|
This development cuts the community off from both Scripture and
tradition. The racialist definition acknowledges
the atheist Jew as a member of the congregation in good standing. This is
a far cry from the old days, when the atheist's demise was celebrated not
mourned, "An apostate from the Jewish faith was not to be mourned; on the
contrary, white dress was to be worn on the occasion of his decease, and
other demonstrations of joy to be made." (Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of
Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ, p. 131.) This is a new religion,
not the old one.
The stage is set for generalization. So far, so good: we have succeeded in transmuting 'Israel' into a
racial category, in consequence of a defeated nation's withdrawal into
itself following the vicissitudes of history. Yet most people are not of this ethnicity. How to transmute
God's love for 'Israel,' the apple of His eye, into a preference for, say,
white Anglo-Saxons? It's easy! Just identify your group as 'Israel.'
Thence comes the British Israelitism popularized, though not originated,
by Herbert and Garner Ted Armstrong. It hardly needs emphasis that no
linguist, no ethnographer, can respond to the thesis that the British
('Brit'+'ish'='man of the covenant,' get it?) are Manasseh, and the
inhabitants of the United States are Ephraim, with anything but gales of
laughter. Nevertheless the transformation of the Bible into a
racialist book is premised on these arbitrary identifications. It would be
putting it mildly to point out that there is no historical evidence that
the ten northern tribes migrated to northern Europe and transmuted
themselves into people groups with no identifiable linguistic or
anthropological kinship:
"When the people of the Northern Kingdom went into Assyrian
capitivity, they did not remain there. During the subsequent dissolution
of the Assyrian power through its involvement in foreign wars, the people
of Israel escaped in successive independent waves, leaving the land of
their captors when the opportunity came to do so. Under different names
(Scutai, Sak-Geloths, Massagetae, Khumri, Cimmerians, Goths, Ostrogoths,
Visigoths, etc.) they moved westward into the wilderness, across Asia
Minor, then into Europe and eventually into the Scandinavian countries and
the British Isles." ('The Anglo-Saxon-Celtic Israel
Belief,' Destiny magazine, quoed on p. 177, Leonard Zeskind, Blood and
Politics).
This is how Great Britain came to be 'Ephraim' and the U.S. of A.,
'Manasseh.' Some people don't know enough to laugh, so then you quote, "And he blessed them that
day, saying, In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim
and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh." (Genesis 48:20).
See? The Bible comes right out and says God likes white Anglo-Saxons best!
Joseph Smith, the founding 'prophet' of the Latter Day Saints, was of the
tribe of Ephraim: "Actually, of course, the house of Israel has been
scattered among all nations, and Joseph Smith (through whom the Book of
Mormon was revealed) was of the Tribe of Ephraim." (Bruce R. McConkie,
Mormon Doctrine, p. 311). Herbert W. Armstrong continued to popularize this
view amongst his following on into the late twentieth century: "However
the so-called Lost Ten Tribes — the kingdom of Israel — continued
into western Europe and Britain. . .Ephraim and Manasseh journeyed on into
the British Isles." (Herbert W. Armstrong, Mystery of the Ages, Kindle
location 2584). The atheists listen to this information with
sober attention and repeat what they have learned, 'the Bible teaches
white racism.' But it's laughable!
God dispossessed the Canaanites, whom He had
judged and found wanting owing to their habit of child sacrifice,
replacing them in the land with the children of Israel. So what can the
Canaanites have been, say the racists, but black, and the children of Israel but white?:
"The Promised Land was then called Canaan. Canaanites, racially dark, had
settled in the land." (Mystery of the Ages, Herbert W. Armstrong, Kindle
location 2434). "[R]acially dark"? Is there any archaeological evidence to
verify that the Canaanites were black and the Israelites white? Is there
evidence that suggests the children of Israel,
whose ancestors had been sojourning in Egypt for hundreds of years and who
travelled with a "mixed multitude" of persons who had been resident in
Egypt: "And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and
herds, even very much cattle." (Exodus 12:38), looked notably
different from the prior inhabitants of Canaan? The Canaanites were related to the
present-day inhabitants of Lebanon, whose Punic-speaking ancestors founded colonies, such as
Carthage whose great general was Hannibal:
David is likely to have looked altogether different? And they know
this how? Put a caption of 'David' on this bust, and people will take it
for David. These are fanciful and arbitrary identifications,
plucked out of thin air. Likewise the Stoic philosopher Zeno, of Citium in
Cyprus but probably of Phoenician extraction, as described by Diogenes
Laertius, was probably darker-skinned than the Athenians among whom he
lived as a resident alien and taught philosophy. But there's nothing
in the literature or the artwork of these people to suggest the
Canaanites looked like Sub-Saharan Africans. Ironically, some of these
ideas, which used to be the exclusive possession of white racists,
have been taken over by enthusiasts like the Black Hebrew Israelites,
yet without having gained any plausibility in the meantime.
We know from the Bible that the Canaanites are
descended from Ham, but all available evidence indicates they were no darker-skinned than the
Egyptians, also descended from Ham. It is striking that at the Exodus, the
inauguration of the nation of Israel, the people who marched out of
Egypt were not racially homogeneous, but rather a "mixed multitude."
Israel went down to Egypt as a family, a tribe, but came out a mighty
people. Their numbers were augmented. Those who hungered and thirsted
for righteousness, those who heard and responded to the beckoning call
of the Liberator God, who were of mixed lineage but of one allegiance,
made up a part of the nation right from the start. Philo Judaeus
enumerates the constituents of the 'mixed multitude' as consisting of
servants who shared the Hebrews' love of liberty, if not their ethnic
heritage, persons of mixed Hebrew/Gentile lineage, and converts to the
religion of Israel, whether won over by fear or admiration: "And,
also, all those who had admired the decent piety of the men, and
therefore joined them; and some, also, who had come over to them,
having learnt the right way, by reason of the magnitude and multitude
of the incessant punishments which had been inflicted on their own
countrymen. Of all these men, Moses was elected the leader. . ."
(Philo Judaeus, The Life of Moses, Book I, Chapter XXVII). A 'mixed
multitude' left Egypt in the Exodus which included volunteers of other
races. From the start, this was Israel; it has never been
primarily about race.
|
