By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: March 5, 2007
Britain and Ireland are so thoroughly divided in their histories that there is no single word to refer to the inhabitants of both islands. Historians teach that they are mostly descended from different peoples: the Irish from the Celts, and the English from the Anglo-Saxons who invaded from northern Europe and drove the Celts to the country’s western and northern fringes.
But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles are edging toward a different conclusion. Many are struck by the overall genetic similarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of years by a single people that have remained in the majority, with only minor additions from later invaders like Celts, Romans, Angles , Saxons, Vikings and Normans.
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Collins comments: This New York Times story (dated March 5, 2007) unknowingly offers substantial support to biblical narratives and the conclusions of my books: that the British Isles were populated by various waves of immigrants who were all descended from a common origin. While obviously not part of the Times report, that origin was in the migrating ten tribes of Israel. The story cites a DNA study of the peoples of the British Isles by geneticists, who “…are struck by the overall genetic similarities…[and]…that the Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh have a great deal in common with each other.”
Obviously, if these waves of tribes immigrating into the British Isles were from diverse origins, their DNA differences would be much greater. The survey mistakenly concludes that the results indicate that the numbers of invading Saxons, Normans, etc. must have been much less than originally thought, and that the original Celtic tribes contributed more to today’s English population. The DNA survey found that the Irish have the least amount of “invader” genes (“12%”), while the Welsh have “20%” such genes, the Scots “30% and the England has “about a third.” This accurately confirms that most invader genes are in the regions settled by the invading Saxons, Normans, etc., but the geneticists’ conclusion has a huge historical problem. Even the great Roman general, Julius Caesar, found the native Celtic tribes of England to be fierce fighters, and subsequent Roman generals lost a great deal of blood to the native Celtic warriors. If the Celtic fighters were worthy opponents for the Roman legions, how come they succumbed so easily and lost so much territory to the invading Saxons, Normans, etc. if these invaders were few in number? If the Celts were really so much more numerous, they should have hurled the Saxons and other invaders into the sea.
There is a clear biblical explanation for the remarkable similarity for the DNA similarity of the people in the modern British Isles. That explanation is that the Celts, Saxons, Normans, etc. all had a common genetic origin and were members of various tribes of a previously united people. The DNA survey is exactly what we should expect if these tribes all had an origin in the original biblical kingdom of Israel (the northern kingdom composed of the ten tribes of Israel).
As readers of my books know, Hosea 1 prophesied that while God stated that He would punish the ten tribes of Israel for their sins by exiling them from the Promised Land, He also prophesied that He would greatly increase their population after he exiled them! Indeed, Hosea 1:10 prophesied that the exiled Israelites would become as numerous as “the sand of the sea” in the new locations to which God would exile them. Josephus, the famous Jewish writer of the 1st century AD, stated that in his time, the population of the ten tribes had become “…an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers.” [Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XI, V, 2] Biblical minimalists have failed miserably in trying to find the supposedly “lost” ten tribes of Israel because their searches are based on a very flawed assumption: that God cursed the ten tribes and that only vestigial traces of them can be found today. In fact, Hosea 1’s prophesy clearly states that the ten tribes will be found among the large (and therefore, more powerful) nations of the world! Josephus even named the western border of the Asian region inhabited by the ten tribes of Israel in the first century AD. He says they were located “beyond Euphrates” (i.e. east of the Euphrates River because Josephus was writing from the perspective of Jerusalem). At the time Josephus wrote these words, the Euphrates River was the border between the Roman and Parthian Empires, both of which were ancient superpowers. Rome tried many times to invade Parthia and usually was defeated. The biblical book of James, also written in the 1st century AD confirms Josephus’ reference to the ten tribes as a known people who lived in a known location. The book of James is addressed to: “the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.” This confirms the ten tribes, like the Jews, had been “scattered” into many diverse locations by the time 800-900 years had passed since the ancient kingdom of Israel fell.
My 4-book series on the hidden history of the ten tribes of Israel documents that the ancient kingdom of Israel was actually a powerhouse in the ancient world. Allied to the city-states of Tyre and Sidon, they constituted what historians have called the golden age of the Phoenician Empire. This Phoenician Empire founded many colonies in Europe, North Africa, Spain, the British Isles, etc. When the kingdom of Israel fell and its people were “scattered” elsewhere, some took refuge in the numerous Phoenician colonies in Europe and Africa. They could easily do so as the Phoenicians had a massive fleet which could transport many refugees. My books document that archaeologists have found that Spain especially received an infusion of migrants from Phoenicia during the years preceding the fall of Samaria, the capital of the kingdom of Israel. Ancient British histories also record that the “Celtic” populations of those Isles were reinforced by fleets of immigrants from the “Tuatha de Danaan” and the “Simonii” at the time the kingdom of Israel collapsed in the 8th century BC. These two groups are easily recognized as migrants from the Israelite tribes of Dan and Simeon. Ancient Spain was then known as “Iberia” because it was named by the Israelite/Phoenician Empire after “Eber,” the famous forebear of the Hebrews (i.e. Israelites). The DNA survey confirms that many of the “principal ancestors of today’s British and Irish populations arrived from Spain about 16,000 years ago…” This complements the conclusions of my books which assert that Spain was a major jumping-off point for many of the waves of Israelite migrants who sailed further onward to the British Isles to seek new homelands as they fled as far as possible from the invading Assyrians. However, The survey is well off in its estimated dating of this happening “16,000 years ago.”
While the majority of Israel’s ten tribes either were (A) taken captive into Assyria or (B) migrated northward to the Black Sea region and preserved their independence, the colonists and refugees who escaped into Europe and the British Isles came to be called the tribes of the “Celts.” The Israelites who migrated to the Black Sea region were called “Scythians” or “Sacae” while the Israelites taken captive into Assyria later became the backbone of the Parthian Empire (the exact region Josephus stated was inhabited by the ten tribes). [For more information about the Scythians, readers are referred to the “articles” link of this website for an extensive article on the Scythians.]
The Parthian Empire fell in 227 AD and its many millions of peoples were driven out of Asia by the resurgent Sassanid Persians. These migrating Parthians headed toward Europe and became known as “Caucasians” because they migrated via the Caucasus Mountains. Extensive secular evidence for this migrational period of the ten tribes is cited in my books. The Israelite tribes were so numerous that they migrated into Europe over a period of several centuries, fighting with the Romans, the native Celts and each other as they competed for new homelands. The Saxons and Germanic tribes invaded northern Europe while the Goths and Vandals invaded southern Europe. The Saxons invaded the British Isles about a millennium after the kingdom of Israel fell and the Normans arrived circa 17 centuries after the biblical kingdom of Israel fell. The remarkable DNA similarity among the modern inhabitants of the British Isles confirms these invaders all had a common origin with the original Celtic tribes of the British Isles.
That common origin was in the ancient biblical kingdom of Israel (called the “Phoenician Empire” between 1000-700 BC). All the ten tribes of Israel originated with a single father, Jacob, whose name was changed to “Israel” (Genesis 32:28). This was circa 1700 BC. The Israelite tribes were together during the Egyptian captivity and, later, in the Promised Land after the Exodus until about 740-720 BC when the kingdom of Israel fell. In other words, for about a millennium, the ten tribes of Israel were a single entity of “brother” tribes whose members intermarried freely with each other. The DNA of the ten tribes would be remarkably similar at the time of their separation. The invasions of the Saxons, Normans, etc. into the British Isles, as seen from a genetic perspective, simply reunited many groups of the scattered tribes of Israel. Because the invaders of and the original Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles had a common ancestor and a millennium of intermarriage between their common ancestors before their separation, one would expect a very high degree of DNA commonality among them. The DNA survey confirms this fact. The number of modern British inhabitants originating from the “invader” genes is dramatically understated in the survey’s conclusions because the geneticists do not realize that all these groups had a common origin and a common DNA pool long before any such “invasions” occurred.
The survey also noted that “the Y chromosomes of English men seem identical to those of people in Norway and the Friesland area of the Netherlands,” and further states that an original Germanic tongue shared by the ancestors of many modern European nations subdivided into four divisions (the German/Dutch branch, the Gothic/Vandal branch, the Scandinavian branch and the English branch). The fact that many of the British (and larger European) nations all had a common linguistic, as well as a common DNA, origin further confirms that many modern European nations had a common ancient origin. That original common origin was in their all being parts of the ten tribes of Israel in the biblical kingdom of Israel.
This DNA survey further confirms the scientific and factual accounts of the Bible’s narratives. The fact that it unknowingly does so offers especially strong evidence in support of both the Bible’s accounts and the conclusions of my books.
I would like to thank Winston Powell of Florida for bringing this New York Times link to my attention.
Steven Collins
