Editing British Israelism (section)

==Tenets==

===Most Israelites are not Jews===
Adherents believe that the [[Twelve Tribes of Israel]] are the twelve sons of the patriarch [[Jacob]] (who was later named Israel). Jacob elevated the descendants of [[Ephraim]] and [[Manasseh (tribal patriarch)|Manasseh]] (the two sons of [[Joseph]]) to the status of full tribes in their own right, replacing the [[Tribe of Joseph]].

A division occurred among the twelve tribes in the days of [[Jeroboam]] and [[Rehoboam]], with the three tribes of [[Tribe of Judah|Judah]], [[Tribe of Benjamin|Benjamin]], and, in part, [[Tribe of Levi|Levi]], forming the [[Kingdom of Judah]], and the remaining ten tribes forming the [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Encyclopædia Britannica |page=vol. 15, p. 373 |edition=11th}}</ref> Thus, they argue, "the great bulk of Israelites are not the Jews".<ref name=Allen1917>{{cite book |last=Allen |first=J.H. |title=Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright |publisher=Destiny Publishers |year=1917 |edition=16 |location=Haverhill, MA}}</ref>{{rp|71}}<ref>{{cite book |title=Harmsworth's History Volume 3 |pages=1781–1782, 1784–1785}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The DNA of Western European Nations |website=British Israel Basics |publisher=Canadian British-Israel Association |url=http://www.british-israel.com/dna-and-british-israel.html}}</ref> W. E. Filmer, writing in 1964, suggested that the fact that some Jews continue to search for the [[Ten Lost Tribes]] implies that their representatives are not found among modern-day [[Jewish ethnic divisions|multi-ethnic]] [[Jews]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Filmer |first1=W. E. |title=A Synopsis of the Migrations of Israel |date=1964 |publisher=Covenant Books |isbn=978-0852050613 |page=5}}</ref> A number of British Israelites quote [[Josephus]] in order to support their claim that the lost tribes of Israel are not Jews: "the entire body of the people of Israel remained in that country; wherefore there are but two tribes in [[Asia]] and [[Europe]] subject to the [[Roman Empire|Romans]], while the ten tribes are beyond the [[Euphrates]] till now, and are an immense multitude."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Josephus |first1=Flavius |title=Antiquities |page=11:133}}</ref><ref name=Allen1917/>{{rp|247}}<ref>{{cite web |title=British-Israel Answers its Critics |website=The British-Israel Church of God |url=http://www.british-israel.ca/answers.htm}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Poole |first1=William Henry |title=Anglo-Israel; Or, The British Nation the Lost Tribes of Israel |date=1879 |publisher=Bengough Bros. |isbn=978-1330950692 |page=23}}</ref>

===The British are the descendants of the Lost Tribes===
[[File:Jehu-Obelisk-cropped.jpg|thumb|[[Jehu]] kneeling at the feet of [[Shalmaneser III]] on the [[Black Obelisk]]]]
The key component of British Israelism is its representation of the migrations of the [[Ten Lost Tribes]] of Israel. Adherents suggested that the [[Scythians]], [[Cimmerians]], and [[Goths]] were representatives of these lost tribes, and the progenitors of the later invaders of Britain.<ref>{{cite book |last=Chryssides |first=George D. |title=Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements |publisher=The Scarecros Press, Inc. |location=Lanham |year=2012 |page=65 |isbn=9780810861947}}</ref><ref name=Quarles/>{{rp|26–27}} John Wilson would argue for the inclusion of all Western European Gothic peoples among the descendants of the Israelites, but under the later influence of Edward Hine, the movement would come to view only the peoples of the British Isles as having this ancestry.<ref name=Kidd2006/>{{rp|209}}

[[Herodotus]] reported that the ancient [[Persians]] called all of the Scythians ''Sacae'', but they called themselves ''Scoloti''. However, a modern comparison of the forms which are given in other ancient languages suggests that ''Skuda'' was their name.<ref>{{cite book |last=Strassler |first=Robert |title=The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories |publisher=Anchor Books |location=New York |year=2009 |page=759}}</ref> Ancient writers, such as Josephus and [[Jerome]] would associate the Scythians with the peoples of [[Gog and Magog]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=van Donzel |first1=Emiri |last2=Schmidt |first2=Andrea |title=Gog and Magog in Early Eastern Christian and Islamic Sources: Sallam's Quest for Alexander's Wall |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden |year=2009 |pages=10–13}}</ref> but British Israelist etymologists would see in ''Sacae'' a name [[root (linguistics)|derived from]] the biblical "[[Isaac]]",<ref name=Allen1917/>{{rp|294–295}} claiming that the appearance of the Scythians where they claimed the Lost Tribes were last documented also supported a connection.<ref name=TJE600/> Further, British Israelists find support in the superficial resemblance between King [[Jehu]]'s pointed headdress and that of the captive [[Saka]] king seen to the far right on the [[Behistun Rock]].<ref name="ReferenceB">{{citation |last=Capt |first=E. Raymond |title=Missing Links Discovered in Assyrian Tablets |publisher=Artisan |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-934666-15-2}}.</ref> They continued the chain of etymological identification leading from Isaac to the ''Sacae'' to the Saxons (interpreted as "Sac's sons" – the sons of Isaac),<ref name=Allen1917/>{{rp|294–295}}<ref name=Quarles/>{{rp|21}}<ref name=Ingram>{{cite book |last=Ingram |first=William L. |contribution=God and Race: British-Israelism and Christian Identity |title=America's Alternative Religions |editor-last=Miller |editor-first=Thomas |publisher=SUNY Press |location=Albany, NY |year=1995 |pages=119–126}}</ref>{{rp|121}} who are portrayed as invading England from [[Denmark]], the 'land of the [[Tribe of Dan]]'.<ref name=TJE600/> They saw the same tribal name, left by the wanderers, in the [[Dardanelles|Dar''dan''elles]], the [[Danube|''Dan''ube]], [[Macedonia (region)|Mace''don''ia]], [[Dunkirk|''Dun''kirk]], [[Dungloe|''Dun''glow]] in Ireland, [[Dundee|''Dun''dee]] in Scotland, [[Sweden|Swe''den'']], and [[London|Lon''don'']],<ref name="Brackney 2012"/><ref>{{cite book |last=Kelly |first=Aidan A. |title=The Evangelical Christian Anti-Cult Movement: Christian Counter-Cult Literature |location=New York |publisher=Garland Publishing |year=1990 |page=86}}</ref><ref name=Spittler>{{cite book |last=Spittler |first=Russell P. |title=Cults and isms: twenty alternatives to evangelical Christianity |publisher=Baker Book House Company |location=Grand Rapids, MI |year=1963 |page=101}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Friedman |first=O. Michael |title=Origins of the British Israelites: The Lost Tribes |publisher=Mellen Research University Press |location=San Francisco |year=1993 |page=62}}</ref> and ascribed to this lost tribe the mythical Irish ''[[Tuatha Dé Danann]]''.<ref name=TJE600/> In the name of the [[Celtic Britons|British]] they see ''berith''ish, referring to the [[Covenant (biblical)|Hebrew covenant with God]].<ref name="Brackney 2012"/>

[[File:Declaration of arbroath.jpg|thumb|The 'Tyninghame' copy of the [[Declaration of Arbroath]] from 1320 AD]]
[[Bede]] (died 735) had linked the [[Picts]] to the Scythians, but British Israelists suggested that he had confused the two tribes of Scotland, and that it was the ''Scotti'' (Scots) who were one with the ''Scoloti'' (Scyths) of Herodotus.<ref name=Merrill>{{cite book |last=Merrill |first=A. H. |title=History and Geography in Late Antiquity |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |year=2005 |pages=284–5}}</ref> They drew particular support from the derivation of the Scots from the Scythians found in the 1320 [[Declaration of Arbroath]],<ref name=Allen1917/>{{rp|262}} reflecting a tradition related in the 9th-century ''[[Historia Brittonum]]'' that the Scots descended from the union of a Scythian exile with Scota, daughter of a [[Pharaoh]], a tale found in some form in several other early-14th-century historical and poetic sources.<ref>{{cite book |last=Broun |first=Dauvit |title=The Irish Identity of the Kingdom of the Scots in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries |publisher=Boydell Press |location=Woodbridge, England |year=1999 |pages=78–79,119–122}}</ref> The Declaration begins:
<blockquote>"Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the [[Tyrrhenian Sea]] and the [[Pillars of Hercules]], and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today."<ref>{{cite web |title=Declaration of Arbroath – English Translation |website=Constitution Society |url=http://www.constitution.org/scot/arbroath.htm}}</ref></blockquote>

British-Israel Associations cite the Declaration as evidence for the link between the Scots and the Scythians, and hence the Lost Tribes,<ref>For example, {{cite book |title="Lost Israelite Identity": The Hebraic Ancestry of Celtic Races |last=Davidy |first=Yair |publisher=Brit-Am |year=1996 |pages=240–242}}, {{cite book |last1=Ogwyn |first1=John H. |title=The United States and Britain in Prophecy |pages=27–28}}</ref> as had been proposed by the early British Israelist etymologists.<ref name=Allen1917/>{{rp|285–296}}

Other Celtic invaders would be given an analogous descent. In the [[Welsh people|Welsh]] (''Cymry'') the British Israelists would see a direct connection through the [[Cimbri]] to the Cimmerians, the ''Gimirri'' of [[Neo-Assyrian Empire|Assyrian]] annals,<ref name=Pierard1996>{{cite book |last=Pierard |first=Richard V. |contribution=The Contribution of British-Israelism to anti-Semitism within conservative Protestantism |title=Holocaust and church struggle: religion, power, and the politics of resistance |editor-last=Locke |editor-first=Hubert G. |editor-last2=Littell |editor-first2=Marcia Sachs |publisher=University Press of America |year=1996 |pages=44–68}}</ref>{{rp|57}} a name sometimes also given by the ancient [[Babylonians]] to the Scythians and Saka.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gershevych |first=Ilya |title=The Cambridge History of Iran, volume 2: The Median and Achaemenian Periods |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |year=1985 |page=94}}</ref> Perceived similarity between this and the name by which the Assyrian annals referred to Israel, ''Bit Khumri'', would lead the British Israelists to claim that the Welsh too were members of the Lost Tribes.<ref name=Pierard1996/>{{rp|57}}

According to the Anglo-Israelists, these claimed connections would make the British the literal descendants of the Lost Tribes, and thus inheritors of the promises made to the Israelites in the Old Testament.<ref name="Katz">{{cite book |last=Katz |first=David S. |author-link=David S. Katz |editor1-last=Fiering |editor1-first=Norman |editor1-link=Norman Fiering |editor2-last=Bernardini |editor2-first=Paolo |title=The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West, 1450 to 1800 |publisher=[[Berghahn Books]] |date=2001 |location=New York, NY |chapter=Chapter 5: Israel in America: The Wanderings of the Lost Ten Tribes from Mikveigh Yisrael to Timothy McVeigh |isbn=1-57181-153-2 |page=112 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m0JAGMuePO0C |access-date=18 February 2021}}</ref>

===The British throne is a continuation of the Davidic throne===
Some adherents further claim that the [[British royal family]] is of lineal descent from the [[Davidic line|house]] of [[King David]] via a daughter of [[Zedekiah]], the last king of [[Kings of Judah|Judah]]. According to this legend, the prophet [[Book of Jeremiah|Jeremiah]], and his scribe, [[Baruch ben Neriah|Baruch]], escaped with "the king's daughters" (Jer. 41:10; 43:6) to Egypt. They later travelled to Ireland, where one of the surviving Judahite princesses, [[list of legendary kings of Britain#Tea Tephi|Tea Tephi]], married a local [[High King of Ireland]]. From this fabled union the Davidic throne was supposedly preserved, having been transferred to Ireland, then Scotland, and later England, whence the British monarchs are alleged to have descended.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hexham |first=Irving |contribution=British Israelism |title=Evangelical Dictionary of Theology |edition=2 |editor-last=Elwell |editor-first=Walter A. |publisher=Baker Book House Company |location=Grand Rapids, MI |year=2001 |page=187}}</ref> The [[Stone of Scone]], which has been used in the coronations of Scottish, English, and British monarchs for centuries, is traditionally claimed to be the [[Stone of Jacob|pillow stone]] on which the biblical patriarch, Jacob, slept, and the stone used in David's coronation.<ref name="Brackney 2012"/>

===Britain and the United States are the inheritors of Jacob's birthright===
A commonly held British-Israel doctrine is the belief that the [[Tribe of Ephraim]] and the [[Tribe of Manasseh]] can be identified as modern day Britain and the United States of America.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ferris |first1=A. J. |title=Great Britain & The U.S.A. Revealed as Israel The New Order |date=1941}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Glover |first1=Frederick Robert Augustus |title=England, the Remnant of Judah and the Israel of Ephraim |date=1881 |publisher=Rivingtons}}</ref><ref name=ArmstrongH/>

Part of the foundation of the British-Israel doctrine is the theological claim that particular blessings were bestowed upon three of the tribes of Israel,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wild |first1=Joseph |title=The Future of Israel and Judah: Being the Discourses on the Lost Tribes from How and when the World Will End |date=1888 |publisher=Nabu Press |isbn=9781287712565 |page=108}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Standard of Israel and journal of the Anglo-Israel association |date=1875 |page=8}}</ref><ref name=ArmstrongH>{{cite book |last1=Armstrong |first1=Herbert W. |title=The United States and Britain in Prophecy |publisher=[[Philadelphia Church of God]] |date=2007 |asin=B002ILY91A}}</ref><ref name=Allen1917/>{{rp|317}} in that the Tribe of Judah was to be the 'chief ruler' e.g. King David, and Ephraim was to receive the birthright (See [[Jacob and Esau]]). Adherents believe that these blessings have continued down through the ages to modern times, with the British Monarchy being identified as the continued blessing upon Judah, and both Britain (Ephraim) and the USA (Manasseh) as recipients of the national birthright blessing.
They cite passages such as 1 Chron 5:1–2 and Gen 48:19–20 in order to support their claim.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}