The Half-Jewish Question

Let me say from the outset that it is obvious that you have studied the issue of the Northern Kingdom in great depth, and that your knowlege of the Old Testament is superior to mine. My position, I recognize, is that of a cynic rather than a real scholar, so I apologize for any offense I may cause.

But because I do not view the Old Testament as infallible history, especially when it comes to numbers, I am not persuaded by reference to the OT to establish the number of Israelites.

Because I don't hold 1 Chron. 21 to be a reliable indicator of the number of Israelites, the question of the proper multiplier is moot.

As to where the Northen Kingdom was exiled to, I thought historians disagreed as to exactly where Halah, "on the Habor," "the river of Gozan," and the "cities of Mede" were, and I certainly don't know how many people already lived there.

Incidentally, I don't know what the population of the Middle East was in the 8th and B.C. Do you happen to know?

You asked if I had any data to support my feather-on-a-scale belief in the likelihood of assimilation. I don't have anything new, if that's what you mean. In any case, a belief in the likelihood of assimilation does not require new evidence of low numbers, just a disbelief in high numbers.

I'll come right out and say that I don't know what Hosea means, just as I don't know what Revelations means. I don't generally believe that this sort of prophecy can be fit snugly to historical events. But as I told Lost Tribe, I think your interpretation fits well with your Celtic hypothesis.

As I told Lost Tribe, I have not read Capt's book on the Assyrian Tablets. My skepticism about the information contained therein may be unwarranted. I looked at LT's pages, but I could find no description of the contents, other than the assertion that the Assyrians called the Celts by different names. Do you have a non-Capt book on the subject to recommend?

You are right, I think, to dismiss the "spontaneous generation" view of anthropology, in which whole peoples arise out of nowhere. But I don't think this happened with the Celts. A few points:

1. You say that none of my four points (the misapplication of "Celts" to people instead of language, the correlation with La Te'ne and Hallstat cultures, the vast dissimilarity between Hebrew and Celtic and the relative lack of genetic ties between Europeans and Semites) take into account the Assyrian tablets. How do these artifacts contradict those points?

2. You say we first start hearing of the Celts when we lose track of the Lost Tribes. The Hallstat material culture seems to date from about 800 B.C. Is that what you mean? Or do you mean the reference from Hecataeus of Miletus in about 500 B.C.? In that case, he was just the first to use the term "Celt" (or "Keltoi.") This does not means that the Celtic civilization arose at this time; it just means that this is the first evidence we have of a Greek calling this group "Celts."

3. Is Celtic a language or a people? You seem to go both ways on this. The Celts as a whole may have looked alike to the extent that they were white, but I have read no description that differentiates the Celts from the Slavs or the later German tribes.

4. On the language front, I have freely admitted that there is not an absoute tie between language and population, but there is a correlation. In any case, I have seen no convincing evidence that Celtic has anything to do with Hebrew (at least not anything to do with Hebrew that it doesn't also have to do with Yoruba).

5. Nor have I seen any genetic studies that link post-Celtic Europeans to modern Jews, which you would expect if they were closely related. As I stated, modern Jews are instead closely related to Lebanese and Syrians, and, as Richard Poe pointed out in a link to a recent article, Jews are linked to each other.

At the end of the day, I suspect that our differences arise from the emphasis we put on the literalness of the Old Testament. As this is ultimately a theological point, I think that puts us at an impasse. Thank you, however, for your cogent post.

When I write articles drawing upon my half-Jewish experience, I always seem to get a hailstorm of criticism from Jews telling me that there is no such thing as a half-Jew.
However, when I write articles drawing upon my experience of being half Mexican -- mirabile dictu! -- no legions of angry Mexicans appear to tell me that there is no such thing as a half Mexican.
Many Jews, however, DO take offense at the suggestion that someone can be half Jewish and half something else.
So Jews -- or at least some Jews -- seem to have a very odd reaction to a situation that most other people find very normal.

You’re using the concept of religion and ethnicity interchangeably, which they’re not. You’re a Catholic. You have an appreciation of the heritage of your Russian-Jewish grandfather and your Mexican-Catholic mother. You’ve chosen to be a Catholic.

I’m not surprised that your statement that you’re half Mexican doesn’t draw criticism. I suspect if you described yourself as a half-Catholic, the reaction would be one of puzzlement, probably as odd as the reaction to your description of yourself as a half-Jew. Of course, when you describe yourself as a half Jew, the meaning of what you’re saying is far different than what is heard by many Jewish listeners, just as the meaning of half Mexican differs from half Catholic.

While matrilineal descent is often used as the primary argument of the racial component, it is a religious concept, and, as a Catholic, you’re no longer considered Jewish (not even half) by the Jewish faith irrespective of your mothers faith. You may not accept that, but that implies an unwillingness to let Jews decide what a Jew is, which is what some of your readers are reacting to.

Given the origin of the concept of mischlinge, it certainly is not something I’d look to to extablish the concept of “half Jewishness”. Under the Nuremburg laws you would be a full Jew, as would your wife, regardless of her ancestry or either of your beliefs. The designation of mischlinge was a way of casting a wide blanket in the pursuit of German racial purity, and certainly not something that should be looked to in determining who’s a Jew.

Having reviewed your exchanges I'm not sure I can add much that has not already been said. You indicated earlier you have been following my posts, and they are of course available for review. While I don't want to take up bandwidth with repeats, I also don't want to leave any point untouched. All of your 4 (or 5?) points have been previously rebutted, but I would be happy to address them in such additional detail as you might wish, for none of them will hold water.

Since you seem unwilling to accept the Old Testament as a credible source of history of the events which it purports to document, it will not be easy for us to arrive at a meeting of the minds. At this point your position seems to be "I don't believe your position is accurate because I won't accept your sources, however I don't have any significant sources of my own with which to come up with a reasonable alternative. Therefore, you must be wrong." I hope that does not overstate it.

Your "negative case", such as it is, seems to be built on the dead weight inertia of academic tradition: "Something new must be wrong simply because we got here first. The fact that we have nothing on which to base our totally unsubstantiated wild-ass-guess assimilation theory does not mean we are wrong; Because we are the establishment".

In this case, recognition of the massive size of the Israelite population vis a vis the world population at that time is essential to understanding their entire significance to history. To work to diminish that size while deliberately ignoring the contrary evidence suggests an agenda of keeping that total Israelite size down in order to make sure the North shall not rise again.

To not accept my 1 Chron. 21:1-6 source with it's very clear reporting (in all translations) of an Israelite fighting man population of 1.1 Million makes it clear that you will not accept Old Testament Biblical evidence. (Or at least not Biblical evidence which doesn't fit your model.) In the interest of consistency and fairness they would seem to eliminate ALL Biblical references from our discussion. Where does that leave the Southern Kingdom and their offspring today? What non-Biblical references do you bring forward to support even the very existence of Jewish Israelites?

In the case of the book by E. Raymond Capt which analyzes the 23,000+ Assyrian Tablets now residing in the British Museum in London, your refusal to even look at that readily available and inexpensive analysis suggests either intellectual lazyness or a closed mind. That is not behaviour associated with a genuine search for the truth. Since I have not been to the British Museum Bookstore for a few years I don't know who else may have written commentaries on these history-changing Assyrian Tablets, but having given you one solid reference I feel no obligation to locate others for you.

It is possible to arrive at any preconceived conclusion by carefully selecting and rejecting information. That technique is just a variation on the theme "How to Lie With Statistics". The "pick and choose" source selection process clearly skews the result ahead of time, and by denying my sources a fair hearing the jury does not see all the evidence.

There is an old saying that goes "It ain't what we know that's the problem, it's what we know that ain't so". Until we are willing to place ALL the evidence on the table and honestly evaluate it, that which ain't so will continue to lead us astray.

In the case of the book by E. Raymond Capt which analyzes the 23,000+ Assyrian Tablets now residing in the British Museum in London, your refusal to even look at that readily available and inexpensive analysis suggests either intellectual lazyness or a closed mind. That is not behaviour associated with a genuine search for the truth.

Come now, Lost Tribe. Though I may be intellectually lazy and cheap, I hope that my mind isn't irredeemably closed.

My reluctance to rely on a report of Mr. (Dr.?) Capt's research on the Assyrian Tablets comes from ignorance and prudence, not a desire to be obstreperous. Not coming from a fundamentalist background (though I greatly respect my brothers in Christ), I am not inclined to grant specialist scholars much credence. In this I have undoubtedly been closed-minded. Even so, I am wary of any "groundbreaking" discovery for which there is scant scholarly support. I will do more research on my own.

I have said that your theory on the Celts is well thought out. After more study and reflection, I may eventually agree with you. But what you call the "dead weight of academic tradition" I call scholarly caution.

I don't know how much of the Old Testament is literally, historically true. I know I'm wishy-washy on this, but either one has faith or one doesn't.

If I am unconvinced so far, that is probably a result of my own intellectual limitations. You can lead ahorse to water . . .

Thank you again for your patience. I'll just scan the archives for your previous posts--no need to frustrate yourself by reposting your debunkings of my four points.

I look forward to reading your comments on future threads.

You say that none of my four points (the misapplication of "Celts" to people instead of language, the correlation with La Te'ne and Hallstat cultures, the vast dissimilarity between Hebrew and Celtic and the relative lack of genetic ties between Europeans and Semites) take into account the Assyrian tablets. How do these artifacts contradict those points?

Actually I had my eye more on the La Tene deposits, ect when I wrote that. The tablets couldn't, of course, apply to the other theories, other than indirectly.

The Assyrian tablets would have established the fact that the Israleite tribes left Assyria intact, and already on the southern borders of Turkey just south of the Caucasus mountians in the seventh century BC. And there would have been several million of them. (There's also evidence that Israleites, including some of Judah, that left Egypt by boat before Moses, but that has nothing to do with the Assyrian tablets.)

When the Israelites left Assyria capture about 610ish BC, the Assyrian empire was pretty much trash before then, 620ish BC. This places a huge number of people moving north toward the Caucasus mountains and south of the Black sea.

It's my understanding that the La Tene votive deposits were dated from about the 500ish BC. Given the nature of the people's culture, such deposits would have been made from the time they inhabited the area. These dates being correct, the tribes would have had plenty of time to establish a civilization in Switzerland.

The Assyrian information would be a key to the probable origins of the people. But we have large schools of disagreement in both archeological and historical circles without the Assyrain clues. There probably has been no links to the celtic tribes from the Isrealite tribes because the tablets were not taken into consideration, resulting in the theories you repeat in second point.

Forgive the length of the explanation. History is interdependent and not given to one liners.

You say we first start hearing of the Celts when we lose track of the Lost Tribes. The Hallstat material culture seems to date from about 800 B.C. Is that what you mean? Or do you mean the reference from Hecataeus of Miletus in about 500 B.C.? In that case, he was just the first to use the term "Celt" (or "Keltoi.") This does not means that the Celtic civilization arose at this time; it just means that this is the first evidence we have of a Greek calling this group "Celts."

The dating probelm for the Hallstatt culture may possibly be covered by Israelite migrations from Egypt by sea before the exodus. I'm not sure that the population of the Hallstatt culture would have called themselves "celts".

As I understand there were many celtic tribes going by many different names and bearing the common reference "celt". I use the word "celt" because others use it to refer to ancient people in the area under discussion. I'll be willing to call them "poopoos", so long we know that we're talking about these peoples. The peoples and their origins are the important thing to me.

However, if the date is ~610 BC of the disappearance/reappearance as celts at the Caucasus, the Greeks were late to the party with their terminology, or that is truly when the term was coined. I'm not sure I see where it matters.

Is Celtic a language or a people? You seem to go both ways on this. The Celts as a whole may have looked alike to the extent that they were white, but I have read no description that differentiates the Celts from the Slavs or the later German tribes.

As I reread what I wrote, I can't see where I gave the impression that celts had to do with languages. If I did, forgive me. When I talked about the "language links" in the sentence after the paragraph you refer to, I was talking about the heavy traces of Hewbrew in Anglo-Saxon, root of our currently used English, also Welsh, Gaelic.

In any case, I have seen no convincing evidence that Celtic has anything to do with Hebrew (at least not anything to do with Hebrew that it doesn't also have to do with Yoruba).

Except that ,"you can take any sentence in Hebrew and change it to Gaelic, word for word, without altering the order of a single word or particle, and your will have the correct Gaelic idiom in every case." (Dr. Duncan M'Dougall). Welsh is also heavily rooted in Hewbrew.

Nor have I seen any genetic studies that link post-Celtic Europeans to modern Jews, which you would expect if they were closely related. As I stated, modern Jews are instead closely related to Lebanese and Syrians, and, as Richard Poe pointed out in a link to a recent article, Jews are linked to each other.

I'm afraid I can't give genetics a whole lot of credence beyond simple uses like tissue matching at this state of the art. Plus there are disturbing stories of genetic evidence which turned out to be fraudulant. While I expect this behavior from human beings, it does say a lot about the esoterica of this special area of knowledge and how easy it would be to fabricate. Besides, I not convinced that those who are in the know, know all that much.

But then again, all this is moot if you don't believe the Bible on areas of fortold spiritual/material events. The importance of the lost tribes turns on the events prophesied around the Return of Christ/First Coming of Christ. If you don't give that any weight, any interest of those lost tribes couldn't have any relevance to you.

10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.

11 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

I can't see how one could possibly interpret this in terms of symbols as are used in Revelations.

<< I suspect if you described yourself as a half-Catholic, the reaction would be one of puzzlement, probably as odd as the reaction to your description of yourself as a half-Jew. >>

Well, if I described myself as a half-Catholic, I'm sure people would be puzzled, since no one ever uses this term and it has no logical meaning.

However, no one is puzzled by the term "half-Jew." Everyone knows what it means.

Books have been written on the subject and Web sites published on it.

Of course, it is a very controversial subject among Jews, and opinions differ on it, as can be seen from the varying reactions to Klein and Vuijst's The Half-Jewish Book.

You also wrote:

<< ...you’re no longer considered Jewish (not even half) by the Jewish faith irrespective of your mother's faith. You may not accept that, but that implies an unwillingness to let Jews decide what a Jew is, which is what some of your readers are reacting to. >>

This conversation is beginning to take on a bizarre, almost Fellini-esque quality. Why do you keep telling me I am not a Jew, when I have never claimed to be a Jew?

As I explained before -- and as I am sure you are well aware -- the term "half-Jew" is an ethnic description. It has nothing to do with religion. It is never used in a religious sense, ever, by anyone.

If you insist upon imposing a religious interpretation on the term "half-Jew," then, of course, it will never make sense to you. But whose fault is that? If I give you a glass of water and you insist upon holding it upside down, don't blame me if the water spills out.

Your confusion is entirely self-imposed.

Incidentally, many half-Jews and others of partially Jewish descent have reported their disappointment upon discovering that -- even after undergoing formal conversion to Judaism -- they are still treated as outsiders by many Jews.

That may not have been your experience, but it is evidently a common one.

I can understand why you might choose to look upon "Jewishness" as a purely religious quality, with no ethnic dimension. But the fact is, many Jews do not share your opinion.

>Though I may be intellectually lazy and cheap, I hope that my mind isn't irredeemably closed.

{ggg}. I like your sense of humour. It is oh so rare among the profuse sweating and heavy breathing here on FR.

>I am wary of any "groundbreaking" discovery for which there is scant scholarly support.

And justifiably so. There is lots of "stuff" flying around, fodder for the cheap TV shows and magazines. We have been bombarded on FR over the past year with such "stuff" in the form of spectacular new "Gene Matching" results, supposedly identifying who is who. If you have been following those threads you know that such "Scientific Studies", usually with the objective of finding a magic "Jewish Gene", have been repudiated by Genetics experts as little more than scientific frauds. They somehow always discover exactly what their financial backers want to find, followed by a flurry of press releases. Follow the money.

But I have seen no such trail of self-interest in the case of the Assyrian Tablets, only honest inquiry. I wish I had the names of other solid Assyrian studies to refer you to, but I don't. Had planned to return to the British Museum this fall but haven't made it, yet. The 23,000+ Assyrian Tablets are certainly not unheard of in the archeological community. Prior studies of them had simply focused on the business and life style implications of the contents, and they lay in the museum quite unorganized for many decades. E. Raymond Capt sliced that deck another way.

>I will do more research on my own.

It doesn't get any better than that!

>I have said that your theory on the Celts is well thought out.

Thank you for that. Coming from someone with your level of intellect I feel honored.

>After more study and reflection, I may eventually agree with you.

Probably. Great minds usually end up at the same Tavern. {ggg}.

>But what you call the "dead weight of academic tradition" I call scholarly caution.

I understand it sometimes takes time to be sure. Even the Catholic Church finally came around and now agrees the earth is really round.

>I don't know how much of the Old Testament is literally, historically true. I know I'm wishy-washy on this, but either one has
faith or one doesn't.

Agreed, it can become a pivotal issue. But I think with time I could convince you of the size of the Israelites without using Biblical references. And and that agreement as a starter, it would be on to the next hurdle.

I am not sufficiently well organized right now to pull back up the references by Josephus (Roman Historian as you probably know) and others who confirm the "very large" size of those tribes. Large enough to be on their minds to mention it.

It may have been Josephus who referred to the size as being so large that "with great noise and confusion it took them a year and a half to pass through the headwaters of the Caucasus" etc.... Other Roman references refer to the huge number of Celts who live to the north. That's not good enough documentation for you I know, but they are out there, and they are not vaporous. And they confirm the OT.

>Thank you again for your patience. I'll just scan the archives for your previous posts--no need to frustrate yourself by reposting your debunkings of my four points.

I may have addressed one of them above. Will look again at your posts and see if I can later address some of the others as well.

>I look forward to reading your comments on future threads.

Please don't go away mad. {ggg}. Your comments have been most unusual in that they zero right in on the key points of this entire "theory". The piss-ants, nose pickers, and knuckle draggers never get beyond personal insults and to the heart of the issue. I hope to talk to you again.

-Best Regards

-LT

Well, I haven't read up on the Assyrian tablets, so I can't comment on this at all.

It's my understanding that the La Tene votive deposits were dated from about the 500ish BC.

You're right, but the Hallstat culture, which was widespread in central Europe, dates to about 800 B.C., and is generally believed to have its origins in the Urnfield culture of about 1000 B.C. Now, if you don't believe that the Urnfield culture was related to the Hallstat culture was related to the La Tene deposits, so be it.

I'm not sure that the population of the Hallstatt culture would have called themselves "celts" . . . As I understand there were many celtic tribes going by many different names and bearing the common reference "celt". I use the word "celt" because others use it to refer to ancient people in the area under discussion. . .if the date is ~610 BC of the disappearance/reappearance as celts at the Caucasus, the Greeks were late to the party with their terminology . . .

We're not disagreeing on this point, I don't think. "Celt" comes from the Greek word "Keltoi," meaning "barbarian." The ancient Celts almost surely did not call themselves "Celts," and as you pointed out, instead had a number of different tribal names. My point was that the date of ~610 is only the first use of the term "Celt" in history, not the first appearance of the people we call the Celts.

[There are]heavy traces of Hewbrew in Anglo-Saxon . . .Welsh [and]Gaelic . . ."[Y]ou can take any sentence in Hebrew and change it to Gaelic, word for word, without altering the order of a single word or particle, and your will have the correct Gaelic idiom in every case."

While I cannot address Dr. McDougall's specific point, knowing neither Gaelic nor Hebrew, it is almost universally accepted that Hebrew and Gaelic have almost nothing at all to do with each other, coming from completely different families.

I'm afraid I can't give genetics a whole lot of credence beyond simple uses like tissue matching at this state of the art.

Well, I can't force you to accept evidence you don't trust. Personally, I think that the work done by the likes of Cavelli-Sforza and Sykes, especially on the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA, is fasciniating.

Well, I find anthropology and archaelology interesting, so an uncoventional argument that the Celts are actually wandering Israelites fascinates me, right or wrong.

>1. "Celtic" is a linguistic group, not a racial group

No, that is much too narrow. Only some Anglo-Celtic linguists would think that way, but I believe even they would reject it as too narrow. That's sort of like saying "Celtic is a Rock Group". Celts are many things, but above all (and before all) they are a broad classification for a huge group of people.

>, though even archaeologists and anthropologists use it as shorthand for non-Germanic tribes.

No, they use it as a shorthand FOR Germanic and many other tribes. The Germanic tribes were Celts. Virtually ALL the European tribes after 500 BC or so were Celts.

>As such, not all Celtic speakers were Celts, not all Celts spoke Celtic,

True, and not all Swedes speak Swedish. And not all who speak Swedish are Swedes. That one goes nowhere.

Language is truly a poor way to try to define movements and identify peoples. While that approach is popularly taught in University courses in Anthro and Archeology, ask any REAL practising Archeologist and he will tell you of all the tools at hand, language is the weakest, and only used at the very end, and then often only out of curiousity. It has virtually no practical leverage.

>and any blanket reference to "the Celts" is going to be hard to support.

No, I don't think so. If you take the Continental European approach, not the self-centered narrow Anglo-Celtic approach of many English/Scottish/Welch/Irish/Cornwall/Brittainy academics, the Celt looks quite different.

2. Many archaeologists associate the Celts with the prehistoric La Te`ne and Hallstat cultures, already widespread in Europe in the 7th century B.C.

That is absolutely correct. Any study of Hallstat (especially) shows there were 2 different major Celtic invasions, one about a thousand years before the other. While those invaders have may characteristics in common, they were not quite the same people. Thus, the concept of the "Proto-Celt", which is widely accepted, and is used everwhere. Very similar people, but separated in time.

The Old Testament (which you do not support) talks about additional "bail-outs" of Israelites from both Egypt and ~Palestine, prior to the Exodus by land. These "escapes" by sea included members of the Israelite Tribes of Dan, Asher and Judah. (Freeper BLAM makes an interesting case for the timing of some of these escapes with the eruption of the volcano Santorini, which caused great civil disruption and perhaps provided excellent cover.)

>Others point to the Kurgan culture of Eurasia, found as far back as 4000 B.C. In either case, the Lost Tribes are unlikely candidates.

Israelites are potential candidates for anything which happened in the region after ~1800 BC. The Northern Kingdom renamed (for our purposes) CELTS are candidates for anything that happened after their escape from defeated Assyria ~610 BC. But they were not of course named CELTS at that time in history and did not carry ID cards with the word CELT. Capt makes the point (and names the many names) they were called by many peoples. The multiple names are part of the confusion. The only single all-encompassing word in our vocabulary which accurately identifies them all is CELT.

>3. There is apparently almost no relationship between Hebrew and any Celtic language.

It would make perfect sense that the Celts would lose their Hebrew language. The lost virtually everything else, culture, religion, heritage, most important their relationship with God. These losses were part of their punishment. There is no reason not to assume they adopted the languages of their Assyrian captors, plus that of the Medes and Persians with whom they associated, and ultimately joined in overthrowing the Assyrians.

However, protests notwithstanding, Capt (again!) devotes a small section of his Analysis of the 23,000+ Assyrian Tablets book to proving there ARE many links between Hebrew and modern English.

>4. Genetic testing

Addressed in prior post. An interesting curiousity at present, may bring some benefits in the future. At this point, lots of hype and little results.

>So where did the Celts come from? I suspect they ultimately arose in Eurasia and moved west, merging with other peoples on
the way, while the Northern Kingdom was still in Samaria.

Gotta bring a lot more than that to the table. And whatever you bring, remember that you have to get around the 5 MILLION or more Israelites in the region of the Caucasus at the same time the Celts burst into history. They are the 900 pound gorilla that controls the discussion.

-LT

Briefly:

Celts are many things, but above all (and before all) they are a broad classification for a huge group of people.

True, in that the term Celt is used to label large numbers of people. A tinge misleading, in that the Celts were not homogeneous, but rather many different, though culturally related, tribes.

The Germanic tribes were Celts.

Well, our difference on this may be semantic, or it may be more substantial. The Celts and Germanic tribes may have had a common origin in Eurasia, but diverged when the proto-Celts moved into Europe. But I was under the impression that the German tribes--the Alemanii, Frisians, etc--were treated as distinct from the preexisting Celtic populations of Europe.

Hallstat (especially) shows there were 2 different major Celtic invasions . . . Israelites are potential candidates for anything which happened in the region after ~1800 BC.

This is interesting, but any argument that the Hallstat and earlier related European culture came from pre-Exodus Israelites founders on my ignorance and regrettable skepticism.

Language is truly a poor way to try to define movements and identify peoples.

True, but blunt instrument that it is, linguistic analysis is one of the few tools we have to analyze migration of ancient populations.

Capt (again!) devotes a small section of his Analysis of the 23,000+ Assyrian Tablets book to proving there ARE many links between Hebrew and modern English.

Well, as is painfully obvious, I have not read Capt's book, but he would have had to hit the ball out of the park to counter centuries of linguistic analysis putting English and Gaelic in a different language family altogether than Hebrew.

[Genetic testing is] an interesting curiousity at present, may bring some benefits in the future.

True and true. There's been a lot of mercenary garbage churned out on the subject. I think the current information is less ridiculous than you do, but intelligent people may disagree on the subject.

[R}emember that you have to get around the 5 MILLION or more Israelites in the region of the Caucasus at the same time the Celts burst into history.

This, I think, is the crux of our own discussion. How many Israelites were there and where did they go? Until I evaluate Capt, all I can do is pick at your theory without all the evidence myself.

Again, thank you for your courtesy.

>>Celts are many things, but above all (and before all) they are a broad classification for a huge group of people.

>True, in that the term Celt is used to label large numbers of people. A tinge misleading, in that the Celts were not homogeneous, but rather many different, though culturally related, tribes.

And my assertion is that they are all genetically related way back to before their little "vacation" in Egypt.

>>The Germanic tribes were Celts.

>Well, our difference on this may be semantic, or it may be more substantial. The Celts and Germanic tribes may have had a common origin in Eurasia, but diverged when the proto-Celts moved into Europe.

Are we agreeing that the proto-Celts preceeded the "real" Celts by a long time, and the two are separate and discrete, and that the identifying phrases should not be confused?

The phrase "Germanic Tribes" is tossed off very casually IMHO by endless authors who are just verbally waving in that general direction while trying to make a different point.

>But I was under the impression that the German tribes--the Alemanii, Frisians, etc--were treated as distinct from the preexisting Celtic populations of Europe.

Yes, that works if we are careful to distinguish between Proto-Celts and Celts. They are frequently confused (as are a lot of things) in the literature. From the same blood line (Israelites), they are separated by time of presence in Europe. Of course if you accept that premise it would also be possible that the way downstream offspring of the (few) Proto-Celts mixed with their (prolific) Celtic cousins who arrived from another direction at another time.

>>Hallstat (especially) shows there were 2 different major Celtic invasions . . . Israelites are potential candidates for anything which happened in the region after ~1800 BC.

>This is interesting, but any argument that the Hallstat and earlier related European culture came from pre-Exodus Israelites founders on my ignorance and regrettable skepticism.

Fair enough. My point is that the early Celts at Hallstadt and the later ones were separate peoples. The first were the Protos.

Amidst all the zany stuff out there, this Celtic Web Site is not bad. (But when they get to CELTIC MUSIC REVIEWS I'm gone!) My only real quarrel with the contents is the first paragraphs on the very first page (of the entire site titled ORIGINS) and a few misc dates. They have to be read VEEEEERY carefully not to be mis-interpreted.

>>Language is truly a poor way to try to define movements and identify peoples.

>True, but blunt instrument that it is, linguistic analysis is one of the few tools we have to analyze migration of ancient populations.

Too blunt for me. One too often gets cut fingers while using dull knives. {ggg}. You have to push a dull instrument WAY too hard to make it "work".

>>Capt (again!) devotes a small section of his Analysis of the 23,000+ Assyrian Tablets book to proving there ARE many links between Hebrew and modern English.

>Well, as is painfully obvious, I have not read Capt's book, but he would have had to hit the ball out of the park to counter centuries of linguistic analysis putting English and Gaelic in a different language family altogether than Hebrew.

Being marginally multi-lingual despite spending time in every West European country plus others, I make no pretenses to knowing more than I have read in various books over the years. Best I can do with this one is refer you to a known relevent source.

>>[Genetic testing is] an interesting curiousity at present, may bring some benefits in the future.

>True and true. There's been a lot of mercenary garbage churned out on the subject. I think the current information is less ridiculous than you do, but intelligent people may disagree on the subject.

Oh, I don't think it is necessarily ridiculous, but I am disturbed by the unsnswered charges of fraud against the sponsors of the genetic tests.

>>[R}emember that you have to get around the 5 MILLION or more Israelites in the region of the Caucasus at the same time the Celts burst into history.

>This, I think, is the crux of our own discussion. How many Israelites were there and where did they go? Until I evaluate Capt, all I can do is pick at your theory without all the evidence myself.

Yep, I suggest the next move on this critical point is yours.

>Again, thank you for your courtesy.

My pleasure.

Some understand and accept the term "half-Jew" as the simple ethnic description that it is. Others -- such as you -- react with indignation. But no one reacts with "puzzlement," unless they are being deliberately disingenuous.
If you insist upon imposing a religious interpretation on the term "half-Jew," then, of course, it will never make sense to you. But whose fault is that? If I give you a glass of water and you insist upon holding it upside down, don't blame me if the water spills out.
Your confusion is entirely self-imposed.

Perhaps I misunderstood the point of your article. My take was that you were baffled by the reaction of some Jews to the “half-Jew” assertion, which is obviously based on a religious definition of Jew. It appeared you were somehow either missing or dismissive of that viewpoint. I was simply explaining the viewpoint to you.

I’m not sure what confusion I displayed in post 63. I view being a Jew from a religious perspective, my prerogative certainly. If we met and you described yourself as a half-Jew my reaction would be largely disinterested. You would have communicated something of the culture you were raised in, in the same way, I suppose, that a Jew (religion) from a mixed marriage might by describing himself as half-Baptist.

If you understand both, perspectives, then we’re arguing semantics which is a little silly. It would be easier to invent a new word.

Israelite who took their hats from Egypt before the exodus. Post # 71 is a little more specific. Since there was sea trade during that time, I presume the Israelites would know where to sail. Austria is a stone's throw from the northern shore of the Adriatic Sea.

My point was that the date of ~610 is only the first use of the term "Celt" in history, not the first appearance of the people we call the Celts.

Correct. 610ish would be when there would be a prolific and high profile large groups of people coming into the area and possibly causing a group term to evolve, "barbarians". But there had been similar "barbarians" there before, only not so many of them. They could certainly have come from Egypt.

Once the newer barbarians become know as celts, the older barbarians were related enough to pick up the term, too, in spit of not being known as such before.

(Humor me the screed. I know you don't accept the Old Testament as legitimate history, but others may read this that have an interest.)

. . .it is almost universally accepted that Hebrew and Gaelic have almost nothing at all to do with each other, coming from completely different families.

If Gaelic were a language developed by a section of lost Israelites, even so far from their roots, it would have grown in the same breed of man that developed Hebrew (as opposed to the kind of language and script the orientals would develop).

Gaelic has this feature alone of the other European languages, and possibly any other language. Other European languages are infused with Hebrew sounds signifying the same object, actions and events as is meant in Hebrew. Anglo-Saxon is especially lousy with them.

Personally, I think that the work done by the likes of Cavelli-Sforza and Sykes, especially on the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA, is fasciniating.

Mitochondrial DNA? You mean the string on the other end of which was attached Lucy, the Mother of Man, recently abandoned as updated information became available? Seem to have read at least two articles mentioning the event here on FR. Hopefully Messrs Cavelli-Sforza and Sykes weren't involved in that embarrassment.

Well, I find anthropology and archaelology interesting, so an uncoventional argument that the Celts are actually wandering Israelites fascinates me, right or wrong.

You have a potentially facinating future here exploring that topic with many Harpies of Knowledge who have gone far beyond the trite notion of wandering Israelites into which tribes are where now. Enjoy.

>...study of Hallstat (especially) shows there were 2 different major Celtic invasions, one about ~~a thousand~~ 500 years before the other.

Please permit me to do a little tweaking. The date of the earliest pre-Celts is not really known, but in order for them to be the people we are talking about (Israelites by sea direct from Egypt or ~Palestine) they could date no earlier than the time of the Abrahams sons and tribes in Egypt. Sometime around ~1800 BC is close enough for this discussion. The latest date that would work would is 721BC, the time of the Assyrian captivity of the Northern Kingdom, to then be known as The Lost Tribes of Israel. That's a mighty big spread of time!

Better speculative guesses might narrow that to not long before the overland Exodus from Egypt (1453 BC, or pick your favorite date) and the time following the breakup of the Davidic Kingdom ~922 BC. Both those times might be assumed to be periods of great frustration and angst, and a good time to get the hell out of Dodge. But those specific times are pure speculation on my part.

What we do know is there were migrations of Israelites out of the Egypt/~Palestine region well before either the Northern Kingdom or Southern Kingdom diasporas. It is these "early leavers" who show up all over Europe (and perhaps a whole lot of other places in the world as well, but that's a whole 'nother story), especially in Hallstadt, at least 500 years ahead of the main body of Celts pouring in from the Caucasus anytime after 610 BC.

(NOTE of possible interest: I spent time at Hallstatt [spell it any way you want, the natives certainly do!] and it is a fascinating place. Thousands of perfectly preserved Celtic mummies, complete with their perfectly preserved clothes and shoes (salt, you know) are a treasure of information. A mine type railroad runs through the underground salt passages and huge open caverns, past flowing underground streams, etc. Deep inside the mine I came upon a group of Austrian school chidren seated on bleachers in a large cavern. They were lectured to (in German/Austrian) about Celtic history by a guide, so I sat and tried to follow them with my College German. At least I followed the pictures on the board. {ggg}.)

The mine is dead center in the photo above, then to the right just around the first little hill. An overhead tram goes way up the hill to the mine opening.

(I also spent time at the Celtic site at Le`Tene [spell that one a variety of ways also, the natives do!]. While the actual site is mostly underwater in a lake, the large museum is a real fountain of precious Celtic finds. There are other Celtic digs in the area, a rather good one in nearby southern Germany, so it's not like we don't have any hard evidence to go on when discussing the Celts of that time.)

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