THE ORIGINS OF THE JEWS



I believe this article was written by Sheldon Emery of the Lord's Covenant Church sometime in the 80's.



Was Abraham a Jew?
   It has often been stated that Abraham was the first Jew.
The Bible, however, never calls Abraham by that term and for good reason. The word "Jew" is merely the modern English contraction for the word "Judahite" or "Judean." Thus, the question is not really whether Abraham was a Jew or not; but rather, was Abraham a Judahite?That is, was Abraham of the tribe of Judah? Obviously not, for Abraham preceded the tribe of Judah by 3 generations.
   Abraham was a Semite (a descendant of Shem), and he was also a Hebrew (a descendant of Heber or Eber). But to say that Abraham was a Judahite is to say that he descended from his own great-grandson! That is impossible.
   The descendants of Judah (Heb., Yehudah) were known as Yehudim, which means "Judahite." The New Testament, written in Greek, uses the term Ioudaioi, which is best translated "Judeans."
It is somewhat confusing that almost all Bible translations employ the word "Jew" instead of Judahite or Judean. But once we learn to read Judahite or Judean, the distinctions in the Bible between Hebrews, Israelites and "Jews" is clarified. But let us concentrate for now upon the various meanings of the Biblical term "Judahite."
   The Bible uses the word "Judahite" in three distinct way:
(1) one who is of the tribe of Judah in the racial sense;
(2) one who is a citizen of the southern Nation of Judah, including the tribes of Benjamin and Levi; it may even include Canaanites and Edomites who are citizens of Judah;
(3) one who is a follower of the religion of Judah as given by Moses and the prophets. This usage is found in Esther 8:17 and Romans 2:28,29.

The Edomite Connection

   The nation of Judah, comprising the Israelite tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi, were conquered and deported to Babylon 600 years before Christ. After a 70-year captivity, about 50,000 of them returned to rebuild Jerusalem.
Ezra and Nehemiah both had a difficult time keeping them from intermarrying with the heathen who had settled in Palestine during their absence. They often had to institute reforms to cleanse the people and even the priests form these unlawful marriage relationships. (See Ezra 2:62; 9:1,2; Nehemiah 7:64; 12:23-30.)
   About a century and a half later, when Alexander the Great Conquered the known world and set up his Greek empire, the Greek language began to become the dominant language of the would. It was not long before the Hebrew term Yehudah ("Judahite") was replaced by the Greek term Ioudaioi ("Judeans"). This is why the New Testament (written in Greek) speaks of Judeans instead of Judahites. However, both terms have roughly the same meaning.
   Between the time of Nehemiah and the birth of Christ, the problem of intermarriage increased. The climax of the problem came about a century and a half before the birth of Christ, when the Judean, John Hyrcanus, conquered the heathen cities in Palestine and forced the Canaanites to become Judeans ("Jews"). Josephus, the Judean historian, writing in about 95 A.D., wrote of this:
Hyrcanus took also Dora and Marissa, cities of Idumea (Greek form of Edom), and subdued all the Idumeans; and permitted them to stay in that country, if they would be circumcised, and make use of the laws of the Judeans; and they were so desirous of living in the country of their forefathers, that they submitted to the use of circumcision, and the rest of the Judean ways of living; at which time therefore this befell them, that they were hereafter no other than Judeans (Antiq., Bk. 13, ch9, par. 1).
A footnote in Josephus quotes Ammonius, an ancient grammarian, who says further:
The Judeans are such by nature, and form the beginning, whist the Idumeans were not Judeans from the beginning, but Phoenicians and Syrians; but being afterward subdued by the Judeans and compelled to be circumcised, and to unite into one nation, and be subject to the same laws, they were called Judeans.
This same footnote also quotes Dio, the ancient historian:
That country is also called Judea, and the people Judeans; and this name is given also to as many as embrace their religion, though of other nations.
   Josephus continues his history of how the Judahites incorporated the Edomites and Canaanites with a history of the son of Hyrcanus, named Aristobulus:
He was called a lover of the Grecians; and had conferred many benefits on his own country, and made war against Iturea, and added a great part of it to Judea, and compelled its inhabitants, if they would continue in that country, to be circumcised, and to live according to the Judean laws (Jos., Antiq., Bk 13, ch 11, par. 3).
Now at this time the Judeans wee in possession of the following cities that had belonged to the Syrians, and Idumeans, and Phoenicians: (Here he List 23 non-Israelite cities); which last (city) they utterly destroyed, because its inhabitants would not bear to change their religious rites for those peculiar to the Judeans. The Judeans also possessed others of the principle cities of Syria, which had been destroyed (Jos., Antiq., Bk. 13, ch. 15, par. 4).
   This all took place at least a century before Christ. It is obvious, then that by the time Christ was born a great host of the people living in Judea were Canaanites and Edomites by race, although they were Judeans by religion and by citizenship. Even the ruling dynasty of the Herods were Edomites. Josephus speaks of "Herod, who was no more than a private man, and an Idumean, i.e., a half-Judean" (Antiq., Bk. 14, ch 15, par. 2). A footnote here says: Accordingly, Josephus always esteems him an Idumean, though he says his father Antipater was of the same people with the Judeans, and a Judean by birth, as indeed all such proselytes of justice as the Idumeans, were in time esteemed the very same people with the Judeans.
   The Jewish Encyclopedia,1925 edition, vol. 5, p. 41, says:"Edom is in Modern Jewery."
   The Esau-Edomite nation ("Idumea") ceased to exist as a separate nation at this point in history. And yet the Bible is clear that Edom would be the enemy of Israel in the latter days. How could these prophecies be fulfilled, if there are no Edomites left in the world? There is only one nation in the world that can prove ancestral ties with Edom, and the Jews themselves claim that dubious distinction.
   The Jews have thus adopted the materialistic and anti-Christ attitude that characterized the father of the Edomites, Esau. As judgment for their sins, including that of the crucifixion of Christ, God cast them out of Palestine in 70 A.D., whereupon they fled to North Africa and Spain.
We find what happened to them in the American People's Encyclopedia for 1954, p 15-492, under "The Jews."
Following their dispersal many spread across North Africa to Spain and during this movement converted many of the Berber tribes to Judaism. This had little effect on Physical type, since most of the Berbers were likewise of Mediterranean race. That portion which moved into Spain and later northward Achieved considerable wealth and prestige and became known as Sephardim Jews.
   There are two main racial branches of modern Jewry:
the Sephardic Jews of Western Europe and the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe. Thus far we have dealt only with the Sephardic Jews, and in conclusion we may say that according to historians the Sephardic branch of modern Jewry is a mixture of Judean blood with that of Edom, Syria, Canaan, Phoenicia, and North Africa.

The Ashkenazim

In our study of the origins of this Eastern European branch of world Jewry, we shall allow the historians to tell the story. The history of the Ashkenazi Jews is almost unknown today, in spite of the fact that there are 327 books in the New York Public Library alone that deal with this history-in addition to the Jewish Encyclopedia. It is the story of the Khazars and their conversion to Judaism.
"In the year 740 A.D. the Khazars were officially converted to Judaism. A century later they were crushed by the incoming Slavic-speaking people and were scattered over central Europe where they were known as Jews. it is from this grouping that most German and Polish Jews are descended, and they likewise makeup a considerable part of that population now found in America. The term Ashkenazim is applied to this round-headed, dark-complexioned division" (The American People's Encyclopedia, 1954, p. 15-492).
In the 1960's, the number of Sephardim was estimated at 500,000. The ashkenazim, at the same period, numbered about eleven million. Thus, in common parlance, Jew is practically synonymous with Ashkenazi Jew (Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe, p. 181).
That the Khazars are the lineal ancestors of Eastern European Jewry is an historical fact. Jewish historians and religious textbooks acknowledge the fact, though the propagandist of Jewish nationalism belittle it as pro-Arab propaganda (Alfred Lilienthal, What Price Israel, p. 222).
Chazars: a people of Turkish origin whose life and history are interwoven with the very beginnings of the history of the Jews of Russia (Jewish Encyclopedia, 3rd edition, 1925).    Thus we see that the Jews themselves are will aware of the Khazar origin of Eastern European Jewry. But who were the Khazars? Where did they come from? Again, we shall allow Jewish historians to answer our questions:
The Khazars were not "Semites." They were an Asiatic Mongoloid nation. They are classified by modern anthropologist as Turco-Finns racially (Dr. Benjamin Freedman, Facts are Facts, p. 41).
Khazars:A Mongolian people who embraced Judaism and flourished from the 8th through the 10th centuries on the territory extending between the Don and the Volga rivers, and the shores of the Black, Caspian, and Azov Seas. The Story of the existence of such converts to Judaism reached the Jewish statesman Hasdai ibn Shaprut of Cordova in the 10th century. As a result, Shaprut wrote a letter which was ultimately received by Joseph, king of the Khazars...
In his reply, king Joseph gave a detailed account of the history of the kingdom of the Khazars...(The New Jewish Encyclopedia, 1962).
Joseph then proceeds to provide a genealogy of his people. Though a fierce Jewish nationalist, proud of wielding the "Scepter of Judah," he cannot, and does not claim for them Semitic descent: he traces their ancestry not to Shem, but to Noah's third son, Japheth; or more precisely to Japheth's grandson, Togarmah, the ancestor of all Turkish tribes. "We have found in the family register of our fathers," Joseph asserts boldly, "that Togarma had ten sons, and the names of their offspring are as follows: Uigur, Dursu, Avars, Huns, Basilli, Tarniakh, Khazars, Zagora, Bulgars, Sabir. We are the sons of Khazar, the seventh... (Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe, p. 72).
For the sake of piquantry it should be mentioned that the Ashkenaz of the Bible refer to a people living somewhere in the vicinity of Mount Ararat and Armenia. The name occurs in Genesis 10:3 and 1 Chronicles 1:6 as one of the sons of Gomer, who was a son of Japheth. Ashkenaz is also a brother of Togarmah (and a nephew of Magog) whom the Khazars, according to King Joseph, claim as their ancestor (Ibid., p. 181).
   Thus we see that the Khazars themselves claimed that their ancestry came through Japheth's grandson Togarmah, the brother of Ashkenaz. Strictly speaking, then the Ashkenazi Jews are misnamed, for they are not directly descended from Ashkenaz, but from his brother. However, this matters little to us in this study, so long as we recognize that nine-tenth of world Jewry is of Togarmah, rather than of Israel. The Bible says in Gen. 10:1-3, Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and unto them were sons born after the flood. The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz and Riphath and Togarmah.

Gog and Magog in Modern Jewry

   As Arthur Koestler pointed out earlier, Togarmah was a nephew of Magog. Here the plot begins to thicken, for most students of Bible prophecy will immediately recognize that name form reading Ezekiel 38 and 39. In this passage, Togarmah, Magog, Meshech, and Tubal are all mentioned in connection with the great end-time invasion of the land of Israel. They are pictured as INVADERS,not as Israelites.
The identification of the Jewish Khazars with Gog and Magog is very old. Koestler writes on page 81: at some date earlier than 864, the Westphalian monk, Christian Druthmar of Aquitania, wrote a Latin treatise Expositio in Evangelium Mattei, in which he reports that "there exist people under the sky in regions where no Christians can be found, whose name is Gog and Magog, and who are Huns; among them is one, called the Gazari (Khazars) who are circumcised and observe Judaism in its entirety." This remark occurs a propos of Matthew 24:14 which has no apparent bearing on it, and no more is heard of the subject.
   Koestler continues with the story of Ibn Fadlan, an Arab traveler who visited Gazaria (the Khazars) in 922 A.D., concluding his account of his travels with these words:
The Khazars and their king are all Jews. The Bulgars and all their neighbors are subject to him. They treat him with worshipful obedience. Some are of the opinion that Gog and Magog are the Khazars (p. 46).
   There is also evidence of an Edomite connection with the Khazars. The Jewish Encyclopedia, in commenting on the letter which Hasdai ibn Shaprut wrote to King Joseph, says: " In this letter Hasdai speaks of the tradition according to which the Chazars once dwelt near the Seir (serir) Mountains." The Bible identities the Edomites as having lived in Mount Seir in Genesis 36:8, "Thus dwelt Esau in Mount Seir; Esau is Edom."

The Communist Connection

   "Edom" literally means RED,and it is certainly no coincidence that the major theorists and financiers of world communism have been Jews. That they should pick red as the color of their Edomite banner is quite fitting. However, this color was associated with the Khazars many centuries earlier, according to Koestler on page 135:
The legends which circulated among Western Jews in the Middle ages provided a curious parallel to the Russian bylinda. To quote Poliak again: "The popular Jewish legend does not remember a Khazar Kingdom but a kingdom of the RED JEWS.
   When the Khazar empire was finally destroyed by the Russians from the north, the Khazar-Jews began to disperse into what is now called Poland and Germany, as well as into other Eastern European lands. However, they continue to multiply and remained the most populous branch of world Jewry.
   The destruction of the Khazar empire brought many Khazars into contact with their fellow Jews of the Sephardim. Together, they continue their anti-Christian activity, mainly through their practice of usury, until finally the Christian nations of Europe began to banish them.
   As they left, their usurious monetary practices left with them, and the European Renaissance began. Koestler quotes Cecil Roth, a Jewish historian, as writing: "In a sense, the Jewish dark ages may be said to begin with the Renaissance" (p. 178). Thus, God blessed the Christian nations when they expelled His enemies of Edom, Gog land Magog.
   However, the tide changed when the Khazar-Jews of Gog and Magog finally succeeded in overthrowing the Russians in what became known as the Communist Revolution. This was carried out with the monetary backing of the Jewish banking houses in Western Europe and America.
Thus the rise of Togarmah, Ashkenaz, Gog, Magog, Meshech (ancient name for Moscow), Gomer, and Tubal (ancient name for Tobolsk) as prophecied in Ezekiel 38 and 39 is none other than the rise of the Bolshevik Khazar-Jews of Eastern Europe. Prophecy is unfolding before our very eyes, but as long as the true racial origin of the Jews remains hidden from Christians, few will understand how it is being fulfilled.
   The Soviet Khazar-Jews of Gog, Magog, and Togarmah have already invaded Palestine and stolen it from the Arabs, as Ezekiel prophesied. The Arabs, who know the origin of the vast majority of the Jews entering Palestine today find it difficult to understand why Americans would support such an invasion. The Khazars were the traditional enemies of the Arabs during the Middle Ages, and so they recognize the true nature of the invasion.
   The Jews who control the Soviet government have tried to cover their historic tracks in order to prevent the Christians in the West from dropping their support for Jewish Zionism.
They know that without such support from the Christians, their entire venture would be jeopardized.
Thus, Arthur Koestler states on page 93 of his book:
It is sad to report in this context that more than a thousand years after the events under discussion, the Soviet regime has done its best to expunge the memory of the Khazars' historic role and cultural achievements.
   The Soviet Jews have also taken great pains to convince the Christian West that it is no longer controlled by the Jews and that somehow the Jews have lost control of Russia after having ruled it during its early years. Thus, they have staged Jewish "demonstrations" in Moscow, emphasizing the "downtrodden Jew" theme, so that the government would be "forced" into allowing the Jews to leave Russia.
Is it not strange, however, that similar demonstrations by Christians receive no publicity in the Jewish-controlled media? Is it not strange that Christians are NEVER allowed to leave? Is it not strange that Jews are the only class in Soviet Russia that is privileged enough to leave at all?
   For documentation with names, places dates and pictures of the Bolshevik Jews who took over Russia in the so-called "Russian Revolution," see Behind Communism, by Frank Britton. It is available from the Lord's Covenant Church.

The Struggle for the Birthright

    What is it, then, that the Jews today wish to hide from the Christians? This question goes far deeper than merely the Jewish identification with Edom. The implications of this identification involve the history of the ancient conflict between Jacob and Esau over the birthright, or who the chosen people of God really are.
   Jacob and Esau were twin sons of Isaac, the son of Abraham. In Genesis 25 we are told that these twin sons appeared to struggle with each other even before they were born (vs. 22). Esau became the firstborn, and so the birthright was supposed to be passed on to him. However, God had rejected Esau before they were even born (Rom.9:11), and thus Jacob eventually inherited the birthright.
   Esau was extremely angry over this turn of events-angry at Jacob and angry at Jacob's God (Jesus Christ).
From that point in history to the present time, Esau has always struggled to regain the lost birthright. The children of Esau want more than anything to be regarded as the "chosen people," and if God will not choose them and bless them, then they will choose themselves.
   Revelation 16-18 tells us of a "great whore that sitteth upon many waters." This is a picture of the FALSE BRIDE OF CHRIST, who is now attempting to usurp the rulership over the earth-the inheritance that Jacob received as a part of the birthright. This "woman" rides a RED beast of red communism. She is said to be drunken with the blood of saints. The beast has seven heads, which are said to be 7 mountains, for Moscow is a city that sits on 7 hills. This woman is the great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
   This "city" is the counterfeit "New Jerusalem," which God was to set up at the end time to rule all nations. The Edomite Jews have set up this false city in order to fool the Christians into thinking that they are God's chosen people, the holders of the birthright of Abraham. And they have done so by careful planning and by calling themselves Judeans and their plans Zionism. They have succeeded in gaining a great deal of support among the Christians, whom they have deceived by hiding their true history.
   Thus, we see the tremendous importance of discovering the true origins of the Jews. If the Christians had known that the Jews were of Edom, Gog, Magog, and Togarmah, they would not have been tricked into supporting the antichrists and beasts described in the book of Revelation.

Jewish Zionism prophesied in the Bible

   Jesus told a parable in Luke 19 of "a certain nobleman" who was to leave and then return (speaking of Christ's going to heaven and later returning). He gave His SERVANTS money with instructions to increase it in His absence. Verse 14, however, tells of another class of people who are not His servants: "But His CITIZENS hated Him and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us."
  l The citizens thus described the Jews of Christ's day perfectly, for they were citizens of the remains of Christ's kingdom on the earth. At the return of the nobleman (Christ), he gave each servant what he deserved. However, verse 27 says: "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, BRING HITHER and slay them before Me." In other words, bring them back here to Jerusalem and execute them! It was necessary that they be brought back to the place where they committed their crime, in order that they could be judged legally and properly.
We find similar laws in America, where the criminal must be tried in the county where the crime was committed. So we see that Jesus actually prophesied the return of the Jews to Palestine-NOT to inherit the kingdom, but to be judged for their refusal to have Christ rule over them!
   In the first chapter of Malachi, the prophet reveals the activities of the Edomites in the latter days in reference to their false Zionism:
1. The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
2. I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye (Israel) say, Wherein has thou loved us? saith the Lord; yet I loved Jacob,
3. And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
4. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and rebuild the desolate place; Thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they (Israel) shall call them the border of wickedness, and the people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever.
   We see from this passage that God had laid Esau's mountains (nation) and heritage waste and had given the birthright to Jacob instead. But Esau rebelled against God and vowed to return to Palestine and rebuild.
God's verdict is that He would "throw down" all they have built.
   At that time, God says, those Edomites would be known as "the border of wickedness" and would be called "the people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever."
They would no longer be known as God's chosen people, but as the Accursed people of Edom, those who absolutely refuse to have the God of Jacob rule over them, those who hated the God who "stole" the birthright from their father Esau thousands of years ago. They will never forgive Jesus Christ for doing that to them, and they would rather die than acknowledge Him as their King. Thus, Jesus told the Jewish Pharisees:
    The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof (Matt. 21:43).
For further study regarding the identity of that nation who was to inherit God's kingdom, see heirs of the Promise, Abrahm's Children, available from Lord's Covenant Church.
   Another Old Testament prophet who speaks of Edom in the latter days is Ezekiel. Chapter 35 and 36 of Ezekiel speak of the bloody character of the Edomites (35:5,6), their envy and hatred of Jacob for being chosen of God (35:5,11), and their burning desire to possess Palestine:
Because thou (Edom) hast said, These two nations (Israel and Judah) and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas the Lord was there (35:10):
Thus saith the Lord God: Because the enemy (Edom) hath said against you (Israel), Aha, even the ancient high places (centers of Baal worship), are ours in possession (36:2).
Therefore this saith the Lord God; Surely in the fire of My jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Idumea (Edom), which have appointed My land into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with despiteful minds, to cast it out for a prey (36:5).
   Notice in 36:2 quoted above that Edom's motivation in possessing Palestine is NOT that they may worship the God of Israel, Jesus Christ, but that they may possess "the ancient high places," which were the hills on which the "groves" were situated. These are the holy places of the Edomite and Canaanites, whose national religion was Baal worship! All religions have sacred spots that are meaningful to their respective religions. The Edomites are no exception. The Edomite Jews covet Palestine in order to repossess the sacred sites of their Baal religion!
Obviously, Dr. Bailey Smith was correct when he said that God does not hear the prayer of a Jew. It would be blasphemous to teach that God would hear an unrepentant worshiper of Baal or any other false religion.
   The book of Obadiah deals entirely with this conflict between Jacob and Esau. Verse 18, 19, and 21 conclude this book with the following proclamation by God Almighty:
18 And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the Lord hath spoken it.
19 And they of the south (Judah) shall possess the mount of Esau...
21 And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord's.
   Thank God for this great promise. The evil designs of Edom, with their confederates of Gog, Magog, and Togarmah, shall not succeed. Their bloody scheming of Red Communism shall not ultimately prevail. The Messianic Age shall not be ruled by Esau's "Messiah," but by Jacob's. The great whore shall be exposed as an imposter, and the true Bride of Christ shall be given her rightful position in the kingdom, for God has chosen her.

TO THE READER:
It is obvious to all that the Jews hate Christ and Christianity. The facts above reveal the true origin of that hatred; namely, the Jews today are Edomites, and their allies from Eastern Europe are Gog and Magog! Thus, they are merely fulfilling Bible prophecy.

Lord's covenant Church
P.O. Box 157
Sandpoint, ID. 83864