Tuesday, December 30, 2014

HOW TO LIGHT A FIREPLACE FIRE FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE

FOR A WINTER’S EVENING

Many years ago, a friend and I were hiking in the Himalayas of Kashmir, India.  We stopped one afternoon, to rent a small, timeworn cabin in a beautiful mountain valley.  In the cabin was a fireplace.  As we were settling ourselves in, the owner’s young son, probably about twelve years old, was laying up the fireplace with wood.

It was quite a large fireplace for such a small cottage, and the boy laid the wood with great care.  He placed each stick as if it had a special spot.  When he was done, there was a tangle of stacked wood inside the huge firebox, with a single, very dry stick about the size of a drinking straw protruding out of the front.  He told us that he would be back in the evening to light the fire for us.

When my friend and I returned to the cabin later that evening, the boy came in with us.  He took a match, lit it and held it to that stick coming out of the front.  As we watched, the flame traveled up the stick, caught some of the wood in the middle of the pile of wood, then, not too slowly but not too quickly, one by one ignited each piece of wood in the fireplace.

As it burned, the wood settled together, and without poking and adjusting with a fireplace poker, continued to burn slowly and steadily through much of the evening.  I have never before or since seen such a fine fire.  I have, many times since that time, tried to replicate the young Kashmiri’s fire, but have never been able to lay such a one as he.

The following instructions for lighting your New Year's fire are much more crude, but it is the best I can manage:

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HOW TO LIGHT A FIRE IN YOUR FIREPLACE

 
It is best done on a cold winter’s eve
As the sun sinks low in the western trees.
Should you be so blessed with skies of snow,
Each flake will reflect the fire’s red glow.
But be equally blessed in a starry night.
Your hearth-fire will be yet one more star light.
 
First, choose a log, knotty and thick
To lay near the front and to keep all of the sticks
Piled in their place in the miscellaneous stack
That is laid between this and the chimney’s back.
 
In this stack put some paper, crumpled and dry,
And some small bits of kindling.  Then you should try
To place something larger on the kindling below.
These will catch fire when the flame starts to grow.
 
Open the damper, open the draft,
Watch the small flame and see how it laughs
As it soon burns the paper, and then starts to lick
With its fiery tongue along one of the sticks.
 
The small blaze soon gains ravenous power
As it looks for more of your wood to devour.
And now your hearth-fire is blazing free
With a warmth and a light that dances with glee.
 
There are very few things that give such delight
As a fire in the fireplace on a dark winter’s night.
It crackles and snaps and seems to suggest
Hot chocolate and popcorn to share with your guests.
 
So let the wind blow; let blizzards descend,
On your hearth is a fire to share with a friend.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

THE SEARCH FOR THE TEN LOST TRIBES OF ISRAEL (FINAL)


(Please scroll down to read parts 1-8)
 
AVOIDING THE PITFALLS

When we allow our predetermined view of theology, which may be based only upon a small part of the Scriptures, to change the intent of other writings in the Scriptures, it affects even the way we view what is happening in our contemporary world.
  We run the great danger of making the same mistakes as did Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel in the 17th century (post #6).  He believed so strongly that the ten missing tribes would be found that he allowed himself to be unduly persuaded by contemporary events and assertions that were of questionable credibility.

One does not need to be unlearned to be misguided.  Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel was one of the most highly regarded scholars of his day, greatly respected in both the Jewish and the Christian communities.  And, I dare say, Oliver Cromwell was also a man not easily deluded (Please also see post #6).

It may be true enough that, mistaken or not, the results of the decisions of these two men were positive, for the Jews were allowed to return to England.  However, one must wonder about the thinking that led up to that decision.  Linking the name for England with a Biblical meaning in order to advance one’s own political purpose might cause some to be suspicious of the motivations behind such a teaching.  Are we advancing the cause of Scripture, or are we using Scripture to advance a cause that is our own? 

In Our Present Day

We have a situation in our own day that is, in some ways, of the same kind that was presented to Cromwell.  Since the year of 1948, we have seen the Jewish nation once again present in the original Promised Land.
  The rebirth of the Jewish homeland has been viewed by many to be a modern-day miracle. What is more, considering the fact that many of their neighboring countries are so hostile to the nation of Israel’s existence that they have vowed to wipe them off the face of the map, one might say the fact that Israel has endured as a nation is also a miracle.  Regarding the reality of this present-day phenomenon, we wonder to what extent this fits into the prophetic Word of God.

Some have hailed this situation as evidence that God is bringing His people back to the Holy Land and that He will soon bring history to its conclusion. The Jews are returning to the Promised Land.

Many people have seen the birth of the nation of Israel in its homeland as a harbinger to the return of Jesus Christ. I understand the perspective where some say, “The Jewish people are back in the Promised Land.  It may be true that they are now largely a secular nation, but God will bring them to understand and come to believe that Jesus Christ was their long-awaited Messiah.”

However, before we become too carried away by speculation, would it not be wise to consider also all of the New Testament writings concerning the spiritual aspect of Israel, rather than only the physical?  By focusing only on the Old Testament promises, we are likely to draw inconclusive or erroneous conclusions.  We would not be the first to do so. 

God’s Remnant People

We return then to our simplistic answer.  God has preserved His remnant. The plain fact is that we do not know how God has done this nor the ethnic identity of this people. Even if one believes that they must only be the blood descendants of the original twelve tribes of Israel, all is not so clear.

With the probable scattering of the Ten Lost Tribes to the many corners of our world, I have sometimes asked the question of individuals what percentage of heritage was required classify someone as being “Jewish?” With all of the unknown movements of people and settlers throughout history, along with conquering societies who regularly made brides of those whom they have conquered in distant lands, a little of the original Jewish blood may flow in the veins of societies that we would never suspect.

The question I have asked is this; “To be a direct descendant of the tribes of Israel, is it a requirement to have 100% original Jewish heritage?” If so, that would mean if even one ancestor married outside of the Jewish race, all of their descendants would not be Jewish.

If not 100%, then what is the percentage necessary? 99%? 90%? 50%? You can see that the whole subject begins to become very murky. Nevertheless, notwithstanding all of our uncertainties, we can be certain that all the deeds and plans of God proceed according to the way that God has designed.

The questions surrounding God’s specific fulfillment of His promises are great indeed, and the answers are shrouded in much that we cannot see and cannot know.  In spite of the fact that our inquiry must remain largely inconclusive, our study and investigation is not fruitless, for it exposes some pitfalls of premature, impetuous and reckless conclusions.  We have seen that these conclusions are commonly governed more by personal views than by Scripture.

Words of Scripture that are meant to give us only a partial revealing of the complete picture of the ways of God and what He is doing should never cause us to speculate beyond what has been written. The danger comes when we assume more.

It is wise not to be dogmatic on matters about which we know little. We sometimes rather take the little that we know and bend and mold it to support some personal or political agenda. These are pitfalls we would do well to avoid.

We do better to remain faithful to God in our personal lives, and to be watchful. We only marvel as we see God’s plan begin to unfold.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

THE SEARCH FOR THE TEN LOST TRIBES OF ISRAEL (8)

(Please scroll down to read parts 1-7)

CHILDREN OF PROMISE

It is with these three covenants of God (previous post) as a backdrop that we look at the promises of a restored Israel.  The covenants are important to this subject because they show us the direction toward which God is working in the restoration.  What is it that we see?

First, from the very beginning with Abraham, we see that God intended to bless not only him, but that through Abraham “all the families of the earth [would] be blessed” (Genesis 12:1). The Jewish people were meant to act as the means through which God would bring His blessings to every nation or race of people.  This is at least part of the meaning of God’s statement to the sons of Israel in Exodus 19:6: “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

How did God mean to bring about this blessing to all of the families of the earth?  Was it that the nations needed to have a “second hand relationship” with God, and only come to God through the mediators of the Jewish people?  Or should those of the nations who sought a relationship with God become proselytes, thereby making themselves Jewish in order to come under the blessings of God? 

A Chosen Race

We know now that it was neither of these options, for the Apostle Peter lifts the following Scripture out of the context of the Old Testament and applies them directly to the church: 

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (1 Pet 2:9-10 NAS). 

The words that Peter uses in these verses are phrases that were originally spoken to the Old Testament Jews, but here we see Peter unapologetically transpose these Old Testament promises to apply them to the New Testament church. Even in Peter's day, the church consisted more of converted Gentiles than it did converted Jews. All throughout history, the Jews had considered themselves apart from the nations around them and as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a people for God’s own possession.” How could Peter now apply this to a new group of people that mainly consisted of Gentiles?

It is here where we begin to see the difficulty in this case in adhering strictly to a literal hermeneutic in the Old Testament and then trying to carry that same hermeneutic over into the New Testament.  If one were to make the claim that God’s Old Testament promises to the Jewish people must be fulfilled only in the direct blood line of the Jews, then there is a difficulty in knowing how to interpret the words of Peter.

The Apostle Paul also spoke in some terms never before heard. Actually, considering the religious climate of the day, his words must have seemed scandalous: 

For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.  But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God (Romans 2:27-29 NAS). 

Furthermore, building on a line of reasoning and showing God’s means of election, Paul demonstrates that “it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants” (Romans 9:8 NAS). 

No Distinctions of Eternal Significance

In fact, throughout the Epistles of the New Testament, when we look at the church and consider it from a spiritual perspective, it is difficult to see any distinction between the Jewish and the non-Jewish believers in Christ.  There remains, of course, the every-day and common distinctions between the two that any ethnically diverse society would have.  But in spite of these, Paul says this: 

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him (Romans 10:12 NAS). 

Were there then no distinctions at all in the New Testament times between the believing Jews and the Gentile Christians?  We know that there were indeed distinctions.  Paul, despite the words that he wrote to the Romans (as well as to others), also spoke openly of his Jewish heritage and the fact that he was a descendant from the tribe of Benjamin (Romans 11:1).  Also, in his missionary journeys, Paul customarily went first to the synagogues, stating that it was necessary for the word of God to be spoken to the Jews first (Acts 13:46).

It is understandable that in the New Testament church there would also be this distinction among the believers, just as there is in any multi-ethnic church even today.  But we should also notice what Paul wrote to the church at Galatia: 

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave or free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise (Galatians 3:28-29 NAS). 

It would be absurd to assert that Paul was saying in this verse that, in Christ, absolutely all distinctions had magically disappeared as if there were no longer such a thing as differences in economical status, or even in the gender of the sexes.  It was obvious to see that, in every-day life, these distinctions remained.  Even was it so between Jew and Greek.

But, when it comes to being heirs to the Old Testament promises to Abraham, all distinctions do disappear, as if by magic.  It is not magic, of course, but that we have become heirs according to promise.

To quote again the words of Paul, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29), and “It is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants” (Romans 9:8 NAS). 

An Enlarged Inheritance

And what is promised to Abraham’s descendants, the heir according to promise? Much indeed. Paul wrote to this same Roman church, “the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. (Romans 4:13).

Almost as a side note, Paul mentions in this verse that the inheritance includes a Promised Land far beyond the Palestine of Abraham’s day and even far beyond the portion of the world known to Abraham as was told him at the time of the sealing of the covenant. Paul tells us that the heirs of Abraham, heirs according to promise, would eventually inherit the world.

This thought is astonishing enough, but it is even greater than it first seems. Paul is not only talking about the “world” as in the whole earth, but the word is kosmos, meaning the whole created order! Again we see that God has expanded His promises to His children. Certainly, it has always been his intention, but like Abraham and like David, as our understanding of the extent of creation has grown, God has shown us further the extent of His promises.
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The next post will be the final one of this rather lengthy series. For all of those who have stuck with me this far, thank you. Also, thanks for the good comments that some of you have emailed to me.
We will conclude next time with some final thoughts on God's Remnant People that He is preserving

Friday, November 28, 2014

THE SEARCH FOR THE TEN LOST TRIBES OF ISRAEL (7)

(Please scroll down to read parts 1-6)

THREE COVENANTS OF GOD

Traditions and claims regarding the ten lost tribes of Israel abound, but the question that concerns us here is whether the promises of God really do depend upon the actual and present-day existence of the Ten Tribes.

The Covenant with Abraham

The search for our answer begins with some words that God spoke to the patriarch, Abraham (then called “Abram”), who was the grandfather of Jacob – the father of the twelve sons.  It was from these twelve sons of Jacob that the twelve original tribes of Israel began. 

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you;

And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing;

And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3 NAS). 

With these words, God enters into a covenant with Abraham, one which God later confirms in the Ceremony of the Smoking Oven and the Flaming Torch (Genesis 15:12-21).  The ceremony that normally accompanied this covenant involved the two parties who where entering into the agreement passing together through a path formed by the divided halves of certain animals that had been sacrificed for this purpose. These animals were meant to signify the binding responsibility that each party of the covenant was setting upon himself, thus the sealing the agreement. Both parties were bound to adhere to the conditions of the covenant.

However, when God entered into this covenant with Abraham, God did not require Abraham to pass through on the path, but instead there appeared a “smoking oven and a flaming torch” which passed alone between the pieces.  This was God’s manner of demonstrating that this covenant was an unconditional promise, meaning God bound Himself to its fulfillment, regardless of any compliance on the part of Abraham.

The vow of God was basically three-fold.  God promised Abraham a land to which Abraham was to go. We generally consider the Palestine region of that day to be this land of promise, but in the reading of the passage concerning this covenant, we see that God told Abraham that this land would be  the entire world known to Abraham at that time. I will refer to this in the next post.

God also assured that Abraham would become a great nation. In fact, God told Abraham to look into the night sky to see if he could count the stars, which of course, are beyond count. “So shall your descendants be,” God told him (Genesis 15:5).

Lastly, God promised that Abraham would be blessed. This blessing was also to have an extended meaning, which we shall see in the subsequent post.

It was the presence of the descendants of Abraham later living in the land that gave the initial evidence of the fulfillment of the blessing. This was especially true in the days of King David, as David ruled over the land of promise and the Israelite people experienced the blessing of God.

Abraham himself, however, never saw this literal, earthly fulfillment. In fact, he was told by God that his descendants would first be “enslaved and oppressed four hundred years” in a foreign land before they would return to live in the Promised Land (Genesis 15:13-16).  However, despite the fact that Abraham never saw the physical fulfillment of the promise, the covenant is later reaffirmed to him (Genesis 17:4-21, 22:15-18); to Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5,24); and to Jacob (Genesis 28:13-15; 35:9-12). 

The Covenant with David

Skipping ahead now to the time after the four hundred year oppression in the land of Egypt, to the days when King David sat on the throne in Jerusalem, we see that God again reaffirms this covenant with this king of the nation of Israel.  David says, “…For He has made an everlasting covenant with me” (2 Samuel 23:5).  The content of this covenant is found in 2 Samuel 7:8-16, relayed to David by Nathan the prophet: 

Now then, tell my servant David, “This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel.  I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men of the earth.  And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed…” 

“The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom…I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men.  But my love will never be taken away from him…Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever” (NIV). 

The principle points of this covenant are as they were to Abraham. They consist first of God telling David that He will make David great and establish his family as a dynasty.  (“Now I will make your name great…Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.”).

There was also to be a land for the kingdom (“And I will provide a place for my people Israel.”)  God’s words to David also spoke of blessing and of a father and son relationship that demonstrated God’s familial love for His people.

David, along with his son Solomon saw beginnings of the fulfillment of this covenant from God, but as we have already seen in a previous post (the very first post of this series), this united kingdom did not last.  The Davidic Kingdom, under David’s grandson Rehoboam, underwent civil strife and the ten northern tribes broke away from the dynastic line.  They later were invaded by the Assyrians and deported, never to be heard from again.

But we must remember that God’s covenant through Abraham was unconditional. This covenant extended to the descendants of Abraham, whom God called in this covenant with David, “My people Israel”. Even though the Israelites had broken faith in the covenant that God made with David, God reaffirmed His own faithfulness not only to the throne of David, but also to the people of God. 

The New Covenant 

The Scriptural passages we read earlier (post #2) from the book of Jeremiah are some of these affirmations that God made with His people.  In this passage of Jeremiah’s message, God speaks of a New Covenant, which He means to make with His people. The prophet Jeremiah lived at the time when it seemed as if the reign of the Davidic kingly line was at an end. The nation of Judah had largely abandoned the ways of the Lord and the nation was overtaken by the Neo-Babylonian empire.

It must have seemed to Jeremiah that God was abandoning his people, but that was far from the truth. God again confirms His promise to Jeremiah:

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” 

The conditionality of this covenant did not change, for God still bound Himself to it with an oath.  This covenant was called “new” however, because through it, God means to make a change within the hearts of His people. Despite the current conditions that Jeremiah saw concerning the people of God, in speaking of this new covenant, God does not diminish His intentions. Rather, He enlarges them! The Lord spoke in terms that must have been difficult for Jeremiah to grasp. 

“Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them…But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days… “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jeremiah 31:31-33 NAS). 

Another part of this covenant which is of utmost importance and which was not addressed in the earlier covenants was the manner in which God means to make a lasting change in His people. 

“For I will forgive their iniquity,” God told them “and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:34 NAS). 

There is no overstating the importance of this declaration by God.  The earlier covenants, if we remember, spoke of blessings and of lands and descendants, but they did not speak of forgiveness.  In the covenant with David, God said that when his son did wrong God would “punish him with the rod of men” but that God would not remove His love from him.  (2 Samuel 7:14-15).

However, it is in the New Covenant that we find for the first time in any of these covenants that God actually states that His intention is to forgive.  “Their sin I will remember no more,” He says.

Forgiveness is more of a New Testament concept.  It is not that forgiveness was unknown in the Old Testament, but we see it almost exclusively in the Old Testament in the form of the people crying out to God for forgiveness (the present passage in Jeremiah and the well known verse of 2 Chronicles 7:14 excluded).

It is also true that King David did receive forgiveness for his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah (2 Samuel 12:13).  It was probably because of this that he could write so eloquently “Bless the Lord, O my soul…Who pardons all of your iniquities.  As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:1,3,12 NAS).

However, the Old Testament sacrifices did not bring forgiveness. They were instead instituted and intended to provide a covering for sin.  True forgiveness could not come until the ultimate sacrifice in the Person of Jesus Christ was accomplished.  In this New Covenant, of which God is speaking to Jeremiah, He is looking ahead to the time “after those days” when true forgiveness would be possible.
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(Next time we shall see who are the recipients of these promises)

Monday, November 24, 2014

THE SEARCH FOR THE TEN LOST TRIBES OF ISRAEL (6)

(Please scroll down to read parts 1-5)

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PHYSICAL AND ETHNIC DESCENDANTS OF ISRAEL?

Discovery Claims in Europe and the New World

The arrival to the Americas by the Europeans during the 16th century brought a whole new wave of claims of discovery of lost tribes.
        In the eyes of most of the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors in Central and South America, the natives already living in these places were either to be conquered and made subject to the rule of the conquistadors, or simply to be exterminated.  However, there were a few of the newly arrived Europeans who had a heart for the indigenous people and came to their defense.

 Lost Tribes in Central America

One of these was a missionary named Bartholeme de Las Casas, who worked among the natives of the Caribbean as well as those from the jungles of Peru, and especially among the Mayans of Mexico and Guatemala.  De Las Casas worked tirelessly on behalf of the indigenous peoples to try to convert them to Christianity, for, he said, “Their conversion is apt indeed, as I am convinced the Indians (Mayans) originate in Ancient Israel.  Indeed, I can bring proofs from the Bible that they are of the Lost Tribes” (I do not know if de Las Casas indeed did bring these proofs, as he called them, for I have not been able to find them documented.)

 Lost Tribes in Peru

In the middle of the 17th century, a Dutch Jewish scholar named Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel published a treatise in a book he called The Hope of Israel on the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, whom he said lived in the Americas.  Menasseh ben Israel was inspired to pursue this subject after hearing reports from the Portuguese traveler Antonio Montezinos who had been imprisoned by the Inquisition in Cartagena, Colombia.  Montezinos escaped from prison, and as he fled his imprisonment, he found his way to the Peruvian jungles where he claimed to have come in contact with the descendants of the Ten Tribes.

Christian Theologians at that time believed that when the Ten Tribes would be found, it meant that the tribes would be soon reunited and restored to the Promised Land and that the Second Coming of Christ would soon come.

In the year 1655, Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel referred to the report of Montezinos and others to appeal to this belief and to convince Oliver Cromwell of England that Cromwell could hasten the return of Christ by allowing the Jews to return to England, where they had not been allowed to live since the year 1290. In presenting his case to Cromwell, Menasseh ben Israel made an association between the Hebrew word for “the end of the Earth” and the medieval term for England, “Angle Terre,” which he then linked to Biblical texts concerning the scattering and salvation of the Ten Tribes ( as found, for example in Deuteronomy 28:64 and Isaiah 49:6).  This he did to try to demonstrate to Cromwell the importance of England in the plan of God.


Lost Tribes in Polynesia

Even to the present day, the teaching is common among the Mormon churches of the Pacific Islands that the original the Polynesian people are direct, blood descendants of Israel. Actually, they believe that all of the Americas were first inhabited by a tribe of Israel that they call the Laminites, but that these Laminites degenerated in their worship (I am not completely certain what the official present-day Mormon teaching of this is).

However, in 1911, a letter from the First Presidency of the Mormon Church, written to the Maoris of New Zealand, speaks specifically of the Polynesians and especially of the Maoris. Here we learn that the Mormon Church believed that the Polynesians were so blessed by God because, “The Lord … directed their course away from this continent [America] to their island homes [Polynesia], that they might not be left to be preyed upon and destroyed by the more wicked part of the House of Israel whose descendants still roam upon this continent in a fallen and degraded state.”

It was, and perhaps is still taught in many Mormon churches of the Pacific, that the original Polynesian people left the Americas to preserve the purity of their place with God. Again, I do not know for certainty that this is still the official teaching of the church, however, I do know that the belief is not unusual among many Pacific Islanders that they are direct literal and blood descendants of the lost tribes of Israel.

Lost Tribes in Europe and Judah in England

Entire books have been written tracing the resettlements of the Ten Tribes using local names as “evidence” and even “proof” that some of the tribes settled in certain areas.  Some of this evidence includes names such as the city of Danzig in Poland, and the Danube River given as a confirmation that these areas were settled by the Israelite tribe of Dan.

Then there are the claims of the British-Israeli movement, which teaches that the Royal line of England is actually the Davidic blood line, brought to England via Ireland. According to this teaching, the royal line was brought to England through the daughter of King Zedekiah, who was brought to Ireland by the prophet Jeremiah.

Along with the princess, Jeremiah also is said to have brought a three-hundred pound stone. For centuries, many of the monarchs of Ireland, Scotland, and England have received their crown as they sat in the coronation chair built above this this stone.  According to legend, this is the very stone which Jacob used as a pillow on the night that he dreamed the dream of angels ascending and descending the stairway at Bethel.

Although the story of how the stone came to be found in the British Isles is a very long one and has various versions, This Coronation Stone (also known as The Stone of Destiny, The Stone Lia Fail, or the Stone of Scone) had been placed in a special chair that had sat for many years in the Westminster Abbey.  The stone now has recently (1996) been moved to Edinburgh Castle in Scotland.

Lost Tribes in Japan and Ethiopia

Among other traditions is that a great many people strongly believe that the people of Japan are actually descendants of some of the Ten Lost Tribes and give some good reasons for their conclusions. Among these reasons are hundreds of words and names of places in Japan with no etymological relationship to the Japanese language, but which have similar meanings of the corresponding Hebrew words.

And, of course, there is the famous case of the Ethiopian Jews, the Falashas, or the Lemba, a southern African tribe who claim to be descended from the Jewish race and carry a very strong incidence of the same Y chromosome as the Jews of Israel.  These would not be related to the Ten Tribes, but to the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin.

Claims of links to the Ten Tribes range from Africa to Kashmir in India to China to the Americas and to all points in between. There are hundreds of claims, but the great majority of them that I have read seem simply too incredible for me to consider as being possibilities. But of course, the possibility does remain that some of these claims may have elements of actual fact.  It is just that there is no way that we can verify it. However, what we can see is the zeal with which some people have searched for the lost tribes.
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I have spent much more time on this than I should have, but I did it for a couple of reasons.  First, it is quite an interesting study, but a subject for which I doubt if I should ever devote an extended writing.  So, for interest’s sake, I had to include in these posts at least some of what I found.
        However, the second reason that I brought up some of these points is to demonstrate how a pre-conceived and rigid interpretation of a Biblical doctrine that is not completely revealed to us (such as eschatology), can lead not only to poor hermeneutics, but a poor interpretation of history.

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Next time, three covenants that God made with men, which in light of this subject, I think are important to understand