From a reader:
While I commend your effort to attempt to trace cultures through historical documents, I have some major issues with describing the Scythians as a Semetic group. They were a matriarchal society with a known pantheon of gods and goddesses. Cultures and cultural traditions do change over time, but it is hard to imagine that in the course of a “diaspora” these people transformed the fundamental structure of their religion and society. Also, the rich archeological record shows a much stronger link to nomadic herders of the Eurasian steppes. It is disturbing to me as a researcher to read works that willfully ignore information which does not conform to preconceived notions.
Sarah
My response:
Sarah,
I think I understand where our perceptual differences about the Scythians lie. Herodotus wrote that there were two kinds of “Scythians.” There were the very uncivilized Turanian Scythians and the Sacae Scythians which the Greeks regarded as very civilized and refined. Indeed, Herodotus calls the Turanian Scyths “the stupidest of men.” The “Sace-ae” Scythians had upon them the name of Issac, as Genesis 21:12 prophesied would always be affixed upon the birthright descendants of Abraham. I think you were referring to the Turanian Scythians and my books discuss the Sacae Scythians.
There is a second difference. The Scythians by the Black Sea were Israelites who evaded the Assyrian captivity and God sent a favorable message to them in Jeremiah 3:11-12. These Scythians, located straight “north” of Jerusalem, scrupulously avoided idolatry and swine, a fact attested to by Greek historians. II Esdras 13 also discusses these Israelites who escaped the Assyrian captivity and traveled north of the Euphrates River toward the Black Sea. However, the Israelites who did go into the Assyrian captivity were sun-worshipers and had idolatrous customs. They still had those customs when the fall of the Assyrian Empire allowed them to migrate to a new location east of the Caspian Sea. These sun-worshiping Scythians were the ones who annihilated the Persian army under Persian King Cyrus the Great in 530 B.C.
Steve Collins
