The Four Horsemen and Palestine

[Truth7t7]

Jesus condemned the teachings of the religious leaders of his time and foretold the destruction of the temple?

Jesus foretold no such thing

None of us can prevent them from defending their right to exist or reclaim the blessings God promised for them.

God has no future promised blessing for a National Ethnic Israel, just the opposite

 

[Barraco]

Jesus foretold no such thing

God has no future promised blessing for a National Ethnic Israel, just the opposite

I’m beginning to think you’re just messing with me.

““Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭23‬:‭37‬-‭39‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭24‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭11‬:‭1‬-‭6‬, ‭25‬-‭32‬ ‭NIV‬‬

 

[Truth7t7]

‬“Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭24‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The temple to be destroyed was the Lord's body not a physical temple in Jerusalem that took 46 tears to build as the pharisee's belueved

John 2:18-22KJV
18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?
19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
21 But he spake of the temple of his body.
22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

 

[Truth7t7]

I’m beginning to think you’re just messing with me.

““Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭23‬:‭37‬-‭39‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭24‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭11‬:‭1‬-‭6‬, ‭25‬-‭32‬ ‭NIV‬‬

God has a Remnant elect Jew that is chosen who God foreknew, they will be saved and "Added" to the church on this earth, National Ethnic Israel Will Be blinded and not obtain salvation

Romans 11:1-8KJV
1 I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel saying,
3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
4 But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.
8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear unto this day.

 

[Barraco]

The temple to be destroyed was the Lord's body not a physical temple in Jerusalem that took 46 tears to build as the pharisee's belueved

John 2:18-22KJV
18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?
19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
21 But he spake of the temple of his body.
22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

That wasn't the context of Matthew 24. It begins with the disciples pointing out the temple and Jesus plainly tells them it will be destroyed.

 

[Barraco]

God has a Remnant elect Jew that is chosen who God foreknew, they will be saved and "Added" to the church on this earth, National Ethnic Israel Will Be blinded and not obtain salvation

Romans 11:1-8KJV
1 I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel saying,
3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
4 But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.
8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear unto this day.

The rest were blinded with a temporary blindness. Replacement theology isn't biblical. God made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His promises did not depend on their faithfulness to the covenant. The Law drew that distinction so that only the people that desired and loved God could partake of His promises. In the event that an entire generation would be corrupt, God would always preserve a remnant. That does not mean that only a remnant will be saved. Let us hope and pray for the spirit of grace and supplication to come upon the house of David and house of Jerusalem. May they all soon say, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord."

 

[Truth7t7]

That wasn't the context of Matthew 24. It begins with the disciples pointing out the temple and Jesus plainly tells them it will be destroyed.

Scripture interprets Scripture, Jesus openly stated the temple to be destroyed was his body

When Jesus died on the cross of Calvary the veil in the holy place in the temple was torn, destroyed in the spiritual "Gone"!

John 2:18-22KJV
18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?
19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
21 But he spake of the temple of his body.
22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

 

[Truth7t7]

The rest were blinded with a temporary blindness. Replacement theology isn't biblical. God made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His promises did not depend on their faithfulness to the covenant. The Law drew that distinction so that only the people that desired and loved God could partake of His promises. In the event that an entire generation would be corrupt, God would always preserve a remnant. That does not mean that only a remnant will be saved. Let us hope and pray for the spirit of grace and supplication to come upon the house of David and house of Jerusalem. May they all soon say, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord."

Reality check, God isn't a liar "Israel Hath Not Obtained" simple, clear, and before your eyes

Romans 11:7-8KJV
7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.
8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear unto this day.

 

[Hazelelponi]

Reality check, God isn't a liar "Israel Hath Not Obtained" simple, clear, and before your eyes

Romans 11:7-8KJV
7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.
8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear unto this day.

I do believe that places Israel as equal to everyone else however. Individually saved as they learn about Christ and come to faith.

They have the same invitation to the Gospel of Christ as we all do.

 

[DennisF]

Thanks for your reply. However, you haven't shown (as far as I can see) that the four federations/horsemen are in fact as you stated before, the British Empire and America, Russia, EU and Islam. All the bible commentaries say that the in Zechariah 6, "the north country" is Babylon, and "the south country is Egypt. In Daniel 7, the same commentaries says that the first beast was Babylon, the second the Medo-Persian empire, the third the Greek empire, and the fourth the Roman empire. These were all great federations.

I agree, though none of these ancient nations were "federations"; that's a modern political idea.

I am amazed at the extent of speculation nowadays about biblical eschatology. Careful reading of scripture is more valuable than elaborate speculative schemes with arbitrary assignments of symbolism, especially when scripture usually tells us what the symbols mean.

 

[DennisF]

I do believe that places Israel as equal to everyone else however. Individually saved as they learn about Christ and come to faith.

They have the same invitation to the Gospel of Christ as we all do.

What appears to be largely overlooked nowadays by American Christians is that both OT and NT make a distinction between the roles and destinies of the divided kingdoms of Judea (lower kingdom of Israel) and Greater Israel (upper kingdom). They are not the same and any eschatology that fails to make this distinction is going to also fail. The key question to find the answer to is

Whatever happened to Israel after their deportations by the Assyrians?​

Without a clear answer to this question, eschatological efforts are hopeless. My extended answer follows this reply.
​

 

[Hazelelponi]

My extended answer follows this reply

With or without my adding anything. I don't know where you're going with this.

I see the division but I don't know where God is going with it... We are still tied together somehow.

 

[DennisF]

Eschatology 2​

In research, whether it be scientific, engineering, or legal, progress is made when the right questions are asked and pursued. Eschatological research is no different. A key question of history has a major bearing on the eschatological picture, a question that has been asked and its answer pursued for centuries in the past. The answer either relegates biblical history to the parochial dustbin or elevates it as the central thread winding through human history, pointing to human destiny. Ironically, the enigmatic answer has eluded both academic history (for reasons to be given later) and the general cultural understanding, yet abundant historical evidence exists to answer it quite affirmatively. And the question is

Whatever happened to the Israelite tribes after their Assyrian deportation?

This is relevant to eschatology because "Israel" appears in various modern eschatological schemes and also because various claims are made in scripture by Yahweh that apply to the nation of Israel. In our time, the word can mean, depending on your theology:

1. That they died out or were assimilated into surrounding people. (Hosea 1:10 says otherwise, though Hosea 8:8 indicates that they will no longer be among themselves but among other nations - notably in cities in Media-Persia.) This presumption crept in after the few who could read Assyrian cuneiform could not find "Israel" in the clay tablets of Nineveh after it was unearthed and moved to the British Museum in London. Yahweh told Israel that he was divorcing them, that they would not henceforth be called by his name (Hosea 1:9). And so it is that Israel is referred to in the Assyrian tablets by their Assyrian name, the "house of Omri" (Bet Kumbri). They did not fade into the woodwork. A century later, they were a force to contend with, and in early AD, some of the Israelite tribes became the Parthian empire. After being weakened in a phyrric victory over the Romans, Parthia was vulnerable to the religiously hostile Persians and was collapsed by them in 226 AD. The Parthians immediately migrated west en masse through the Caucasus to avoid the wrath of the Persians and to join their kinsmen, the Scythians.

2. the Jews. This is a popular evangelical answer, that all that remains of the minor population of a people confined to the minor geographic location of the Levant as Israelites are people who today are called "Jews".

The use of distinct words as labels that trigger distinct meanings in our minds is essential for reducing confusion and clarifying understanding. I have found this to be particularly true of the word "Jew". To distinguish among meanings that differ, I offer the following deconflating definitions:

Israelite: descendant of Israel (Jacob), son of Isaac, son of Abraham
Israeli: citizen of the modern state of Israel
Judahite: descendant of Judah
Judean: descendant of lower-kingdom Israel in Judea
Jew: descendant of the people called that who moved from the Khazarian region of Asia into Europe during the Middle Ages
Judaist: follower of Judaism
Yahwist: follower of the god of Israel, YHWH or Yahweh; not necessarily the same as Judaist.
Shemite: descendant of Noah's son Shem, including modern-day Arabs and various other ethnicities, largely scattered about the Middle East
Semite: follower of the Egyptian god Sem
Anti-semite: opponent of the Egyptian god Sem? In common usage, this instead means "anti-Jew", contributing confusion

These word distinctions are not made in popular or political use today and consequently confusion abounds!

There is a modern controversy in both Judaism and among some Christians over the ethnicity of Jews. Are they Israelites or Khazar Turks, descendants of Ashkenaz, the "father" of the Turks? The apostle John refers twice in Revelation to "false Judeans" (usually translated "false Jews"). I will not address this larger topic here.

3. the church. This is called "replacement theology", that the Christian church has replaced Old Testament (OT) Israel. As we will see, much of the church throughout church history has consisted of Israelites (Hosea 3:5), and by Jesus's strategy the gospel was delivered first to Israelites. But to leave it at that raises conflicts with language given by Yahweh in scripture such as the Davidic covenant - that David's dynasty would continue perpetually - and also promises made by Yahweh to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that their progeny would be like the stars of the heavens or the sands of the sea - a major population group.

This replacement alternative tends to revert in the direction of the heresy of Marcion - that the OT and NT Gods are different, and that the OT can be disregarded if not repudiated. However, every concept in the NT finds its foundation in the OT. Jesus's sacrificial death is meaningless without the legal basis for it in the OT, and to separate them leaves a "Christianity" without a foundation. Replacement theology does not go that far, but it undermines the forward-looking claims of Yahweh, driving Bible students to distrust the OT covenant claims. One can ask, as did the scoffers in Malachi's time, where is the evidence today of God's claims in history of a perpetual dynasty of David or a large population group of Israelites? We will find that it depends crucially on the answer to the above question.

4. descendants of Israel. This is tautologically the correct answer, but where are they? The answer is substantial, and if given simply is not immediately believable to Westerners. The reason is that we have been taught a version of history that does not come from the Bible and Ancient Near East (ANE) archaeology but from the Western university scholars of the Middle Ages. Before the rediscovery and recovery of the Greek and Roman (or "classical") writings via the Eastern Orthodox church and the Spanish Islamic scholars such as Avicena and Averoes, very little was known about ancient history in Europe. There was biblical history, which seemed largely mysterious, limited and uninsightful, and also some ancient localized history such as the Irish Annals of the Four Masters, which is a recorded history of the kings of Ireland, reaching back to the beginning of Hibernia at Tara. Consequently, medieval European scholars, in their excitement over this major discovery of the classical writings, built a historiography of the ancient world on the foundation of the classics.

A minor note is struck here in the background music of this drama in 1844, the year Henry Layard from Britain was funded (from discretionary funding of the British ambassador to Turkey) to unearth Nineveh - a landmark year for the beginning of ANE archaeology. The alternative historiography built upon ANE archaeology (which was guided by OT history) conflicts with the Greeks and Romans, who were of the opinion that they were the only civilized people around. Even so, in NT times affluent Romans would send their sons to British universities because the druidic schools were the leading academic centers. Julius Caesar's account of the druids as primitive and disgusting conflicts with the accounts of the early Greek historians, other Roman historians, and the later early Christian writers, yet his more voluminous account must have influenced the medieval scholars. (See

.) Side note: the clothing of the druids was a white robe with a golden sash. Compare with Revelation 1:13 and 15:6. They were of the line of the Hebrew patriarchs such as Melchizedek and Abraham, and in Britain they converted en masse to Christianity in the early first century.

Julius Caesar was a priest of the Babylonian Mystery religion and the first Roman emperor to be deified in a pagan temple in Alexandria, Egypt. (See the book Rulers of Evil by F. Tupper Saussy, available on the Web.) Caesar began the military campaign in Britain with the goal of eradicating druidism from the Britons and later, under Claudius, Christianity. They did not succeed; Celtic Britain was never subdued - the Silurians were never conquered - and Boadicia later led the Britons in nearly driving the Romans from the island, finished by Constantius of Colchester and his politically-oriented wife, Helen, the parents of Constantine. When the Silurians, led by Caradoc (Caracticus to the Romans) while fighting the Romans, were betrayed into their hands by the Northumbrians, the royal family was taken captive to Rome. A million Roman citizens lined the streets to look upon the Silurian leader with fear and awe as he was paraded through the streets of Rome with his captured family. Caracticus's speech to the Roman Senate, in perfect Latin, so impressed both the Senators and emperor Claudius, that he won the day and was the only enemy in the history of Rome, as captured and not conquered, to have been given a reprieve. In the Middle Ages, school children memorized his speech as though it were the Gettysburg Address.

What is consequently overdue in our time is a major reconstruction of Western history on the foundation of the answer to the question under consideration here. Support of the answer has filled books and has been researched by not just an outlier historian or two but by a school of historians who emerged in the 1800s, driven by new data from ANE archaeology. They fill in the missing European history, and especially the ethnic origin of Europe. In retrospect, the answer is obvious, yet it is not what is taught in the schools nor is it is the dominant academic history even today which, having been built for centuries on classical history, would be difficult to uproot in the minds of contemporary historians. Yet the evidence is overwhelming and is attributable in large part to developments in the 19th and 20th century. And the answer is ...

Everyone agrees that Europe was settled by "barbarian" tribes coming in from Asia from the early third century to about 900 AD, when migrations largely ceased, the barbarians settled down, and medieval European civilization evolved. Who were they? The word "barbarian" alone is indicative, as a contraction of "barbed" or bearded "Aryans". Who were the Aryans? See Isaiah 29; they were the residents of Ariel, which in Hebrew means "the lion of God" and is recognized in the OT as a name for Jerusalem. The barbarians were Israelites, who characteristically had beards and were far from being the primitive savages they were depicted as by the Romans. The Israelite Parthians were militarily superior to the Romans, having lost one battle against them in their history and having won all the rest.

The most concentrated source of literature by the school of historians reconstructing European history that I know is at www.artisanpublishers.com, a printer specializing in books from this school of historians. (Start with the book by archaeologist E. Raymond Capt, Missing Links in the Assyrian Tablets.) I have searched the Web for rebuttals of the thesis that the Europeans are Israelites and that most of Assyrian-deported Israel went west to populate Europe, but have not found anything substantial - mostly scoffing since it does not fit Western history. When mainstream historians encounter this question, they are lost; the answer is somewhere "in the mists of history" they say. Yet in 2 Esdras 13 of the OT Apocrypha - books that were in the Protestant Bible until taken out relatively recently - tell us where Israelites migrated: to Arsareth, which is where ancient Scythia was located, northwest of the Black Sea. Ancient historians Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Flavius Josephus, Strabo, Poseidonius, and others fill in the history of the early migration of the Israelites into Europe. They were not called "Israelites" but by the Assyrians were called Gomri (after King Omri of Israel). Language morphs over time: Gomri => Gimri => Kymbri => Cimmerians, and by the Persians (and Medians) called the Sacae (after Isaac, as Yahweh said would happen - Genesis 49), and Skuthoi or Scythians by Greeks such as Herodotus.

That the Europeans are Israelites (as are also Aryans in northern India and possibly even the Beluchistanis in Pakistan, who claim to be, and others) casts the eschatological picture in a whole new light, for now Israel as the West is quite important in global affairs, and has driven human civilization since the Middle Ages, in the Spanish and then British empires, addended by Dutch, French and German colonies over the globe, and along with them, Western culture, led by the British. The lingua franca of today is English and Western influence in even somewhat remote places such as Uzbekistan or the Xinjiang province of China is obvious. This fulfills Yahweh's promise that the Israelites would be numerous and the Israelite thread of history central to human history.

Similarly, the continuity of the Davidic dynasty continues through the royalty of England, with Queen Elizabeth being the most prominent monarch in the world for decades. European royalty over the generations is thoroughly intertwined, yet the particular path through history from David to Zedekiah, then the first of Jeremiah's "overturns" to Ireland, when he takes Zedekiah's daughter to Spain, then Erie, to marry the king of Ireland, then Scotland and the third overturn to England comes down to the present reigning royalty in England, who are Scottish since James I of England (who was James VI of Scotland). How this works into eschatology deserves another part to this sequence. The genealogy chart hanging in Buckingham Palace traces QE2 back to Judah through several lines of descent. Judah is the leading tribe; the sceptre goes to Judah, according to Jacob. The other royalty of Europe descend from Israelite royalty, such as the Parthian Arsacids - who sent the "three kings of orient" to visit Jesus, the newborn king.

In conclusion, a paradigm-shifting understanding of the origin of Europe both clarifies and simplifies much of the history-telling about the West. That most Israelites are Europeans also casts a different light on the state of Israel, though it must be kept in mind that scripture is careful to distinguish between the different destinies of the northern and southern Israelite kingdoms (Ezekiel 37:15-28).

It is not surprising that a paradigm shift in understanding Western history should take time. Once certain ideas are deeply embedded in the cultural consciousness, it is difficult to change them. Translational errors made a few centuries ago in English Bible translation, though correctable now, are not quickly made by translators lest they be accused of changing "the word of God". And so it is with Western history.

 

[Hazelelponi]

Eschatology 2​

In research, whether it be scientific, engineering, or legal, progress is made when the right questions are asked and pursued. Eschatological research is no different. A key question of history has a major bearing on the eschatological picture, a question that has been asked and its answer pursued for centuries in the past. The answer either relegates biblical history to the parochial dustbin or elevates it as the central thread winding through human history, pointing to human destiny. Ironically, the enigmatic answer has eluded both academic history (for reasons to be given later) and the general cultural understanding, yet abundant historical evidence exists to answer it quite affirmatively. And the question is

Whatever happened to the Israelite tribes after their Assyrian deportation?

This is relevant to eschatology because "Israel" appears in various modern eschatological schemes and also because various claims are made in scripture by Yahweh that apply to the nation of Israel. In our time, the word can mean, depending on your theology:

1. That they died out or were assimilated into surrounding people. (Hosea 1:10 says otherwise, though Hosea 8:8 indicates that they will no longer be among themselves but among other nations - notably in cities in Media-Persia.) This presumption crept in after the few who could read Assyrian cuneiform could not find "Israel" in the clay tablets of Nineveh after it was unearthed and moved to the British Museum in London. Yahweh told Israel that he was divorcing them, that they would not henceforth be called by his name (Hosea 1:9). And so it is that Israel is referred to in the Assyrian tablets by their Assyrian name, the "house of Omri" (Bet Kumbri). They did not fade into the woodwork. A century later, they were a force to contend with, and in early AD, some of the Israelite tribes became the Parthian empire. After being weakened in a phyrric victory over the Romans, Parthia was vulnerable to the religiously hostile Persians and was collapsed by them in 226 AD. The Parthians immediately migrated west en masse through the Caucasus to avoid the wrath of the Persians and to join their kinsmen, the Scythians.

2. the Jews. This is a popular evangelical answer, that all that remains of the minor population of a people confined to the minor geographic location of the Levant as Israelites are people who today are called "Jews".

The use of distinct words as labels that trigger distinct meanings in our minds is essential for reducing confusion and clarifying understanding. I have found this to be particularly true of the word "Jew". To distinguish among meanings that differ, I offer the following deconflating definitions:

Israelite: descendant of Israel (Jacob), son of Isaac, son of Abraham
Israeli: citizen of the modern state of Israel
Judahite: descendant of Judah
Judean: descendant of lower-kingdom Israel in Judea
Jew: descendant of the people called that who moved from the Khazarian region of Asia into Europe during the Middle Ages
Judaist: follower of Judaism
Yahwist: follower of the god of Israel, YHWH or Yahweh; not necessarily the same as Judaist.
Shemite: descendant of Noah's son Shem, including modern-day Arabs and various other ethnicities, largely scattered about the Middle East
Semite: follower of the Egyptian god Sem
Anti-semite: opponent of the Egyptian god Sem? In common usage, this instead means "anti-Jew", contributing confusion

These word distinctions are not made in popular or political use today and consequently confusion abounds!

There is a modern controversy in both Judaism and among some Christians over the ethnicity of Jews. Are they Israelites or Khazar Turks, descendants of Ashkenaz, the "father" of the Turks? The apostle John refers twice in Revelation to "false Judeans" (usually translated "false Jews"). I will not address this larger topic here.

3. the church. This is called "replacement theology", that the Christian church has replaced Old Testament (OT) Israel. As we will see, much of the church throughout church history has consisted of Israelites (Hosea 3:5), and by Jesus's strategy the gospel was delivered first to Israelites. But to leave it at that raises conflicts with language given by Yahweh in scripture such as the Davidic covenant - that David's dynasty would continue perpetually - and also promises made by Yahweh to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that their progeny would be like the stars of the heavens or the sands of the sea - a major population group.

This replacement alternative tends to revert in the direction of the heresy of Marcion - that the OT and NT Gods are different, and that the OT can be disregarded if not repudiated. However, every concept in the NT finds its foundation in the OT. Jesus's sacrificial death is meaningless without the legal basis for it in the OT, and to separate them leaves a "Christianity" without a foundation. Replacement theology does not go that far, but it undermines the forward-looking claims of Yahweh, driving Bible students to distrust the OT covenant claims. One can ask, as did the scoffers in Malachi's time, where is the evidence today of God's claims in history of a perpetual dynasty of David or a large population group of Israelites? We will find that it depends crucially on the answer to the above question.

4. descendants of Israel. This is tautologically the correct answer, but where are they? The answer is substantial, and if given simply is not immediately believable to Westerners. The reason is that we have been taught a version of history that does not come from the Bible and Ancient Near East (ANE) archaeology but from the Western university scholars of the Middle Ages. Before the rediscovery and recovery of the Greek and Roman (or "classical") writings via the Eastern Orthodox church and the Spanish Islamic scholars such as Avicena and Averoes, very little was known about ancient history in Europe. There was biblical history, which seemed largely mysterious, limited and uninsightful, and also some ancient localized history such as the Irish Annals of the Four Masters, which is a recorded history of the kings of Ireland, reaching back to the beginning of Hibernia at Tara. Consequently, medieval European scholars, in their excitement over this major discovery of the classical writings, built a historiography of the ancient world on the foundation of the classics.

A minor note is struck here in the background music of this drama in 1844, the year Henry Layard from Britain was funded (from discretionary funding of the British ambassador to Turkey) to unearth Nineveh - a landmark year for the beginning of ANE archaeology. The alternative historiography built upon ANE archaeology (which was guided by OT history) conflicts with the Greeks and Romans, who were of the opinion that they were the only civilized people around. Even so, in NT times affluent Romans would send their sons to British universities because the druidic schools were the leading academic centers. Julius Caesar's account of the druids as primitive and disgusting conflicts with the accounts of the early Greek historians, other Roman historians, and the later early Christian writers, yet his more voluminous account must have influenced the medieval scholars. (See

.) Side note: the clothing of the druids was a white robe with a golden sash. Compare with Revelation 1:13 and 15:6. They were of the line of the Hebrew patriarchs such as Melchizedek and Abraham, and in Britain they converted en masse to Christianity in the early first century.

Julius Caesar was a priest of the Babylonian Mystery religion and the first Roman emperor to be deified in a pagan temple in Alexandria, Egypt. (See the book Rulers of Evil by F. Tupper Saussy, available on the Web.) Caesar began the military campaign in Britain with the goal of eradicating druidism from the Britons and later, under Claudius, Christianity. They did not succeed; Celtic Britain was never subdued - the Silurians were never conquered - and Boadicia later led the Britons in nearly driving the Romans from the island, finished by Constantius of Colchester and his politically-oriented wife, Helen, the parents of Constantine. When the Silurians, led by Caradoc (Caracticus to the Romans) while fighting the Romans, were betrayed into their hands by the Northumbrians, the royal family was taken captive to Rome. A million Roman citizens lined the streets to look upon the Silurian leader with fear and awe as he was paraded through the streets of Rome with his captured family. Caracticus's speech to the Roman Senate, in perfect Latin, so impressed both the Senators and emperor Claudius, that he won the day and was the only enemy in the history of Rome, as captured and not conquered, to have been given a reprieve. In the Middle Ages, school children memorized his speech as though it were the Gettysburg Address.

What is consequently overdue in our time is a major reconstruction of Western history on the foundation of the answer to the question under consideration here. Support of the answer has filled books and has been researched by not just an outlier historian or two but by a school of historians who emerged in the 1800s, driven by new data from ANE archaeology. They fill in the missing European history, and especially the ethnic origin of Europe. In retrospect, the answer is obvious, yet it is not what is taught in the schools nor is it is the dominant academic history even today which, having been built for centuries on classical history, would be difficult to uproot in the minds of contemporary historians. Yet the evidence is overwhelming and is attributable in large part to developments in the 19th and 20th century. And the answer is ...

Everyone agrees that Europe was settled by "barbarian" tribes coming in from Asia from the early third century to about 900 AD, when migrations largely ceased, the barbarians settled down, and medieval European civilization evolved. Who were they? The word "barbarian" alone is indicative, as a contraction of "barbed" or bearded "Aryans". Who were the Aryans? See Isaiah 29; they were the residents of Ariel, which in Hebrew means "the lion of God" and is recognized in the OT as a name for Jerusalem. The barbarians were Israelites, who characteristically had beards and were far from being the primitive savages they were depicted as by the Romans. The Israelite Parthians were militarily superior to the Romans, having lost one battle against them in their history and having won all the rest.

The most concentrated source of literature by the school of historians reconstructing European history that I know is at www.artisanpublishers.com, a printer specializing in books from this school of historians. (Start with the book by archaeologist E. Raymond Capt, Missing Links in the Assyrian Tablets.) I have searched the Web for rebuttals of the thesis that the Europeans are Israelites and that most of Assyrian-deported Israel went west to populate Europe, but have not found anything substantial - mostly scoffing since it does not fit Western history. When mainstream historians encounter this question, they are lost; the answer is somewhere "in the mists of history" they say. Yet in 2 Esdras 13 of the OT Apocrypha - books that were in the Protestant Bible until taken out relatively recently - tell us where Israelites migrated: to Arsareth, which is where ancient Scythia was located, northwest of the Black Sea. Ancient historians Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Flavius Josephus, Strabo, Poseidonius, and others fill in the history of the early migration of the Israelites into Europe. They were not called "Israelites" but by the Assyrians were called Gomri (after King Omri of Israel). Language morphs over time: Gomri => Gimri => Kymbri => Cimmerians, and by the Persians (and Medians) called the Sacae (after Isaac, as Yahweh said would happen - Genesis 49), and Skuthoi or Scythians by Greeks such as Herodotus.

That the Europeans are Israelites (as are also Aryans in northern India and possibly even the Beluchistanis in Pakistan, who claim to be, and others) casts the eschatological picture in a whole new light, for now Israel as the West is quite important in global affairs, and has driven human civilization since the Middle Ages, in the Spanish and then British empires, addended by Dutch, French and German colonies over the globe, and along with them, Western culture, led by the British. The lingua franca of today is English and Western influence in even somewhat remote places such as Uzbekistan or the Xinjiang province of China is obvious. This fulfills Yahweh's promise that the Israelites would be numerous and the Israelite thread of history central to human history.

Similarly, the continuity of the Davidic dynasty continues through the royalty of England, with Queen Elizabeth being the most prominent monarch in the world for decades. European royalty over the generations is thoroughly intertwined, yet the particular path through history from David to Zedekiah, then the first of Jeremiah's "overturns" to Ireland, when he takes Zedekiah's daughter to Spain, then Erie, to marry the king of Ireland, then Scotland and the third overturn to England comes down to the present reigning royalty in England, who are Scottish since James I of England (who was James VI of Scotland). How this works into eschatology deserves another part to this sequence. The genealogy chart hanging in Buckingham Palace traces QE2 back to Judah through several lines of descent. Judah is the leading tribe; the sceptre goes to Judah, according to Jacob. The other royalty of Europe descend from Israelite royalty, such as the Parthian Arsacids - who sent the "three kings of orient" to visit Jesus, the newborn king.

In conclusion, a paradigm-shifting understanding of the origin of Europe both clarifies and simplifies much of the history-telling about the West. That most Israelites are Europeans also casts a different light on the state of Israel, though it must be kept in mind that scripture is careful to distinguish between the different destinies of the northern and southern Israelite kingdoms (Ezekiel 37:15-28).

It is not surprising that a paradigm shift in understanding Western history should take time. Once certain ideas are deeply embedded in the cultural consciousness, it is difficult to change them. Translational errors made a few centuries ago in English Bible translation, though correctable now, are not quickly made by translators lest they be accused of changing "the word of God". And so it is with Western history.

While certainly that post took time to create and I thank you for it I feel led to make a couple points.

All your post proves in the end is 6 degrees of separation, just by blood at this point if properly traced right?

In the end blood doesn't matter.

Let's say cool, a bunch of people rise up in the power of God.

What's going to happen and how are they going to do that? Well, they are going to become Christian and that's kinda no big deal for any but the saved in Christ.

When the focus is too much on blood etc we miss the whole point of the exercise. Christ.

It's not like anyone is going to think boom, these new Christians have some kind of blood.

Only Christs blood matters.

Sure sometimes tracing stuff is totally cool, but it can't be the focus and isn't the point.

 

[DennisF]

Flags the colors of the Four Horsemen:
White, Red, Black, Green

Afghanistan
Iraq
Jordan
Kenya
Kuwait
Palestine
Sudan
Syria
U.A.E.

Lebanon is white, red, and green - no black.

Yeah I have said this here previously

 

[DennisF]

While certainly that post took time to create and I thank you for it I feel led to make a couple points.

All your post proves in the end is 6 degrees of separation, just by blood at this point if properly traced right?

I don't know what this means. I don't understand your question.

In the end blood doesn't matter.

Let's say cool, a bunch of people rise up in the power of God.

It is historical and it is about Israel. The Bible is centrally about the history of Israel.

What's going to happen and how are they going to do that? Well, they are going to become Christian and that's kinda no big deal for any but the saved in Christ.

Who is "they"? The West has historically been the most Christian place on earth.

When the focus is too much on blood etc we miss the whole point of the exercise. Christ.

It's not like anyone is going to think boom, these new Christians have some kind of blood.

Did I say anything about "blood"? If you mean descent, what did Yahweh mean when he told Abraham that he would have many descendants? Or about David's dynasty? Dynasty involves descent. Genetics matters to God relative to his purposes in history. (That doesn't mean that non-Israelites cannot be saved.)

Only Christs blood matters.

Sure sometimes tracing stuff is totally cool, but it can't be the focus and isn't the point.

So make your point. The history of the migration of Israel, the people God chosen for a central purpose in history, migrated into Europe. Read some of the books from artisanpublishers.com starting with Ray Capt's book on the Assyrian tablets, or elsewhere; they can be found on the Web, such as J.H. Allen's Judah's Scepter and Joseph's Birthright.

 

[DennisF]

How did you arrive at that conclusion? How did you reach the conclusion that the dragon is "the chronology of Gentile empires"?



Why would we expect that? Why would we interpret Daniel 7 that way?



And I see nothing in regard to the Ottomans. I understand Daniel 9 to be talking about something that happened a very long time ago.

I don't understand the assumptions and leaps you are making.

-CryptoLutheran

Nor do I. Please explain in more historic detail.
One peripheral problem is the words used. "Gentile" in English comes from the Latin gentilis. It refers to anyone who is not a Roman citizen. Paul was not a gentile but Jesus was. Translators contribute their own theology to this confusion when they pick and choose how to translate goyim in Hebrew or ethnae in Greek. Both words mean nations and should be translated as such. Sometimes they are Israelite nations and sometimes not. Sometimes the choice is a matter of theology. When Yahweh tells Abraham that he will be the father of many goyim, somehow the translators do not choose "gentiles". Go figure.

 

[DennisF]

The Palestinian flag is based on the Pan-Arab colors that originated in the Arab nationalist revolts under the Ottoman Empire. Under late Ottoman rule a number of people were not well treated, most famously the Armenians (the Armenian Genocide). When the Ottoman's were defeated in WWI the Entente powers carved up the Ottoman Empire in a number of Arab states. As Arab nationalism continued, those pan-Arab nationalist colors were adopted by the emerging post-Ottoman Arab states.

The pan-Arab colors have their own meanings, as this Wikipedia article indicates:

"The black represents the Black Standard used by the Rashidun and Abbasid Caliphates, while white was the dynastic color of the Umayyad Caliphate.[3] Green is a color associated with the primary religion of Islam – and therefore also a color representative of the caliphates.[4][5] Green is also identified as the color of the Fatimid Caliphate by some modern sources,[3][6] despite their dynastic color having been white.[7][8][9] Finally, red was the Hashemite dynastic color. The four colors also derived their potency from a verse by 14th century Arab poet Safi al-Din al-Hilli: "White are our acts, black our battles, green our fields, and red our swords."[10]" - Pan-Arab colors - Wikipedia

Any association between the pan-Arab colors and the Four Horsemen exists entirely in the imagination.

And it seems, in this case, it is a politically motivated way of attacking the genuine concerns over the situation that has been going on in Gaza over the last year.

-CryptoLutheran

Good contribution! Some established facts.

 

[DennisF]

With or without my adding anything. I don't know where you're going with this.

I see the division but I don't know where God is going with it... We are still tied together somehow.

Could you be more specific as to what your conundrum is?

 

[Hazelelponi]

The Bible is centrally about the history of Israel.

The Bible is central to the story of Christ, Beginning to end.

He is the single seed. He is Israel. He is the Alpha and the Omega.

If the story you tell isn't central to His Story - His inheritance - you aren't telling the right story.