Hope of Israel Ministries (Ecclesia of YEHOVAH):

Who Are the Jews? (And Who They Are Not)

by Christians For Truth

In the quote above you can see Gerald Soman boldly proclaiming that the Jewish race -- and the “unique nature” of the Jewish people -- is attributable to their ethnicity as Edomites.

But how can this be true?

After all, the ancient Israelites and Edomites were two distinct and separate nations in the Bible and throughout history. If today’s Jews are indeed Edomites, then they are certainly not Israelites, nor “God’s chosen” people, and their claim to the land of Israel/Palestine would lack any biblical basis.

Is Gerald Soman correct in asserting that Jews are not actually Israelites, but rather the descendants of the Edomites?

Where Did the Word “Jew” Come From?

The word “Jew” is a relatively new term. The letter “J” was not even used in the English language until the 1600s, and was not part of common vernacular until the 1700s. The word “Jew” was not in use until the 18th century.

If we examine today’s King James Version of the Bible, which contains many errors and mistranslations, we don’t even find the term “Jew” until 2 Kings 16:6. These references to “Jews” in the Old Testament were pertaining specifically to “Judahites” -- people who were members of the Tribe of Judah (who were Israelites by race).

Later, in the New Testament, the word “Jew” is used in reference to a “Judean”, or someone who was living in the Roman province known as Judea.

As discussed in the essay Was Jesus a Jew, the word “Jew” was a geographic, rather than a racial, designation in the New Testament:

"Obviously the word 'Jew' wasn’t used in the Greek either. It was actually the Greek word ioudaios (you-day-os) which doesn’t mean 'Jew' but 'Judaean' or one who is a resident of Judaea. A ‘Judaean’ is a person whose home is in the land of Judaea or southern Palestine. It is a geographical term such as 'New Yorker', which can be someone white, black, brown, or yellow by race. He can be Christian, Jew, Buddhist, or atheist. So an 'ioudaious', 'Judaean', or Jew in the New Testament could be any person who lived in Judaea, whereas we’ve seen there were quite a few Israelites of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin. There were also a lot of Edomite Judaeans along with Romans, Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, and so on."

Even the Jewish historian Benjamin Freedman acknowledged that the word “Jew” was originally simply a reference to “Judeans”:

"As I have explained, when the word 'Jew' was first introduced into the English language in the 18th century its one and only implication, inference and innuendo was 'Judean.' However during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries a well-organized and well-financed international 'pressure group' created a so-called 'secondary meaning' for the word 'Jew' among the English-speaking peoples of the world. This so-called 'secondary meaning' for the word 'Jew' bears no relation whatsoever to the 18th century original connotation of the word 'Jew'. It is a misrepresentation."

The “secondary meaning” referenced by Freedman was, of course, to link today’s “Jews” with those same groups referenced in the Bible: Judeans, Judahites, and Israelites. A close examination of history proves this secondary meaning to be false -- exactly as Benjamin Freedman attests.

To gain a deeper understanding of who today’s Jews are, and who they are not, we must examine the racial makeup of the Judeans -- or those who were living in the Roman province of Judea.

Who Were the “Judeans”?

The most authoritative sources that describe the racial composition of the province of Judea are Roman historians writing around the time of the Messiah. Strabo the Geographer describes the multi-racial makeup of Judea and the surrounding region in Chapter 2 of his Geography:

Strabo the Geographer, who lived from 64 BC to 24 AD, clearly describes this region as “intermixed” with different races of people at the time of his writing.

The Judean historian Flavius Josephus describes how the Idumeans (Edomites) became known as “Judeans” through a forced conversion imposed by John Hyrcanus, who was the ruler of Judea around 130 BC:

"Hyrcanus took also Dora and Marissa, cities of Idumea, and subdued all the Idumeans [Edomites]; and permitted them to stay in that country, if they would circumcise their genitals, and make use of the laws of the Jews [Judeans]; and they were so desirous of living in the country of their forefathers, that they submitted to the use of circumcision, and of the rest of the Jewish [Judean] ways of living; at which time therefore this befell them, that they were hereafter no other than Jews [Judeans]."

This is very significant because it explains how the race of Edomites became “Judeans” or citizens of Judea.

In Book 16, Volume III of his Geography Strabo also mentions how the Idumeans (Edomites) adopted the customs of the Judeans:

"The western extremities of Judæa towards Casius are occupied by Idumæans, and by the lake [Sirbonis]. The Idumæans are Nabatæans. When driven from their country by sedition, they passed over to the Jews [Judeans], and adopted their customs."

The Jewish Encyclopedia also acknowledges the Edomite origin of the Idumeans:

“EDOM (IDUMEA): Country in SE Palestine, also called Mount Seir. Its terrain was mountainous and easily fortified and its land was fertile. E. lay S of the Dead Sea and bordered on the Red Sea at Elath and Ezion Geber. The Edomites were of Semitic origin, traditionally descendants of Esau, and lived by hunting. They dispossessed the Horite inhabitants of Seir and organized themselves along tribal lines headed by chieftain (called allooph), later consolidating into a monarchy. The Edomites were traditional enemies of the Israelites; they fought Saul and were defeated by David who partly annexed the land.

"The Edomites regained their independence during the reign of Jehoram, but the wars between the two states were frequent. In the 8th cent. BCE, the Edomites became vassals of Assyria. At the time of the destruction of the First Temple, they plundered and looted in association with the Babylonians, and, being driven out from Seir by the Nabateans, occupied S Judah during or after the period of the Exile. The Edomites were conquered by John Hyrcanus who forcibly converted them to Judaism, and from then on they constituted a part of the Jewish people, Herod being one of their descendants.”

From the time of 130 B.C. onward, Judea was a multi-racial province, which included amongst its inhabitants genetic Judahites (descendants of the Israelites or “house of Judah”) and also Idumeans (descendants of the Edomites), as well as Canaanites and other peoples.

Therefore the word “Jew” should actually not even be in the Bible as it has been misapplied in both the Old and New Testaments.

Old Testament: “Jew” should read “Judahite” -- those of the Tribe of Judah (Israelites)

New Testament: “Jew” should read “Judean” -- one who was living in the Roman province of Judea. (Additionally, the term “Judaism” in the Bible is used in reference to the religion of the Judeans at that time, which has nothing to do with the Talmud-based religion of modern-day Jews.)

Recall that after the death of King Solomon, the Israelites divided into the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom which retained the name Israel. A few centuries later, the two kingdoms fell victim to the conquests of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, which led to the removal of the vast majority of the inhabitants from the land. Once the Babylonian empire fell, the Persian King Cyrus gave leave to a group of Judahites in Babylon to resettle Jerusalem. This small remnant of Israelites in Judea would be intermixed with many non-Israelites by the time of the Messiah.

When you interpret the Bible through the correct historical lens, everything makes sense and there are no contradictions. The divisions and strife recorded in the New Testament were clashes between two distinct races of people who were both living in Judea: the true “house [family] of Judah” whom the Messiah came for in Matthew 15:24 and the Edomite Jews whom Messiah rebuked in Luke 11:47-51, John 8:33-47, and John 10:26.

Who were the Edomites?

The origin of the Edomites is explained in Genesis. The Edomites were the descendants of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob and the son of Isaac and Rebekah. This is an important turning point in the Bible and in history since Jacob and Esau would become two separate and distinct nations, as is described in Genesis 25:23.

Each of these brothers would produce two distinct lines -- or “races” -- of people because of who they married and the resultant offspring. Jacob took wives of his own tribe (his own race), which pleased his parents and YEHOVAH God -- his descendants were the Israelites. Meanwhile, Esau took wives of the Canaanites, thereby mixing his seed with an alien race, who were the descendants of Cain.

This connection between the Edomites, Esau, and the Canaanites is fully explained in Genesis chapter 36:1-9:

"Now these are the generations of Esau, who is Edom. Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan; Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite; and Bashemath Ishmael’s daughter, sister of Nebajoth. And Adah bare to Esau Eliphaz; and Bashemath bare Reuel; and Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these are the sons of Esau, which were born unto him in the land of Canaan. And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all the persons of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance, which he had got in the land of Canaan; and went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob. For their riches were more than that they might dwell together; and the land wherein they were strangers could not bear them because of their cattle. Thus dwelt Esau in mount Seir: Esau is Edom. And these are the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in mount Seir…"

While Jacob and his descendants were blessed, Esau and his descendants were hated by YEHOVAH God:

Malachi 1:2-3: "Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness."

Romans 9:13: "As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."

So to recap, Esau married Canaanite wives and his offspring were known as “Edomites”. The Idumeans living in Judea around the time of the Messiah were Edomites who were forcibly converted and recognized as “Judeans” by John Hyrcanus -- even though they were racial aliens and not Israelites or of the “house (family) of Israel”. This is the point at which the racial Edomites (descendants of Esau) were “intermixed” with the Israelites (Judahites) in the province of Judea.

Now that we’ve established the historical and Biblical foundation for the Edomite race, let’s turn to modern sources that further reveal the true identity of today’s Jews.

Additional Sources Explaining Jewish Identity

While there are various quotes which reportedly link “modern Jewry” to Edom, many of these sources are difficult to verify. There is one easily verifiable quote, however, from the 1980 Jewish Almanac that clearly denies the connection between modern Jews and Israelites:

"Strictly speaking, it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a Jew or to call a contemporary Jew an Israelite or a Hebrew" (1980 Jewish Almanac, p. 3).

It doesn’t get any clearer than that: Jews are neither Israelites nor Hebrews.

There are many sources which suggest that Jews are in fact related to the Khazars, a population that inhabited southern Ukraine.

In 2014 the Times of Israel acknowledged a leaked report suggesting Jews are actually Khazars, rather than true Israelites. Here are a few excerpts from the Times of Israel article:

It is well known that, sometime in the eighth to ninth centuries, the Khazars, a warlike Turkic people, converted to Judaism and ruled over a vast domain in what became southern Russia and Ukraine. What happened to them after the Russians destroyed that empire around the eleventh century has been a mystery. Many have speculated that the Khazars became the ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews.

…In 2012, Israeli researcher Eran Elhaik published a study claiming to prove that Khazar ancestry is the single largest element in the Ashkenazi gene pool. Sand declared himself vindicated, and progressive organs such as Haaretz and The Forward trumpeted the results.

Israel seems finally to have thrown in the towel. A blue-ribbon team of scholars from leading research institutions and museums has just issued a secret report to the government, acknowledging that European Jews are in fact Khazars.

The Jewish author Arthur Koestler made this same argument in his 1976 book, The Thirteenth Tribe, where he claimed:

"[The] large majority of surviving Jews in the world is of Eastern European, and thus perhaps mainly of Khazar origin. If so, this would mean that their ancestors came not from the Jordan but from the Volga, not from Canaan but from the Caucasus, once believed to be the cradle of the Aryan race; and that genetically they are more closely related to the Hun, Uigur and Magyar tribes than to the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob [Israelites]."

The Jewish historian and anti-Zionist quoted above, Benjamin Freedman, also argued that Jews are in fact Khazars -- not Israelites:

"The origin and history of the Khazars and Khazar Kingdom are certainly incontestable historical facts. These incontestable historic facts also establish beyond any question of doubt the origin and history of the so-called or self-styled 'Jews' in eastern Europe. The origin and history of the Khazars and Khazar kingdom and their relationship to the origin and early history of the so-called or self-styled 'Jews' in eastern Europe was one of history’s best kept secrets until wide publicity was given in recent years to my research on this subject."

Finally, the Jewish author Shlomo Sand in his book The Invention of the Jewish People also wrote that today’s Jews are in fact Khazars.

The Edomite-Khazar connection

In the first millennium A.D. we find a large-scale migration of Edomites and Canaanites into the Khazaria region, who then mixed themselves with the native inhabitants:

Jews Are a Race -- Not “Just a Religion”

Genetic testing performed on Jews around the world shows not only that Jews are a unique race, but that they have also mingled and mixed with neighboring populations groups throughout their history:

"Researchers in New York and Tel Aviv conducted a genome-wide analysis on 237 individuals from seven well-established Jewish communities around the world, hailing from Iran, Iraq, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria and eastern Europe. The team then compared these genetic profiles to those of non-Jews in the same geographic regions based on data from the Human Genome Diversity Project, a database of genomic information for individuals from populations worldwide. Each group of Jews is genetically distinct, but similarities between the groups weave them together with what the researchers describe as 'genetic thread'.

“'There has been this back and forth discussion over the course of a century or more -- are these a people? Is this in the genome?' says Harry Ostrer, a geneticist at New York University, the study’s lead author. The new findings, he says, show that there 'does seem to be a genetic basis to Jewishness'.

"…The researchers analysed single-letter differences in the genome called single nucleotide polymorphisms, longer segments of DNA shared between different Jewish groups, as well as deleted or duplicated stretches of DNA called copy-number variants. Although the groups had strong genetic commonalities, the results also showed a varying degree of genetic mixing with nearby non-Jewish populations."

This behavior, of course, matches that of Esau (the patriarch of the Edomites), who mingled his seed with foreign Canaanite women, rather than taking wives of his own tribe, like his brother Jacob did.

An authoritative study of blood types of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews entitled, The Genetics Of The Jews by A. E. Mourant (Clarendon Press, 1978) found that all Jews tested had between 5% and 10% admixture of Black African blood, which is the result of having lived in close proximity to Arabs and Africans in the Middle East and North Africa.

This is also further evidence proving that today’s Jews are not the Israelites of the Old Testament, who were strictly forbidden from intermarrying with foreign, non-Israelite nations:

Deuteronomy 7:3: "Do not intermarry with them [non-Israelite nations]. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons."

Unlike his brother Jacob (Israel), Esau was a profane man who adulterated his seed:

Hebrews 12:16: "Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright."

Genealogies contained in the Bible always show patrilineal descent, whereas Jews trace their ancestry through matrilineal descent -- another obvious contradiction between the Israelites of the Bible and today’s Jews.

By Jewish law, it is necessary for a Jew to have only a Jewish mother to be considered a Jew. The father can be of any race, but just as long as the mother is racially Jewish, the child “qualifies” as a Jew. This law tacitly implies that racial mixing can and does occur without losing Jewish identity.

The genetic basis of today’s Jews has been widely studied and confirmed over the years. Here was a major finding confirming this fact 2012:

"Further proof showing that Jews are a distinct race -- rather than merely 'people of the Jewish religion' -- is the large body of evidence documenting rare genetic diseases that are common among Jews. Jews have a much higher propensity for mental illness in comparison with Whites:

"Israeli and American scientists have discovered a gene among Ashkenazi Jews that increases their chances of developing the mental disorder schizophrenia, as well schizoaffective disorder and manic depression. According to a study recently published in Nature Communications, the gene in question raises Ashkenazi Jews’ chances of experiencing the disorders by roughly 40%, and by 15% in the general population."

The reason for choosing Ashkenazi Jews as the subject for the study, of all groups available, is rooted in the fact that Ashkenazi Jews are considered to be a an especially homogenous group, in terms of genetics. The limited genetic variation among Ashkenazi Jews allows for easy identification of differences between healthy and affected individuals.

Finally, there is also the fact that obtaining citizenship to Israel is entirely dependent on proving that one is genetically Jewish -- it has nothing to do with religion, but rather DNA.

Polymorphic Jewish Identity

In terms of identity, Jews are polymorphic, meaning they adapt their identity to the host populations they live amongst.

However, the one consistent distinguishing factor among Jews for the last 2,000 years and throughout the entire world is that they promote an anti-Christian agenda.

They hate the Messiah, Christians, and Christianity as if their very identity is dependent on it.

Matthew 7:16-20: "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."

By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them

Jews have been expelled by Christians (and other peoples) throughout all of recorded history.

Is it because Christians all around the world -- from Byzantine to Spain -- suddenly woke up and became “antisemitic” one day? Or is there something unique about Jewish behavior and their anti-Christian agenda?

Writes historian William Thomas Walsh in The Dublin Review, dated October, 1932:

"...it is obvious to any well-informed person that the Jews (as a race) are playing the same part in history today that they played in the Middle Ages. From the time they caused the crucifixion of the Redeemer and called down upon themselves the curse that so unmistakably has followed them, they have been the persistent enemies of Christian culture. Jewish writers boast of it. The boast that the Jews not only incited the terrible ravages of the Moslems, with the consequent shedding of so much innocent Christian blood, but actually bored from within so successfully that they had something to do with setting in motion most of the great heresies that have divided and corrupted the Western world; they boast that the Jews encouraged the pernicious Albigensian sect and fostered or instigated Protestantism.

"And today, when the atheistic tyranny of Communism assumes the place that Mohammedanism once held as the arch-foe of Christian liberty and decency, we find that it was a Jew, Marx, who laid down its principles, that it was a Jew, Trotsky, who, with Lenin, translated it into action, and that nearly all its active apologists in Western Europe and America are Jews, who look forward to the destruction of the present social order because they conceive that under Communism the Jew will rule openly at last over the races he considers inferior" (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne Ltd., pp. 232-252).

Then, talking of the 1930s, Walsh goes on to say:

"In America the Jews are becoming as insolently assertive as in fifteenth-century Spain. The New York Times of 7 December, 1930, quoted Rabbi Stephen S. Wise as demanding, in a sermon, 'Is Western civilization with its grimmest, grimiest social injustice and wrong, worth saving? Or is it not the function of the Jew to bring about the supercession of that decrepit, degenerate, and inevitably perishing civilization, so-called?'

"What is really at the bottom of Jewish hatred against our civilization is revealed every now and then in attacks by Jewish rabbis on Christ and the Church of Christ in the principal American magazines; and only last year Jewish publishers brought forth a foul and blasphemous book by a Chicago Jew, Ben Hecht, in which one of the Jewish characters is made to say something that I set down with great reluctance, and only because I believe the cause of truth demands it:

'One of the finest things ever done by the mob was the crucifixion of Christ. Intellectually it was a splendid gesture. But trust the mob to bungle it. If I'd been there, if I'd had charge of executing Christ, I'd have handled it differently. You see, what I would have done was had him shipped to Rome and fed to the lions. They could never had made a saviour out of mincemeat.'"

Speaking to the Edomite Jews, the Messiah said:

John 8:44: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."

As the Bible clearly tells us, Jews are the living, breathing “anti-Christs” living amongst us.

Revelation 3:9: "Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I  have loved thee."

Now let’s move on to the next question.

Why Are Edomites Impersonating Israelites?

Why is it that we see so much “subterfuge” -- to quote Gerald Soman -- regarding the true identity of the Jewish race?

Although this is a complex question with many answers, there are a few obvious reasons:

* Claiming the identity of Israelites is key to the Zionist movement and the takeover of Israel/Palestine.

* Claiming to be Israelites gives the Jews an endless “get out of jail free” card with Christians, who falsely continue to view Jews as the chosen race of the Bible. (“And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee” -- Genesis 12:3)

* This “identity theft” carried out by today’s Jews also prevents the true Israelite descendants from realizing and claiming their identity.

In his book What Price Israel, Jewish writer Alfred M. Lilienthal succinctly explains why Jews perpetuate this deception concerning their identity:

"The Khazar Jews and their descendants today comprise 90% of all Jews in Israel, the Shephardic Jews being the other 10%. The Zionists after WWII conspired to allow for the term 'Jews' to be applied to any and all persons claiming a true heritage to Israel regardless of blood line or other qualification, the 'right of return' could be based on essentially any claim: spiritual, physical or religious. In other words, a 'Jew' is anybody we say a Jew is and the world bought it!"

Also, notice what Rabbi Bokser says"

There are many people who are supposedly “awake” to the lies about World War II and 9/11 that continue to fall for the biggest lie of them all: that the Jews are Israelites. Nothing could be further from the truth -- and many Jews openly admit that.

The Whole World Has Been Deceived

Based on all available evidence, we must conclude that Gerald Soman was indeed correct when he asserted that the true identity of the Jewish race is that of Edomites:

Those who call themselves Jews today are clearly not the Israelites, Judahites, or Hebrews of the Old Testament. They are also not the Israelite Judeans of the New Testament, but rather Edomites, descendants of Esau, who married Canaanite wives and mingled his seed with other nations.

Revelation 2:9: "I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews [Judeans], and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan."

 

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