Posted on 03/09/2010 10:19:33 PM PST by Mount Athos
Since when has that ever stopped intermarriage. It has happened everywhere the Diaspora Jews have ended up. For that matter, see the story of Ruth and others in the OT.
There were laws allowing intermarriage, of course, Ruth being an obvious case of the redeemer/kinsman law.
Since the article mentioned lots of other law keeping, like circumcision and dietary law, I figured they went all the way with it.
The Jewish people has always been a rather genetically varied group that, while it did not seek converts, accepted them.
FWIW, this group, practicing another religion (Christianity, Islam) would not be eligible for immigration to Israel under the right of return.
“Hey, eating lobster and oysters is against OT law, but thankfully Jesus came and now I am free to chow down.”
Unless you were born Jewish, you have always been free to “chow down.” The Law never has applied to gentiles.
This all fits the time line of an exodus from Jerusalem during the reign of Manasseh, son of Hezekiah in the seventh Century, BC. The Graham Hancock analysis has the Jews taking the Ark of the Covenant to a Temple constructed to house it on the island of Elephantine; later, about 400 BC, removing it to Lake Tana in Ethiopia.
Along the way, groups split off from the main custodians of the Ark and wound up in different places. This is just another one of them--there were several.
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