Sheaf

The Israelite Ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons

Â Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Scythian Mythical Origins
3. Sceld Sheafing as Joseph
4. Some Other Names of Joseph
5. The Genealogy to Sceath and Identification with Shem
6. Bill Cooper
7. Relevant Extracts from Bill Cooper
8. Comments on the Comments of Cooper
9. Not All of them are Israelites. Only the Chosen are being called.
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1. Introduction

The early Angles and Saxons who conquered what is now known as England traced their ancestry toÂ a personage known as Sceld, Sciold, or Sheaf.
This personage Sheaf is ultimately derived from Joseph but even in untutored Anglo-Saxon thought he was associated with Shem and through him with Israel as we shall show.
Before reaching the areas of Scandinavia, Germany and Western Europe these peoples had been part of the Scythian Federation and before that they had been known as Hebrew and were part of the Lost Ten Tribes.
The Scythians had first appeared in regions to which the Israelites had been exiled to the north of Mesopotamia. From there they mvoed northwards to areas by the Don and Dneioper Rivers which regions were associated with the Ten Tribes.

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2. Scythian Mythical Origins

Concerning the Scythians,
Herodotus (ca. 484Â BCE, vol 3, book 4) tells us:

1. After taking Babylon, Darius himself marched against the Scythians. For since Asia was bursting with men and vast revenues were coming in, Darius desired to punish the Scythians for the wrong they had begun when they invaded Media first and defeated those who opposed them in battle. For the Scythians, as I have said before, ruled upper Asia for twenty-eight years; they invaded Asia in their pursuit of the Cimmerians, and ended the power of the Medes, who were the rulers of Asia before the Scythians came.Â But when the Scythians had been away from their homes for twenty-eight years and returned to their country after so long an absence, as much trouble as their Median war awaited them. They found themselves opposed by a great force; for the Scythian women, when their husbands were away for so long, turned to their slaves.....

5. According to the account which the Scythians themselves give, they are the youngest of all nations. Their tradition is as follows. A certain Targitaus was the first man who ever lived in their country, which before his time was a desert without inhabitants. He was a child- I do not believe the tale, but it is told nevertheless- of Jove and a daughter of the Borysthenes [Dneiper River].
6.....All together they are named Scoloti, after one of their kings: the Greeks, however, call them Scythians.
7. Such is the account which the Scythians give of their origin. They add that from the time of Targitaus, their first king, to the invasion of their country by Darius, is a period of one thousand years, neither less nor more.

Let us take some notes on the above quote from Herodotus.
He tells us that the Scythians "upper Asia for twenty-eight years."Â This conforms with the Israelite Exiles having federated with Scythians and Cimmerian peoples taking over the Assyrian Empire for a few decades and then losing that control shortly before the Assyrian Empire was destroyed. They were also instrumental in bringing about this destruction.
We believe the prophecies of Micah chapter 5 to have described these events or used them as preadumbration of events that will again occur in the end times.

Micah 5 (NASB):
5 This One will be our peace.
When the Assyrian invades our land,
When he tramples on our citadels,
Then we will raise against him
Seven shepherds and eight leaders of men.
6 They will shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword,
The land of Nimrod at its entrances;
And He will deliver us from the Assyrian
When he attacks our land
And when he tramples our territory.
7 Then the remnant of Jacob
Will be among many peoples
Like dew from the Lord,
Like showers on vegetation
Which do not wait for man
Or delay for the sons of men.
8 The remnant of Jacob
Will be among the nations,
Among many peoples
Like a lion among the beasts of the forest,
Like a young lion among flocks of sheep,
Which, if he passes through,
Tramples down and tears,
And there is none to rescue.
9 Your hand will be lifted up against your adversaries,
And all your enemies will be cut off.

We understand the Medes and Babylonians to have taken over from the Scythians as Herodotus himself says (concerning the Medes) earlier (1;106) and further down (3;4;12).
The account of the Scythians having been away from their homes and then returning is also found, with some differences, in the Scandinavian records.
We consider it to relate ultimately to the story of the Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh who left their families for ca. 14 years in order to assist the other Tribes in conquering the land of Canaan west of the Jordan while their own families had been settled to its east (Joshua 4:12, 13:8). These were the first Israelites Tribes to have been exiled.

1-Chronicles 5:
25 But they acted treacherously against the God of their fathers and played the harlot after the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them. 26 So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul, king of Assyria, even the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away into exile, namely the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara and to the river of Gozan, to this day.

This section of the Israelite Exiles became prominent among the Goths and related peoples who were federated with Scythians. Herodotus has taken a legend of theirs and ascribed it to the Scythians in general.

The name "Jove" is a pagan version of the Hebrew name for God. Targitaus was begotten from Jove and the RiverÂ about a thousand years before the invasion of Darius. In ca. 513 BCE Darius the Great, King of Persia, attempted an invasion of Scythia. A thousand years before then would have come to 1513 BCE. This is, according to some computations, about the time of the birth of Moses who as a baby was placed in a floating basket on the Nile river from which he was rescued by the daughter of Pharaoh (Exodus 2:5). [The association of Targitaus with Moses has already been remarked upon in old British Israel writings.]

The name Targitaus could be understood to signifiy "Tyr of the Geats" i.e. of the Goths.
The name Scolotai that Herodotus says was what the Scythians used when referring to themselves is reminiscent of Skiold or Skeld which is another appellation for Sheaf.
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3. Sceld Sheafing as Joseph

We have shown elsewhere how the Angles, Saxons, and related peoples were part of the Scythian federation before moving westward.

Â The figure of Joseph inspired the legend of Sceld Scefing (Sheafing) who was the mythological ancestor of the Anglo-Saxons and, in addition to Joseph, has aspects taken from the accounts of Moses and Noah after the fashion of synthetic mythologies. This person had been found as a child sleeping in an oarless boat which drifted into a harbor in the Land of the Angles before they crossed the Ocean to Britain. When he grew up he gave the people Laws and taught them agriculture. He was the ancestor of their leaders. Sceld had been named "Sheafing" due to the sheafs of wheat on which he slept in the oarless boat that brought him into the harbor on the North Sea shore. In popular traditional Jewish art Joseph is also sometimes represented by a sheaf of wheat. The symbol of a sheaf of wheat for Joseph (or for one of his sons) derives from a dream which Joseph related to his brothers,Â

"My sheaf arose your sheafs stood round about and made obeisance to my sheaf" (Genesis 37:6-7).

Â It should be noted that the Hebrew "Yoseph" in Assyrian would have been rendered "Yoshef" (with a "sh" instead of "s") and in Scythian areas the initial "Yo" sounds on names were often dropped and thus we have something like "sheaf." In Anglo-Saxon English the word "sheaf" means bundle of corn and is linked with the original story of Joseph and was one of his symbols.
In addition, evidence links Sceld Sheafing with Targiteaus the legendary ancestor of the Scythians (mentioned by Herodotus) and with Aspourgos whom the Royal Scythians worshipped and who also was derived from the figure of JOSEPH son of Israel.
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4. Some Other Names of Joseph

In Neo-Assyrian times Israelite groups from the Tribes of Joseph were discernable ("Yasubians", "Yasubgallians") in the areas of Mannae and Media. These were the regions Israelite Exiles had first been taken to by the Assyrians (2-Kings 17:5). Later, in the eastern Iranian area close to the Indus were the people of "Asapioi" who were also to be called "Isapoi" and "Ysufzi" meaning JOSEPH. This was the region of Hara were Israelites had also beeen taken to (1-Chronicles 5:26). These names of Israelite groups (like all those of Afghanistan H. W. Bellew, 1891) were later to be applied to other different peoples. The root "ASAP/ ASAPH in the Hebrew Scriptures is related to the birth of Joseph: "And she [i.e. Rachel] conceived, and bare a son; and said God hath taken away [in Hebrew: "ASAPH"] my reproach: And she called his name Joseph", Genesis 30:23-24). The name Joseph in the Iranian-Afghan region was renderable as "Jo-asaph" and at all events "ASAP" is a derivative in Semitic regions of Joseph. Other Scythian peoples such as the Aspassi in Chorasmia east of the Caspian Sea and the Aspacarae (whose names bear the "ASP" root) in Serica were also descended from Joseph. The Aspacarae of Serica gave rise to the Eastern-Sienbi or Suebi and in western Europe are sometimes referred to as SWEAF and represented by the eponymous figure of Svipdag. The Sweaf-Sienbi participated in the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain.
Sweaf and the root "Asap" were also linked with the Scythian Aspourgian Tribe near the mouth of the Don River in southern Russia. The Don River (as well as the nearby Dneiper River) was identified by Jewish Chroniclers with the Sambation River. According to Talmudic tradition part of the Lost Ten Tribes had settled on the banks of the Sambation and beyond it. The Aspourgian settlement has been identified with the legendary Asgard home of the ancestral gods of the Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons. Irma Haynman (Jerusalem, 1994) speaks of the military and religious organisation of the Aspourgians who revered a mythical "Aspourgos". There was also a Royal Scythian-Parthian dynasty named after Aspourgos. Ms. Haynman adduced evidence that the root "asp" is derived from the same Semitic-root as the name of Joseph. Haynman also shows that the figure of "Aspourgos" was regarded by his followers as identical with the Biblical Joseph. The logical conclusion from this and from our own evidence is that they must indeed have been descended from Joseph. See "The Tribes."
[Some researchers claimed in the past that the root "asp" was cognate with an Iranian word meaning "horse". Haynman shows that this derivation is unlikely or at least of secondary significance. ]

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5. The Genealogy to Sceath and Identification with Shem

The early Anglo-Saxon Genealogies traced their ancestry back to Sceath (Sheaf). In some versions Sceath is identified with Shem the son of Noah.
The is discussed at length by Leo Poliakov in "Aryan Myth."

The geneaology of the early Anglo-Saxon kings is given as:

After Woden it branches off to different lineages.

Asser the personal scribe and biographer of King Alfred is said to have replaced the name Sceaf with "Seth." This makes little sense since Seth was a son of Adam the first man (1-Chronciles 1:1, Genesis 4:25).

Bill Cooper quotes from what seems to be a recent version that replaces Shem with Sceaf.

NOAH | SCEAF | Bedwig | Hwala | Hrathra | Itermon | Heremod | Sceldwea | Beaw | Taetwa | GEAT | Godwulf,/ | Fin | Frithuwulf | Freawine | Frealaf | Frithuwald | WODEN
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6. Bill Cooper

Bill Cooper wrote a work, "After the Flood," in which he discussed early genealogies and other matters.
http://www.ldolphin.org/cooper/
We have corresponded with Cooper. At first he was pleasant enough with us.
Later we found him holding anti-Jewish views and associated with rabid Judeophobes.
Nevertheless his book does have some redeemable points.
He gives the genealogies of European peoples accurately enough as found in the texts.
He also argues that dinosaurs existed until relatively recent times alongside humans.
The section of his work that concerns has here is,
Appendix 8.
The Descent of the East Saxon Kings
http://www.ldolphin.org/cooper/appen8.html

[The discrepancy between the understanding of Cooper and ourselves concerning the geneaology of Sceld Sheafing was brought to our attention by Syliva Halpert.]
Cooper tries to assert that where the genealogy says Sceaf it means Japheth. But he has no proof of this whatsoever.
Bill Cooper holds that the correct geneaology should be Japhet.

The most logical explantion in our opinion is that Sheaf (as explained above) represents Joseph. It was known that Sheaf was somehow or other associated with Israelites but his identification as Joseph had been forgotten. He was therefore equated with Shem who was an ancestor of the Israelites but not exactly a part of them.
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7. Relevant Extracts from Bill Cooper

Here are extracts from the work of Cooper himself where he tries to twist the inclusion of Shem in Anglo-Saxon geneaologies as being mistaken. Nevertheless he does admit it is there.

See:
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/nation06.htm#THE SAXON GENEALOGIES

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....Yet, happily for us, it was this very habit that brought about the preservation and natural growth of the Saxon genealogies and pedigrees, which in turn have provided us with such a direct historical link with the early Genesis record.

That link is epitomized in Sceaf (1) - pro. "sceef" or "shaif" and he is listed in the genealogies as the son of Noah. We know from the Genesis record that Noah had three sons, and Sceaf is therefore identical to one of them. This realization, however, has led to some recent proposals that serve only to obscure and deny Sceaf's true historical identity.

Keynes and Lapidge (p. 229, see Bibliography) propose the most astonishing notion of all. Making the most of the fact that Asser, King Alfred's biographer, allegedly misspelt Sceaf's name as Seth in the royal genealogy, they blandly inform their readers that: "Towards the end of the genealogy, Asser's "Seth," son of Noah, corresponds to Sem (sic) of Luke iii...!"

.... Keynes and Lapidge, however, were misled through a fundamental error made by Magoun (see Bibliography,) whom they cite. Likewise seizing upon Asser's alleged mispelling, Magoun concludes: "...the total effect is to make Aethelwulf (Alfred's father) by accident or design...a collateral relative of Our Lord" (p. 250.)

In other words, Magoun is suggesting that Aethelwulf's, and hence King Alfred's ancestry was taken all the way back to Noah's son in order to make that king an albeit distant relative of Christ (who was also descended from Noah,) thus enhancing the supposedly divine nature of kingship, in particular Alfred's kingship! Yet, surely, the fact that all subsequent men were descended from Noah, would have made Alfred no better than the common man! Magoun seems not to have considered this. Ancestry from King David would have been a more convincing demonstration of Alfred's semi-divinity, if that was truly Alfred's intention in allegedly doctoring his own pedigree; yet, no such tampering is seen in these royal lines. Indeed, their comparative purity and consistency argues most strongly against the charge of invention or interference.

Yet, was Asser's alleged misspelling of Seth for Sceaf truly an error on Asser's part, or did Asser know something that modernist scholars have missed? The question is answered in part by one of the most sceptical investigators of modern times, Kenneth Sisam (see Bibliography,) who, when dealing with the identities of Seth and Sceaf, is forced to admit that: "Iafeth was usually regarded as the ancestor of the European peoples, and the possibility that the last four letters of his name have something to do with the error Seth cannot be excluded..." (p. 316.)

(To further the identity of Asser's Seth with the Sceaf of other chronicles, we have the testimony of Florence of Worcester, who wrote in 1118 AD: "Seth saxonice Sceaf." In another of his manuscripts - CCC92 - the name of Sceaf is written over an erasure of Seth by a later scribe, thus showing that confusion had begun to arise - and thus needed to be sorted out - even at that early date. See Sisam, p. 317.)

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End Quote.
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8. Comments on the Comments of Cooper

Cooper tries to assert that where it say Sceaf it means Japheth. But he has no proof of this whatsoever.Â
He argues that the rest of the passage is so clear that it cannot be said that any mistake has been made, except on this point!
Asser (the scribe of King Alfred) identified Sceaf with Shem.
We have (see the Frisian sources quoted in "The Tribes") showing that the Anglo-Saxons and Frisians indeed traced themselves back to Shem.
See our recent article:
Anglo-Saxons. Ancient History and Israelite Origins
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/16/anglo-saxons.html

In fact there are several sources pointing in this direction, i.e. that the Anglo-Saxons traced themselves back to Shem and by implication to Ancient Israel.

Cooper by his own admittance (on this point) has not sources to substantiate his supposition but it simply making a statement based on SHEER PREJUDICE!
Cooper says:

# Now, there are phrases of Germanic history that are, admittedly, vague; yet, to suggest that there ever was a time when the Germanic races, of all people, wished to propagate the view that they were Semites is truly extraordinary! Anti-Semitism has been an inheritance of Germanic culture and philosophy since time immemorial (it was by no means the invention of the Nazis,) and to accept such a proposal as this, we would have to fly in the face of all that we know concerning Saxon and Germanic culture. We would also have to ignore the fact that there exists not the slightest etymological link between the names of Seth and Shem. #

Cooper is in fact saying that since the Anglo-Saxons (in his view) were Germanic and the Germanics (he says) were always anti-Jewish then they could not possibly have beleived that they were in any way related to Jews!
Cooper is in fact extrapolating from his own personal dislike of Jews to the Anglo-Saxons of old.
This is not good scholarship on his part.
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9. Not All of them are Israelites. Only the Chosen are being called.

We do not hold that everybody in the west are descended from Israel. A good portion of them may not be.
No-one is trying to force anyone to consider themselves of Israelite descent.
This holds especially if they have some basic strong instinct rejecting such an idea.
We do say that the Lost Ten Tribes are in western areas.

That is where they gave expression to their Israelite destiny as outlined in Scripture.
An objective consideration of the historical evidence is at the very least consistent with our understanding.
Not All of them are Israelites. Only the Chosen are being called.
By Chosen we mean they who most likely are descended from the Ten Tribes or from Judah and feel a pull in this direction.

In other words they who feel such a pull are most likely the ones who are chosen.
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