"Brit-Am Now"-752
Contents:
1. Can DNA testing Confirm Jewish Ancestry?
2. Prefers Previous Photo
3. Entertainment, Brit-Am Makes Headlines on the Web
4. A new term needed? Something instead of "Joe" or "Ephraimite"?
5. Dell Griffin or Maggid ben Yoseph.
6. Willis and Dell
7. Ancient British Links to the East
1. Can DNA testing Confirm Jewish Ancestry?
Question:
Hello Yair,
I have been receiving your emails for a number of years and always enjoy
them. I support the Brit-AM view of the ten lost tribes.
I do have a different question that comes from the discussion on DNA in
this mail. I have circumstantial evidence that my family may have been
Jewish back in the middles ages. Are you aware of a credible blood/DNA
test that could confirm or refute this? John
Answer:
No such thing and I doubt that there will ever be one.
What however could happen is that if you took a more expensive test with
extra markers that you could find on DNA web site charts in the public domain
a few other people that have DNA findings close or even identical to your own.
Some of these close-findings could be Jewish. If so you could take that
as bringing you a little closer to where you feel you may belong.
I would not be too hopeful however.
You may be disappointed and even if you do have some exact matches it does not necessarily mean anything.
On the test my son took they gave us three matches in Ireland,
one in Birmingham, England, one in Missouri, and one in Texas, USA.
<<These 6 males are distant genetic cousins descended from the same forebear as the subject within the past 1,500 to 2,000 years (Heyer et al. 1997). The haplogroup is Rib.>>
Further inquiry (on our own)
gave us several more matches in Ireland and one in Scotland then some near-matches again mostly in Ireland
but also a few in Scotland and Cornwall.
We found a sub-group whose markers fitted nearly all of our own
and they were specific to North Ireland.
My son had taken both a Y (male-line) and an mtDNA (female-line) test.
They told him that the female ancestors of his Yemenite Jewish mother came
from the general region of Yemen and was probably an Ashkenazi Jewess
which is close enough considering that no prior information had been given and all they had was
their laboratory tests.
Anyway we need all this.
We need to study Archaeology, Linguistics, DNA, history, etc.
This helps us in our quest but we should not put too much faith in "secular"
findings. Every few years they tend to change their minds.
The bottom line is the Bible and our own inner realization.
God bless you
Yair Davidiy
2. Prefers Previous Photo
From SM
Opinion and suggestion:
I liked the previous picture you had with the Ezekiel sticks better on your website. I think it is better if you must have a picture on the web site's home page at all. The first one does you better justice. Also the size of the picture could be reduced, so that the attention in the center is not on you but on the content. The picture you have under "YAIR" is more becoming and does not detract. I recommend going back to the Ezekiel stick picture, if you must put one on the front page at all.
3. Entertainment, Brit-Am Makes Headlines on the Web
Dennis Tate sent a letter to a large number of e-mail discussion groups.
This letter contains the following reference to ourselves:
From: Dennis Tate <dennis_tate555@yahoo.ca>
Subject: John Stone meet Mr. Davidiy.
<<John, Yair Davidiy is telling us Canadians, Brits and Americans that
we should give up belief in Yahushua/Jesus and he is
promoting us converting to Judaism by making us realize that we might
be 1%, 3% or maybe even ten percent descended from one or the other
of the lost tribes of Israel, and you have a problem with his doing this?????
<<He actually talks about a whole group of us converting through the Brit-Am
movement. John, please remember that the Second Temple may have
been destroyed due to unfounded hatred between the various factions
within Judaism. I think that your dislike of the teachings of
<<Mr. Davidiy may be based on the fact that The English historically used the ideas about their manifest
destiny to justify their actions against the Irish, Jews, North American
First Nations people, blacks, people of India etc., etc. I don't blame you
to be emotional about this, but logic is on the side of Davidiy in my opinion.>>
The letter contains a number of inaccuracies and could be misleading.
We would like to set the record straight.
(a) Doctrine: Brit-Am is not involved in matters of doctrine.
A person would need to go back quite a way to find anything by us
that could really be considered offensive to any theological position.
For a clarification of our present-day attitude see:
Brit-Am Answers to Queries: Christianity.
http://www.britam.org/Questions/QuesChristianity.html
(b) Percentage: "we might be 1%, 3% or maybe even ten percent
descended from one or the other of the lost tribes of Israel"
Brit-Am says that the percentage is probably very much higher (in some cases possibly
the majority) and concerning those who are "called" possibly
reaching 100% since there is a tendency for like to mix with like,
i.e. in some way or other people are pulled to their own kind.
(c) Encouragement of Conversion:
"He actually talks about a whole group of us converting through the Brit-Am
movement." Not so but it is easy to see where the misunderstanding occurred.
In the past we felt an urgency to have Judah accept the message.
Quite a few "Joes" or "Ephraimites" do convert to Judaism or wish to do so.
They also, from the Jewish point of view, often make the best converts.
We said in the past that if a group of they who were going to convert
anyway would do so as a group and announce their belief in Israelite
Origin along Brit-Am lines that this could help Brit-Am in the eyes of Judah.
WE HAVE SINCE REALIZED THAT THE TIME IS NOT RIPE AND WE ARE NOT
QUALIFIED TO DO OR ENCOURAGE ANYTHING ALONG THE SAID LINES.
If however such a group should ever appear we would not oppose or deny them
in the same way as we do not oppose Christian groups who share Identification
beliefs similar to our own.
(d) British-knocking. The British made a lot of mistakes but everything needs to be
considered in a correct historical perspective. On the whole the British and the
civilization they and their offshoots overseas produced were a positive blessing
to mankind.
(e) Dell Griffin: See the next three items below.
4. A new term needed? Something instead of "Joe" or "Ephraimite"?
The above letter by Dennis Tate was sent to more than forty e-mail discussion
groups, all on yahoo.
One of them received the following reply:
Secret Agent <secret.agent.man.0103@gmail.com> wrote:
<<Mr Tate,
<<You post will not be permitted through -- nothing about that CRACK-POT Yair Davidiy and his Joes is pertinent to the mission of Christianity-revealed!
This brings us to the use of the term "Joe" and Dell Griffin.
"Joe" is short for Joseph and apparently was first introduced
by Dell Griffin as a parallel to "Jew" for "Judah".
Other groups use the term "Ephraimite".
http://www.britam.org/Questions/QuesEphraimite.html
Both terms are good enough for want of something better.
If anybody has any ideas for another term for they who share
Brit-Am beliefs we would be happy to hear from them.
5. Dell Griffin or Maggid ben Yoseph.
Dell Griffin is now known as Maggid ben Yoseph.
We have received queries about this person.
First of all Brit-Am has no connection with him or he with us.
When he was in Jerusalem we met about three times
for brief private conversations that did not last more than 30
minutes. He also came by invitation along with an entourage
of his own to a Brit-Am meeting.
After that there was disagreement between us with Dell unjustly accusing
Brit-Am of racialism.
Before we get too negative we have to admit that Dell Griffin
as a journalist did exemplary work. He had once been the senior writer for Christian affairs on the Jerusalem Post.
When in Israel, at the time we met him, he was living
in the Jerusalem suburb of Giloh which was being daily fired upon from
the Arab villages just opposite, hard to believe but such was the case!
Dell wrote a day by day account (that he sent out by e-mail) of his experiences
in Giloh that in our opinion was a masterpiece of journalism.
Dell also did much to spread recognition and acquaintanceship
with the Lost Ten Tribes concept.
Dell or "MBI" as he calls himself (Maggid ben Yoseph) seems to believe
that all or most Gentiles are from the Lost Ten Tribes and that we need a
religious awakening that combines aspects of Judaism (Braslover Hassidut),
Christianity, Mormonism, and Amerindian magic.
He has recently written about the Mexican invasion of the USA
http://www.torahvoice.org/666%20newsletter.htm
Griffin claims the Mexicans are related to the Hopi Indians
who in turn are Aztecs (?)
and that both are descended from the Tribe of Menasseh.
He seems to be in favor of them taking over and dispossessing
the "Anglos".
http://www.torahvoice.org/Aztlan%20the%20Homeland.htm
He considers this dispossession a punishment to the USA for
not sufficiently supporting the Israeli hold on the West Bank.
This could be fair enough as far as it goes but it is a very negative thing
and not a positive one as Dell seems to present it.
Whatever is bad for the Anglo-Saxons and related peoples is bad for Judah,
Israel, and the world.
We are all one and have to wake up to this.
There may be some Israelite or Jewish descendants amongst people of
Spanish origin but if so they are a minority that is not dominant
who should seek their destinies as either part of Joseph or of Judah
and not in opposition to them.
6. Willis and Dell
Norman Willis (remember him) came to Israel as the simultaneous representative
of Dell Griffin and a Messianic group diametrically opposed to Dell.
Neither party was apparently aware of Norman's dual empowerment.
After a short period, Willis proceeded to establish his independence of both groups.
He called himself "Joseph ben Ruach" which he thought meant "Joseph Son of the Spirit"
but in Biblical Hebrew would be understood to imply something like "Mad Joe"!
Willis proceeded to stir up some commotion with announcements and promises
of persuading the Israeli Government and Rabbis to allow the settlement of "Joes"
in Israel. After gaining some support in this matter he suddenly decided that all
such activity was negative and part of a Jewish plot to undermine the Messianic movement.
The plan according to him was to allow the "Joes" who were the heart and soul of the
Messianic Movement to come to Israel, settle them in Judea and Samaria
and then let the Palestinians massacre them!!
Willis seemed to believe that Dell Griffin was one of the masterminds behind this nefarious scheme.
Here is an extract from a posting (dated 4/7/2005) by Willis we found on the subject:
<<Anti-missionary "Ephraimite" Dell Griffin recently posted that the newly re-formed Orthodox Jewish Sanhedrin has decided to send a team of anti-missionary rabbis to America (and other points abroad). Their goal is to lure Ephraimites away from their belief in Yeshua's Deity, by promising them life in the Land.
<<While the exact mechanics of the offer are unclear, it would appear that if anti-missionary "Ephraimite" Del Griffin is successful in obtaining the names of 500 families who are willing to deny Yeshua's Deity, the Sanhedrin will/may grant them conversion to Israelite status, while allowing them to retain tribal identity as "Josephites.">>
There you have it.
The cat has been let out of the bag.
Long live the Conspiracy!
Just for the record it seems doubtful if any such thing as converting 500 families
was ever seriously considered.
It sounds more like somebody's flight of fancy.
The so-called "Sanhedrin" may well turn out to be an historically positive development
but for the moment it has no authority and very little influence
and was never in a position to promise or grant anything.
7. Ancient British Links to the East
Interesting Site
Racial Reality
http://www.sitesled.com/members/racialreality/britons.html
"Cornwall, which is the darkest county in England and an ancient Keltic linguistic stronghold, contains, like Wales, strong vestiges of a pre-Keltic population.... A large-bodied, muscular type, with a head which is frequently brachycephalic, is common here, and must be attributed to the Bronze Age invasions.... Besides having medium or tall stature, and a tendency to brachycephaly, they are said to be heavy-bodied, lateral in build, thick-necked, with features of a somewhat Armenoid cast, dark, curly hair, thick eyebrows, and eyes which are frequently brown. This type...may...be associated with the strong local belief that the Cornish are descended from Phoenicians.
"The majority of the brunet dolichocephals, however, belong rather to the Long Barrow race of Megalithic introduction from the eastern Mediterranean shorelands."
(Carleton S. Coon, The Races of Europe)
38.9% of Y-chromosome lineages in the North Welsh town of Abergele were found to belong to North African-specific haplogroup 21. This frequency may have been somewhat inflated by genetic drift and sampling error, but it nevertheless shows clearly the presence of a non-European Mediterranean element in the aboriginal populations of Britain. The study in question also found North Wales to have been much less affected by Anglo-Saxon and Celtic invasions than surrounding areas, which would make the people there representative of Ancient Britons as a whole.
(Weale et al., Mol Biol Evol, 2002)
* * *
"Today, just under 17 per cent of native Europeans that we have sampled are in the clan of [Middle-Eastern] Jasmine (mtDNA J). Unlike the other six clans, the descendants of Jasmine are not found evenly distributed throughout Europe. One distinctive branch follows the Mediterranean coast to Spain and Portugal, whence it has found its way to the west of Britain where it is particularly common in Cornwall, Wales and the west of Scotland."
(Brian Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve)
Linguistics
"An interesting feature of Celtic languages is that in several characteristics they resemble some non-Indo-European languages. These characteristics include the absence of a present participle and the use instead of a verbal noun (found also in Egyptian and Berber), the frequent expression of agency by means of an impersonal passive construction instead of by a verbal subject in the nominative case (as in Egyptian, Berber, Basque, and some Caucasian and Eskimo languages), and the positioning of the verb at the beginning of a sentence (typical of Egyptian and Berber)."
(The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition)
* * *
Some Cambro-Britannic Hebraisms:
(Charles Edwards, Univ. of Oxford, 1675)
Publications
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