British Israelism-2

Criticism Refuted

Part 2.
Contents:
1.Were All the Ten Tribes Exiled?
2. Different Israelite Tribes among the Jews.
3. Biblical Criticism and the TTs.
4. Selective Quoting Against the TTs!
5. Archaeology, DNA, Linguistics
6. Motivation for Belief in the Lost Ten Tribes.
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1. Were All the Ten Tribes Exiled?
Mat claims that most of the Ten Tribes were not really lost but rather that "the vast majority" (his words) of them simply went south and attached themselves to Judah.

A prominent Israeli archaeologist has made similar claims:

Temple and Dynasty: Hezekiah, the Remaking of Judah and the Rise of the Pan-Israelite Ideology
Israel Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0309089206063428
... the momentous events that took place in Judah in the short period of time between 732 (and mainly 722) and 701 BCE. A torrent of refugees from the North, mostly from the areas bordering on Judah, dramatically changed the demographic structure in the Southern Kingdom. The population seems to have at least doubled and included significant north Israelite communities. This situation created, in fact, a pan-Israelite state.

The above claims however are not accepted by most researchers today. Jerusalem did receive an influx of refugees from the north. Whoever has visited the "Burnt House" in what is now the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem will have seen excavations of what is believed to have been the home of refugees from "Ephraim" in the north. The newcomers were characterized by a liking for Egyptian appurtenances, idol worship, and practising cremation.

The Assyrians after exiling the Ten Tribes also attacked Judah and took many of them captive. These captives would have included refugees from the TTs who had fled to Judah shortly beforehand.

http://www.antiquities.org.il/Article_eng.aspx?sec_id=17&sub_subj_id=491&id=1334
Yehuda Dagan, Israel Antiquities Authority
Sennacherib's campaign to Judah in the year 701 BCE was scorched in the consciousness of various historians as one of the harshest and most traumatic occurrences in the sequence of events that befell the Kingdom of Judah. The attempt by King Hezekiah to cast off the yoke of foreign rule and free the kingdom of the burden of the heavy taxes that were sent annually to Assyria was an important and deliberate measure that was not sufficiently successful. The results of the revolt took an extremely hard toll on the Kingdom of Judah. The cities of the Shephelah [coastal regions] were destroyed and the amount of taxes that were placed on the monarchy increased and constituted a heavy burden on the king's treasury.

Our information about the events of the year 701 BCE is drawn from four different sources.
1. The biblical text in three books of the Bible (2 Kings 18-19; Isaiah 36-37; 2 Chronicles 32).
2. The descriptions of King Sennacherib's military campaigns and the booty he plundered during those campaigns.
3. An artistic description that is displayed in a relief that covered the walls of Room XXXVI in the king's palace in Nineveh.
4. The archaeological finds that are discovered in the destruction layers of the cities and the rural settlements in the Shephelah.

Based on the Assyrian text a tremendous amount of booty was taken from the cities of Judah, the king promised to pay heavy taxes to Assyria and many of the residents of the Kingdom of Judah were taken prisoner and sent on the long journey to Assyria.

"In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, went on an expedition against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them." 2-Kings 18:13

"Then King Sennacherib of Assyria invaded Judah and besieged its fortified cities and gave orders for his army to break their way through the walls." 2- Chronicles 32:1

This occurred in ca. 701 BCE: The Ten Tribes had been exiled by conventional reckoning about 30 years beforehand.

Compare the Assyrian records themselves:

# As for Hezekiah the Judean, who did not submit to my yoke, I besieged and took 46 of his strong walled cities as well as the countless small villages in their vicinities. I besieged and took [those cities]. 200, 150 people, great and small, ... I brought away from them and counted as spoil. I shut Hezekiah up himself in Jerusalem, his royal city, as if he were a bird in a cage.... # Source: "Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylon," by Daniel David Luckenbill, Volume 2, Chicago, 1927. https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/ancient_records_assyria2.pdf

It follows that even if many refugees from the TTs had succeeded in going south they would have been exiled when Sennacherib conquered the cities of Judah outside of Jerusalem and exiled many of their inhabitants.

The Bible only hints at these matters but the Midrashim and archaeology speak of them.
Assyrian records say that many, more than 200,000, from Judah were taken into Exile by the Assyrians. various sources indicate that these joined the TTs in their places of Exile.
After the Exile by Assyria Judah was left alone relatively speaking for more than a century until she was conquered by the Babylonians. The Jews were exiled for 70 years after which a portion of them returned under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah and others.

The Rabbinical Commentator, Nachmanides, 1194-1270, in "Sefer ha-Geulah" (i.e. The Book of Redemption), says:

It is known that with the Return of the Exiles under Ezra only the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin returned. These had been exiled to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. This is what it says concerning the beginning of that Redemption, [Ezra 1:5] Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem'...

These are Judah and Benjamin as well as the Cohanim [priests] who dwelt in Jerusalem and who pertained to the Kingdom of Judah. This was as it was written concerning the initial split of the Kingdom between the northern Ten Tribes and the Kingdom of Judah, 'having Judah and Benjamin on his side' (2-Chronicles 11;12), 'And the priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted to him out of all their coasts' (2-Chronicles 11;13): [i.e. The Levites moved southward to Judah. The southern Kingdom of Judah then encompassed the Tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi]. The Kingdom of Israel included the Ten Northern Tribes. These were exiled by Sancherib [Sancherib in Rabbinical Literature is a figure taken to represent ALL of the Assyrian monarchs] as it says, 'For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin' (2-Kings 17;11). 'Until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, so was Israel exiled out of their own land to Assyria unto this day' (2-Kings 17;12). This is a proof that all the Kingdom of Israel was exiled to Assyria but the Kingdom of David remained as it was until Nebuchadnessar exiled them to Babylon.

These said that in the time of the Second Temple a few refugees from the other tribes also came up. They did not come from all of the other Tribes but only from Ephraim and Menasseh. [Another authority however in the Talmud, Tosefot in Arakin 32;a, says that, 'from each and every Tribe a few returned']. These few were not enough to be termed a tribe in their own right or even part of a tribe. Due to their minority position they were included amongst the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin and dwelt in their cities. This Second Redemption [returning from Babylon] was not meant for the other tribes.

... the only ones who returned from the Babylonian Exile were they who belonged to the Kingdom of Judah. Those however who are termed the House of Ephraim, or The House of Israel, meaning the Ten Tribes are still in Exile in Assyria. These Tribes did not have any participants in the Second Redemption....

Other sources (e.g. Midrash Seder Olam) indicate that about 20% of the population of Judah was comprised of Israelites from the northern Kingdom. Among these exiles represetnatives of Ephraim and Manasseh were especially dominat as were those from Simeon.

Nachmanides continues referring to the small number of members of the Northern Ten Tribes who had attached themselves to Judah and returned with them from Exile in Babylon:

"They are referred in a general sense as from Israel (2 Chronicles 35:18) and not by their specific tribes since they represented only a small portion of their tribe. These are they who returned under Ezra with the Jews from Babylon. They were not expressly mentioned by their tribes since they were attached to Judah. They all settled in the cities of Judah. There was no Redemption for the Ten Tribes who remained in exile. That is why in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah only families of Judah, Benjamin, and Levy were listed." Nachmanides.

Malbim (1809-1879): "In the future God will ingather the Ten Tribes who were in faraway lands and did not return in the time of the Second Temple".<

Abarbanel (1435-1509): "The Ten Tribes will return to Samaria and its daughter-regions and so will the scattered dispersion of Judah be gathered in from the four corners of the earth. There is no doubt that this promised ingathering will occur in the Times of the Messiah. Until now it has never been fulfilled".

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2. Different Israelite Tribes among the Jews.
Jews by Tribes a Very Rough Approximation:

30 - 40 % Judah.
30% Benjamin.
15 to 20% Levites and Cohens.
10 % Simeon.
20% other Tribes especially Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar.

Consider the following event:

Deuteronomy 27:
12 When you cross the Jordan, these Tribes shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin.
13 For the curse, these Tribes shall stand on Mount Ebal: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

Commentators have noticed that those Tribes who stood on the Blessing Side were destined to have a greater degree of attachment to Judah than the others.
At all events the Exile had a Divine Purpose. The Ten Tribes were to realize their destiny while Being Lost and in Exile.

See: Master Plan. The ten Tribes had the task of elevating humankind in general while Judah was to keep and develop the Law. In the End Times the two halves of Israel shall re-unite.

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3. Biblical Criticism and the TTs.

Mat continues.
He says that after refugees from the TTs went to Judah the Bible was written by putting different sources together.
This is an old claim of Biblical Criticism. It originated in Germany in the 1800s and 1900s. It was motivated by Jew-hatred and mendacious aims and has been thoroughly debunked often.

One of its early promoters was Julius Wellhausen who proposed (1878) that the Pentateuch (i.e. the Five Books of Moses, known as Torah) was created by combining four separate sources. These efforts were backed by the German Prussian Establishment who were already subconsciously preparing themselves to carry out an attempted extermination of the Jewish People.
See:
Was the Documentary Hypothesis Tainted by Wellhausen's Antisemitism?
by Professor Alan T. Levenson
https://www.thetorah.com/article/was-the-documentary-hypothesis-tainted-by-wellhausens-antisemitism

# Solomon Schechter (1847-1915)... In an address delivered in 1903, titled 'Higher Criticism - Higher Anti-Semitism,' Schechter excoriates Wellhausen's anti-Jewish rhetoric, and explicitly contextualizes it as reflecting Prussian anti-Semitism:
"Wellhausen's Prolegomena and History are teeming with apercus [side remarks] full of venom against Judaism, and you cannot wonder that he was rewarded by one of the highest orders which the Prussian Government had to bestow."

Attempts by later scholars to reject the system of Wellhausen while proposing an alternative of their own are all equally false.

We are surprised that this pernicious doctrine is still being propagated.
Mat appears to be behind the times on some issues. If we aregoing to entertaint he notion of "Guilt by Assoiation" then mat himself is an offender!
Among other roofs, the Bible Codes show that the Bible has only one author and is Divinely Inspired.
It is true however that the Bible supports belief in the Lost Ten Tribes and therefore the enemy of the one becomes the adversary of the other. Is that whymat tries to undermine belief in the Bible?

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4. Selective Quoting Against the TTs!
Mat quotes from the Book of Ezra (6:17) where the Jews after returning from Babylon sacrificed 12 sacrifices for 12 Tribes. To his mind this proves that all 12 Tribes were then present in Judah.
We however could just as easily quote from the point made by Nachmanides that in the extensive genealogical lists in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah aind in Chronicles only the Tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi are mentioned in detail after the Exile to Babylon. These are all Tribes of Judah since most of Levi had moved to Judah at an earlier date and Benjamin had been together with Judah from the beginning. Despite this, Nachmanides admits that a minority grouping from the other Tribes was also present in Judah. They are however not mentioned in the Tribe Listings since their Tribal Expression was to come to fruition among their brothers in Exile.
See:
THE TEN TRIBES WILL RETURN! The Bible Says So!
by Nachmanides
https://britam.org/RETURN.htm
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5. Archaeology, DNA, Linguistics

BI identifies the TTs with Celtic and Germanic Peoples who later populated the British Isles.
Mat says that the DNA of these peoples proves that they were in Europe before the TTs left the Land of Israel.
This is simply not the case.
DNA is determined ultimately by environment even though once it changes the changes are passed on by heredity.
Mat also quotes from archaeological and linguistic evidence.
We have written books and articles and quoted those of others showing how these same sources when properly studied actually help prove Israelite Origins.
The Welsh and Irish languages have a definite Hebrew substructure which the nay-sayers have never managed to explain.

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6. Motivation for Belief in the Lost Ten Tribes.

Mat claims that belief in BI is motivated by attempts to present the Anglo-Saxon race as Chosen and having a special task in the world.
He associates this with Racialism and White Supremacism.

Nriot-Am for its part also believes that descendants of the Lost Ten Tribes have a special role in the world. They really are chosen according to the Bible.

This special chosenness however entails obligations as well as benefits.

Amos (NASB) 3:
1 Hear this word which the LORD has spoken against you, sons of Israel, against the entire family which He brought up from the Land of Egypt:
2 You only have I known among all the families of the earth;
Therefore I will punish you for all your wrongdoing.

The Lost Ten Tribes were exiled. They lost awareness of their ancestry. They fulfilled Biblical prophecies concerning the Ten Tribes. They had a task to carry out and they did so. They became a significant part of Western Peoples. People opposed to this belief in some case may have non-Kosher agendas of their own.

Continued at British Israelism-3.