Did Only Male Descendants Survive in Some Cases? Are Many of the Ten Tribes descended from Non-Israelite Women? Notes for Further Study.
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(a) Assyrian Sources.
Some Assyrian sources show Israelites being accepted into the Assyrian Amy and occupying quite high positions in the administration. They also speak of, or indicate, the successful re-settlement of Israelites in the region of Gozan (Habur) and in Assyrian cities. Other sources and wall illustrations show Israelite slaves working in quarries.
Bustenay Oded, Mass Deportations and Deportees in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, 1979, and others quote an Urartian-Assyrian text saying that the males of one (non-Israelite) people were made to mate with the females of another.
"Women were forcibly imported from the Land of the Guti and men from Halitu (Pontus), Muski (Phrygia) and Hate (Cappadocia)...
Sargon speaks of local foreign women being supplied to Aramaean males who had been deported:
"As for the Aramaeans about whom the king my lord has said: 'They are to have wives!' We found numerous suitable women but their fathers refuse to give them in marriage, claiming: 'We will not consent unless they can pay the bride price.' Let them be paid so that the Aramaeans can get married" (NL 26 = SAA 19 18).
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sargon/essentials/governors/massdeportation/
The Assyrians seem to have delighted in recording and depicting their own Sadistic cruelty. The Assyrian mass rape of conquered Arab women was illustrated by themselves.
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(b) Talmudic Text.
One opinion says that the Assyrians divided the females from the males of the Ten Tribes. The females were forcibly coupled with non-Israelites and took means to avoid being pregnant. [This opinion however is only out of several. Others seem to disagree. It was however recorded and may have had a partial relevance since it does reflect Assyrian policy in some cases.]
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(c) The Bible
Hosea indicates that the exiled Israelites will have physically intermixed with non-Israelites.
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(d) Rabbinical Commentaries
Abarbanel understand Scripture to say the future returnees (descendants of Conversos or " Captive Jews") will come with their non-Israelite women and their children will be recognized. It will not be as it was in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah when the foreign women with their children were sent away. This could also apply to the Lost Ten Tribes though the sources differ on this point.
The source chosen by Abarbanel was understood by Rabbeinu Bachye to be referring to the Ten Tribes.
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(e) Historical.
It could be that women from different races were intermixed with Israelites.
The Vikings took women from many areas.
A recent suggestion is that the whole of Ireland was re-populated by newcomers who wiped out all of the existing male population.
See:
Is distinctive DNA marker proof of ancient genocide?
A controversial theory holds invaders from Iberia may have massacred much of Ireland's male population .
On the other hand:
(1) There are indications that the Anglo-Saxons and company in Germany (before they moved to Britain) took pains not to marry outside of their group. When such unions did take place the offspring were denied tribal affiliation.
(2) The Zohar seems to say that when the Tribes return they will be accused of having intermixed with others but will prove that such was not the case.
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(f) The Halachic-Legal Aspects. A Means of Purification?
Under the Law of Moses the child of a Jewish woman is Jewish.
See:
"Brit-Am Now"- 493. #4. Born of a Jewish Mother
The child of a non-Jewish woman is not Jewish. Within this parameter Tribal affiliation (Judah, Levi, etc) is determined by the father.
For non-Jews national affiliation (Ammonite, Moabite, Edomite, etc) goes after the father.
The Lost Ten Tribes are now technically not-Jewish.
See:
Brit-Am Now no. 2080. #4. WHY ARE ISRAELITES from the Ten Lost Tribes TECHNICALLY GENTILES ???
When the Ten Tribes return they will (as far as we understand) ultimately once again be obligated by the Law of Moses.
At the present they are not.
At present it would seem that the children Israelite males have from non-Israelite females would, it appears, be considered as Israelites according tot he Tribe of their father. Many non-Jewish "Israelites" today may be the product of such unions.
It may be that their present technically non-Jewish status is in effect purifying them and enabling them to be accepted as Israelites when they return.
Different input on the female side amongst the various Israelite groups would go far to explain some of the differences between them.