Rabbis convert India's 'lost tribe of Israel'

Worldnetdaily.com ^ | 9/27/2005 | Aaron Klein

[Red Badger]

If they were one of the "Lost" (Not Lost, God knows where they are) tribes, then why do they have to convert?.....

[hlmencken3]

Also covered at

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1486127/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1436777/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1377539/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1374681/posts

[Red Badger]

http://www.lcg.org/cgi-bin/tw/booklets/tw-bk.cgi?category=Booklets1&item=1104094367

[Uncle Joe Cannon]

because there is no paper trail proving they are Jewish. The conversion is a formality.

[marron]

India's Christians maintain that they date back to the beginning, that their church was started by Thomas, who was martyred in India.

[Captain Rhino]

In the 1860s, Japan reopened itself to contact with the West and permitted Christan missionaries to enter the country. During the 240 years that Japan had been closed (following the Shimabara Rebellion), it had been illegal to practice any form of Christianity openly. Punishment ranged from imprisonment to death. Yet the returning missionaries found a "native" church had survived underground despite the constant threat of punishment if discovered. They also found that, being cut off from properly trained clergy, a great many unorthodox practices and beliefs had gradually been adopted. These had to be expunged.

I imagine that, after some 2700 years of relative isolation, there are a lot of beliefs and practices among this "lost" group that do not conform with Orthodox Judaism's beliefs and practices. The "conversion" experience probably involves pointing out errors in current belief and practice, confirmation of others, and education on aspects of Judaism that are not currently part of their religious practice.

[ladyL]

The Ten Lost Tribes aka The House of Israel will be united with the House of Judah to finish up God's final plan of the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel.

[SirLinksalot]

This 10 lost tribes thing has been peddled by among others, Herbert W. Armstrong of the Worldwide Church of God as British-Israelism ( the Brits are mostly descendants of the 10 lost tribes ).

Adter Armstrong's death, control passed to a new Pastor General, Joseph W. Tkatch. His son, Joseph W Tkatch Jr, in turn, succeeded his father in 1995.

The Tkatchs instituted a program to abandon many of the non-orthodox beliefs and practices of this church.

They brought the denomination into alignment with other conservative Christian churches.

Church membership dropped from its peak of about 150,000 members in 1986. In the US, its membership slid from 1986 to 1996 from about 89,000 to 49,000, largely because of this shift.

I don't think they teach British-Israelism any longer.

[Verginius Rufus]

It would be interesting if they could get DNA evidence to confirm the relationship...but they should be more closely related to the Samaritans than to Jews, since Manasseh was one of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom, whereas Jews are mainly descended from the people of the kingdom of Judah. At least that's how I've always understood it...I could be wrong.

[English Nationalist]

There's still a fair bit of support for it among the white-supremacists.

[Andy Ross]

My car keys aren't lost, since God knows where they are?

Andrew

[Red Badger]

They're not lost. They KNOW where they are............

[texas_mrs]

DNA: Genes support a tribe´s belief that it migrated 2,500 years ago from the Holy Land.

Jewish? Africans knew it all along

Excerpt

The researchers found that Lemba men carried a DNA signature on their Y chromosome that is believed unique to the relatively small number of Jews known as the Cohanim, who trace their ancestry to the priests of the ancient Jewish Temple and, ultimately, to Aaron, brother of Moses.

[texas_mrs]

Try again

[hlmencken3]

DNA is not precise enough to differentiate between Hebrew tribes that far back, or even between any other closely related groups then.

There's quite a lot of DNA evidence connecting today's Jews to each other and to other Middle Eastern people, and none connecting peoples of the British Isles to either.

The best the British-Israel folks can come up with is that the original Middle Easterners were all displaced to the northwest and all those people there now (as well as today's Jews) came from elsewhere.

I can post links if you're really interested.

[Verginius Rufus]

There are still Samaritans alive today who could provide evidence for DNA testing.

The Lemba people would be Levites by ancestry, and Levi was a son of Leah, whereas Manasseh was a grandson of Rachel. Presumably Leah and Rachel were full sisters (at least there doesn't seem to be any indication that they had different mothers) but that would only be important if they were examining the mitochondrial DNA.

Has DNA testing been done on the Falashas of Ethiopia? Not everyone believes that they are really Jewish by ancestry and that would be a possible way to resolve the question.

I didn't raise the issue of the British-Israelites and have no interest in that topic.

[hlmencken3]

http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html

Samaritans are descended from Israelite men and Assyrian women.

Those Lembas who possess the Cohen Modal Haplotype have Middle Eastern ancestry, possibly Jewish Cohen. The Buba clan is especially Middle Eastern in its paternal DNA.

Many Spanish-speaking Latinos of the American Southwest are descended from Anusim (Spanish Jews who were forced to convert to Catholicism).

The Mizo people of northeastern India, the self-styled "B'nei Menashe", have no proven genetic connection to the Israelites.

[ladyL]

After being a careful student of the Bible for the past twenty years and walking in the light the Father has revealed I have learned many things.

1. The enemy, Satan, is the father of religion. He loves religion which keeps man from relationship with the Father.

2. Into each "fringe" group outside of mainline Protestantism Satan buried truths that he has known since the garden. The Mormons, WWCG, British Israelism etc. all have the truth of the ten lost tribes. Therefore mainline denominations stayed far and aways from these truths of the House of Israel and the House of Judah being restored by the Messiah as the end time plan of YHVH.

Keep seeking truth and not man's doctrines or traditions and it will all make sense.

P.S. There are hundreds of thousands of lost tribe members who do not belong to any "church" who have an understanding of these truths.

[Spirited]

Jesus was just teasing when he said:
Mt 15:24 -
But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

And he was sending his disciples on a wild goose chase when he charged them thus:
Mt 10:6 -
But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

He/they knew where the house of Judah was, Jesus was a
"Jew"(Judahite) and the disciples were all of the tribe of Benjamin (in whose territory Jerusalem was); the only other Judahite/Jew was Judas.

On the other hand the house of Israel (who were NOT Jews) had been divorced by God (Jer 3:8 - And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.) and dispersed but would become as the sands of the sea, a company of nations.

The tribe of Judah was given the "scepter" or the right to rule but the birthright blessings accrued through all the previous generations went to Joseph(Gen.49:22-26)in double portion form via his sons Ephraim and Manasseh (note also that on these two was conferred the name Israel). (Gen. 48)

Mathew 21;43 Jesus speaking to the tribe of Judah said "Therefore say I unto you the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof".

Hardly any wonder why for centuries past the Jews were taught to spit when the name Jesus or Christ was mentioned.