statements which no one can easily disprove. Thousands of simple souls were callously deceived by his specious arguments, and in our day thousands are still being deceived by the same flimsy reasonings. No wonder the Rev. David Baron of London stated in his fine book, "The history of the Ten 'Lost' Tribes," (1915), that the theory we are criticizing was "enough to provoke God's judgment against the nation" (Britain). Let us not-imagine God is pleased with any such teaching which makes His Word so largely of none effect.
The general physical characteristics of a nation change very little in the course of time, only imperceptibly. Ethnologists have found that one of the most permanent features is the measurement of the skull. It is significant that the races with broader heads tend towards Catholicism and subjection to despots,. while those with narrower heads and a pronounced occiput prefer independence and democracy.
In Britain the great bulk of the people are long-headed (dolichocephalic) or nearly so, which important fact has greatly helped to make the various ingredients of the population homogeneous.
The Jews are generally reckoned as melanochroi, that is, white people with dark hair. But there is a fair proportion of blondes and also of red-haired or red-bearded people. There are two types of skull. One is the Semitic type very like the Arabian, a long head, narrow in the forehead, while the other is the Semitic type only somewhat broader than the former type. The broader type comprises roughly the Ashkenaiim Jews (German, Russian, Polish), while the narrower type is found in the Sephardim Jews (Spanish, Italian, Balkans, African).
Strange it seems that no one appears to have sought "Judah" in the small Sephardic portion, and "Israel" in the much larger Ashkenaz portion. That would be a much better theory than making a race so different from the Jews as the British their brethren.
The ridiculous theory that two-tribed Judah alone was punished because of the Crucifixion loses its force when we consider that the ancient Britons or "Israelites" at the same time as the Crucifixion and for four hundred years afterwards were under the heel of that very Roman power which scattered the "Jews" all over the world. Indeed, it looks as though these Israelitish Britons must have been equally guilty— those at least who dwelt in the land which later came to be called England. However, they made up for this to some extent in the year 1290, when King Edward 1. of England expelled all "Jews" for debasing and clipping the coinage, for taking extortionate usury, and for not being Christians. They were not permitted back to England until the year 1650. Yet now, after another three hundred years, they remain in all Britain as a people apart, while the British nation certainly does not look upon them as a brother nation. Nor do the British, if really "Israelites," look on the new State of ISRAEL in the Holy Land with the slightest, jealousy; indeed, for thirty years they have helped to establish it.
No wonder Hine's specious promises led astray so many gullible people by offering them what looked. like a very near Millennium. If Britain would only accept his programme, it would "annihilate infidelity, secure the outpouring of the Spirit upon all the British people, purify the Church of Britain, give us Christian Union, Godly legislation, equitable taxation, a long rest from warfare. . .." "It will secure for us ABOUNDING PROSPERITY." And so on.
The Lord once said to His disciples (Matt. 24:9) "You shall be (people) hated by all the Gentiles because of My name." One would think that if the British people want to be hated by all other nations, the best thing to do would be to press the above extravagant claims to possess the wealth and territory of the world. Nothing could provoke huge wars so easily.
Sixty years ago John Beddoe, in "The Anthropological History of Europe," wrote that the Jews "are gradually attracting to themselves the whole moveable wealth of the earth, and wealth is power, and the world must move or halt as wealth bids it." Many others have said the same thing. There is no doubt that the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion told the truth.
Far from Britain being "hidden" in time of Wars, she had twice in the present century rushed into a war against a much bigger foe, almost" naked and unarmed." Far from accumulating the wealth of the world, Britain now has a national debt of £26,000 millions, with the highest rate of taxation in the world, which is slowly crippling trade and commerce and industry. Far from extending her territories, she has been parting with them. Far from "abounding prosperity," Britain must "export or die," and keep up exports and increase them. Articles which do not come up to the standard for export are left for the natives.
British-Israelites are honest enough to admit that the shortcomings of the British are serious. But they claim this does not matter. All of God's true saints have serious shortcomings, but are aware of them and loathe them. Yet Britain is little concerned about an annual expenditure of about £2,000 millions on Tobacco, Drink, and Gambling. The Government seizes a large part of all this, which justifies the extravagance and the wastage, and encourages "Israel" to go on squandering its wealth.
In spite of all the confessed shortcomings of Britain, Edward Hine had the temerity to say that Britain was "literally the only Christian Nation upon the earth." Another writer much more recently writes "The majority of Christians in the world to-day are Anglo-Saxons."
And so Paul is thrust aside—Paul who states that to him was it granted to evangelize to the GENTILES the untraceable riches of the Christ (Eph. 3:8). Paul, who proclaimed this secret among the GENTILES—"Christ among you, the expectation of the glory" (Col. 1:27).
Indeed, these spurious "Israelites" repose far more faith in the Great Pyramid than in the sacred Scriptures and Paul. Says Hine, "The Great Pyramid is therefore now perfectly unique as a visible material monument of Divine Inspiration." Had this been true, we may be sure the Lord would have said something about the Pyramid. But there are many people who shew themselves very much wiser than the Lord.
Actually there are no "Anglo-Saxons" now on earth. What the above mentioned writer meant was that the majority of Christians are English-speaking. If his remarks were confined to Britain, there are many people there who would never think of calling themselves "Anglo-Saxons." The word in any case is entirely a misnomer. The primitive English, living in what is now North West Germany, called themselves the Angle or Engle, but never knew themselves as Saxons. They were known as Saxons by the foreign peoples around them, broad-headed peoples, who spoke other tongues. In the same way till this day the Welsh call the Englishman Sais, and the Scottish Gael calls him Sassenach. Many nations call themselves by a name which foreigners do not use. The Germans call themselves Deutsch, while the British call the people of Holland the Dutch. The early English or Angles and the peoples with whom they were associated in ancient times in North West Germany called any foreigner the wealh or stranger. The word Welsh is an English term meaning stranger. The Welsh people call themselves Cymry, meaning either "borderers" or "allies." One German name for Italy is Welschland. The Valais districts of Switzerland are those occupied by the Welsh, i.e. non-Germans. Wallachia is the land of the strangers.
This brings us to one of the strongest "proofs" that the British or the English are "Israelites." We are told that the word "Saxons" is only a contraction of Isaac-sons. In nothing do the British-Israelites fail so ignominiously as in their derivations of words. Not one of them seems to have a competent knowledge of the Hebrew language and its structure. The most absurd statements are greedily swallowed by gullible people who are quite unable to check them.
In the first place, it seems extraordinary that outside nations called the primitive English "Saxons" or Isaac-sons, while these English did not know what this referred to. And. these surrounding peoples used not their own Keltic, or Frankish, or Slavonic terms, but the English word "sons." This makes one very suspicious. So does the fact that surnames did not use the ending-sons until perhaps five or six hundred years ago. Therefore the word Saxons, if an old. word, cannot contain the word "sons."
But there is a reason very much stronger for rejecting the derivation given. There is no Hebrew name equivalent to "Isaac." The Hebrew name is Yitzkhaq, sounded very differently from "Isaac," and meaning "he will laugh or make merry." If, however, the word Saxons is only a contraction from Isaac-sons, it could never lose the. stressed first syllable. When words become boiled down by constant usage, they retain the stressed syllable always.
Another very clever derivation is that of the word. "British." Most cunning was the person who first discovered this meant "Man of the Covenant." This is said to be derived from Brith, "Covenant," and Ish or Aish, "Man." But in Hebrew these words would mean "covenant of man," not "man of the Covenant." What is more, Hebrew possesses no compound common nouns, of this nature. As for the ending -ish, by the same method we should need to call the Irish "the man of fear." The ancient Britons never called themselves "British." The ending -ish is purely Germanic. The Britons are thought to have come from Gaul, where their language was spoken.
Linked up with the origin of the British people is the very much bigger matter of their relatives on the continent of Europe. If these ancient British folk, whether Britons in Gaul, or Angles in North West Germany, were really Israelites, the surprising fact emerges that they had relatives among the surrounding nations, some of whom were closely related, while others more distantly related. This applies not only to speech, but also to physical characteristics. In the shape of a rough circle the more important European languages still stand as they did perhaps 2500 years ago, occupying the same relative positions to each other as they did then. The Keltic group in the extreme West, then the Germanic, then the Baltie-Slavonic, then the Armenian, then the Greek, then the Italic, which in turn borders upon the Keltic. And bordering upon the Baltic-Slavonic; Armenian, and Greek, there is the member that wandered far off into India, the Sanscritic group. Among the European groups there is a broad unity in the general fabric of language, most notable in the names for trees, animals, and agriculture. Whitney's opinion was that, for prehistoric times, correspondence of language gives the strongest presumption of correspondence of descent, and that the unity of Indo-European speech implies under-lying unity of stock present among the early peoples who used it. While that would be true in the early days of the European family, at the present time there must be few areas in which the language spoken is the same as was spoken two thousand years ago. Friesland is one.
Among all these peoples of Europe we shall look in vain for One which for two or it may be three thousand years, has lived as a separate people, with, as Conder says, "pride of race; and pride in faith." We look in vain for a single and isolated people who hold fast to the Hebrew Bible and its observances; who know in their hearts, that after all that has happened in their long past history, they are still in some way a peculiar people for Jehovah; a people who carefully shun the eating of "unclean" animals and foods. No European nation answers to this description, or ever has. No single European nation produces that combination of marked physical characteristics in all times ascribed to the Hebrews, consisting of, in the words of A. H. Keane ("Man—Past and Present"), "large hooked nose, prominent watery eyes, thick pendulous and almost everted under lip, rough frizzly lustreless hair."
There has been, however, one particularly prominent and dominant type in Europe from the very earliest times, a type which has also spread all over the world, thus notably betraying its Japhetic origin. The tall, blue-eyed, narrow headed Nordic type is found all through European history, everywhere. It is even depicted on the ancient Egyptian monuments. The earliest European historians have much to say about these people. From the very dawn of history they are found streaming all over Europe. Some of them went off afar into India, and in time mingled with the dark natives there, thus producing the caste system, which was intended as a hedge to keep the invading race pure. From the countries bordering the Baltic Sea and the North Sea these Nordics moved South, East and West, over a long period subjugating or at least dominating the nations they encountered, but alas, gradually becoming absorbed in course of time by the indigenous peoples, and dying out as a .race themselves. Nordic blood cannot maintain itself for long in southern lands. It is said that even in the southern half of England it is slowly disappearing, just as it disappeared out of Italy, Greece, Spain, and other lands. Many of the great leaders in ancient Greece and Italy were Nordics, under whom these countries reached the height of their power. Early chroniclers trace these Nordics to Scandinavia and North Germany. But in conquering other nations they always succumbed. Even the Nordic people known as the "Goths," who spread into Serbia and Bulgaria from the third to the fifth centuries, among whom Ulfilas produced the famous and most useful Gothic version of the New Testament, did not long survive. Even their language disappeared completely, except for manuscripts of bits of the New Testament.
No other race can claim in Europe such ubiquity or expansion, and such continuity of development. But the capacity of the Nordic peoples for successful acclimatisation is not great. For example, a British family living in India will become quite sterile in the third generation.
Pictures by old masters shew that this type was more common in southern Europe even five hundred years ago than now. Races thrive best in their own natural habitat. The truth of this principle has vast importance for emigrants from Europe to foreign lands.
So far as Bible prophecy concerning the end of the present age is involved, it may be foreseen that any gradual dying out of the Nordic type goes hand in hand with the gradual weakening of Protestantism, with the consequent increase of power of the Roman Church. Two great wars have told very heavily upon the Nordic elements in Europe, which are always the stoutest in any contest.
What has this digression to do with Israelites? Everything! The British capacity for becoming acclimatised in warmer climes is immeasurably inferior to that of the Hebrew people. When God ordained that the Israelites should wander all over the earth, He did not intend them to die out, as in time their descendants must return to their own Land. Therefore they were adapted for their age-long wanderings, just as in the Thousand Years, they will be well adapted to go forth to all nations with the Divine message.
The fact that the British people, if transferred to Palestine, could not long survive there is abundant proof that they are NOT Israelites.
An important corollary to the above arguments is that if the British are Israelites, it would not be fair to their close relatives on the Continent to deny the same right to them. In the first century A.D. Caesar and Tacitus wrote about the ancient Britons and their close relatives the Belgae in Gaul, who spoke the same language and had the same general features. These were Kelts. They also wrote about the peoples of Germany, which was at that time a small area comparatively, about the size of modern Scotland, peopled by various independent tribes, living East and North of the Rhine from the sea to Frankfurt, but no farther East than Hanover and Hessen; also in the Western side of what is now Denmark. To the East of these Angles and Friesians dwelt Slavs and Lithuanians, who in later centuries were gradually pushed eastwards or absorbed. That is why Dr. R. G. Latham, one of the humblest yet cleverest of English ethnologists, estimated the present German people to be one-third Slavonic.
One of the Angle tribes was the important family of the Chauci, that is, Hawke, Hawkins, Hocking, to give them their modern name.
While it seems possible that all the Angles or most of them emigrated to Britain between 300 and 500 A.D., some of the neighbouring and closely related Friesians did so also. Dr. Latham visited these people about a hundred years ago, and found them very like Englishmen; yet there was a difference. Their language is like no other language so much as English, and specially Scottish. Even their gait was found to be like that of the English. They are much more like the Nordic people found in Britain than they are to the rest of the Germans.
Four miles from my home stands a huge monolith in a field, marking the resting place of the earliest known AngloFriesian to be buried in all Britain. There is a brief in scription roughly carved in Latin stating that "In this tumulus lies Vetta son of Victa." The period is about 350 A.D. The famous Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, compiled over a period of about 400 years from 650 onwards, by monks, gives these two names in the same order, shewing that Victa or Wight was the son of the famous Woden or Odin, while Vetta Dr Wett was grandfather of the famous Hengist and Horsa brothers. The surname Wight is still fairly common in the locality.
Logically, then, we must bring the entire Friesian people now in Germany into the "Israelite" fold. And logically we must bring into the fold the Norse people, as many Norsemen entered various parts of England and Scotland in strong force about a thousand years ago. In appearance there is little general difference between the Norse and the British.
We should also require to bring in any surviving relatives of these Danes who invaded East England a thousand years ago, whose language must have been extremely close to the English of that day, as we have no evidence that it was different.
And what of the 158,448,000 inhabitants of the United States of America? Are these all "Israelites"? If not, how many? Are we to include about 14 million Negroes? Sons of Ham! Will there be room some day for all these people in the Holy Land? Must it come to be that the only people in all U.S.A. who are not part of what is called "Manasseh-Joseph" are the Jews?
"The American Colonists sincerely believed that they were the beginning of a new order of democracy, and their descendants to-day are more than ever convinced that the Anglo-Saxon world is destined soon to usher in the new order of future ages, the KINGDOM OF GOD UPON THE EARTH."
Surely here we have one of the doctrines of demons; sheer, utter impudent blasphemy; a subtle negation of God and His Truth.
A Negro in Jamaica was asked what race he belonged to. Very proudly he replied, "I am an Englishman." His speech made him that. So it seems that all who speak English, of whatever race or colour; must be taken as Israelites.
David Baron finishes his book on the Lost Ten Tribes as follows:—"To esteem external national prosperity as God's special mark of favour, is to carnalise all the prophets, and to degrade, not only the glory of the latter day, but present privileges in Christ; for what a poor thing these privileges and the glory must be if this sinful nation of ours; that seems ripe for judgment and rejection, be the exhibition of these, the fulfilment of Jehovah's promises to the beloved people."
He says that all arguments, and as an Israelite he knew the arguments much better than a Gentile, are ignored by British Israelites, and that is true. And not only ignored, but, diametrically opposed. "The very fact that the British and American races are so numerous and powerful among the nations precludes the possibility. of their being Israel, for when out of Palestine and in dispersion Israel was to become 'few in number,' and oppressed and downtrodden. among the nations" (Deut. 28:62).
The author is very wise to say "Let it be clearly stated at the beginning that there are words in English whose derivation is probably Hebrew, but these in themselves do not constitute evidence of identity. Words like camel, cherub, sack, appear to be of Semitic origin. But a few words which can be attributed to Hebrew sources in, this way really mean very little. Far longer lists of words from Greek and Latin can be easily produced, but they would not prove that the early Britons spoke Greek or Latin as their racial tongue." And we might add, would not these longer lists tend to prove that there was a strong psychic affinity between the British and those who created the Latin and Greek tongues?
The author is also to be commended for stating that "ex cathedra statements on the relation between Hebrew and English must be read with caution." Statements that English is based upon Hebrew "all lack scientific confirmation." His book makes "no attempt to demonstrate the racial descent of the Anglo-Saxon people from the Ten Tribes of Israel," but his purpose is rather "to indicate certain modes of thought and forms of expression characteristic of both Ancient Hebrew and later Celto-Saxon based on psychic and linguistic data. This is not a proof of identity of origin, but in its way and measure it is a supporting probability." The author aims at "considering mind-similarities rather than verbal identities and structural likenesses." He is correct in saying that the Hebrew language was not adapted to the expression of abstract ideas, and that the Hebraic mind did not wander away upon imaginary conditions, nor exhaust itself in academic theories. "It employed language as the medium for revealing deep emotion in regard to the real factors of human life." The Hebrew mind did not go in for mere theory. "The realism of the Biblical writers is a fact to be noted." In his book, "The Language of Palestine" (1920) the same author states the mental differences of the Hebrew and the Greek races. "The Semite is a poet and word painter, not a logician and scientist; a free chronicler, not an expert historian. . . . The Greek is philosophic, precise, finished; he seeks to convince, and strives after literary effect. . .. In general it may be said that the Semitic language is psychologically correct; Greek is mechanically exact." Greek was philosophic and academic; the Semite was imaginative and pictorial. Greek was deductive; Semitic was intuitive. Hebrew sentences are "made up of a succession of co-ordinate propositions, a disregard of particles, and inconsequent phrases expressing emotion." The Semite was "impulsive rather than deliberative, poetical and symbolical rather than logical and dialectical." Such people must "vivify every object of nature, and every object thus endowed with life is regarded as male or female. The absolutely impersonal, the real neuter, is inevitably excluded."
"Nothing was indifferent or neutral." "The Semite was instinctively theistic, and the Deity cannot be neutral; the Aryan, was materialistic or hyloistic, and to him things real or possible could be neutral." Again, "the scientific element failed the Hebrew author completely."
Dr. James' objective appears to be to prove that the British race is really Israel. If so, he does not appear to possess the true Hebraic mind or mentality. It is no congenial task for us to have to castigate anyone for his attitude toward the Sacred Scriptures. But "The Differentiator" is devoted to reverent research of the Sacred Scriptures, and naturally we find it difficult to endorse the opinions of one who calls in question, and criticizes the veracity of the Scriptures. We do not believe the account of the Tower of Babel is "mythological" or merely "symbolical." Nor do we believe Gen. 11:1 "has no historical value." Nor do we doubt the historical character of the "Abraham story." That the later writings of the Old Testament "were composed in a degenerate type of Hebrew," is not what one would expect from a true "Israelite." King Alfred's English of over one thousand years ago is quite unreadable today to ordinary British people. But the latest writings of the Hebrew Old Testament shew extraordinarily little difference in any way from the language of the oldest parts. How can anyone be a real British-Israelite scholar when, he writes that "The Jacob-Israel story (Gen. 32:28-30) probably preserves a certain element of historical reality"? In a chapter upon, "The Semitic Mind" the same writer informs us that "The English translation, of the Bible not only equals, but if anything it excels the original." Why then have so many sought to "correct" and improve upon, this English Bible? Why have the latest revisions been made?
As some encouragement to British-Israelites to look to the English language for proof of descent from ancient Israel, Dr. James produces a list of ten English words which are likened to ten, Hebrew words which have fairly similar meanings and consonants. These "English" words are, Stem, Nitre, Cable, Harass, Skill, Flit, Simile, Measure, Paradise, and Mystery. Of these, only two are native English words, Flit and Stem (originally staefn, or stemn), while Skill is Scandinavian. All the others are from Latin or Greek, or Old French, or Arabic (Nitre) or Persian, (Paradise). Such an argument only weakens the case for British-Israel.
All the natural languages in the world are derived from Babel. Every language has lost certain, conants in, its words, due to lip-shape, food, climate and temperature, height above the sea, invasions, etc. Hebrew is not the original tongue of mankind, or the intuitive speech of Adam before the fell. Hebrew preserves the debris of its original condition. It could no more retain its original form than, the Hebrew race could remain, free of sin.
In some respects modern English is more ancient than the most ancient Hebrew we know. Does this prove that the original Hebrews were descended from an ancient British or English race?
Few books deal with the etymology or word-origins of the Hebrew language. It is not easy to find direct connections between many Hebrew words and English words. Yet there is clear proof that English preserves to this day the sound of the letter W which was lost in many cases in the Hebrew of 3,590 years ago and became lost also i1it Greek a few centuries B.C. In the following examples we shall spell Hebrew words minus their modern vowel pointings.
Ido (to know) was originally wido, corresponding to our wit; German, wissen; Greek oida (originally wida). Iin (sounded now as yayin,; our win,e) was originally win (sounded wayin); the Greek being oinos (originally winos). Ill was probably originally wll, our Wail, howl. Ilk and elk (yalak and halak, very common words, meaning to go or walk) were probably originally wlk (walak). Skeat is obliged to derive our word walk from a root, meaning to roll, or toss oneself about but this is very unsatisfactory. Ird (to descend), was originally wird, corresponding to our wort, root, wurzel; Greek riza (originally wriza); Latin radix, Welsh gwreiddyn. Roots are descenders. Iol was probably wol,originally, meaning to benefit, corresponding to our weal, well.
There is clear historical proof that the sound of W (or V) died out of Greek. There is just as clear evidence that an initial W or V died out of Hebrew and was replaced by the weak sound of the Yod (I). This is proved through words such as ird (yarad; descend) forming their nouns with a U (representing a W), as murd. There are many cases like this. Further, it is known, that the word Hayah (eie, to become) was originally Havah (eue), from which comes the great name Jehovah, or Ieue.
According to Gen. 11:1, after the Flood all the earth had one lip and one set of words. We read that Jehovah came down to confound their "lip" and scatter them over the earth. The confusion of tongues was furthered by tribes becoming separated by rivers and mountains, also by the variations in weather and the seasons which commenced with the Flood. For example, the lips of a mountaineer utter rougher and fuller sounds than one who lives near sea level. Climate has a great deal to do with speech. All races use the sounds which come easiest to their lips and avoid those which are difficult or more laborious.
Our argument is that the modern British people possess lips well adapted to form the sounds of W and V, whereas the ancient Hebrews had lips which avoided these letters. Physically therefore this is one more difference between them.
Phrenology also furnishes evidence that the modern Hebrew has a head quite different from the British type. A well known. English phrenologist, who had examined 100,000 heads, stated that "The Jewish head is just as distinct as is the Hebrew physiognomy. It matters little as to the country he inhabits, the Jew retains his own distinctive mental characteristics, his shape of head, and his physiognomy." It is really absurd for anyone to argue that any considerable physical difference between the recognized "Jews" in the world and British "Israelites" is permissible. If they are all sons of Jacob, there ought to be great similarity between them. The phrenologist attributes to the Jews great intuition, which gives them a keen penetrating insight into character and motives, so that they are apt at summing up others. This enables them to personate others and become good actors. They are expert at foreseeing the future and forestalling the future. The properties summed up in the name "Jacob" they have not by any means lost—taking others by the heel, furtiveness, circumventing others, or following others close for a purpose. This last seems to be the root meaning of the name, the heels or footsteps following (or read, "the footsteps following close," and omit "heels") close, often with an ulterior motive. On the other hand the Jew is said to lack concentrativeness. Not only is the Hebrew nose usually prominent, but from the root of the nose upwards to the top of the brow there is a fulness or decided development, not seen in others, and quite different from the British.
If the Jew is really a brother of the British, it is extraordinary that he is so totally and fixedly different from the British people in physical and mental characteristics. What is more, the Jews in Britain are not treated as brothers by the British, nor do they look On the British as brothers.
To sum up, it may be stated without any fear of disproof that the
British people are almost as different as they could be either from the
ancient Israelites or the modern Israelites. Only wishful thinking can
make a British person an Israelite. When the "proofs" of a theory are
based upon undocumented traditions, and cannot be discovered within the
Sacred Writings, it is evident that 2. Tim. 4:3-4 is being
fulfilled:—
"For there will be a season when they will not be
tolerating the health-giving teaching, but on the
contrary, in accord with their own over-desires they
will accumulate for themselves teachers, getting their
hearing tickled; and indeed, from the truth they
will be turning away their hearing, yet to the myths they
will get turned aside." This season is now with us.
At Peniel the name Israel was the spiritual designation given to Jacob, and applied to all his descendants, even though it was restricted temporarily to the ten tribes. Yet so many of the ten tribes who kept on fearing God joined themselves to Judah that the name Judah came to be associated with religious Israelites of any tribe.
The following is a concordant rendering of 2. Chron. 11:13, 14, 16, 17 and 15:9—"And the priests and the Levites who were in all Israel took their stand by him (Rehoboam) out of all their boundary. For the Levites forsook their cattle commons and their holdings and went to Judah and Jerusalem, for Jeroboam and his sons cast them off from being priests to Jehovah. And after them, out of all the tribes of Israel, those giving their heart to seek Jehovah God of Israel, entered Jerusalem to sacrifice to Jehovah, God of their fathers. And they are holding fast the kingdom of Judah. . . .. And he is gathering together all Judah and Benjamin and the sojourners with them out of Ephraim and Manasseh and out of Simeon, for they fell unto him from Israel in great numbers, when they saw that Jehovah his God was with him."
According to 2. Chron. 30, Hezekiah sent to "all Israel and Judah" and then made a proclamation throughout the whole land of Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, after the removal to Assyria, so that all might come to Jehovah's house in Jerusalem, to make passover to their God. Letters were also sent specially to Ephraim and Manasseh by couriers. This means that Israelites were to be found everywhere in the land.
The 6th chapter of Ezra shews that many of the Israelites returned from Assyria to their land. One of the publications of The Covenant Publishing Co., Ltd. (London) states that the Ten Tribes of Israel "never returned to Palestine," but became "concealed and unrecognized." Yet Scripture knows nothing of lost tribes. The Lord said He was only sent unto the sheep, those which had got lost, of "Israel's House" (Matt. 15:24). Yet as He never moved out of the Land, those lost sheep must have been in it.
Thirty years ago a woman who came into the office in which I was employed informed me over the counter that she and I were Israelites. We belonged to the lost sheep. When I told her that in the second of Acts Peter addresses the foreign Jews assembled in Jerusalem as "Men! Judeans!" (v. 14), then "Men! Israelites!" (v. 22), and finally addresses the very same people in these words, "Let all Israel's House know certainly. . . . ." (v. 36), the cold logic of Scripture was too strong for her and she departed in great wrath.
This passage, however, is never referred to in the publications of the British-Israel people.
The same publication I have referred to (British-Israel Facts not Fancies) states in a Foreword by one styled The Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of the Falkland Islands, that "Israel had nothing to do with the Crucifixion of Christ." Of course, it would never do for ancient Britannia to have crucified the Lord. Because, if Britain is not Israel, the same high personage states that Britain will lose all they have got, "and God has been playing with us, for WE hold all that Israel is supposed to hold." Further," if we are not Israel, we shall have to give it all up, and even the Coronation stone itself."
Here lies the root of almost every heresy—greed and wishful thinking. The same held true in Eden. The ancient Scottish Coronation stone becomes far more valuable than the spiritual blessings of the Ephesian epistle. Skene, the Scottish historian of last century, has shewn that it was no part of Scottish legend that the stone was Jacob's pillow. English chroniclers added this fable after the English stole the stone from Scotland in the year 1296. Baldred Bisset, one of the commissioners sent to Rome to plead the cause of Scotland's independence before the Pope, in the year 1301 compiled the legend that Scota, daughter of Pharao, King of Egypt, went to Ireland, then to Pictland, the modern Scotland.
It is one thousand times more easy to invent a fable than to arrive at accurate, documented, historical facts. The Stone, of a dull reddish or purplish sandstone, with a few small pebbles embedded, belongs, according to Skene, to Scone (or Skuyn) in central Scotland. He says all the legends attached to it are "but myth and fable."
Israel had a great deal to do with the Crucifixion. We do not find this in myth or fable, but at Acts 4:27, which tells us that there were assembled against the Messiah, Herod, Pontius Pilate, "together with Gentiles and peoples of Israel." Not one word about Jews as such.
If the British people are Israel, they crucified the King of Glory, and must, accordingly, pass through the Great Tribulation. Nathaniel avers, "THOU King art of Israel" (John 1:49), while the throng welcomes the Lord entering Jerusalem as "The King of Israel" (John 12:13). Now this seems a very strange thing for these people to admit, if the real Israel at that time lived in ancient Britain. The Lord came to His own, but His own did not receive Him. Was that because they were many hundreds of miles away and had never heard of Him? And why, in Acts 2:9-11 is there no mention of returned Israelites from Britain?
Much has been made of the reported statement of Professor Totten of Yale University: "I cannot state too strongly that the man who has not seen that Israel of the Scriptures is totally different from the Jewish people is yet in the very infancy, the mere alphabet, of Biblical study, and that to this day the meaning of seven-eighths of the Bible is shut to his understanding." But one ounce of text from Holy Writ is worth a ton of wild bombast. In the New Testament the word Israel never refers to the ten tribes, but to the entire nation. Paul himself was" out of Israel's race, of Benjamin's tribe, a Hebrew out of Hebrews" (Phil. 3:5). Though a Jew, he calls himself an Israelite (Rom. 11:1). The religious Israelite came to be known as the Jew." Thus Paul was Jew, Israelite, and Hebrew. Any religious Jew could call himself all these three names.
In no chapters of the New Testament is Israel named more frequently than in Romans 9-11,—one dozen times in all. Yet most of what Paul says regarding Israel is denunciation. It was Israel that did not encounter what she sought for (11:7). If British-Israelites must sneer at the common and "totally different" Jews, as being alone guilty of the murder of Messiah, let them note that in these three chapters the Jew is mentioned twice, at 9:24, where God calls out of Jews (religious Israelites) and out of Gentiles, and 10:12, where there is no distinction of Jew as well as of Greek, as regards blessing. In other words, the Jew is called and blessed, while Israel remained all day long unyielding and gainsaying (10:21).
These three chapters alone knock the bottom out of much of the British-Israel teaching.
Few, however, will examine the evidence of the Scriptures, we fear. As Mark Kagan has so well put it, many become obsessed with this theory to the exclusion of everything else, so that everything becomes subsidiary to it, and there is no time for Christ. "The saint of God, by this teaching, is reduced to a mere earth dweller." Again, "Christians look to be caught up out of this scene, whether in Great Britain or elsewhere. The British-Israel teaching is to make the Christian settle down in this scene." Again, "to apply God's promises at the present day to a nation composed of millions of unbelievers is pure and simple apostasy."
If British-Israelites have been graffed back already into the Olive Tree, then it has not been through faith in God's Scriptures. It must have been through faith in the Pyramid and in fables.
We do not enjoy the spectacle of fine saints being duped and hoaxed by specious fabrications. How can you set your heart upon the things above, where Christ is, one sitting at God's right hand, if you are looking for a material and earthly kingdom? That is just what Israel wanted, but they had to learn that the spiritual must come first.
How can you find your way to resurrection ground, here and now in this life, in line with Phil. 3:11, if your heart is disposed to earthly and material things?
Perhaps we do not sufficiently realize the deep signification of Acts 28:28. It was not only that God's salvation (in the abstract) was sent to the Gentiles. It was not merely that the Gentiles would hear. It was God's salvation-operation or salvation-ministry (sOtErion, not the abstract sOtEria) which was being handed over into Gentile possession. We are indebted to T. S. Green for this differentiation ("Critical Notes on the N.T."). He says the word here is concrete, implying the proffered means of salvation. Not alone so, but the Gentiles were now to hear for themselves (Greek Middle Voice), quite independently of Israel. Can anyone aver that the Jews as a nation now hold lively oracles from God? This salvation-ministry is almost exclusively in the hands of Gentiles, and has to be, until the fulness of the Gentiles has entered in. History records no aggressive evangelical salvation-ministry by Israelites after the first century.
So long as Gentiles are being brought into the blessings of Paul's Gentile ministry and epistles, just so long must Israel continue in her insensibility (this word is to be preferred to callousness, which can have two meanings). That is to say, British-Israel cannot have things both ways. If they are the nation of Israel, then they must be insensible as regards God, and, as regards the gospel, the bulk of them must be inimical (Romans 11 : 28). Only as Gentiles may they enter into that profound truth of Col. 1:27, that "God wishes (or wants) to make known what are the riches of the glory of this secret among the Gentiles, which is, CHRIST AMONG YOU, THE EXPECTATION OF THE GLORY. .." That is, CHRIST AMONG THE GENTILES. This secret was concealed from the Ages gone by, yet some of the prophets may have guessed what might happen, for they must have sensed that Israel would be cast off for a season; Isaiah certainly knew, so did Moses. "Did Israel not get to know? (As) a first one, Moses is saying, ' I shall be provoking you to jealousy over what is not a nation; over a nation unable to understand shall I be making you indignant.' Yet Isaiah gets very daring and is saying, 'I was found by those not seeking Me, disclosed I became to those not enquiring for Me (or, consulting Me).'" (Romans 10:19, 20). Moses was the first one (prOtos, not prOton) to foretell Israel's apostacy. This implies that all the prophets after him must have known too.
What the prophets did not know was the quality of Gentile blessing. Christ in and among all His people, a glorious reality and expectation! Not in any single nation, but in every member of His Body, taken out of all nations.
The British-Israelites claim they have always been God's peculiar people, even though none of their ancestors were aware of the fact. But have they ever yet been provoked to jealousy by saved Gentiles (Rom. 11:11)? If not, they are still lost, the blood of Messiah is still on their heads, and they are in a state of profound insensibility as regards God and spiritual matters. These peoples, in Britain and North America, looked upon by all Gentile nations as beings the leaders of the Gentiles,—how call, they learn the Secret of a God-fearing life (1. Tim. 3:16)? For that Secret is "He who was manifested in flesh, declared righteous in spirit, seen by angels (or messengers), heralded among Gentiles. . . ." Now if the British-Israelites have always been and still are God's peculiar people, is it not strange that Paul here excludes them altogether? Was Christ then, not heralded among Israel? Certainly; but the proclamation was productive of almost no effect beyond further apostasy.
We ought to glory ill, the fact that we are Gentiles! Once apart from Christ, alienate from the national rights of Israel, strangers as regards the covenants of the promise, having no expectation or hope, without God in the world of mankind (Eph. 2:12). Yet now, in Christ Jesus, you, the Gentiles, are become near, in the blood of Christ.
If Paul's epistles are still in force—and nothing has intervened to put them out of date—then he has neither room nor message for British-Israelites.
It was to Israel that God gave a spirit of stupor (Rom. 11:8). Yet alas, it seems to be that this spirit now lies also upon British-Israel. This is proved by the fact that British Israelites are generally quite unable to enter into the depths of Pauline truth, and indeed, the Bible has become to them a book for making clippings out of. These clippings are pasted into another book, which then forms their Bible. Here is an example: "Now if you are Christ's, consequently you are Abraham's seed" (Gal. 3:29). That means, of natural course, you must be all, Israelite! What else could you be, if you are Abraham's seed? But it is the flawless divine Greek text which upsets this rather hasty assumption. It does not say "you are THE seed of Abraham," but "of Abraham A seed (or, one seed) you are," or as Dr. Robert Young has it, "then of Abraham ye are seed." Gentile believers are spiritual seed of Abraham. The physical seed of Abraham are mentioned in Romans 9:6-8, "For not all who are out of Israel, these are Israel; nor yet seeing that they are a seed of Abraham, are they all children, but in Isaac there will be called to thee a seed. This means, that not the children of the flesh, these are children of God, but the children of the promise are being reckoned (collectively) for a seed." Rotherham here correctly reads "a seed" in his first edition of 1872. All versions which read" the seed" are inexact and misleading. If the Greek shewed the definite article here it would have meant "the (whole) seed" of Abraham. Whereas in English, if we said "Abraham's seed," it would generally be understood to mean "the seed of Abraham."
Now if Great Britain is actually Israel, it can only be in the sense that the British are physical seed of Jacob, because probably even fewer than one in a hundred belongs to Abraham spiritual seed.
But you tell me, that Britain (and the United States, and perhaps other peoples) are "The Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16). That would entail that these peoples would require to exhibit the necessary characteristics, as enumerated by Liddon (on Romans), John 1:47 (Nathanael was "truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile"); Rom. 2:29, (the religious Israelite or Jew is that "inwardly," literally "in the hidden").
But what does Gal. 6:16 really say? "And as many as shall order their steps by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy; and upon the Israel of God." Note the position of the semi-colon; it is important. Arthur S. Way renders the last few words in his paraphrase, "ay, and upon all the true Israel, the Israel of God." All through the epistle Paul has had strongly in mind his own race, and as he closes the epistle he is unable to forget his kinsmen who are believing. As Ellicott says, "Paul includes all in his blessing, of whatever stock and kindred; and then, with his thoughts turning (as they ever did) to his own brethren after the flesh, he pauses to specify those who were once Israelites according to the flesh, but are now the Israel of God, true spiritual children of Abraham."
"Peace be upon them, and mercy; AND upon the Israel of God." The word AND in the last clause here means ALSO, not EVEN. The repetition, moreover of the proposition UPON (epi) shews that two classes are mentioned. Gentile believers are not the Israel of God, and the Israel of God are not British-Israelites, but individual believers among Israel.
For the construction we might compare 1. Cor. 9:5, "Have we no right at all to be leading about a sister wife, as also the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Kephas?" The Lord's brothers here are a distinct group from the apostles.
We were reading a very interesting book upon British Israel by a very likeable Canadian-Scot, written after the 1914-1918 world war. So pleased was he that Japan came into the war on the side of the British and their allies, that he finishes up with a chapter asking" Who are the Japanese ?" He proves, in fact, that they are largely Samurai from Samaria, and therefore, are akin to the British, possessing" every outstanding characteristic possessed by Anglo-Saxons. . . and Americans." His book, strange to say, received the imprimatur of the Covenant Publishing Co., Ltd., of London. Of course that was a good twenty years before "Pearl Harbour," when these Israelite-Japanese almost obliterated the fleet of the United States. One wonders now whether any nations on earth can be excluded from some form or other of "British-Israel,"—unless the Jews. The tendency seems to be to incorporate as many nations as possible, especially those under British hegemony, and those which use English speech. However, we must investigate two large atlases, to see whether Japan possesses any places which reveal traces of the names Dan or Brit. We did examine the atlas for Denmark, said to have been called after Dan, but strange to relate, not one other name could be discovered commencing with Dan, or Den, or Din, or Don, or Dun. Why! in at least eighteen countries we found traces of Adam's wanderings—towns called after Adam! Adam must even have visited Australia! Paul's name is found in over a dozen widely scattered countries, even in Siberia and Alaska and on the Atlantic Ocean. We marvel at his mighty movements. But Peter outdoes them all. He takes "the cake, the bun, and the shortbread," for his name is found in at least three hundred and forty places all over the earth.
It gives us incessant pain to think that some of our friends have gone in for British-Israel teaching. We are unable to find one atom of truth behind it. It is not the subject of divine revelation. Every argument put forward seems to be due entirely to national pride and wishful thinking. Ourselves, we must suffer some loss before the Judgment Seat of Christ. But any suffering will be made much worse if we observe dear friends suffering because they were gullible enough to swallow the arch-enemy's specious efforts to destroy the identity of the real Israel.
ALEXANDER THOMSON. Last updated 21.1.2006