More coo-coo for cocoa puffs from the insane Ted Johnston. (How insane is Teddy?? Teddy makes Weinland look reasonable. What does that tell you?)

If all are included, why is there final judgment and hell?

Of all the evangelical concepts the church had to pay lip service to, in order to get in the good graces of the evangelicals, why did they have to tack hell onto it? Oh, right, that’s what professing Christians use for manipulation and fear-mongering, and they needed something to replace the law-keeping…….But let’s let Teddy speak for himself:

Which is why heaven is a party—the endless wedding reception of the Lamb and his bride—and hell is nothing but the dreariest bar in town.

Bottoms up!

Yes it’s FOX News. But read the whole article.

SALEM, Ore. — The home of an Oregon couple charged with abusing nine of their children looked like something out of a horror movie, the prosecution said during opening statements of the trial.

Marion County prosecutor Sarah Morris told jurors that the children of Graydon and Robyn Drown were beaten with 2-by-4 boards, metal and plastic pipes, spoons and whips.

Lipton told jurors his client may adhere to religious beliefs outside the mainstream, but believes in what he considers reasonable discipline. He added that evidence would show the children were raised to be polite, well-mannered and respectful.

Children that were made “polite, well-mannered and respectful” — with 2-by-4 boards, metal and plastic pipes, spoons and whips.

Holstedt said Graydon Drown believed he was the Messiah and told Robyn Drown that his orders to her came from God. The two were both raised as believers of the Worldwide Church of God and lived in remote parts of Alaska during their marriage before moving to Oregon in 2004.

Holstedt described how Graydon Drown often would recite passages from the Old Testament as arguments for why she should obey him.

“In order for her to survive, she had to submit to … every order, Holstedt said.

But another witness, Agnes Opgenorth, who attends Temple Beth Sholom, where the family regularly attended, said Robyn Drown did not seem dissatisfied.

“My impression was that she was very happy and proud of her relationship and her family,” she said.

My opinion? Hang them both.

From the Iron Sharpens Iron comments thread:

The name of the external Auditing Firm is CAPIN CROUSE. How to find the place where it is mentioned? (1) go to www.wcg.org home page (2) below the home page click Information about Denomination (3) Click Statement of Financial Stewardship.

First of all, we’ll just disregard the “statement of financial stewardship”, because a work of pure unadulterated fiction does not for external, transparent financial accountability, make.

Stan Gardner, are you around? Any input as to whether or not we can get proof/records of the church’s finances out of this??

(I also asked “ACC” to pony up a copy of the church’s current corporate by-laws. We shall see what comes of that.)

An off-the-cuff remark by a friend of mine hit me between the eyes just recently. “Survivor’s guilt.” In context, they were wondering if it was selfish to want others to escape Armstrongism, or at least to escape the church, and go into the particular answer that worked for them.

This is an important, and very telling trait, and I think it makes my friend a better person. (Regardless of creed, thank you.)

I remember when I first started getting actively involved in the ex-member Internet. When I first started reading the comments on Ambassador Watch my reaction was a mixture of horror, fascination and fear. Horror, that the self-repression and the thought-terminating was still being practiced by people, many long years after the church had splintered into (what I thought of as) a million different pieces (and with it my view of religion as any form of a  workable solution).

Fascination, at the way a never-ending cycle of comments happened over and over again, “world without ceasing”, so to speak. Fear, because at the time, I wondered if maybe the apologists were right. Fortunately, I’ve long since disabused myself of the latter notion. Although I have been known to be a vocal apologist for atheism in my day.

The wars and rumours of wars may spill over into other blogs from time to time, but for the most part, three sides are showcased quite plainly and ad nauseam at AW: Current church members, former church members who are trying to sell everybody on their latest “one true religion”, and the rest of us. (The atheists, agnostics and freethinkers.)

All three groups are vocal, fearlessly opinionated, and take shit from nobody. Even the religious ones. Especially the religious ones. But, at the core of it, why do we do what we do? Why do we retread the same ground, again and again and again and again?

We do make progress, in small ways, if the latest skirmish is any indication. Time moves ever forward, and we seem to be moving with it, towards what, we each have to decide for ourselves. But why do we go at each other in the ways that we do, about the topics that we cover, endlessly, over and over?

Because we made it out. We want others to make it out too. But not all of them will. As demonstrated ably by the apologists’ comments. Maybe that’s what Gavin is trying to show us, by letting those comments through: Maybe he’s trying to make us see that, even though we escaped, and (mostly) survived our exits, or are in the process of surviving our exits, not everyone will be as lucky as us. Maybe not everyone is meant to be.

Especially those “true believer” 2nd geners who really did drink the Kool-Aid, and will never be free. Raising their own full quiver of children to be a third generation, waiting for three to five to ten to fifteen years to “in our lifetime brethren” (and their childrens’ lifetimes, and their grandchildrens’ lifetimes, etcetera).

The Church of God apologists argue long and loud, because they want us to be truly converted. The other religions’ apologists argue long and loud, because they’ve found another one true church, that they want to us to be truly converted to, as well. The fundamentalist atheists, the same.

Those who try and see all points of view, or at least meet people where they are, well, they’re few and far between. (I would like to say I do that, but I know I don’t. I try, sometimes, but I don’t often succeed, and I more often forget to even try.)

We each think we have been saved, in whatever form that salvation takes. Perhaps we all have been saved, after a fashion, we are out after all. So we want to save others, so we argue, and argue some more. But some people are clearly beyond saving, so think (and say) the members of all three groups.

So why were we spared a lifetime lived and died in the church?

Pure random chance is the only reason I made it out. I have often said that, were it not for Senior’s sermon from the mount in 1994, I would still be parking my butt in a rented union hall every Saturday, singing hymns of praise to a god I would “worship in Thy fear towards Thy holy place”.

Do you think I’m exaggerating, or being sarcastic? I assure you, I am not. It is the truth. If I hadn’t been made to realize, by the leaders of my own church, that all religion was false, I would still be trapped in a false religion. No, the irony does not escape me, but sometimes it cuts like a knife. That pure random chance of my life and circumstances is what leads me to ask the same question that survivors of every trauma have asked, since “trauma” first began to be conceptualized by the human brain: “Why me?”

Why did I make it out? I’m certainly no better nor any worse than any other ex-member. I didn’t have it as bad in the church as some did, but I had it worse than others. I was never a rebel, I was always a true believer. I don’t know of any true believers, who made it completely out. They went with a splinter, or went back to the mothership, or “hold fast to the faith once delivered” all on their own.

I was a true believer, but I still made it out. Those two facts should be mutually incompatible. And yet, they are not. I didn’t have the advantage of blogs or fellow ex-members or Internet forums, or even clandestine copies of The Journal (everything but the WN was banned, after it was learned that our congregation was on Wild Willie Dankenbring’s mailing list for Prophecy Flash!) to help me cope. My family went from godly and converted to worldly and pagan like flipping a switch. I’ve spoken of it before.

Sure, I went along just to get along, because I had no choice. Which is the thing. I had no choice about joining the church, either. So, really, I never had any choice at all, either in my faith or in my atheism. (I certainly don’t see freedom of thought as a choice.) I have never, at any point, sat down and made a firm decision for myself, about anything. I waffle back and forth between fundamental atheism and a freethinking sort of agnosticism, bordering on gnosticism, but even that has had its problems, and the point hammers itself home to me again and again.

I never had any choice at all.

But I made it out.

Why?

This post started out as something else, but went nowhere. Then Robin gave me the idea how to finish it. For Robin, this is a post on how we passed the time as kids in WCG.

I dunno if skimming through those UCG sermons tripped the wrong switch in my head, but I was walking along today, and saw a piece of garbage blowing along the street. Normally, I wouldn’t think anything of it. Maybe annoyance at the people who litter, but nothing out of the ordinary. It was a piece of styrofoam packing, that looked like it was a corner from a long packing strip, blowing this way and that. It skipped with the wind along the winter-weary asphalt, drifting up and down as the air currents shifted. Then I remembered.

We were told the holy spirit was a force, a power, like the wind. Breath of god, etcetera. It wasn’t something we discussed amongst ourselves (unless we were discussing our personal “miracles”, like whatever trials god had recently seen fit to bless us with). But it was definitely always on my mind, when I was in.

I, being a fundamentalist Armstrongist, would have known the random movement of air currents making an inanimate object appear alive, was “the hand of god”. I had, quite clearly, the memory of what that experience would have been like, had I still been in. In the church, in that other universe, in a time and a place long ago and far away.

We surrounded ourselves with angels and demons, miracles, signs, and wonders. Wars and rumours of wars, the blessings of trials, and on and on. Angels were real, because the KJV said so. Demons were real, because the KJV said so. Every life event, every interaction, either in the world or in the church, fit into the category of either good or evil. Every single conversation, had an explanation, every single gust of wind had a meaning behind it, either positive or negative, depending on how “sinful” you felt, at any given moment. More often than not it was negative.

It was easier, in one respect, because we only had agape for other members of Worldwide. Never, ever, could we have brotherly love for people in the world, or people who were unconverted or disfellowshipped or members of a splinter group. That narrowed one’s choices for friends, family, and relations quite considerably.

Thus, all married adults in the church were every child’s “Aunt This” and “Uncle That”, except for your parents, of course, and the ministry, who were always Mr. and Mrs., from the minister and wife, on down to the lowly deacons and deaconesses. “It takes the village (idiots) to raise a child”, was the mentality of the church, in its heyday. (I wouldn’t wish that “family” on anybody.)

Children were always encouraged to hang around the elderly, the “hoary-headed” ones who were supposed to have all the wisdom of the world, and be strong in the holy spirit, because they were so close to waiting for the resurrection. Some of them were grouchy, but often they had treats, or enjoyed being the de facto “grandparents” of the village. For the most part, the children and the elderly members enjoyed this. Probably because we didn’t have any contact with our biological grandparents, and the elderly members didn’t have any contact with their biological grandchildren.

We wore fashions 15 to 20 years behind the times, both because we were poor and shopped at Salvation Army thrift stores, and because it was more “godly” to “be not conformed to this world”. Women and girls had to have long hair that covered the nape of their necks; even those with short bobs who still met this standard were looked at askance. Severe bun, no makeup, and fashion of the ’50s (the 1950s) was the de facto deaconess uniform.

It was neither mandatory nor required for us to show up for services two hours before, or to leave two hours after, but you would hear oblique references to it from the pulpit if you didn’t. Well, that, and after a week of being “In the world” and not being able to really connect with the demon-possessed therein, people craved connection and interaction with others like them. Mostly like them. There were cliques in the church too, often worse than the ones in the world.

The adults would do the fellowship circuit; circle the room, looking for others who you knew, or weren’t talking to anyone at the moment. Hold your head up, give a firm handshake, smile, talk about god working in your life, or world news, etcetera. Always being careful never to say the wrong thing.

Children between the ages of five and twelve were pretty much left loose to roam, at church, after a week in the world of keeping to ourselves. There were always YES classes after services, but they were usually short. The older teenagers would imitate the adults, and do their own fellowship circuit. The minister’s kids were always the top dogs in that social group.

Between five and twelve was the golden age though; you were old enough that you could go around on your own with others your age (as long as you weren’t too loud or ungodly), or go exploring on your own. Since we were in rented halls and theatres, instead of pagan churches, there were always interesting things to see and do, when “god’s church” had taken over a worldly building for a Saturday.

(I can still tell you where every vending machine is in every location I ever attended services.) Between five and twelve, we were too young to stay in the mothers’ room, or by our parents’ sides, and not yet old enough to hang around with the YOU kids (who were pretty much looked on as gods, by the little kids). As long as we were well-behaved, polite, and stayed on the premises, we could pretty much do as we pleased.

Unless you managed to attract the attention of one of the “village idiots”, usually a deaconess who never had a kind word for any child, and was constantly criticizing us, in an attempt to break our spirits. I am not being facetious, that was considered the ultimate goal of child-rearing in the church: to break the (rebellious) child’s spirit. The only problem was, children were inherently viewed as rebellious, whether they were or not. The “spirit of man”, etc. We were often told from the pulpit at the Feast how business owners were so impressed with how well our children comported themselves. Little did they know (if “they” even said such a thing in the first place) the fear and intimidation that was required to have such well-behaved robot children.

Most often, during fellowship, you would find circles of children sitting together (inside or outside, dependent on weather), grouped by age, engaged in some quiet activity, or carrying on a conversation. You might find the more adventurous of them exploring a hidden or mysterious nook or cranny of the hall we were meeting in. One or two (like me), might be poking through the port-o-library, for something to read. Or talking to the librarian about what was new. Still others would be sitting in their usual seats, working on their YES lessons, either together or on their own. After services, there was usually a lineup for the refreshments table, which usually had a cookie and a glass of juice for each child. Repeat an hour of fellowship after services, then that was it. Back into the world that was Satan’s dominion for the week.

And that’s how we passed the time at services, as children of the Worldwide Church of God/Grace Communion International.

I have, out of sheer masochistic perversity, been skimming through United’s sermon archive, and I’ve got to say, they have definitely cornered the market, on generating a pocket universe that is as close to pure Armstrongism as it is possible to get, without the pontifical infallibility.

Although I’m sure their Council of Elders has infallible authority up the wazoo. Council of Elders……every time I see that phrase, I think of Lovecraft.

Anyway, I have seen comments here and there on the blog-o-sphere that suggest UCG may be the most “liberal” of the splinters, but I beg to differ, and these sermon transcripts are my proof.

For instance, for those who say UCG acknowledges there are Christians in other churches, this sermon from 2007 vehemently disagrees. (There’s even an off-the-cuff British-Israelism remark thrown in, talking about “our forefathers” in the Old Testament.)

2008 sermon topics included prophecy, more prophecy, and even more prophecy still, for those who contend that United is “moving away from prophecy”.

Add to that mix sermons telling us that “trials sore and great adversities” are actually a blessing, the whole world is deceived, and how to brainwash your children so they are unthinking Armstrongist robots, and I really do have to say, for anyone who is looking for a splinter that is as close to Worldwide as it was during its heyday, United is it.

For all the splinter leaders bleating that their splinter is the one true splinter, UCG definitely has cornered the market, in the look, sound, and feel, of “god’s true church”.

The question I ask is, whatever would posses you to think that this is a good thing??

Here, unexpurgated, is what Bill Hohmann said on As Bereans Did:

20 Apr
Where is the Love

Posted by Bill in bullies and barking dogs, Critics

Where is the Love?

In debates I get involved in with Armstrongites and Adventists alike (the tag team opponents, if you will) I usually make it a habit of responding to them in the same manner they address me, knowing full well where it will lead to in the end, when they see they can no longer win the debate scripturally. Then the trump card gets played: “You can’t possibly be of the truth, because you are mean-spirited” or some variation on that theme.

If you answer them and their questions and accusations in an overly polite manner, they are emboldened to be even more accusative, figuring that you are some kind of milquetoast who can be bullied about.

I learned that doesn’t work with bullies way back in the eighth grade. That’s when I learned also that they were all lip, not unlike the critics who frequent these blogs. Once I learned they were all lip, I enjoyed verbally egging them on into a fight, knowing full well the majority of them would back down. One who didn’t back down I put in the hospital. Ever notice it’s the small dogs that bark the most?

Anyway, there are no shortage of critics, which is why there are so few artists in the world. I realized one day why Picasso was so famous; he outlived all his critics, having lived to the age of 91.

When it comes to critics of those of us who expose the errors of Armstrongism and Adventism, they produce nothing of value. There is nothing constructive accomplished by them. All they can do is complain about the efforts of others. For us to get involved in a tussle with Russel is counter-productive. Like my daddy told me years ago, “When you are kicked by a mule, consider the source and forget it.”

So let’s get back to being “mean-spirited” and give this some contemplation. The apostle Paul was constantly under attack by those of the circumcision who were going in behind his back, and teaching Gentiles they had to be circumcised and keep the law. Paul responded in a manner that has been toned down a bit by the translators into English. He said to them that he wished they would go one step further and emasculate themselves.

“Oh my! How mean spirited! Where is the love? He can’t possibly be a true minister / apostle / teacher of truth. I mean, would someone teaching the truth be so blatantly abusive in his choice of words?”

Let’s move on to Jesus Christ himself and see how he treated his detractors:

Matthew 23:33-34 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

Oh yea, where’s the love…

I have my connections with people who do the same thing I do for the groups they have come out of, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are confronted with the same haranguing as I and other ex-Armstrongites get from the whole gamut also; from those who continue in the teachings of Armstrong to those who have completely gone over to being atheistic. They all get discouraged when confronted by the critics, with the exception of myself. I enjoy taking on the critics, for again, I know them for what they are; verbal bullies. They are all bluster and no substance. And when one comes along (rarely) with any substance, all the better. I don’t mind wasting a little time with them, when I’m not busy with other things, else I wouldn’t waste my time. So they talk about me. So they make accusations against me. You know what? At least they are talking about me! That’s the real kicker. I rarely will bother to talk about them, but I am in the foreground of their conversations. Even bad publicity is still publicity, and will end up causing others that listen to them to go out of the way to find out who I am and what I have to say. Rarely do you see it work the other way. People don’t go out of their way to look up critics in order to see what they have to say unless it’s another critic!

So bark away!

This passage of scripture in parting:

Matthew 11:16-19 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.

Bill Hohmann”

My purpose in posting this is not to fuel the fire, nor to war-monger. I wish to expose, yes, I wish to expose the un-Christian behaviour of a self-professing Christian (and if ever there was an appropriate use of the term, Bill Hohmann is it), which the Christian blog on which he tried to bring his bullshit sanitized (removed). Which is perfectly within their right to do so. It is also within my right to reprint it, as a fine example of the lows Christianity can sink to. Or self-professing Christianity, at any rate. (Wouldja look at that, I actually have a use for a church buzzword that does not involve loading the language!)

Now, the members of ABD and myself may disagree as to why Bill’s post was removed, but I think it’s fairly obvious from the content above that Bill’s post has little to do with the mandate and/or the philosophy of As Bereans Did.

Notably, Bill brought exactly this attitude to Shadows of WCG, shortly before he ended up getting that blog shut down.

Same time as always, 5PM PDT/8PM EDT.

This post is for Questeruk, who still has some lingering questions WRT British-Israelism, i.e., the belief that the “lost ten tribes” of Israel from the book of II Kings 17 or the “northern kingdom” are somehow the peoples of the United States and British Commonwealth (and only the peoples of the United States and British Commonwealth; hence the name of the belief).

First of all, let us begin with this handy article from Claude Mariottini, who is:

I have been professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Seminary since 1988. …. My academic works have been published in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, The Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, The Holman Bible Dictionary, Jewish Bible Quarterly, Perspective in Religious Studies, Biblical Illustrator, Old Testament Abstracts, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, The Journal of Biblical Literature, and Biblical Archaeologist.

Some choice quotes (emphasis is mine):

The views proposed by British-Israelism find no support in the Bible even though its proponents use many biblical passages to prove their point. A careful study of the Old Testament will show that the lost tribes of the Northern Kingdom were never lost.

When Sargon II deported the population of the Northern Kingdom, he deported only a portion of the population. According to the Sargon Inscription, when Sargon captured Samaria he took captive 27,290 people, but many more were left behind.

During the reforms of Josiah in 622 B.C., Josiah made an attempt to extend his religious reforms to the remnant of the Northern Tribes. According to 2 Chronicles 34:8-9, Josiah contacted Israelite people who lived in Ephraim and Manasseh:

In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, to purify the land and the temple, he sent Shaphan son of Azaliah and Maaseiah the ruler of the city, with Joah son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the temple of the LORD his God. They went to Hilkiah the high priest and gave him the money that had been brought into the temple of God, which the Levites who were the doorkeepers had collected from the people of Manasseh, Ephraim and the entire remnant of Israel and from all the people of Judah and Benjamin and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

The reference in Chronicles to the people of Manasseh, Ephraim, and the entire remnant of Israel may reflect the Chronicler’s view that all Israel was still a viable option. However, this reference clearly indicates that during the time of the Chronicler, the remnant of the tribes of Israel were not lost.

As for America and Great Britain, they are not found in the oracles of Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Hosea. Only through the process of eisegesis, reading one’s view into the biblical text, is America and Great Britain found in the Old Testament.

I have heard “eisegesis” mentioned by others, in relation to British-Israelism before. But back to Mariottini. Apparently an Armstrongist supporter contacted him and raised hell, and Mariottini decided to expand his response in a second, more detailed article.

There are several issues that mitigate against the argument put forth by the proponents of British-Israelism, the view that Great Britain and the United States are the remnant of the lost tribes of Israel. I do not have the time nor the inclination to address every misinterpretation in Armstrong’s book. Suffice it to say that the interpretations are based on eisegesis, literalism, and texts interpreted out of context. In this post, I will address three issues raised by the adherents of British-Israelism.

And here’s a choice point!

The list of the twelve tribes of Israel appears about twenty times in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament. However, the names of the tribes that compose the twelve tribes of Israel vary from list to list.

• The list of the tribes appears for the first time in Genesis 29:31-30:24 in the order in which the children were born. Since Benjamin was born in the land of Canaan, Dinah appears as the twelfth child of Jacob. This is the only time in the Old Testament in which the tribes are listed in the order of their birth. In the twenty lists where the names of the tribes appear, there are eighteen different orders in which the tribes are mentioned.
• In some lists, Levi is counted as one of the twelve tribes, in some others Levi does not appear. When Levi is omitted, the tribe of Joseph appears as two tribes: Ephraim and Manasseh.
• In Revelation 7:4-8 John provides a list “of every tribe of the sons of Israel”: Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin. In this list, the tribes of Dan and Ephraim are missing. The tribe of Joseph represents the tribe of Ephraim.
• In the blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy 36:6-29, the following tribes appear: Reuben, Judah, Levi, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh, Zebulun, Gad, Dan, Naphtali. This list contains only 10 tribes; the tribes of Simeon and Asher are missing.
• In 1 Kings 11:31-32, only eleven tribes appear. In Judges 5:14-18 there are 11 tribes: Ephraim, Benjamin, Machir, Zebulun, Issachar, Reuben, Gilead, Dan, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali. Manasseh is missing. Simeon, Judah, and Levi are also missing. It is possible that the Southern tribes (Simeon and Judah) were not yet part of the confederation of the tribes. In Ezekiel 48 the following tribes are listed: Dan, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Ephraim, Reuben, Judah, Benjamin, Simeon, Issachar, Zebulun, and Gad. When the Levites are included, there are thirteen tribes.
• In 1 Kings 12:20 we read: “And when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. There was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only.” This verse says that there were only eleven tribes (the ten tribes plus Judah), since only Judah followed the house of David. However, in 1 Kings 12:21 we read: “When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand chosen warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam the son of Solomon.” Since the tribe of Benjamin followed the tribe of Judah, then the Northern Kingdom had only nine tribes.
• 2 Chronicles 11:14, says: “For the Levites left their suburbs and their possession, and came to Judah and Jerusalem: for Jeroboam and his sons had cast them off from executing the priest’s office unto the Lord.” Since the Levites left the Northern Kingdom to come to Judah, now the Northern Kingdom had only eight tribes.
• In addition, 2 Chronicles 11:16 reads: “And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers.” This means that many citizens of the North who were faithful Yahwist came to Judah rather than live in the North. In 2 Chronicles 15:8-9 we read about the existence of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon. And Simeon is counted as a tribe from Israel.

All these variations in the listing of the tribes indicate that the number twelve was an artificial arrangement that was also found in other groups outside of Israel. There were the twelve tribes of Nahor (Genesis 22:20-24), the twelve tribes of Ishmael (Genesis 17:20; 25:13-16), and the twelve tribes of Esau (Genesis 36:9-14; 40-43).

The idea of ten tribes presupposes that the Southern Kingdom was composed of only two tribes. However, my reader acknowledges that the Southern Kingdom had three tribes.

Then we have this:

The second factor is the number of people from the Northern Kingdom who were deported to Assyria. My anonymous critic [the Armstrongist] says that the population of the Northern Kingdom was “5 million people” and “probably a lot more.” But this embellished number is contradicted by the archaeological evidence.

Adam Zertal, in his article “The Province of Samaria (Assyrian Samerina) in the Late Iron Age (Iron Age III),” published in Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by Oded Lipschitz and Joseph Blenkinsopp (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003), p. 385, wrote concerning the people from the North who came to worship in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 41:5):

The fact that organized communities of Israelites still saw Jerusalem as their holy place may be interpreted is evidence of the existence of the Yahwistic cult as the main faith in the North, some 150 years after the conquest of Samaria. The archaeological data seem to support this idea, that in spite of the population changes, most of the people remained Israelite in faith. Even if the number of exiled people from Samaria by the Assyrians (approximately 27,000) is reliable, it still did not exceed 20-25% of the Israelite population.

Zertal estimated the population of the Northern Kingdom at the time of the Assyrian conquest to be no more than 100,000, probably 70,000 people. …. But the fact is that many of the inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom remained behind. Some of them fled to the Southern Kingdom, as the archaeological evidence demonstrates. Some of them went to Egypt where they organized a large Jewish community, and some of them eventually became the Samaritan people.

There were never ten lost tribes so far as the Bible is concerned, only a dispersion of many Israelites throughout the whole ancient Near East. In fact the 27,000 people carried by the Assyrians into captivity represented only a small fraction of the total population at the time of the fall of Samaria in 722 B.C.

I would also recommend this article from the Jewish Encyclopedia, which traces the actual roots of the movement, within the Anglican church of the 1800s, starting with Richard Brothers in 1794. This article is remarkably neutral on BI, given its source, but they do note this at the end:

The Anglo-Israelite theory has of recent years been connected with the persecutions of the Jews, in which the Anglo-Israelites see further confirmation of their position by the carrying out of the threats prophesied against Judah. This side of the subject has been dealt with by T. R. Howlett in “An Anglo-Israel Jewish Problem,” Philadelphia, 1892; supplement, 1894.

Through the comments left on the first blog, I also found another post debunking the Table of Nations. (This was promulgated in early YES lessons in the beginning of the 80s, and was also featured quite strongly in Mystery of the Ages.) I won’t repeat the entire post here, but I will cite the main posts that Pursiful makes:

1. There is more than one way to become a “son”
2. The list includes toponyms, ethonyms, and personal names
3. Some names are repeated
4. Some of the names are anachronistic
5. There are groups missing
6. Using the Table of Nations as a guide to modern ethnic identity is a waste of time

I will quote what this author has to say about #6:

Even in antiquity, peoples on the fringes of the Near East who, after embracing Christianity, tried to fit themselves into the biblical history often ended up doing so by making themselves into mongrels. The Ethiopians saw themselves as both Hamites (through Sabtah, son of Cush) and Shemites (through Aram, whom they called Ori). The Armenians claimed ancestry from both Togarmah (Japheth) and Aram (Shem). (And if Meshech is a reference to the Mushki or Phrygians, most linguists would claim they belong in the mix as well.) What hope, then for those of us whose ancestors hailed from northern Europe? Irish monks in the Middle Ages contrived a theory by which the Celts came from the Japhethite lines of both Magog and Riphath, although some versions of the story find room for Javan, too, and most versions have Nel, an early Gaelic hero, marrying Pharaoh’s daughter and thus bringing at least a touch of African/Hamite blood to the Emerald Isle! (And thus, the “one-drop rule” rises up to bite all those Scots-Irish southerners who show up at KKK rallies right where it hurts!)

Keep in mind that the Armenians and Ethiopians (and even the ancient Celts, if you insist on going there) lived centuries before Christ. Two or more millennia later, what is the chance of finding even one person on earth who can legitimately claim only one of these lines as his or her own? What is the chance that anyone on earth is not “tainted” with at least a drop of the blood of some group they would rather not claim as ancestors?

Of course, I disagree with the author on his seventh point, which should come as no surprise to anyone, so I will redact it here.

Gospel of Hate is an interview in a liberal Jewish magazine about BI taken to its logical conclusions, namely Christian Identity.

What is the origin of Christian Identity?

It’s an offshoot of British Israelism, a nineteenth-century ideology claiming that the British, not the Jews, are the true descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. British Israelism was imported into North America in the late 1800s and the early years of the twentieth century, influencing William Cameron, editor of automaker Henry Ford’s antisemitic newspaper The Dearborn Independent, who published a book entitled The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem, which blamed Jews for everything from Christ-killing and Satanism to communism and capitalism. By the late 1930s, Christian Identity had evolved from British Israelism into a full-blown antisemitic theology. The 1944 novel, When?: A Prophetical Novel of the Very Near Future, by “H. Ben Judah,” distributed by the British-Israel Association of Greater Vancouver and popularized by Wesley Swift, a Ku Klux Klan member and founder of the Church of Jesus Christ — Christian, was one of the first tracts to propose one of the central tenets of today’s Christian Identity movement: that Jews are the biological descendants of the devil. Swift’s most hardened disciples included some of the most notorious antisemites on the American scene — William Potter Gale of the Christian Defense League; James Wickstrom of the Posse Comitatus; James Ellison of The Covenant, The Sword, and The Arm of the Lord; Thom Robb of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; and Richard Butler of the Aryan Nations.

Q, I believe this answers the question you posed, to wit: “I personally believe in the equality of all human beings as equal individuals, with equal potential, regardless of race, sex, age (or indeed religious/nonreligious belief). I also believe that the ‘lost 10’ tribes of Israel exist somewhere on this earth. (Note that I did not state where they exist!). I don’t find these two beliefs to be in any way contradictory. Do you? If so, in what way?”

I find these two beliefs to be contradictory, in the way that those who adhere to British-Israelism beliefs comport themselves. I think this attitude was also fairly accurately reflected in the church literature, particularly the YES Youth Bible Lessons, as I discussed in an earlier post.

I also quite clearly remember being told from the pulpit that, if employers, teachers, etc., gave us any trouble about our religion, we were to tell them we were Jewish, and leave it at that. I can also quite clearly remember sermons speaking of “the dying race/remnant of Judah”, and how “the Jews got god’s sacred calendar/the plan for the holy days wrong”, etc., when in reality, we were co-opting (and distorting) Jewish symbols, festivals, and beliefs. All under the mistaken belief that we were descendants of “the northern kingdom”, which I think was quite succinctly debunked at the beginning of this post.

xHWA also points out on his (now-closed) blog that the book The Babylon Connection by Ralph Woodrow, has a lot to say about BI, and specifically countering Hislop’s The Two Babylons that was required reading in the church. xHWA makes a very salient point about the particular form of British-Israelism the church taught, however. Emphasis is mine.

Speaking of “etymological torturing”, one thing Herbert Armstrong was well known for is completely bogus word etymology. Take a word, find something else that sounds similar – no matter where the word is from – and draw a conclusion. Voila! Instant etymology. We are all familiar with how Armstrong tried to link the Pope to the word “Lateinos” and thus the number 666. In the final paragraphs of page 2 from the February 1938 Plain Truth magazine, under the section heading “Was Mussolini Reared By A Witch?”, Herbert Armstrong made the following comment, “His title, ‘Il Duce’, is derived from the Saxon word ‘duce,’ meaning ‘DEMON.’” What garbage! I’m calling this. “Il Duce” actually means “the Commander”, and it is taken from the Latin work “ducem”, from which we get the word Duke.
Deceptive etymology is an honored tradition of Armstrongism. Herman Hoeh was a master at this kind of twisted nonsense. If anyone could excell Hilop, it would be Hoeh. Also, I once personally heard Steven M. Collins claim the Biblical “Javan” is in fact “Japan”; and he based his claim almost entirely on the sound of the words. Never mind “Japan” and “Japanese” are American words. The Japanese call themselves Nahon-jin, they speak Nahon-go, and they are from the land of Nippon – which sounds nothing like Javan. Biblical Javan is associated with Greece by most Biblical scholars. Woodrow points out how Hislop does this sort of thing time and time again.

I would respectfully submit, that Herman Hoeh did this sort of thing much, much more, than Alexander Hislop ever dreamed of doing. Berith ish, anyone?

Which brings me to my next point. Nowhere online have I been able to find “berith” or “ish” in any modern Jewish dictionary. There is “Brit”, but it is used as the first part of the phrase “brit milah” or circumcision of an eight-day-old male. Similarly, “ish” is not present anywhere, and was likely pulled out of a hat (or more likely a certain bodily orifice) by old Herman. As a matter of fact, in all instances of “brit” or “brith” I have found, it is always connected with milah, and translated as “covenant of circumcision”, specifically the circumcision of an eight-day-old male.

I did however find “bristen” here, but it certainly doesn’t mean “British”!! Similarly, “Ipish”, which means “bad odour, stink”.

On Doctrine has an article on BI as well. Here’s the gist of what they have to say about it:

MAJOR DOCTRINAL ISSUES

1. The entire concept of British-Israelism is truly anti-Biblical. The proponents use Biblical verses in an attempt to back their ideas, but in the process totally ignore what has been said before and after the verses they use. The Bible is used as an attempt to give credibility to ideas that have no basis in the Scriptures.
2. The apologists for the belief twist and misuse historical events in a manner that distort the reality of events and confuse the uninitiated. The words and theories may sound important to those who do not know better, but the reality of what is being said is nonsense.
3. The attempt to use Jeremiah 43:4-7 as a proof text for their claim that the 10 tribes travelled to Ireland is ludicrous. The main force of the belief is that the daughter of Zedekiah, princess Tea-Tephi, was accompanied by the prophet Jeremiah to Ireland where she just happened to marry the king of Ireland, who also happened to be a descendant of Judah like herself. It was there that the two established the continuing throne of king David, fulfilling the prophecies in the Old Testament of the Bible. The story is contrived and false.
4. The “proofs” presented in the linguistic claims of place names that contain the word, or variation, or DAN is totally ludicrous. There is no correlation between the Hebrew and English alphabets that would allow such a comparison to be made. If these comparison are allowed, then the Israelites must have also gone east and visited Vietnam where they named the cities of, Danang, Don Duong and others.
5. The “proofs” presented in the linguistic claims of words being the same in Hebrew as in English are also ludicrous. It has been noted that dropping the “I” from the name of Isaac results in the world saac which is equated with Sax-son. The rational for doing such a thing is that in the Hebrew language, vowels are not written. If that criteria is used, then Isaac should become sc, as the a’s should also be dropped. In that case the word becomes nonsense. The same should be done with the word “son”, becoming sn. Thus the term formed is sc sn, which is gibberish. Which vowels should be placed back, in order to make sense out of the word?Since the apologists replaced the “c” in Isaac with an “x”, without any just reason, perhaps there are other terms that can be made out of the two sets of consonants:
   Using an “x” – sc becomes: sax, sex, six, sox

   Using the vowels, “sn” becomes: san, sane, sin, sine, son, sun

   There is no context in which that can be done in the English language. English is not Hebrew and there is no correlation between the alphabets and the words.

   However, there is a greater problem. The name Isaac is a Latin word, or form, of the Hebrew name Yitschak. Isaac is not even a proper Hebrew name, so the linguistic exercise becomes even more ridiculous. The attempt to make the word Saxon out of the name Yitschak becomes impossible.

6. The same contrivances are used in the “Berith” “Ish” combination to form the word British. The letters used are from the English alphabet to form an English word. If one uses the Hebrew alphabet, then the combination again becomes nonsense. Only the sounds bear a resemblance.
7. The reference to the origin of the name “Great Britain” and the alleged reference to Tarshish meaning the White Cliffs of Dover are ludicrous at the very best. The reference in Isaiah 66 is to the Millennial kingdom and the new earth, not the migration of Jews to England. By using the reference, the British-Israelite apologists reveal that they wish to change the revelation of history by God in order to fit their own theology. The reality is that the claim is an absolute falsehood, devised to appear theological and academic. It is neither.

I quite agree with that last sentence.

A rather poorly-designed website refutes Armstrong’s version of BI point-by-point.

As this post is now well past the three-and-a-half thousand word mark, I will leave you to read it and ponder. But, Q, if you have any further questions, please let us know in the comments. And if any other commenters want to weigh in on the issue, please do!

More horrifying anti-Semitism and British-Israelism, courtesy Vol. VI of Basil Wolverton’s “The Bible Story”. These books were distributed to families with children of reading age or even younger, and children were expected to be reading these six volumes of “bible stories” even before they started on their YES lessons, and then later in conjunction with the YES lessons. You will also note the blatant proof-texting throughout the narrative.

Before you ask, yes, we were supposed to look up the verses scattered throughout the text. The first verse given here, establishes pretty much what the church wanted to instill, into its children. The nature of the proof-texting also gives an insight to the “bible jigsaw” ideology we were taught, i.e., not reading the verses in context, but reassembling the verses of the Old Testament, so that they aligned (however poorly) with the church’s theology. This is made quite clear in the following passages, as you will note the cohesive narrative literally jumps all over the old testament NKJV, to make its point, and omits at least one key verse, discussed below.

Also, throughout the narrative, “the Israelites” refers to the northern kingdom, as Vol. 5 of TBS had already dealt with “the civil war” between “Israel” and “Judah”, that resulted in “the two kingdoms” British-Israelism racism relies upon. It was also implicitly understood that, throughout the text reprinted below, “Assyrians” was synonymous with “Germany”, as per British-Israelism.

The Almost-Lost Ten Tribes

The occupants of Samaria expected to be slaughtered, and many were, as God had warned. (Hosea 13:16.) But the total annihilation wasn’t part of the Assyrians’ plan, which had to do with the value of slaves. The Israelites were rounded up like so many cattle, along with others from other towns and villages of the ten tribes, and forced to march to Assyria with the victors. (II Kings 17:6, 18:11.) Later, Assyrians returned to herd more thousands of Israelites, scattered throughout the countryside, out of their land.

Thus, two hundred fifty-three years after the twelve tribes had divided into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the kingdom of Israel abruptly ceased to exist. The people had again and again rejected God’s rules for the best way of living and had turned to idolatry. (Judges 2:11-13; Psalms 106:34-41; 78:56-66.) God had repeatedly warned them, through priests and prophets, what would happen if they continued in idolatry. (II Kings 17:7-13; Jeremiah 7:24-26.) But most of the Israelites wouldn’t heed. (Daniel 9:6.)

Now, at last, the Israelites were dragged away from their homes and into slavery in foreign lands even beyond Assyria. (II Kings 17:18; 20-23; 18:11-12.) God had long been patient. (Psalms 78:25-41; 86:15.) But at last His patience gave way to anger because this part of the people He had chosen to be the greatest of nations had broken their promise to the Creator to keep His commandments. (Exodus 19:6; 24:7; Joshua 24:20-22; II Kings 17:14-17.)

Scattered across hundres of miles of territory and mingling with people of heathen nations, and later wandering through many lands, the people of Israel eventually lost their identity as Israelites and Sabbath observers, and in time came to be regarded by others as Gentiles. What had once been a great nation was swallowed up, to be known for a very long time only as the “Lost Ten Tribes.”

Is it so? Hmmm, you will note that both II Kings 17:7-18 and II Kings 17:20-23 are mentioned. The northern kingdom of “Israelites” were spirited away by the Assyrians, because they had fallen into idolatry, while the southern kingdom of “Judah” (our modern-day Jews, or so we were taught) were spared this ignominy because they were still Sabbath-keepers.

This is the entire cornerstone of British-Israelism theory.

Do you see anything missing from those two citations? How about this?

II Kings 17:19:
Also Judah did not keep the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.

Proof-texting, demonstrated so ably, by this passage from Basil Wolverton. Thanks, Basil!