[VadeRetro]

A very well-reasoned post. One thing: if Indoeuropean and Semitic are related, it's in some kind of superfamily thing, separate branches on a bigger tree. As I said earlier, superfamily relationships (which are hard to pull out of the linguistic noise and not universally accepted) don't make family relationships go away.

Basically, the Hebrews wouldn't have learned/invented Celtic without having pre-existing non-Hebrew Celts around as some kind of dominant culture. Certainly they would not have learned or invented such in Assyrian or Egyptian captivity. They have to run into pre-existing Celtic speakers somewhere else later. However, the minute you do that, the need to make the Lost Tribes into the Celts goes away from the standpoint of accounting for the Celts if not the Lost Tribes.

[Sabertooth]

Basically, the Hebrews wouldn't have learned/invented Celtic without having pre-existing non-Hebrew Celts around as some kind of dominant culture. Certainly they would not have learned or invented such in Assyrian or Egyptian captivity. They have to run into pre-existing Celtic speakers somewhere else later. However, the minute you do that, the need to make the Lost Tribes into the Celts goes away from the standpoint of accounting for the Celts if not the Lost Tribes.

Yeah, I haven't found that questions of "Who are the Celts if not the Lost Tribes? or "Who are the Lost Tribes if not the Celts?" compel me to any particular conclusion. They're interesting questions, but they don't make a case.