The Tribe of Levi That Moses Was From

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Jacob had 12 sons who were the origins of the famous 12 Tribes of of Jacob.  Levi was Jacob's 3rd son with Leah, his first wife.  The Levites were the tribe that Moses and his brother, Aaron, were from.

                                                   

Aaron was made high priest by Moses, and all his sons were to follow in his footsteps.  His DNA has been found to be called J1 or the Cohen gene.  Supposedly, all the Levites should have carried the same Y haplogroup of Jacob, and Jacob would have been carrying the same as his father, etc.                         

Scientists have found that this is true of the Cohens who lived under special conditions like not marrying a divorced woman, other  conditions, but is not proving to be true for the group designated as the Levites.                                       

                 Daniel Eskow, Levite, Russian Jewish,  painting by me

Levites:  In very ancient times, all the male descendants of the tribe of Levi were consecrated by Moses to serve in the  the Temple and to instruct the people.                       

 In those days, the 1st-born of each family served as priest, but because of the loyalty of the Levites during the incident of the Golden Calf, they replaced the first born of everyone. 

Each family of Levites was assigned specific duties connected with the transport and assembly of the parts of the future Temple in the wilderness.  The family of Aaron was singled out for service as priests within the Temple-to-be (as a temporary site, referred to as the Tabernacle.)                             

             Bon Voyage party before moving to Israel to teach

After the conquest of Canaan, the Levites were enjoined to teach the Torah to the people, being therefore excluded from any territorial inheritance but receiving 48 towns with their environs throughout the country, as well as a tithe of the agricultural produce.  This arrangement worked somewhat differently to practice.   Daniel, above, finally became a high school history teacher, and he was amazing at it in Oregon.

                                                

Certain towns assigned to the Levites were only captured a long time after the conquest, or not at all, and there is no evidence to show how effective was the collection of tithes.  Consequently, some of the Levites served at High Places, especially in the Northern Kingdom after Jeroboam had instituted independent worship.  

According to Chronicles at the very end of the Tanakh, when the Temple service was organized, traditionally by David, the Levites were divided into groups, each engaging in different work (singers, instramentalists, gatekeepers, assistants to the priests during the sacrifice, etc.  Like the priests, every group was divided into 24 sections, each serving for a week at a time.                        

Out of the tribe of Levi, with the Cohens being the direct line of Aaron, the Levites outnumbered the Cohens.They had become a 2nd-class priesthood.  They got to read from the Torah after the Cohens.  Temple-sacrifice privileges--at the very core of Jewish sacred ritual--were limited to the sons of the high priest Zadok (Cohens), whereas Levites became responsible for more mundane tasks such as day to day upkeep of the Temple, guarding the door, and transporting the Ark of the Covenant.                                                      

     Danny in Israel, teaching.  Under Israeli pressure now in my painting. He's wearing the Israeli style prayer shawl.  

In 2nd Temple times, the Priests outnumbered the Levites, and apparently shared their tithes.  In halakhah, or the law, the Levite is regarded as 2nd to the Priest, and has the privilege of having the Priest's hands before the latter blesses the people.  They had less influence and prestige than the Cohanim.  The Levite position was therefore ambiguous:  of high status but impoverished, "priestly" but not high priests.  Dan never felt impoverished in the status of a Levite but very proud to be one and took it seriously.  Sadly, he died without being DNA tested. 

 However, their responsibilities grew to include composition and performance of liturgical music, as well as teaching, administration and interpretation of Jewish law and ritual.  These functions became especially important during the Hellenistic period and, long before the destruction of the 2nd Temple, helped steer Jewish worship away from the Temple and into the homes and new synagogues.

About R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites

According to a 2003 study, about 52% of Ashkenazi men with a tradition of Levite descent belong to the R1a haplogroup. That haplogroup is less common among Ashkenazim without a tradition of Levite descent (and R1a-Y2619 men without a tradition of Levite descent are often able to determine from genealogical records or tombstones that their direct male line is in fact Levite). The haplogroup is found only rarely among Sephardim (both Levites and non-Levites).

Men belonging to this R1a cluster of Ashkenazi men have become known as R1a1a Ashkenazi Levites or, more recently, as R1a-Y2619 Ashkenazi Levites (Y2619 is a single-nucleotide polymorphism ("SNP") that is shared by all R1a1a Ashkenazi Levites.) It is possible that the origin of this haplogroup comes from Khazaria.

Many Levites have been found to carry the R-M17 haplogroup line, and it is now thought to have originated from Khazaria. The Khazar Empire stood to the east of the area of the Ashkenazi Jews, between the Dnieper and Volga rivers, and reached south into the modern nation of Georgia. Khazaria was established by Central Asian Turkic speaking people whose empire converted to Judaism when confronted that they were trading with Christians, Jews and Muslims, and so the Bulan or king actually chose Judaism and all followed. The people were no doubt Slavic and carriers of R-M17. We can't be sure, but it's a good possibility.

Today, the tribe of Levi, made up of the Cohanim and Levites, is the only tribe left out of the 12 Tribes of Jacob, though one would have thought that it wound be the tribe of Judah! Why is that? Similar to the modern-day Cohanim, non-Cohen Levites are estimated to account for some 4% of the contemporary Ashkenazi community and somewhat less of the Sephardi population. They are found in synagogues all over the world. Remember, they were scattered among all the tribes, and didn't have their own plot of land. In more observant congregations, Levites continue to discharge their historical religious functions. While they no longer have occasion to enforce rectitude at sword point as they once did, in some congregations, they still wash the hands of the Cohanim before the contemporary "priests" deliver their blessings.

In my experience, I have 3 DNA matches of the Y haplogroup E-L117, father and son, with son being very musical, a pianist, and another being a musician, playing the clarinet in his band. Could they also be Levites? Or could this just be coincidence? I wonder about the Cantors of Judaism? How many of them are Levites?

One would think that the general public of Jews, who are called the Israelites, would be the group who suffered the most in the Holocaust, being the remainder of the tribe of Judah, not counting the Cohens and Levites. Jews remaining are only 0.02% of the world population. Jews make up 2% of the USA population.

We're a very small group that should be protected, yet we still suffered from anti-Semitism. We're a group made smaller on our own as well by marrying outside out faith and assimilating., as well. We also have a 3rd danger of our own people turning against us in their desire to be liked by their own peer group; self-hating Jews. Sometimes I think they're out biggest danger.

Resource:

Updated with title: 12/29/2021, 10pm Pacific Time

https://sites.google.com/site/levitedna/home 

Book: Jacob's Legacy : A Genetic View of Jewish History

The World of Moses

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                           

According to the Jewish timeline, Moses was born in 1391 BCE and died at the age of 120 in 1271 BCE.  That was 3,411 years ago in Egypt.  He was born to the slaves Jochebed and Amram of the tribe of Levi in Egypt.  Israelites had wandered into the Egyptian land many years ago and at this period in time, the Egyptians had become worried about their increased growth and had solved the way to stem it.  They had decreed the slaughter of all new-born males of Israelites.  

Jochebed hid her baby Moses among the reeds of the Nile River where he was found by the Pharaoh's daughter who raised him in her own household as a prince.  When he grew up and learned of his ancestry, he took a great interest in them and wound up killing an Egyptian overlord who was beating a Hebrew slave and knew that he himself had to flee or be killed for it.  
                                                      

He fled Eastward to Midian, which was a Beduin tribe related to the Hebrews where he survived by becoming a shepherd of sheep for the local priest, Jethro, and even married his daughter, Zipporah who gave him two sons, Gersham and Eliezer.  The Midianites would travel in caravans of incense from Gilead to Egypt and later to other countries. 
                                                     

 The strange thing is that later on in the desert period, the princes of Midian cooperated with Moab against Israel, and even later on conducted a plundering expedition against the Valley of Jezreel, repulsed by the Hebrew,Gideon during the period of the judges.  They lived near the Moabites and Edomites.  From the 2nd Temple times of 539 BCE, the Land of Midian was thought to be located in NW Arabia. 
                                                                           

The miracle of Judaism lies in remembering and celebrating this event which was the foundation of Judaism, for Moses became the lawgiver for Judaism, though he never knew the name, Judaism, for that was the name of the last of the 12 tribes of Jacob, grandson of Abraham, the tribe of Judah.  They are the ones who carried on the laws of Moses for about the past 3,293 years.  To be able to want to do this shows us how powerful an event this had been.  That's why we read about it every year since then and remember it in our holiday of Passover where we reenact it at our table of special foods with the unleavened bread called matzos that we eat for 8 days in replacement of leavened (with yeast) bread.  We suffer in this way like our ancestors who were led by Moses to freedom of slavery.  
                                                         

The Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, of that time  was not remembered by his name.  Pharaoh means the "Great House", referring to their royal palace.  People have been guessing since then which pharaoh it was who decreed killing babies to control populations.  

Egypt, the powerful nation

Thutmose IV's rule is significant because he established peaceful relations with Mitanni and married a Mitannian princess to seal this new alliance. Thutmose IV's role in initiating contact with Egypt's former rival, Mitanni, is documented by Amarna letter EA 29 composed decades later by Tushratta, a Mittanian king who ruled during the reign of Akhenaten, Thutmose IV's grandson. Tushratta states to Akhenaten that:"

                                                        

From Thutmose IV's tomb in Valley of Kings in Egypt

Pharaoh Menkheperure Thutmose IV 1400-1390 BCE
Probably he was the pharaoh that Moses and Aaron, his brother,  had to deal with.  Moses is said to have been born in 1391 BCE, the year before his ended.

" Little is known about his brief ten-year rule. He suppressed a minor uprising in Nubia in his 8th year (attested in his Konosso stela) around 1393 BC and was referred to in a stela as the Conqueror of Syria, but little else has been pieced together about his military exploits. Betsy Bryan, who penned a biography of Thutmose IV, says that Thutmose IV's Konosso stela appears to refer to a minor desert patrol action on the part of the king's forces to protect certain gold-mine routes in Egypt's Eastern Desert from occasional attacks by the Nubians."

The first dynasty of pharaohs goes back far more than Moses does.  Moses was quite recent in Egyptian history.  They started having kings in 3,150 BCE or 5,170 years ago.  The pharaoh we are interested in was not of the old kingdom or the middle kingdom but of the New Kingdom who reigned from 1400 BCE to 1390 BCE and that was Thutmose IV. He was the son of Amenhotep II and ruled at the height of Egypt's power.  This was a period of the rulers of the 18th dynasty.                                      

Son of Thutmos IV:  Amenhotep III  

                                                                                                        
Or, it could have been the next king who was Amenhotep III, who ruled from 1390 BCE to 1350 BCE and was the grandfather of Tutankhamun.  He was the son of Thutmos IV. Remember,  Moses was born in 1391 BCE, the year before Amehotep III's rule.  

Notice that the intelligence of the Egyptians at this time could only fathom how to draw profiles but not a full face or even a three-quarter face, yet they could draw the front view of the body.  I remember going through that period as a young child in trying to draw the back of the head showing the hair.  I think this is a sign of their mental development.  We teachers of primary grades could understand a child's intelligence by a drawing test called "DRAW A MAN TEST."  i gave points for each part of the drawing.  Naturally, a stick figure was pretty low in age development.  Yet their ability to use clay and such in creating statues was remarkable for even us today.  It could be they just preferred this artistic style.  

King Tut or Tutankhamun , grandson of the pharoah known to Moses:1342-1325 BCE; this is his death mask.  

                                                     

Limestone crudely carved  Stela of  Pharaoh Thutmose IV
adoring goddess Astarte-of 18th dynasty.

A Torah, First 5 books of Moses:  Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy; in Hebrew
called: Bereishis, Shemos, Veyikra, Bamidbar and Devarim;
read every Saturday (Shabbat) morning in a synagogue
out loud to congregation in Hebrew, starting with the Cohens,
then the Levites, then the Israelites. A man will know if he is
a Cohen or a Levite, information passed on through the centuries.
  

 Compare this with the information given to Moses in laws through G-d.  Not only that, but the whole story of Moses is amazing.  How about the 10 plagues brought onto the Egyptians as a result of Pharaoh's refusal to permit the Israelites to leave the country after being there for 400 years?   They were:
1. water of the Nile turning to blood; 2. frogs all over the place, 3. lice attacking man and beast; 4. flies (tsetse) or wild beasts; 5. murrain affecting the cattle (mad cow disease?)(anthrax)(any infectious disease)  6. boils; 7. heavy hail; 8. locusts devouring crops; 9. 3 days of darkness; 10. death of 1st-born of man and beast.  Part of our Seder tells about this every year.   

Since Moses, we have the return of Jews to Palestine causing the birth of modern Israel on May 14, 1948.  In Israel, orthodox Jewry reign.  There are very few Conservative and Reformed Jews living there.  The opposite is true of the USA.  In 2016 it was found that Conservative and Reform outweigh Orthodox Jews 5 times over.  I must add that after living in Haifa and then Safed for over 5 years, one cannot help but become orthodox in their beliefs.  You are living and breathing in the air that does things to you.  Seeing and living in the paths of ancient people of the bible causes one to have goosebumps.  I myself changed from just teaching to become a writer and producer and actress in my own plays.  I wouldn't have done that in the states.  In Israel in 1980 you were a pioneer, and called upon all your resources in helping to achieve anything.  Moses called upon G-d.  Or was it that actually G-d called upon Moses.  

The laws Moses gave us that shaped Judaism are upheld the most in Israel where it all began.  There are 613 laws total we are to follow, most of which are done normally anyway today.  We can certainly appreciate our ancient laws of food and sanitation, like washing our hands, etc, in these modern days of the Corona pandemic.  In fact, that was where we were in trouble many times living in other countries when a plague hit.  They would die and Jews may have lived through it, thought to have brought it about.  The Arabs are trashing us with this ancient accusation right now from Gaza.  

We will miss our family seder during Passover this year due to the Pandemic virus, and hope that all stay safe during this time.  We will attempt to do what we can in order to remember this time and look forward to doing a bang up job of it next year to help our children to remember.  Samayach Pesach, everyone!!

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pharaohs 
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/15/unlike-u-s-few-jews-in-israel-identify-as-reform-or-conservative/
Honest Reporting: We are already seeing antisemites trying to blame Jews and Israel for the coronavirus, journalists accusing Israel of being isolationist or even racist by limiting entry into the country, and of course there’s media bias related to non-virus issues, like Israel’s democracy, borders and security. (4/1/2020)
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Moses-Hebrew-prophet

I Love Jewish DNA's History: Ammon

Nadene Goldfoot                                              

I am made of 2.9% Neanderthal genes.  I know this from a DNA test through 23&Me.  It's amazing what geneticists can find out today.
                                                                       

Last of Neanderthals

They know this from finding bones belonging to Neanderthals about 50,000-80,000  years old.
                                                                           

Denisovans, 40,000 ago, thought to be darker skinned than pale Neanderthals

Some people have Denisovan genes, and some might have both.  This is because of bones already found and labeled as such.  It has been found that there were about 4 early types of humans that interbred with early Homo Sapiens and carry these ancient genes now a part of us.  I know that Neanderthal genes gives me some natural immunity from certain diseases.  "It is estimated that between 1.5 and 2.1 percent of the genomes of modern non-Africans can be traced to Neanderthals". Neanderthals were not found in Africa.
                                                               
When Israelites were on the Exodus,  started in 1579-1578 BCE, and  went into Canaan, they found little city states made up of many types of people.  Our 12 tribes eventually married into some of these as records state.  Those Canaanites who weren't killed in battle,  eventually intermarried with the Israelites.

 One ancient people and country in what is today's Jordan were the Ammonites of Ammon.   "The Bible says several kings arose there  in what is now Jordan and opposed Israel. Can the Bible be trusted?"  Archaeology is finding a lot of the answers that agree in that there were these places.  
                                                                             

The people living in Jordan today were not natives of the land.  They arrived there recently with king Abdullah from Saudi Arabia (Hejaz)  who wanted a country to be king of.  He was from the Hashemite tribe and arrived in Transjordan with his tribe in 1921. Abdullah is a direct descendant of Mohammad.

 There are no longer such people as Ammonites,   though digs should be able to find bones and do some DNA testing.  This would probably only find the MTdna carried and passed on by females as the Y DNA carried and passed on only by males is harder to harvest.
                                                                             

These Ammonites were a Semitic tribe according to the Bible.  They were related to the Israelites.  (Gen. 19:38).  Lot, Abraham's nephew, was the progenitor of the Ammonites, but they were enemies of the Israelites more than friends.  Their main time of existence was from the 13th to the 8th centuries BCE.  After that they declined in numbers and were eventually absorbed into the Arab tribes. They were a group most likely who did not intermarry with the Israelites.
                                                                             

Israelites entered Caanan

The Israelites were led by G-d back to Canaan where Jacob and his family of 70 had been living before finding refuge in Egypt.  After they occupied Canaan, they were attacked many times by the Ammonites who were defeated at the hands of Jephthah and King Saul.  King David annexed their kingdom but they regained their independence and attacked Judah after King Solomon had died and Judah became a state.  This is recorded in (II Chron. 20:27:5;  II Kings 24:2).

After  the destruction of the First Temple, Baalis, king of Ammon,  had Gedaliah, the Governor of Judah, murdered, supposedly to weaken Judah further.  Gedaliah was from a noble Jewish family and had been appointed by the Babylonians as governor of the population which remained in Judah after the destruction of the 1st Temple in 586 BCE.  He had set up the seat of his administration at Mizpah only to be murdered by the commander, Ishmael ben Nethaniah and his followers who were planning a revolt against Babylon.  They were in concert with their neighbors in doing this.  After he was murdered, Gedaliah's supporters fled to Egypt (II Kings, 25:25-26;  Jer.. 41) (Jer. 40:14).

  On the Jews' return from Babylon, Ammon joined Judah's enemies and Tobiah the Ammonite supported Sanballat in his opposition to Nehemiah (Neh. 2:10).  Tobiah was an estate-owner and evidently a petty prince of Ammon  in the mid-3rd century BCE who married the sister of the high priest, Onias II.  Onias was the name of several high priests during the 2nd Temple Period.  
1.  Son of Simon the Just, high priest about 230 BCE who refused to pay the 20 talents of silver given yearly to Ptolemy III of Egypt thereby endangering Judea's safety.
2. Son of Simon II, grandson of the first Onias. He was later assassinated by his brother, Menelaus who then became high priest.
3. son or grandson of the 2nd Onias.  Fled to Egypt to join other Jews suffering from religious persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes and lived in Heliopolis, built a temple at Leontopolis.

 Tobiah's son, Joseph (died in about 181 BCE) leased the taxes of Coele-Syria.  Joseph's younger son, Hyrcanus, was a dynast (hereditary ruler) in Ammon, building himself a stronghold (Arak al-Amir, near Amman) which still survive as remains.

 Notice that Baalis's  name starts with Baal, which among the Canaanite peoples was the proper name of the one god of the sky and fertility originating in Babylonian lore.  Baal is a Hebrew word for husband, owner, lord used by the Caananites.  It was also a term used for various local gods, generally in the form of a bull or a man worshipped as gods of fertility, both found in the field and the womb.  After the Israelites entered Canaan, they tended to adopt these deities (Bealim) of the local inhabitants though the prophets protested loud and clear.  This was probably because it was so close to what passed as religion in Egypt that seeped into the culture of the Israelite slaves as well being it was in their environment.  No wonder Aaron couldn't stop the Israelites from making the golden calf when Moses went up the mountain and was gone for so long.
During the Hasmonean rising, the Ammonites aided the Syrian forces and were defeated by Judah the Maccabee (163 BCE).

Not much is known about the lives of the Ammonites as no literary remains survive, but there have been digs in Transjordan/Jordan that indicate a developed kingdom with fortified frontiers, artistic tastes, and advanced agriculture.  Their religion was that of worshipping fertility gods, the chief being Milkom.

Rabbath Ammon was a Hellenistic city in Ammon.  A cistern and water system were found there.  Also of course, pottery and coins were also found in digs. " Discoveries over the past 150 years have forced archaeologists to acknowledge that the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites existed."

We will not be able to see who is carrying any % of Ammonite genes until bones can be identified as being strictly of Ammon.  Unless they conformed to cremation as a way of burying, it shouldn't be long to find this information.  

In looking for pictures, I discovered that the people of Ammon are now a part of the story of the Mormons (LDS)  who have the Lamanites killing them.  Lamanites (who they call the North American Indians) are not a part of Jewish history, so are not in our Tanakh (Old Testament).  

Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/science-neanderthal-genome-fourth-lineage-01624.html
https://books.google.com/books?id=qQNlslA72SkC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=Ammon,+excavations,+digs&source=bl&ots=r4PfHWeYUK&sig=Wu-jkfSuR42nptMDCofW8H1Gl3Y&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mrE_VZyeJNicygSonIHgCg&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Ammon%2C%20excavations%2C%20digs&f=false
https://answersingenesis.org/archaeology/the-forgotten-kingdoms-of-jordan/
http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/are-you-related-to-neanderthals-photos-131218.htm
https://www.google.com/search?q=Denisovans,+pictures&biw=1024&bih=634&noj=1&site=webhp&tbm=isch&imgil=3G4QaIyl6OapRM%253A%253BP07_SitkHgr0aM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.sci-news.com%25252Fothersciences%25252Fanthropology%25252Fscience-denisovans-homo-species-interbred-modern-humans-01476.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=3G4QaIyl6OapRM%253A%252CP07_SitkHgr0aM%252C_&usg=__jydrhfR3RVusKXIU6G1ZcOadVfM%3D&ved=0CDMQyjc&ei=RLY_VfybNISjyQTq64CoBA#imgrc=3G4QaIyl6OapRM%253A%3BP07_SitkHgr0aM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcdn4.sci-news.com%252Fimages%252Fenlarge%252Fimage_1476e-Denisovan.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.sci-news.com%252Fothersciences%252Fanthropology%252Fscience-denisovans-homo-species-interbred-modern-humans-01476.html%3B1280%3B1344
http://www.gotquestions.org/Ammonites.html
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3194/jewish/What-is-a-Soul.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131122084405.htm   immunity in Neanderthal genes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_I_of_Jordan

Discussing Biblical Quotes from "Killing Jesus" From the Eyes of a Jewish Bubba

Nadene Goldfoot   
                                                                                         

                           Zechariah, the king of Israel, died in 744 BCE.  He was the son of Jeroboam II and the last king of the house of Jehu.   His reign only lasted 6 months and he was assassinated by Shallum (743 BCE) who succeeded him.
                          The other Zechariah was the Prophet and priest who lived in the first half of the 6th century BCE when Jews returned from the Babylonian Exile. His prophecies are concerned with his own contemporary events.

Political situations that Jews found themselves in way back in "Old Testament" (in Hebrew, Tanakh,)  days are not much different than situations we find ourselves in today.   Writers of the gospel certainly used them.  I see that Bill O'Reilly also uses them to prove his novel, "Killing Jesus," on page 177, where he is listing Zechariah's ( 6th century BCE) predictions of a coming Messiah.

He is quoted by Bill Reilly to have said, "Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!  Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!  See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  He will proclaim peace to the nations.   His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth."  

The Zechariah reference given below does not speak of this.  I found it listed in Zechariah 9:9-10.  Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!  Shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem!  For behold, your king will come to you, righteous and victorious is he, a humble man riding upon a donkey, upon a foal, a calf of she-donkeys. I will eliminate any battle-chariot from Ephraim and any war horse from Jerusalem, and the bow of warfare will be eliminated;  and he will speak peace to the nations.  His dominion will be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.  
This was a prophecy by Zechariah against enemy cities for when the Messiah comes to Zion (Jerusalem).  He's saying that the Messiah will be a humble man riding a donkey rather than an ostentatious horse.  It goes on to say that not only the Messiah, but all Jews will be protected and snatched from the waterless pit of exile by merit of the blood of circumcision covenant and the blood of the covenant of Sinai which is spoken of in Exodus 24:8. {This is referring to the covenant the 600,000 took with Moses to follow the laws). We were chosen to follow the laws and to be the light of the world because we were so stiff-necked; a people who when giving a promise would stick by it.  It did not mean we were special in any other way.  This started as Isaac was the son of Abraham and is based on the covenant Abraham had with G-d and this same covenant was renewed in the Sinai.  It is conditional and depends on us following the Torah.  Israel was to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.  Isaiah describes the image of Israel as the chosen servant of mankind whose suffering will bring salvation to the world and Israel is just an instrument.

 What happened for Jews  is that in 70 CE,  Rome, who was occupying Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple and took  Jews as prisoners to Rome.  Many escaped and became the Sephardis, Mizrachis and Ashkenazis who have been in exile for the past 2,000 years until May 14, 1948.  Jews are still waiting for the Messiah. Christians use it to prove that Jesus, who was crucified in 29 CE,  was the Messiah. Many scholars ascribe the chapters from 9 to 14, in which this was found, to another author or authors, possibly of the First Temple Period, on the basis of their language and content.  King Solomon had the Temple built and he reigned from 961 to 920 BCE.

 Zechariah was a prophet who lived during the time of the return from the Babylonian Exile.  He most likely was a priest and his prophecies were concerned with his contemporary events and foretold about material prosperity, the ingathering of the exiles, liberation from foreign yoke, and the expansion of Jerusalem.  His prophecies got the people to rebuild the Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar.

Bill writes of all the things that will happen to Jesus(c8 BCE -29 CE, died at the age of 37);  like riding into town on a donkey, being falsely accused of crimes not committed, being beaten, spat upon, stripped, soldiers rolling dice for his clothing, and of course, crucified.  He ends this section with "and those who love him will look on in mourning, unable to do anything to stop the agony.  Then he lists the 12 quotes this all comes from in order.  I had to look these up and read what they were about.

                                                                  

      King David of Israel, b: Bethlehem, youngest son of Jesse, armour-bearer of King Saul at age 25, married Saul's daughter, Michal.  The Tanakh tells of his virtues and vices.  

1. Psalms 27:12:  "Deliver me not to the wishes of my tormentors, for there have arisen against me false witnesses who breathe out violence."  This was written by King David (1010 BCE-970 BCE)  who fought against the Philistines of which the giant, Goliath was one.  The Philistines, who were not native to Canaan,  were eventually routed and the Israelites became a nation among men.  They were not even Semites.  These invaders had been one of the European Sea Peoples who migrated south from the Greek Island to crush empires and occupy much of the Middle East.  Egypt survived their onslaught but was greatly reduced in size.  When Moses had  Joshua and the Israelites enter Canaan  c 1271 BCE,  the Philistines were not there.  It was after their defeat in 1191 BCE by Ramses III, heir of the Ramses II who is thought to have been the Pharaoh in the Exodus story who relented and freed the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, that the Philistines were constructing their 5 cities in Philistia along the south coast of today's Israel.  Gaza was the southernmost of the cities.  Actually, coming from Greece, the Philistines can then be said to be European.

Bill has it on page 14 that the northern portion of the Jewish Homeland, Israel, fell to the Philistines.  Wrong, Bill.  It fell to the Assyrians in 722 BCE.  By 721 BCE they were leading off the best of Israelites into captivity.  Then the Babylonians came along in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE and did the same thing.

 Today's Arab Palestinians got their name from the Romans in 135 CE after fighting for 3 years against the Jewish General, Bar Kokhba, and were so angry at being involved in a war with him for so long that after killing him, they named Judah and Israel   Palestine after the Jewish enemy, the Philistines, just to be antagonizing.   Israelis today have certainly been suffering from a lot of false witnesses breathing out violence from these very same people, who call themselves "Palestinians."  Actually, before May 14, 1948 when Israel became a legal state being the mandate England held was up, both Jews and Arabs were listed as Palestinians being the land was called Palestine.

2. Psalms 35:11:  "False witnesses rise up, for that of which I know nothing they call me to account."  Here we see that King David was describing the machinations of his enemies.  He had been appealing for help against friends that had turned into traitors.  So too, Israel in exile appealed against nations that repayed Israel's contributions with oppression.  They're repeating the past today.  Israel stands alone but for a few friends, and today's attitude of the USA today has been the worst in many respects since 1948.
How many times has this applied to Jews in the Middle Ages who were accused by the Christians of a blood libel?  If they knew anything about Judaism, they would have known that Jews do not eat blood of any creature at all.  Part of the laws concerning food, (Kashrut) go to great lengths telling about how to not eat blood when eating from cows, sheep, those certain animals allowed.

3. Micah 5:1:  "Bethlehem--Ephratah--you are too small to be among the thousands of Judah, but from you someone will emerge for ME to be a ruler over Israel;  and his origins will be from early times, from days of old."  Ephratah was another name for Bethlehem of Judah as found in Genesis 48:7.  As the city of Ruth, a convert from Moab, Bethlehem was an unlikely source of leadership, but it produced David, the ancestor of the Messiah.  (To Jews, the Messiah is yet to come.)  Christians take this for being Jesus.  This is when Jewish rulers start to emerge.  Judah was created out of southern Israel when King Solomon died in 920 BCE.  He had charged too much in taxes and a rebellion ensued causing the split.  The king following Solomon in Judah was Rehoboam (933-917 BCE).  It was made up mostly of the descendants of Judah-the tribe of Judah, and most of the tribe of Benjamin and presumably absorbed the tribe of Simeon which was isolated in the extreme south.  It was a poor kingdom and did not have access to the sea.  Micah was born in the latter part of the 8th century BCE and was a prophet of Judah.  His future monarch he sees from the House of David would bring peace to the world.  This prophecy was already familiar in the reign of King Jehoiakim (608-598 BCE).  One reason Jews do not accept Jesus as the Messiah is that there hasn't been any peace in the world.  Instead, Jews have suffered more than ever.  It took them 1,878 years to regain their own land and finally have a country of their own again.

4. Isaiah 50:6: "I submitted my body to those who smite and my cheeks to those who pluck;  I did not hide my face from humiliation and spit."  Here Isaiah, a prophet in Jerusalem, Judah,  who started prophesying from the death of Uzziah until the middle of Hezekiah's reign (740- 701 BCE). speaks of both his own readiness to be God's spokesman and God"s readiness to inspire him.  Every morning, God inspires him anew with teachings and prophecies, and does it in such a way that he can understand them clearly.  This is part of the prophet's sacrifice.  Christians use a lot of quotes from Isaiah to prove that Jesus is the Messiah but the writing at that time was actually about the Jewish people.  Prophecies of redemption and comfort have been of supreme importance both in Judaism and Christianity.  No doubt Jesus knew many of them by heart himself.

5. Psalms 22:18: "I can count all my bones;  they look on and gloat over me."  David meant this speaking as an individual and as the king.   Frenzied mobs were comprised of the base people.  He's thinking that the mob wishes to take his mantle of royalty for themselves.  Later,  Jews prayed for a final end to Israel's long exile from its land and its Temple.  (The first exile happened in 721 BCE when the Assyrians attacked and took away 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel  to their own lands.)  Quotes 22: 18 and 16 would have been relevant.

6. Psalms 22:16: "My strength is dried up like baked clay, and my tongue cleaves to my palate;  in the dust of  death You set me down."  David had started 21 with not rejoicing in his own strength, but in Yours (God).  He goes on to say that even if the chain of Jewish sovereignty is interrupted, the monarchy will be restored to the seed of David.  People will bless each other with the wish, "May God make you like him (David)."  He knows more than anyone else, kings and powerful people must set an example by acknowledging God's kindness.

7. Zechariah 12:10: "I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitant of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplications.  They will look toward Me because of those whom they have stabbed;  they will mourn over him as one mourns over an only children and be embittered over him like the embitterment over a deceased firstborn." This is a prophecy of the world of G-d concerning Israel.  The salvation will be so complete that people will be astonished if even one man is killed by the enemy.  The Judeans will be compelled to fight their brethren and see that they were miraculously spared, and they will turn against their enemies who forced them to join their ranks.  It is then that Jerusalem will be restored to its former status. The prophet lived in the 500's BCE.   According to 2 sources, the Targum and the Talmud, 2 events are alluded to here;  the mourning over King Ahab (876-853 BCE) , son of Omri, king of Israel, who was killed in battle by Hadadrimmon, son of Tabrimmon;  and the mourning for King  Josiah(637-608 BCE) , King of Judah, who was slain in the Valley Megiddon/Megiddo.

8. Deuteronomy 21:23: "His body shall not remain for the night on the gallows, rather you shall surely bury him on that day, for a hanging person is a curse of G-d, and you shall not contaminate your Land, which Hashem, your G-d, gives you as an inheritance.  This is part of the 613 laws Moses handed down to the Israelites.  It concerns hanging and burial.  Jews follow this today in that a corpse must be buried within 24 hours.  Bill wrote about Lazaras being dead for 4 days and Jesus raising him from the dead to show a miracle had happened.  .

9. Numbers 9:12: "For Zebulun, Eliab son of Helon.  For the children of Joseph-for Ephraim, Elishama son of Ammihud;  for Manasseh, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur.  For Benjamin, Abidan son of Gideoni.  for Dan, Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai."  This is part of a list of the tribal leaders.  It's from a census taken in the wilderness of the Sinai Desert by Moses and Aaron.They counted men from age 20 and older.  Joseph is represented by his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh as tribes. What is Bill using this for to prove?  I don't know.

10.  Psalms 34:20: "Many are the mishaps of the righteous, but from them all Hashem rescues him." No one becomes truly righteous and great without his share of mishaps.  David conquered despair by composing 34 which is an alphabetical hymn, to show that our every faculty, from aleph to tav (a to z) should be dedicated to G-d.    

11. Exodus 12:46:"In one house shall it be eaten, you shall not remove any of the meat from the house to the outside, and you shall not break a bone in it. "  This is part of the laws of the Pesach offering. and that no alienated person may eat from it.   The Exodus had been discussed in 12:37 previously.   It was saying that the Israelites were in Egypt for 430 years before Moses came along and took them out.
12:  Zechariah 12:10: (repeated reference).  Incorrect.

As I look at all 12 references, only one, that of Zechariah which I found to be from 9:9-10, actually referred to a Messiah.  The rest were comments from contemporary events in the life of the prophets.  Those from Psalms, of course, seem to fit any occasion and are used as comfort for everyone.  As Bill wrote on page 176, "Jesus had led a life that was a continual fulfillment of Jewish prophecy" if taken out of context.  Only the donkey was a reference legitimate to use, and that was a well known reference.  So everybody in Jerusalem could have known it, and certainly Jesus would have known it.  In order to make his point, he could copy this reference to the Messiah.

It was a cruel and horrible punishment to crucify people that the Romans practiced.  It was done by the ancient Greeks and Romans and was derived from Persia (Iran today) but not known to Jewish law.  The custom was introduced into Judah by the Romans and was the usual punishment inflicted by them for rebels. Thousands of Jews suffered this fate under Roman rule.  The New Testament description of the crucifixion of Jesus clearly shows that the Roman procedure was followed.  Jews did not crucify people but were crucified.

 73 BCE-4 BCE Herod I, the Great, king of Judea appointed by Rome.  When he died, there were uprisings by the people so Roman General Publius Quinctilius Varus crucified 2,000 Jews to quell the uprisings.   
30 BCE  Herod the Great by Julius Ceasar, crucifixions; 25,000 Jews till 70 CE.  when Romans burned down the Temple. 
 
Resource: Novel, Bill Reilly's "Killing Jesus"
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://israel-nadene.blogspot.com/2014/08/jews-living-in-judea-samaria-and-other.html
The Northwest Connection Volume 8 #92,  The Eternal War Between Israel and the Palestinians:  Part I in series by Jim Wagner.  About Philistines.
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/01/bringing-in-mashiach-messiah.html

How the Cohen Gene of J1 Is Being Found in Jews and Palestinians and Other Arabs

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                        

Challah, a special bread made for Friday night, the start of Shabbat, a Jewish custom.  Bread in the bible days was considered the main element of any meal and a blessing is said over it.

There are those that do not believe much in what is in the 5 books of Moses found in the Old Testament in which tells us that there was an Abraham who fathered an Ishmael by Hagar, an Egyptian woman who was his wife's handmaiden, and Isaac by his wife, Sarah.
                                                                           

Yet, DNA is proving that the story is correct in that we are finding the Cohen gene, which is haplogroup J1c3d,  is being found in the Jewish Cohens, men who are first to read from the Torah in the synagogue because they are Cohens who count their main ancestor as Moses's brother, Aaron who came from Abraham through Isaac, and in the Arab communities as well from Abraham through Ishmael.  Scientists can tell if the haplogroup is from the Jewish or the Arab branches.  What thrills me is that this was written by Moses who lived from 1391 BCE to 1271 BCE.  He knew that there was a connection between the Israelites, later to be called the Jews and the rest of the the Middle Easterners, and that is is just something  now proven scientifically 3,300 years later.  Actually, Jews have always spoken of the Arabs as our cousins because of Moses's writings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV619rQus1s&list=PLgHUqrFleJ0WBn0rs_sjLbnqz_-bysVnG&index=2

                                                                               

      A handshake between Hussein I of Jordan and Yitzhak Rabin, accompanied by Bill Clinton, during the Israel-Jordan peace negotiations, July 25th, 1994

The latest revelation, which Dr. Jon Entine, author of the book, Abraham's Children," lectures in a video made in 2011, tells about finding out more about the Palestinians' DNA and that there are also those who are Bedouins in Judah and Samaria also have the Cohen gene. Some of these people are interviewed on the video and profess to be interested in going back to Judaism now.  Others must be found in and around Judah and Samaria who had lived there for a long time.

We know that Assyria had struck Israel and took away the cream of the Israelite people in 721 BCE, the best of the population.  The Babylonians did the very same thing in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE.  When the Romans came along and conquered Jerusalem in 70 CE they also had taken the best of the population as slaves, just like they had taken the Greeks before.  So that means that the laborers, the general population were left in pockets, hiding out where they couldn't be found.  Some of these people were forced to convert to Islam, so thus we have these Palestinians who had been Jewish tribes.

The video opens  with Mike Nichols, a Jewish movie director with Russian and German ancestors finding out he has the Cohen gene and that he matches with Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Muslim American surgeon with Turkish ancestors.  Dr. Oz, when interviewed told how he was surprised at this finding and that it shows how we are so similar with the difference only in how we think about things.  That may be the crux in our differences.  Here's where environment may come into play to show its affect on people even more than genetics.  Yet genetics is showing how similar we are, as well.

Some of these clans or even tribes have preserved Jewish customs of lighting candles,   only are doing it on both Thursday and Friday nights.  They have Challah.  The boy babies are circumcised.  They found tefillin.  Prayers were done in secret, showing a behavior similar to the Anusim (originally called Marranos) who were from Spain and Portugal and through the Spanish Inquisition of 1492 had to hide their Jewishness for fear of death.

It showed they have a practice I hadn't heard of and that is of lighting candles at the graveside   One village had the name which translates into wine makers.  This is definitely not coming from after 632 CE since Muslims have a taboo against drinking wine or any other spirits, so they must have been a village of wine makers.

Jewish artifacts were found such as the Star of David on homes, and others that had been disguised by embellishment on the original star.  90% of one town was originally found to have been Jewish at one time. The researcher did run into people who did not want cameras on their homes showing some of these artifacts.

One fellow could recite his ancestors back 8 generations, which was done as shown in the book "Roots" when Alex Haley went to Africa to find his roots and ran across his tribe who could recite a very long and involved history of their genealogy.  Another thought it was his grandfather who converted to Islam.

Who cares if  there are some Palestinians who have   Jewish roots?  What difference does it make?  Who cares at all about the DNA of people?  Like Dr. Oz mentioned, the difference may only lie in the way we have learned to think.  So far, Muslims have been taught, for political reasons, that we Jews stem from monkeys and apes.  Really?  Now that they might learn we truly are cousins, is it wise to say this, or would it be better for all if we recognize that we are brothers under the skin and learn to get along and work together.
That's what I'm hoping.  So far this has been a one man crusade of someone putting all his money into this endeavor of research.  He's an Israeli and I'm saying, more power to him.  This is a wonderful find.

We know that much of this is also true of many of the Pashtuns, who number into the millions. Some believe that they are descended from the Lost Ten Tribes.  Many present people could be extensions from the Persian Jewish community.  Most Afghan Jews speak Judeo-Persian.   Some, or even a few of them may have Jewish DNA since they still have continued some Jewish customs as well, but they lately profess a fighting spirit against the Israelis today and are deep into their Islamic beliefs.  My own Jewish father's DNA haplogroup matches with a few Pashtuns, which tells me we are connected somewhere along our line of existence, possibly from our stay in Persia.    Some of the Pashtuns have become Talibanists, terrorists, and of course this is an environmental thing.

The video has many aspects to it all involving Jewish DNA findings.  It's well worth studying.  I must add that this was produced in 2011 and that there have been many advances in autosomal DNA testing since then.  I'd love to have an update on that one aspect as we are finding some fantastic things through this type of test as well.  Doing genealogy required having written records of our ancestors.  When that isn't available, we can turn to autosomal testing and find people who share segments of our 23 chromosomes.  Because of this, I've found connections to the Rabbi of Worms through  a triangulation method who in turn has written records of his ancestry to Rashi, who has the known oral history of being connected to King David.

DNA science is making leaps and bounds while connecting to other  subjects of history, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, Linguistics and population genealogy, of course.

As Dr. Ariella Oppenheim, geneticist in Israel,  said, "this shows a genetic connection only."   We know we are missing the key to all our problems, which is how we have grown to think differently about each other.  Israel has set up programs which connect Jews and Arabs into mutual community events and had always hoped that eventually the two groups would learn to tolerate each other.  While Israel has been doing this, schools in the PA held areas of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) have been busy with their textbooks teaching a hatred for the Jews.  Politics have been destroying any advent of a mutual co-existence.  That must change, but how?

I spent a sleepless night thinking of what can happen.  I think spreading the knowledge that there is this blood connection would be a good starting point that might lead to joining mentally as well eventually.  The Palestinians have been saying that the Jews have no connections to Israel.  They are in complete denial of our history and roots.  Maybe showing this video or something similar which will teach people more about this history would be helpful for starters.

Of course we're going to run into competition with Islam.  Muslims will be against other Muslims converting back to Judaism.  Their political upbringing is not as open-minded as the Jews have been.  As I look at the history of the Muslim  countries, they have had nothing but fighting going on between them and are very competitive with each other, so there they are, most likely all cousins, and yet they don't always get along, so maybe I have too high a hopes.  The same with Europe.  They're probably all interrelated, too, but have warred against each other throughout the generations into 1944.  After all, Cain killed Abel, and they were brothers.  Well, we've advanced in so many ways.  Now we need to advance past the Cain and Abel stage of thinking.  For those who don't know who they were, they were Adam and Eve's sons.  

Resource:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV619rQus1s&list=PLgHUqrFleJ0WBn0rs_sjLbnqz_-bysVnG&index=2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Haley
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia