"Zayton" <zayton at bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:AF5c9.7167$vY2.161743 at e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com...
> > > > > John Knight wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Most of the White Races of the world are descendants of the
> > > Israelites,
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Nonsense.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Bob
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > The reason the White Race in the US is referred to as "Caucasians" is
> > > > because they were the Israelites who were dispersed to the Caucasus
> > > > Mountains, who went from there throughout Europe.
> > > >
> > > > You didn't know that?
> > >
> > > This is a lie, John.
> > >
> > > Joe
> >
> >
> > Really? Where did White Europeans come from?
>> Certainly not from Israel.
>> Where did the White
> > Israelites go?
>> What "white Israelites?
>
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http://pages.prodigy.net/cmfawn/dan.html
I have copied an excerpt from a piece of work by the Global Church of God entitled The U.S. and Britain in Prophecy on the wanderings of the northern tribes of Israel, after their Assyrian captivity, in particular that of the tribe of Dan. I offer you this because you challenged my assertions on the prophecy that Dan would "leave his mark by the wayside" and gave Denmark as an example. I love a challenge, and always answer them with great eagerness. At the heart of my defense is that the Hebrews did not use vowels in their written language, so DN can be considered Don, Dan, Din, Dun, or Den. In the area of Ireland, and along a trail leading all the way to Assyria, are recorded all this name's many forms. This connection to Ireland actually predates this diaspora, there is a long history between the Hebrews and the British Isles. The Hebrew language is only the heart of the issue, the rest of the proof in etymology is very fascinating indeed. If the following research is of interest to you, I will forward all 105 pages of the document I am quoting from, at your request.
. . ."Lost Tribes... in Ireland"?
All early histories of Ireland mention a people coming there from Greece called the Tuatha de Danaan. From The Annals of Ireland, we read, "The Dan'ans were a highly civilized people, well skilled in architecture and other arts from their long residence in Greece, and their intercourse with the Phoenicians. Their first appearance in Ireland was 1200 B.C., or 85 years after the great victory of Deborah." It seems pretty clear who we're talking about here.
Irish historian Thomas Moore says that one of the earliest resident peoples of Ireland--the Firbolgs--were dispossessed by the Tuatha de Danaan, "who after sojourning for some time in Greece... proceeded from thence to Denmark and Norway" (History of Ireland, vol. 1, p. 59).
Who were the Tuatha de Danaan who migrated up from Greece into Denmark and Norway and then over to Ireland? The word tuath simply means "tribe"--"Tuath... Irish history... A 'TRIBE' or 'people' in Ireland" (New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, vol. 10, pt. 1, p. 441). So they were the tribe of Danaan from Greece. When we consider that the Danaans or Danoi of Greece were Danites of Israel, it is simple logic to conclude that the Tuatha de Danaan was none other than the Israelite tribe of Dan!
Another Irish historian, Geoffrey Keating, mentions that "the Danaans were a people of great learning and wealth; they left Greece after a battle with the Assyrians and went to Ireland; and also to Danmark, and called it 'DAN-mares,' Dan's country" (History of Ireland, vol. 1, pp. 195-199). Evidently, when the Assyrians began to invade Israel in the eighth century B.C., the Danites--not only of the Promised Land, but from Greece as well--must have struck out in their ships to find and dwell with the vanguard of those Israelites who had already been settling Ireland for some time.
Do we have further evidence of the tribe of Dan settling in Northwest Europe and the British Isles? We certainly do! Remember that the Danites had a regular habit of naming places after their ancient ancestor, Dan. Notice this interesting fact: "According to late Danish tradition... Jutland [the mainland of Denmark] was acquired by DAN, the... ancestor of the DANES" from whom their name derives ("Denmark," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 8). As the Danites migrated in hopes of finding a secure homeland, they continued their habit of naming places after their ancestral father, Dan!
J.P. Green's Literal Translation of the Bible, which accompanies his Interlinear Bible, renders Genesis 49:17 as, "Let Dan be a serpent on the way." The word "way" can also be "road," "path," "journey" or "direction" (Logos Software, Enhanced Strong's Lexicon). As a snake leaves a visible trail or path behind it, so would the tribe of Dan leave a trail across those lands they journeyed through--by simply following their old habit of naming places after their ancestor. Since Hebrew was written with only consonants and no vowels, Dan would be spelled "Dn"--and any or no vowel could occur between the two consonants (e.g. Dn, Dan, Deen, Din, Don, Dun, etc.).
By Dan's "serpent trail," we can follow the Danites' ancient travels. In addition to their Mediterranean and Atlantic voyages, Danite mariners almost certainly sailed into the Black Sea and up the major rivers of Europe. Moving east to west along the north shore of the Black Sea, we pass by the mouths of the following rivers: Don, Donets, Dnieper, Dniester and Danube. If we follow the Danube River upstream, it takes us into the very heart of Europe, where we find the Rhine and Rhone Rivers--known in Roman times respectively as the Eridanus and Rhodanus Rivers.
Across northern Europe we find: Danzig in Poland; Sweden (Svea-Dan); Odense in Denmark (Dan's Land); Dunkirk and Dinan in France. If you then cross the English Channel to the British Isles, you will find many dozens of cities, towns or rivers containing the name "Dan"--for example in Scotland we notice Dundee, Dunraven, Aberdeen, Duncansby Head and the Don River. But it is in Ireland where such place names are most prominent: Dun Laoghaire, the Dunkellin River, Dundalk, Dans-Laugh, Dan-Sower, Dungarvan, Dundrum, Dunglow, Dingle Bay, Donegal Bay and Dunmore Head. (It is certainly no coincidence that the Irish Gaelic word Dun or Dunn means "Judge," just as Dan does in Hebrew!)
Dan's migrations, then, can be traced. But that doesn't help us in locating the other Israelite tribes does it? After all, hadn't most of the Danites escaped the Assyrian conquest and deportations (migrating into Europe) while the rest of the northern tribes of Israel were dragged away captive to northern Mesopotamia and the Medo-Persian area? Yes, but Jacob prophesied of the last days, "Dan [Heb. "Judge"] shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel" (v. 16). Dan's descendants could not do this very well if they were not located among the other tribes.
So, though the Danites may have parted company with the rest of Israel at the time of the Assyrian captivity, they would all rejoin each other later. Therefore, the proclivity of the Danites to name places by the Hebrew word for "Judge," after their father, was a remarkable CLUE which God planted within their very tribal nature to help us today in searching out ALL of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel which would later follow the Danite migrations. What incredibly detailed planning the Almighty God has done!
Once we understand the racial connection between the Tuatha de Danaan of Ireland and the ancient tribe of Dan, it is easy to see why the song, "O, Danny Boy" is so popular in southern Ireland! With this biblical and historical background, we can also understand why former New York City Mayor Ed Koch made a particular comment. "It was St. Patrick's Day in America," reported a 1987 U.S. News & World Report about the March 17 holiday commonly celebrated by Irish-Americans. "For one day everyone was Irish. Cardinal John O'Connor [of Irish descent] had a warm embrace for [Jewish] Mayor Ed Koch, who explained his presence at the head of the grand parade, 'It's part of my roots. The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel we [Jews] believe ended up in Ireland'" (Mar. 30, p. 7)!
As we've seen, history reveals that at least some early Israelites did end up in the Emerald Isle! But what about the rest of the tribes? Just where did they go after their Assyrian captivity ended? Can we find out anything from Christ and the commission He gave to His apostles?
"The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel"
Christ mentioned "OTHER sheep I have which are not of this fold [of Jews living in Judea]; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be ONE flock and one Shepherd" (John 10:16). The "house of Israel" is repeatedly referred to in the Old Testament as God's SHEEP, the sheep of His pasture (Jer. 23:1-8; Ezek. 34:1-31).
So Christ was clearly referring to the other tribes of Israel. He commissioned His twelve apostles to preach the Gospel to them: "Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans [who sometimes claimed, falsely, to be Israelites]. But go rather to the LOST SHEEP of the HOUSE OF ISRAEL" (Matt. 10:5-6; cf. 15:24)!
Obviously, Christ knew the whereabouts of the Ten Lost Tribes and would have made certain His apostles also knew. Why do we hear absolutely nothing about Peter and the other apostles still being in Jerusalem and Judea during the years immediately preceding the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.?
The twelve apostles knew the Jews had not been totally "lost." So after taking the Gospel to the Jews in Judea, and after preaching to the Jewish communities in the big cities of the Near East, Greece and North Africa, Peter and the apostles then took Christ's Gospel to the dispersed "lost sheep of the house of Israel." Some of these dispersed Israelites were then living around the Black Sea (see box: "The 'Diaspora'"). But by the first century A.D., many of the Ten Lost Tribes had already left Western Asia and had migrated elsewhere. But to where?
Scotland's most treasured document, the Declaration of Arbroath (also called the Scottish Declaration of Independence), was drawn up in 1320 A.D. In it, King Robert the Bruce (1306-1329)--recently popularized in the 1995 box-office hit movie, Braveheart--and his Scottish nobles solemnly appealed to Pope John XXII to persuade the King of England (Edward II) to allow the Scots to live in peace, unmolested by their English tormentors.
The declaration states that the Scots "journeyed from Greater Scythia [present-day southern Russia] by way of the Pillars of Hercules [Gibraltar], and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain.... Thence they came [c. 250 B.C.], twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today" (para. 2). Why did the Scots solemnly preserve, as an important milestone in their nation's history, this reference to the crossing of the Red Sea?
The declaration reminds the pope how the Scots received Christianity: "Nor would He [Christ] have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the most gentle Saint ANDREW, the Blessed Peter's brother" (para. 4). So the Apostle Andrew obeyed Christ's command to go "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel"--some of whom then lived in Scotland!
THE "DIASPORA"
Notice how James, the Lord's half-brother, addressed his epistle around A.D. 60: "James, a servant of God and of... Jesus Christ, to the TWELVE TRIBES [not just the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin] which are scattered abroad [Gk. diaspora, "dispersed"]" (1:1). James did not address his epistle to just the Jews. Rather, he addressed his inspired letter to ALL the Israelites-"to the TWELVE TRIBES in the Dispersion"(same verse, NRSV and Moffatt). The English translation of the original Aramaic text is as follows: "James... to the twelve tribes which are scattered among the Gentiles." The Goodspeed Bible renders this verse in a similar way: "James... to the twelve tribes that are scattered over the world."
The dispersed Jews are only part of the diaspora-only a small portion of the Israelite all nations. Of course the diaspora would not be of the same nature for the Jews as for the other Israelites. The Jews were widely dispersed but never "lost," whereas the Ten Tribes of Israel were both dispersed and later "lost" to the world in general.
Where were these Israelites of all Twelve Tribes--including the Ten Lost Tribes--living in New Testament times? The Apostle Peter gives us part of the answer to that question: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the pilgrims ["strangers" KJV] of the Dispersion [which were then] in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (1 Pet.1:1-2). These areas of dispersed Jews and Israelites were in what is today northern Turkey-showing a westward migration. As we will see in the next chapter, there is abundant historical evidence to prove that many of the Ten Lost Tribes migrated even beyond this point in the centuries preceding Christ; but some of them still lingered here on the southern shores of the Black Sea in the days of Christ and His apostles. This area was immediately west of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea--along the land route from western Asia into Europe.
The Story of Joseph of Arimathea
Many Britons believe that Joseph of Arimathea--the important rich man in Judea who buried Christ and had secretly been His disciple (Matt. 27:57; Mark 15:43; John 19:38)--once lived in what is now Glastonbury, England, using that village as his home base from which to preach the Gospel to many of the British people. "Joseph, Saint, Of Arimathea (fl. c. A.D. 30), a Jew who undertook the burial of Jesus and whom later legend connected with the Holy Grail of Glastonbury.... A mid-thirteenth century interpolation... by William of Malmesbury relates that Joseph went to Glastonbury in England as head of 12 missionaries sent thither by the Apostle Philip" ("Joseph, Saint," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1970).
Tradition maintains that Joseph's oldest brother was the father of Mary, Jesus' mother. If true, that would make him Christ's great uncle. And a common saying in the English countryside is that "Joseph was a tin man." Tin mining was big in early Britain. In fact, the British Isles were known in ancient times as the Cassiterides ("tin islands"). And, through Phoenician-established commerce links, the tin trade between Britain and the Eastern Mediterranean world was quite substantial. Thus, Joseph was probably involved in tin trade between the British Isles and the Near East. In going to Glastonbury in Somerset, he may have been returning to a familiar place, where he could effectively preach the Gospel.
Collier's Encyclopedia says, "Glastonbury Abbey, a ruined abbey in Somersetshire, about 6 miles south of Wells, England. Tr
For an updated version of this informative booklet go to The U.S. and Britain in Prophecy by the Living Church of God
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