Witnesses to the Israelite origin of the Western
Nations
Part 1: Early Witnesses (11th
century to 1824)
by Mikkel S. Kragh
Many famous
people have believed that the Western nations are the descendants of the Lost
Tribes of Israel. These include the British king during World War II, George VI
(1895-1952) and many of the pioneers of the Pentecostal Movement, including the
founder of Pentecostalism the American Charles Fox Parham (1873-1929) and the
founder of Danish Pentecostalism Anna Bjørner (1875-1955).
The theory that
the Lost Tribes of Israel are found in the modern Western nations was
popularized by the Scottish presbyterian clergyman John Wilson, who held a
series of lectures across Britain beginning in 1836 and wrote the book Our
Israelitish Origin (1840). This theory became known as British-Israel. This
belief, in various shapes and forms, spread to the United States and elsewhere,
where individuals and churches with various theological beliefs adopted
British-Israelism or a form of it.
Prior to John
Wilson’s ministry, a number of people came to more or less the same conclusion
as John Wilson and wrote about it. These include two Orthodox Jews, two French
Huguenots, one Fleming, two Englishmen and one Swedish Lutheran pastor.
Although these eight men did write that the Lost Tribes of Israel are found in
the Western nations, their ministries were unfruitful and did not create a
movement of Western peoples that believed that they were Israelites.
Rashi
Rabbi
Shlomo Yitzchaki, a.k.a. Rashi (1040-1105), Bible commentator and one of the
most influential Medieval rabbis. Rashi identified Zarephath (Oba v. 20) with
France, and wrote that the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel went there:
“The first exile of the children of Israel who were exiled from
the Ten Tribes to the land of Canaanites unto Zarephath... The exegetes say
that Zarephath means the Kingdom called 'France' in common language...” (Yair
Davidiy: “Commentary on the Book of Obadiah”:
https://www.britam.org/obadiah.html)
Rashi did write that the Lost Ten Tribes were found among the
non-Jewish indigenous population of France, but he does not specify whether he
believed all or most of the French nation were of the 10 Tribes, or whether the
10 Tribes ended up only in France or also elsewhere. Although Rashi certainly
did write that the 10 Tribes ended up in France, we cannot be sure exactly what
Rashi believed about the 10 Tribes. We can only get a vague idea.
Don
Isaac ben Judah Abarbanel
Don
Isaac ben Judah Abarbanel (1437-1508), Jewish statesman, philosopher, Bible
commentator and financier from Portugal. In 1483 he was forced to flee to
Spain. In 1492 Jews were expelled from Spain and Abarbanel settled in Monopoli,
in the region of Puglia in the Kingdom of Naples. He later moved to Venice
where he became one of Venice's leading statesmen. In his commentary on
Obadiah, Abarbanel wrote that the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel settled in France,
England and Spain:
“Zeraphath is France and so too the
exile of Sepharad is Spain ... and let you not err just because Zeraphath [i.e. France] is spoken of and Angleterre [i.e.
England] is not recalled, for there too did the exiles go, for lo and behold,
that island is considered a part of Zarephath and in the beginning
belonged to it and in their ancient books they call it the Isle of Zarephath
[i.e. of France] even though it later separated itself from Zarephath [France]
and became a kingdom in its own right.
… And maybe the intention is too to those Children of Israel who completely
left Religion due to the weight of troubles and persecutions and they remain in
France and in Spain in their thousands and tens of thousands, huge communities.
They shall return and request the LORD their God...” (https://www.britam.org/obadiah.html)
Isaac Abarbanel was not as vague as Rashi. Abarbanel wrote that
the 10 Tribes of Israel were found in the non-Jewish indigenous populations of
France, England and Spain, and that they were found in communities of “thousands
and tens of thousands”. In other words, that the 10 Tribes made up only a
minority of the populations of France, England and Spain.
LeLoyer
LeLoyer, French counselor
and magistrate. He wrote The Ten Lost Tribes Found (1590). The Petit
Parisien published a review of his work on June 24, 1913, where it was
said: “This LeLoyer … wrote a big volume on a
question that has often been raised, and that no one has ever been able to
solve, that of knowing what have come of the ten lost tribes of the Jewish
people … he showed that the ten tribes are not lost. They form, today, the English
people.” (Matthew D. Dyer: Anglo-Israel Messengers, p. 11)
Adriaan van der Schrieck
Adriaan van
der Schrieck (1560-1621), Lord of Rodorne, Flemish humanist, historian and linguist. The
subtitle of an old-Flemish book by Adriaan van der Schrieck
published 1614 in Yperen (French: Ypres) said: “...
the Dutch with the Gauls and Germans together in the earliest times were
called: Celts, who are come out of the Hebrews.” (E.C.
van Petegem-Feij: Aan de Lezers van Troost Troost Mijn Volk (1963), p. 7)
Henry Spelman
Henry Spelman
(ca. 1564-1641), English antiquary noted for his detailed collection of
medieval records, in particular of church councils. According to Peter Frederik
Suhm, Henry Spelman believed that the Danes, Norwegians, and Goths were
Hebrews, and that the Danes were the Israelite Tribe of Dan.
Jacques Abbadie
Jacques
Abbadie (1654-1727), French Huguenot pastor, author and theologian born in Nay,
southern France. Due to the persecution of Protestants in France, Abbadie moved
to Berlin, Prussia, where he became pastor of a French Huguenot church.
Abbadie’s protector was the German Duke of Schomberg, who was the second in
command of the Dutch William III of Orange. Abbadie followed the Prince of
Orange and the Duke of Schomberg to Britain and became a pastor at a French
Huguenot church in London and a dean in Killaloe, Ireland. William of Orange
wanted to grant Abbadie a higher position in the church, but this did not come
to pass due to Abbadie’s poor English. In Le Triomphe de la Providence et de
la Religion, Vol. 2 (Amsterdam, 1723) Abbadie identified the Goths
and related peoples of northern Europe as the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel:
“After the two great judgments that God had just
exercised on the Jews, one by Titus and the other by Hadrian, it seems that
Judah could not fail to have the destiny of the ten Tribes his companions, who
formerly were transported by Shalmanazar & since
then mixed with the Gentiles and were without hope & without God in the
World. The Jews had thus deserved it: but God remembered the covenant he had
made with their Fathers & the promise he had made to them to gather them
with their Brothers, the Children of Israel, in his
great compassion. Therefore, Judah will not perish with Ephraim: but Ephraim
will be reunited with Judah. It is true that it is no longer in the Land of
Canaan, in the City of Jerusalem; nor in the Temple: but in Jesus Christ, their
Messiah, who is the fulfillment of their Law, the center of unity, in whom Jews
& Gentiles, Judah & Ephraim are united, to compose all together only
one People, which is the family of God. (Jacques Abbadie: Le Triomphe de la
Providence et de la Religion, Vol. 2, pp. 156-157)
Certainly, unless the ten Tribes have flown into the
air, or been buried in the center of the Earth, we must look for them in the
North, and in that part of the North, which at the time of Constantine was
converted to the Christian faith, among the Iberians, Armenians, &
Scythians; for this is the place of their dispersion, the desert where God made
them dwell in Tents, as when they came out of the Land of Egypt. The ten Tribes
are therefore converted with the Nations, among whom they are, having several
thousand Elected in their bosom, who are marked by the external profession of
the Gospel, as Servants of God, & reunited with their Brothers the Children
of Judah in the Christian Church; this is what is represented to us on occasion
& under the known image of the Gothic Soldiers, marked for the Service of
the Empire, & distributed among the Tribes of this Nation.” (ibid.,
p. 170)
Johannes Eurenius
Johannes 'Jöns' Jacobi Eurenius (1688-1751),
Swedish dean and pastor in Torsåker in Ångermanland. Johannes Eurenius was the son of a priest,
and studied in Uppsala where he in 1716 became Master of Arts. In 1719 he was
appointed principal. In 1722 he became 'eloquentiæ
associate professor' in Harnösand. In 1725 he became
pastor in Torsåker in Ångermanland
in the north of Sweden.
Eurenius wrote Atlantica Orientalis, Eller Atlant Näs til des rätta Belägenhet
beskrifwet för många år sedan (‘Atlantica Orientalis,
or the Cape of Atlantis Described at Its Right Position Many Years Ago’, Strengnäs, Sweden, 1751). In the book, which contained a
foreword by Chapter Dean Carl Fr. Ljungberg, Eurenius
used 140 pages to describe that the Nordic peoples were descendants of the Lost
10 Tribes of Israel, by using the Bible, Nordic and Greek myths and history.
He wrote that
the Greek myth of the giant Atlas was a legend or memory of the forefather of
the Nordic peoples, Jacob-Israel. He also believed that the myth of the lost
land of Atlantis was a legend or memory of the Nordic peoples's
lost homeland Canaan, from which the children of Israel had disappeared.
Atlantica Orientalis was also published in Latin
in Germany (Berlin, Stralsund, and Leipzig, 1764). Johannes Eurenius had to go
through much opposition before Atlantica Orientalis
could be published, especially because many did not like challenging the
flattering thesis which Olof Rudbeck the Elder had written about in his
monumental work Atlant Eller Manheim (1679-1702), that Scandinavia was
the lost Atlantis.
Johannes
Eurenius was a learned man who was held in great respect for his teachings. He
was also viewed as a brilliant man of the church and was in particular known
for his linguistic and musical talents. He also wrote several other books in
Swedish and Latin.
Excerpts from Atlantica
Orientalis:
From Chapter I
'On the land of Israel ATLANTICA': “The history of the children of Israel is no
less true and ancient than it is wonderful and matchless, and besides other
names with which this highly famous people have been called; it is certain that
the Greeks called them Atlanteans, and [that the Greeks called] the land of
Israel Atlantica.” (Johannes Eurenius: Atlantica Orientalis,
p. 1)
“I will let
everyone else look in vain as long as they desire, but it is a certain truth
that the Greek word Atlas is the very same as the Hebrew name Israel.” (ibid.,
p. 3)
From Chapter
VI 'The Dispersed SCYTHIANS or Exiled Israelites': “As well-known as the
SCYTHIAN name is, as unknown are their true ancestry.
All histories speak of them, and many count them among their Countrymen; but no
one seems to be able to positively prove how they first dispersed in Asia, and
how their great power and glory has been able to
spread at that time, as the Highest Government in the same Lands was held by
the Chaldeans, the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, and the Greeks. Thus, it
seems to me very obvious, if these Scythians were the Families of Israel, who
after the time of Salmanasser dispersed themselves in
the Eastern Lands, and did not, at the request of Cyrus, go home, but did plant
Inhabitants out in the at that time uninhabited wastelands and Lands towards
the North.” (ibid., p. 83)
From Chapter
VII 'The SVIAR'S and the GOTH'S Origin from the Scythians or the Lost Children
of ISRAEL ', where Eurenius wrote that Thor is a
legend or memory of Moses: “Thor is a Hebrew word, as well as the title of
Moses. Therefore, he came out of the thunderstorm and the unheard thundering,
and carried forth the Law of God, which in the Hebrew just as much marks Thor as
a Lawgiver.” (ibid., p. 109)
“Thor is said
to have had a club with which he struck his enemies and opened the rock; which
by Joh. Mag. Hist. L. I:9, Adam. Brem. and Erico Olai is called Thor's scepter
or staff, and which was surrounded by fire, and is a certain reminder of the
Moses's staff which followed him into the fire, hit the rock and defeated his
adversaries.” (ibid., p. 110)
Eurenius also wrote that the old
pagan temple in Uppsala was modeled after king Solomon's temple in Jerusalem:
“Of the temple of Sala. Just as the city had its name from the former residence
of the Israelites in Canaan, so the temple in Uppsala was an image of the
ruined Solomon's temple in Jerusalem.” (ibid., p. 112)
About the
religion practices of the Israelites and the Swedes: “With all this you can
nonetheless feel an extraordinary similarity on all points between the
religious practices of the Israelites and of the Swedes, which convinces us of
their relationship.” (ibid., p. 115)
Concerning the
language: “Furthermore, the language which we have kept confirms that our
ancestors have sprung from Israelite refugees and Scythians, since we have an
extraordinary mixture of the languages through which the Israelites stayed
during their exodus out of the Orient, and wandered through.” (ibid., p.
122)
Richard Brothers
Richard
Brothers (1757-1824) was a self-proclaimed prophet who taught that the Lost 10
Tribes of Israel constituted a minority of the British people. Brothers wrote
about this in A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times (1794).
Brothers claimed that he was the 'Prince of the Hebrews' and the 'Nephew of the
Almighty' and that he would lead the Hebrews back to the land of Israel where
he would become the King of Israel until the 2nd Coming of Christ.
In 1795
Brothers falsely prophesied that the British king would die and the British
monarchy would come to an end, which did not happen. Brothers was arrested
because of his false anti-monarchist claims and spent the rest of his life in
an insane asylum. (This was during the French Revolution, where the European
monarchies were fighting for their lives.)
Deceitful
opponents of the Lost Tribes of Israel sometimes claim that Richard Brothers
was the founder of British-Israelism, which is an outright lie. First of all,
there were several men before Richard Brothers who wrote that the British and
related peoples of north-western Europe were the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel.
Secondly, although Richard Brothers' heretic ministry did get a small number of
adherents, it did not result in any mass movement that believed in their
Israelite origin.
However, the
ministry of another Brit, the Scotsman John Wilson, did result in such a mass
movement in the 1830s.
Prophetic meaning of the early witnesses
From a secular
point of view the ethnic origin of these early witnesses of our Israelite
origin may seem random, but from a Biblical point of view and with the
understanding of the identity of the 12 Tribes of Israel, we see that the
ethnic origin of these witnesses were not coincidences, but rather a fulfilment
of Bible prophecy.
When the 10
Tribes of Israel were removed out of the land of Israel and forgot their
Israelite identity, the only tribes that remained in the land of Israel were
the so-called House of Judah, which consisted primarily of the larger tribe of
Judah, the smaller tribe of Benjamin and a large portion of the priestly tribe
of Levi. It is, therefore, no coincidence that the two first known witnesses of
our Israelite origin were of Judah (Jews).
Jacob-Israel’s
firstborn son was Reuben, and Reuben, therefore received the birthright
blessing, which meant that he got a double inheritance compared to his younger
brothers. But Reuben slept with Jacob’s concubine Bilhah, and therefore Jacob
removed Reuben’s birthright blessing and gave it to his favorite son, Joseph.
The tribe of
Reuben is today found in France, as well as in the Franconian regions of
central Germany, from where the Germanic tribe the Franks originated. The
Germanic Franks conquered Gaul in the 5th to 6th
centuries and created the Kingdom of the Franks. The Frankish Empire of
Charlemagne was split into West Francia, which evolved into the Kingdom of
France, and Middle Francia and West Francia, which evolved into the
Germanic-speaking tribal duchies (German: Stammesherzogtümer)
that eventually evolved into the nations of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and
the Low Countries.
The fact that
the first known witnesses of our Israelite origin who was from the 10 Tribes
himself, the French Huguenot LeLoyer, was of the
tribe of Reuben, and the fact that his testimony was unfruitful, is therefore a
fulfilment of the tribe of Reuben, which had the birthright and lost it.
Two of the
other early witnesses were the Flemish linguist Adriaan van der Schrieck and the Swedish Lutheran pastor Johannes Eurenius.
The Flemings, which are the Dutch-speaking people of Flanders in modern
Belgium, are either of the tribe of Zebulon or the tribe of Issachar. Sweden is
primarily of the tribes of Asher and Gad. Johannes Eurenius was from northern
Sweden, which we identify with the tribe of Asher.
The tribes of
Zebulon, Issachar, Asher and Gad were not more or less blessed than the other
tribes. It should therefore not come as a surprise that the ministries of
Adriaan van der Schrieck and Johannes Eurenius also
were unfruitful.
The most
blessed of the 12 patriarchs were Joseph and Judah. Judah is, of course, found
in the Jewish people, and Joseph is found in the English-speaking peoples.
Joseph received the birthright from Reuben, and therefore Joseph’s two sons,
Manasseh and Ephraim, became two tribes of Israel. Ephraim is today found in
especially in England and generally speaking in the United Kingdom, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand and among English-speaking white South Africans.
Manasseh is today found in the United States of America in particular, and to
some extent in the above-mentioned English-speaking nations of Scotland, Wales,
Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, among white South Africans,
but not in England which is predominantly Ephraim.
Jacob prophesied
of Joseph: “Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well;
whose branches run over the wall.” (Gen 49:22) We should therefore
expect that this wonderful truth about the identity of the 12 Tribes of Israel
would first be proclaimed by a man of the tribes of Joseph. And that is exactly
what happened. The writings of the English antiquarian Henry Spelman were unfruitful.
The ministry of Richard Brothers started out with some success, but eventually
vanished.
However, the
ministry of a third Brit, even the Scotsman John Wilson, was very fruitful and
was the birth of the British-Israel Movement, which is said to have had two
million believers in the first half of the 20th century. The
original British-Israel Movement inspired various other movements, such as
Anglo-Israelism, Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God, the notorious
Christian Identity Movement and the Jewish Orthodox Brit-Am Movement.
Thus, we see
that not only are the prophecies about the individual tribes of Israel
fulfilled in specific nations, but even the lives and ethnic origin of the
pioneers of the witnesses of our Israelite origin is a fulfilment of Bible
prophecy.
A detailed
study of the early witnesses of our Israelite origin is not only of historical
interest. It also affirms the very fact that the Western nations are the
descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel.
Hillerød, Denmark
October 2025
Bibliography
ABBADIE,
Jacques: Le Triomphe de la Providence et de la Religion, Vol. 2
DYER, Matthew:
Anglo-Israel Messengers
DAVIDIY, Yair:
“Commentary on the Book of Obadiah”: https://www.britam.org/obadiah.html
EURENIUS,
Johannes: Atlantica Orientalis (1751)
van PETEGEM-FEIJ, E.C.: ”Aan de Lezers van Troost Troost Mijn Volk” (1963)