Talk:Israelites

Kings 1, 11:34 Ahijah the Shilonite

The Tribes of Israel were divided by Ahijah the Shilonite in the book of Kings 1 and is specifically mentioned in the chapter 11. At least 10 of the 12 Tribes of Israel were taken from Solomon, the Jewish ruler at that time. Question, how can I improve this quote before posting?

34 “‘But I will not take the whole kingdom out of Solomon’s hand; I have made him ruler all the days of his life for the sake of David my servant, whom I chose and who obeyed my commands and decrees. 35 I will take the kingdom from his son’s hands and give you ten tribes. 36 I will give one tribe to his son so that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my Name.

— First mention of the tables in Kings 1, 11:34-11:36

Twillisjr (talk) 01:32, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Need to distinguish between "Israelites" and "Jews"

Much of the article - the second half in particular - simply repeats information in the article Jews (and History of ancient Israel and Judah). If this article is to have any reason for a separate existence, it has to treat a separate subject. It can best do that by restricting itself to the concept of Israelites as a holy community. If it can't find its own focus, then it should be merged into those other articles.

In order to find that focus, I've taken this definition of "Israelites" based on the HarperCollins Bible Dictionary (I'm not wedded to that source, I'm just trying to find an RS definition): The Israelites, according to the Hebrew bible, were the descendants of Jacob the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham and Sarah; during the period of the divided kingdom it properly applied only to the inhabitants of the kingdom of Israel with its capital at Samaria; after the destruction of Samaria and the deportation of the northern tribes it became applied to the two southern tribes making up the southern kingdom of Judah; and in the post-exilic period it became virtually synonymous with Jews." (And then there could be paras about the use of the term in the New Testament, and its use in modern Judaism). PiCo (talk) 03:32, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm curious as to how a name that means "wrestle with God" became the name of an entire nation. How come Jews are "Israelites" rather than "Abrahamites" or "Yitzhakites" or "Jerusalemites" or even "South Canaanites"? Given the traditional character of Jewish religion, why doesn't the Jewish people call itself the "B'nei Torah" or "B'nei Mitzvot" or something similar (Children of the Torah/ Children of the Commandments) — Rickyrab. ^{Yada yada yada} 02:29, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

These are all good questions, but this isn't really the place to ask them. (Try the Jewish Encyclopedia). PiCo (talk) 02:40, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

the 12 forefathers of the israelite tribes were the sons of jacob, who is known as israel too, so it started as sons of israel, and eventually became israelites. about the other question, there are other names for jews, not only israelites. but they aren't common or even really used, and thus, not really known to someone who doesn't live in jewish community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.72.225.222 (talk) 23:20, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

They are good question Rickyrab, and I give you my word I am not being blasphemous, but I was taught a different meaning of the words translated into English as the first book of Old Testament (properly labeled the plural form of the Latin word Genus), from words written in the Torah. The way I was taught, distinguishes between spiritual existence and the times when the spirit -- for a time -- is temporarily Housed in flesh -- through a lease on life so to speak -- but because what a spirit as an individual or entire family is referred to by name, recognizing the difference between spirit alone and the spirit inhabiting a body becomes confusing in the history recorded. So traditional interpretations may have trouble recognizing the subtle key words that signal the point where the record is changes from speaking of a name of a spirit, to the name of a spirit conducting life in a house (spirit inhabiting a body) See Genus chapter 12 verses 5 and 6 (Genesis 12:5-6) and notice the terminology that demarks the line that must be passed through to go from spirit existed in Canaan, to a lease on a house for the spirit (spirit in body which then called Canaanite)Dirtclustit (talk) 19:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

‎@Rickyrab:It is a mighty question indeed, and I think I can give you a brief answer. The name ישראל Yisra'el comes from two northwest Semitic root words ישרה 'Yisra' or 'Yishra' meaning to strive, or to struggle, and the word אל 'El' meaning force, influence, deity, or God. The name comes from a story in the Torah when Ya'aqov (Jacob), whose name literally means 'heal' since he came out of the womb clinging to Esau's heal, had a friendly competitive 'sport like' fight with a malakh, or messenger of God. He won the match and the malakh gave him the name Yisra'el because he struggled with the forces of God and persevered. Remember this fight was not a battle, but a friendly competition, to see how long Ya'aqov could 'hold on'. Since he was able to persist with a powerful malakh for the entire match he was given this name as a compliment to his perseverance in the face of difficulty, much like the Jews have endured massive suffering over the millennia in their quest to remain Israelites and keep their Torah with God. The reason they are not called Avrahamites is because, beside Yiẓḥaq, according to the Hebrew Bible Avraham fathered seven nations, the Ishamelites, the Midianites, the Shuaḥites, the Zimranites, the Jokshanites, the Ishbakites, and the Medanites by his seven other sons, through Hagar and Qeṭurah, Yishma'el, Zimran, Yaqshan, Medan, Midyan, Yishbaq, and Shuaḥ. The reason they are not called Yiẓḥaqites is because Yiẓḥaq supposedly fathered two nations, the Edomites and Israelites, through his twins Esau and Yisra'el born to Rivqa. The reason they are not called Jerusalemites is because Jerusalem was not a holy place to for the Israelites until the time of King David. The reason they are not called Southern Canaanites is because they claim a different lineage. The land of Israel was one of the last places to be fully settled after the Neolithic revolution. The first settled human cities in the middle east were focused around major river systems like the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Tigris. While Israel only had the Jordan river. It was primarily an Egyptian, Akkadian, and Sumerian trade route. The first colonists appear about a thousand years before the Israelites, who are Egyptian colonists that settle along the coast and near the river Jordan. These were the Canaanites. The Israelites claim not to be of north African origin, but instead of northwest Semitic extraction, not from Egypt, but from Sumer and Aram in Arabia. The reason why Israel is not called B'nei Torah or B'nei Miẓwoth is because the Israelites are not a philosophy or belief system, they claim to be a physical nation descended from a single Semitic man named Yisra'el who lived 4000 years ago. While this may not be true for every Jew and Samaritan, it has recently been shown with Y-DNA testing that Jews and Samaritans, as well as Palestinians, share the same unique and very rare 12 marker Y-DNA signature that is not found in high percentages among other populations, indicating all three groups are descended from a single Semitic male ancestor who lived 3500 +/- 500 years ago. Newmancbn (talk) 02:43, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Black Hebrew Israelites

Hi guys, does any of you think that they should be mentioned in the article or is it just me? Because they are indeed relevant and must be at least in in the "see also" section... There seems to be little to no information at all about these peoples' theory and Jewish identity. Thanks, Yambaram (talk) 00:49, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Considering the fact that they're frauds from West African ancestry, and regardless of genetic, archaeological, linguistic and religious evidence contradicting them, they claim that they're in fact the real Jews who trace their ancestry to the Canaanite Israelites of the Levant, is not just absurd, it's startling to see such irrationality regardless of evidence pointing to the Jews and the Samaritans as the descendants of the Canaanite Israelites, also of course their proximity to descendants of other Canaanites, like the Phoenicians i.e the Lebanese. In short, no, they don't belong here, it's like claiming that the native Americans are descendants of the Israelites according to the Mormons, regardless of evidence contradicting them. Guy355 (talk) 08:05, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

@Yambaram: The term 'Hebrew Israelites' doesn't even make sense, its redundant, similar to a double negative, like saying 'that ain't no good'. The Israelites are Hebrews, there's no need to specify they are the 'Hebrew' Israelites, I mean, compared to what other kind of Israelite? The term 'Israelite Hebrews' would make a bit more sense, since there were other Hebrew nations like the Ishmaelites and Edomites. Its as stupid as saying the 'Asian Koreans' or the 'African Zulu'. --Newmancbn (talk) 05:21, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

"later evolving into the Jews and Samaritans of the Hellenistic and Roman periods,"

This was changed to "later evolving into the Jews and Samaritans" - I reverted it, the deletion was repeated with an edit summary " I deleted it because Jews and Samaritans are not OF the Hellenistic times. They still exist today." That's not being challenged by the original text. This seems to be a misunderstanding of the meaning. The original text gives the time context which was removed by the deleting editor. Dougweller (talk) 06:05, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Israelite v Jewish

There are plenty of articles on Judaism and Jews in Wikipedia. We do not need the extensive sections on the various Jewish groups in this article, and the claims that they are descendants of the Israelites. It would be better to replace all of section 3 with links to the other existing articles.81.129.212.77 (talk) 22:43, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Could not agree more. The whole section should move to the Jewish diaspora article, where it would fit much better. I will WP:BEBOLD. Oncenawhile (talk) 09:23, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

B'nai Israel

B'nai Israel now hosts a disambiguation page, so I've boldly removed the hatnote for this, and incorporated the link to Israelites (disambiguation) in existing hatnotes. I've also floated the image of Merneptah Stele to the right to fix the issue of it over-running on the left and pushing some of the 'see also' links towards the middle of the page. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 13:03, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Why aren't the historical roots of the Jews/Israelites mentioned in the lede as are the mythical origins?

The historical roots of the Jews/Israelites are Canaanite according to archaeologists and historians, the mythical origins claim the Jews/Israelites were distinct from the Canaanites however we now know this wasn't the case, and that the Torah which was put together during the Babylonian captivity around the 6th century B.C.E attempted to distinguish the Jews from their Canaanite roots out of the attempt to establish monotheism, before that however, the Israelites were a Canaanite people who spoke a Canaanite language (Hebrew which broke from Phoenician) and worshiped Canaanite gods like El (who would become Yahweh), Ashera, many fertility gods etc, also their settlements were indistinguishable from the settlements of other Canaanites, the only exception would be the lack of pig bones in the Israelite settlements, but that's too small a difference considering all the similarities considering that both culturally (ancient Israelite religion, gods, settlements, art etc) and linguistically (the language of the Israelites, Hebrew, a Canaanite language which broke from Phoenician, another Canaanite language) the origins of the Jews/Israelites are Canaanite. My point is that both origins, Historical and mythical are mentioned in the actual article, but in the lede only the Mythical origins are mentioned, that's misleading and I propose the historical origins be added as well. Guy355 (talk) 15:08, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Someone seems to push the Khazar hypothesis in the article despite the many studies following Eran's study contradicting his own study.

Here are the studies:

If you wish to add the hypothesis, please add it in "Genetic studies on Jews", although I reckon it's already there. Guy355 (talk) 08:14, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Also please take into account that not all Jews are Ashkenazi, and that the Ashkenazi themselves seem to be genetically speaking pre Islamic east Mediterranean, plotting between Cypriots and Greeks, alongside Maltese and Sicilians, sharing closest genetic similarities with Sephardi and North African Jews, and when it comes to non Jews, Armenians, Cypriots, Druze, Greeks and Sicilians. Also the fact that Ashkenazis share most IBD with Sephardi Jews, with the next population (east Europeans) being considerably lower, with the northern Caucasus (the historical region of the Khazars) lower still. Guy355 (talk) 08:17, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Map

‎@Newmancbn:File talk:12 Tribes of Israel Map.svg, says:"What's the background on this map? It seems inaccurate as a modern interpretation of the Biblical record. For instance, on at least one of the particulars where it differs from the Lotter map, the latter is in fact more consistent whth the Biblical account (which, unless there are other sources not mentioned in the Tribal allotments of Israel, I assume are meant to be the map's origins). Specifically, Joshua 12:1 makes it clear the Transjordanian territory should extend as far north as Mount Hermon, well north of the Sea of Galilee, unlike in this image where the Transjordanian territory ends a bit south of Galilee. Jake (talk) 10:03 pm, 12 October 2013, Saturday (9 months, 31 days ago) (UTC+1)" I noticed that it is widely used, but that doesn't mean it should be used. There is no source for it and it appears to be original research. Dougweller (talk) 11:29, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

This map is relatively accurate. Compare with the link below to the most accurate map available from the Jewish Virtual Library, the same map taught in Israeli schools. The Lotter projection is a map from the 18th century that depicted all of southwestern Syria and Aram as part of the tribe of Manasseh. It was made on the assumption that Biblical Bashan is the modern day Golan Heights. Archeology and textual analysis has disputed this. For example part of this northern Golanic territory includes the Yarmuk River, a river that is not even mentioned in the Tanakh. If the territory of the tribe of Manasseh included a massive river such as the Yarmuk, its name would surly have entered the text, as did literally every other major river in Palestine found among the tribes of Israel. The truth is the most accurate map is not available on wikipedia. The map currently on this page, and the Lotter projection, incorrectly places the tribe of Dan in Jaffa south of Ephraim. Dan was located in the northern point of Israel near the city of Dan. In fact it is the territory of the tribe of Dan that the Tanakh outlines as extending up to Mount Hermon, and to the city of Dan, not the tribe of Manasseh. Now, is it possible the Golan Heights was part of the ancient tribe of Manasseh? Yes it is, especially since Joshua 12, 4 mentions Og the king of Bashan ruling in Hermon. It is more likely however that it was not, but even it was, the Lotter map is so old and so poor by modern standards that the 'shape' of the land is not even accurate to the known shape of the earth. For example the Lotter map depicts the Haifa peninsula as an inlet! It clearly is not a candidate for the face of the Israelites on this page. Even if the map currently here may be ever so slightly inaccurate (the only problem I find is the placement of Dan) it is far better than having no map at all, or a grotesquely distorted one like the Lotter. See also the section השבטים ארץ ישראל (tribes of the land of Israel) in the Hebrew version of this article. Newmancbn (talk) 00:01, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

You can see the Lotter map here and compare:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/1759_map_Holy_Land_and_12_Tribes.jpg

Here is the most accurate map to date:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/tribes/tribemap.gif

Here is he current map used for this page:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/12_Tribes_of_Israel_Map.svg

a. It would be even stranger if the Yarmouk forms the northern border of Manasseh but is not mentioned.

b. Your view is not in tune with article Tribe of Manasseh. It will be nice to see your sources there.

Lotter is definitely worse, except as a "artist's view". trespassers william (talk) 10:08, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

The theory is the northern border of the tribe of Manasseh may have stopped short of the Yarmuk, unlike what is shown on this map, leaving it solidly within Aram. I think there is a chance Manasseh did include the Golan, it is just presently there is no consensus. The Arameans fought with the Israelites in Bashan after the Joshua conquests, so it is also possible the Golan was originally part of Manasseh, but it was subsequently lost, and the Israelite border was pushed south of the Yarmuk early on, which would explain its absence in the text. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0007_0_07310.html. This article mentions the fighting with the Arameans.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Newmancbn (talk • contribs) 16:17, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

There can never be a consensus so long as a lot of scholars and ordinary people think that this never happened. Dougweller (talk) 18:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

‎@Dougweller: There are no respected archeologists or scholars of any kind who maintain the Israelites did not exist. If they didn't, from whence come their artifacts? Both inert artifacts such as the Siloam inscription, the Merneptah Stele, the Mesha stele, the Kurkh Monoliths, the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, the Tel Dan Stele, the Nimrud Tablet K.3751, the Lachish relief, the LMLK seals, the Azekah Inscription, Sennacherib's Annals, and king Ahaz's Seal, and of course their living artifacts, the Jews and the Samaritans, provide conclusive secondary evidence for the veracity of their history. There are even several events described in Israelite texts once thought to have been completely fictionalized, which have left archeological remains, such as a reference to the exodus of a Semitic people out of Egypt in the 14th century BCE, during a time of plagues, described in the Ipuwer Papyrus, or the reference to the prophet Balaam from the book of Bamidbar in the Balaam inscription. The archeological evidence for the existence of the Israelites is overwhelming. To deny their existence is like denying the existence of the Akkadians, or the Hittites, or the Inca. Their presence in history, and the continual and persistent existence of the Jews, may strike you as disturbing, but that does not mean the Israelites 'never happened'. While the account of history depicted in the Tanakh certainly falls under the scrutiny of secular scholars due to its claims of divine revelation, no one denies the existence of the Israelites, I'm sorry Doug. Newmancbn (talk) 02:42, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Buba clan

Removed claim that they are accepted as Jews. Having the Cohen Modal Haplotype shows the area they or rather some of their ancestors came from, but doesn't make them Jews. Dougweller (talk) 11:30, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

This brings this in line with Lemba people which points out that the % in the Buba clan does not prove they are Jews. Dougweller (talk) 11:35, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

‎@Dougweller:You are correct in that having the CMH certainly does not make someone a Jew, or even prove an Israelite origin. In the case of the Buba clan however, over 50% of the men have the 12 marker CMH, which would not be strange except 1.) they are in southern Africa (the 12 marker CMH is a distinctly northwest Arabian haplotype), and 2.) they retain Hebraic customs and an oral tradition of being descended from the Israelites. The DNA results of the Buba clan does indeed strongly indicate, if not verify, Israelite ancestry. The reason is this. Y-DNA passes mostly unchanged from father to son. If two people have a 12 for 12 Y-DNA marker match it means there is an enormously high chance they share a recent paternal ancestor sometime in the last couple millennia. When the Cohen Modal Haplotype was first plotted out, it was only a 6 maker grouping, now it has been extended to a 12 maker haplotype, and we are working on developing higher resolution Cohen Modal Haplotypes. This is significant because to share an exact 6 for 6 maker match is not that remarkable. With the CMH it basically means both people are Arabian in origin, but to share a 12 for 12 or 11 for 12 marker match, as is the case with the Buba and the Jewish Kohanim, is rather extraordinary. It means they share a recent Semitic male ancestor sometime in the last 3500 years +/- 500 years (exactly at the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel), this in combination with their oral tradition of specifically being of Israelite extraction, in addition to their Hebraic customs such as circumcision, their abhorrence of non-kosher meat, the observance of a weekly day of ceasing from activity, the slaughter of animals by slitting the throat with a razor (a practice that is distinctly Arabian and non-African), and their strict monotheistic worship of a being they call Nwali (possibly from AdoNaI or YehoWah?), all make it very difficult for this group to have originated from non-Israelites. Also, there have been no recorded massive population shifts out of Arabia and into Sub Saharan Africa in history, and the only national group that may be a candidate are the Israelites during the Babylonian and Assyrian exiles, and the Jews during the Roman exile. No other Arabian ethnic groups have been exiled from the peninsula in history. It has never been claimed they are accepted halakhically as Jews. The Jews are an ethnoreligious group that the Buba clan are not currently a part of. Their DNA does not reveal they are Jews, it reveals they are authentic descendants of an Israelite population, and the difference is substantial.--Newmancbn (talk) 18:12, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

No it does not reveal that. You are claiming there were Israelites 3500 years ago, and that is certainly disputed. You are claiming that a 3500 year old common ancestor must have been an Israelite, again disputed. You are combining sources to make an argument, and that is original research. Dougweller (talk) 14:16, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Israelite origin of the Palestinians

79.180.3.225 stated in their edit: "Palestinians are in their vast majority are ARABS and other muslims! those of them with any connection to the Israelites are few in number". The idea that Palestinians are not descended from people who have inhabited the Land of Israel since antiquity, but instead are a mixture of Arabs who moved there because of job opportunities generated by Zionism, is a myth that was promulgated in the early days of Zionism in part because of bad research and partly to discredit the Palestinians and their connection to the land. Anthropologists and scholars reject the assertion that Palestinians immigrated there in last 200 years from other Arab nations. We now know conclusively those theories are false because of the records left by the English about immigration into the Mandate of Palestine, and because of Y-DNA testing. Tsvi Misinai is Israel's leading researcher on this subject. In addition to the DNA studies being done by geneticists, his organization The Engagement, has sought to exhaustively document the presence of Jewish customs, traditions, and history among the Palestinian Arabs. His findings are rather remarkable. Palestinian Arabs circumcise their sons after the first week of life, in contrast to other Arabs who wait a few years, they light candles at grave sites, a tradition not found among any other Arab ethnic groups, they have the tradition of sitting in mourning (shiva) for a deceased relative for seven days, in contrast to other Arabs who mourn for three days. In addition to this the Palestinian city and place names west of the Jordan river are Arabizations of the Hebrew names for the same places in the Tanakh. On the east side of the Jordan, in ancient Moab and Ammon, the Hebrew names for places were replaced by totally different Arab words. However, the conclusive proof came in the 21st century with the advent of Y-DNA testing. Palestinians have extraordinarily high frequencies of the Cohen Modal Haplotype for a supposedly Arab ethnic group. This is a gene found among Jewish kohanim and Samaritan men. In addition to this the unique combination of non J1a haplotypes among Palestinians matches that of Jews. Meaning that both Jews and Palestinians share strikingly similar percentages of odd ball 'foreign' haplotypes in T, J2, G, E1b, and others. Indicating the famous multitude of converts to Judaism during the Second Temple period from around the Mediterranean are to be found among both Jews and Palestinians. See this Israeli mini documentary: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQCr7GaVMWA. See this article as well, http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/The-lost-Palestinian-Jews. For DNA research see Nebel, Almut, et al. "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews." Human genetics 107.6 (2000): 630-641. Also see --Newmancbn (talk) 02:17, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand why do you think that the fact the "palestinians" have Haplogroup-J makes them Israelites in origin? this material is common all around the Middle East and as history tells us the vast majority of the Arabs nowadays calling themselves "palestinians" are descended from work immigrants from various backgrounds (mostly Saudi, Egyptian and Levantine Arabs) who came after 1850 and who may all carry this gene. Only several "palestinian" families are descendants of Jews & Samaritans who were converted into islam and married Arabs invaders. BTW Tsvi Misinai is a fraud by most genetics and historians in Israel.--DXRD (talk) 20:49, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@DXRD: Maybe I wrote too much information and you did not bother to read it. Studies have not just shown they have high percentages of haplogroup J, or J1a, but that they have a high frequency of an extremely specific 11 for 12 and 12 for 12 marker Y-DNA signature known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype, which is only found in high frequency among Jews, Samaritans, Palestinians, the Bene Israel, and 50% of the Buba clan of the Lemba people. That is what indicates their Israelite ancestry, not just the generic semitic haplogroup J. It is a myth, and a lie, that they descend from Arabs who immigrated there after Zionism, that would be very convenient for Israel (a nation which I love) wouldn't it? Well, it is not that easy. They indeed are descendant from people who populated the region since antiquity (before the Roman and Byzantine occupation of Judea), we know this from the data on immigration to the region from English and Ottoman records, as well as Crusader, Islamic, Byzantine, and Roman history. Does that make sense now?--Newmancbn (talk) 06:06, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

79.180.3.225

79.180.3.225 I reverted your edits on the Palestinians from Nablus and Hebron being the only ones who are largely descended from Israelites. You are absolutely correct that studies have shown the majority of Palestinians around Nablus are descended from Samaritans and not Jews as you asserted in your edit. However, the Palestinians descended from Jews are not just focused in Hevron. You are referring to a village called Sachnin, which means 'wine-makers', in the area of Ma'arath HaMakhpela where the Arab residents are descended from Jews who converted to Islam only a few centuries ago. While this is indeed an interesting case, it's not what's so remarkable about the genetic studies and the historical research by Tsvi Misinai, which has concluded that not only this small village, but the vast majority of Palestinians, 85-90%, are desceded from the 'Amei HaArez', peasant Jews who remained in Judea and the Galilee after the Roman exile.

The issue is also not about haplogroup J1a, which is generic to all of northwest Arabia, but a specific haplotype within J1a called the Cohen Modal Haplotype which the Palestinians have in an impossibly high frequency if they are not descendants of Israelites.

This genetic information alone does not offer conclusive proof of their Israelite origin, it is in combination with this historic fact: neither the Romans, nor the Byzantines, the Islamic conquerers, the Crusaders, Saladin's armies, the Ottomans, or the English, settled their people en mass in the Land of Israel. So the obvious question arises, from whence come the Palestinians? If they are not descendent from any of the Empires who conquered Israel, and if the land was totally emptied of all Jews by Hadrian (sheḥiq ạṣmoth) in 135 CE, who are they descendent from?

A rumor is they come from Arabs who moved to the Land of Israel during the beginning of Zionism. The English kept records of who immigrated and there was no massive immigration. Instead what happened was the English built hospitals and roads, and plumbing, and infrastructure in the land, paid for by Jewish taxes, which caused the Palestinian birthrate to skyrocket and the infant mortality rate among Palestinians to plummet compared to other surrounding people. So 200,000 Palestinians in 1800 turned into literally millions by 1947.

So we know today's Palestinians are descendant from people who were there before Zionism. It has already been established none of the successive nations that controlled the land over the last 2000 years have populated it with their people, so it only leaves one possibility, they are descendent from the last group of people to completely populate Palestine, who of course are the Jews and Samaritans before the Roman occupation. They cannot be descendent from the pre-Israelite peoples like the Canaanites and Philistines, because those nations vanish from history by the time of the Hasmonean kingdom. Their oral traditions, and many cultural customs, which I listed above, lend supporting evidence to that fact. The high frequency of the Cohen Modal haplotype among the Palestinians is the coup de grace in the theory. When it is all tied together, we see the whole picture. Peasant Jews who were not zealots were left in the land by Hadrian (sheḥiq ạṣmoth) as long as they converted to Roman paganism, these people eventually converted to Christianity under Constantine and then to Islam after the Islamic conquest of Syria, and today are called the Palestinians.--Newmancbn (talk) 00:47, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand why do you think that the fact the "palestinians" have Haplogroup-J makes them Israelites in origin? this material is common all around the Middle East and as history tells us the vast majority of the Arabs nowadays calling themselves "palestinians" are descended from work immigrants from various backgrounds (mostly Saudi, Egyptian and Levantine Arabs) who came after 1850 and who may all carry this gene. Only several "palestinian" families are descendants of Jews & Samaritans who were converted into islam and married Arabs invaders. BTW Tsvi Misinai is a fraud by most genetics and historians in Israel.--DXRD (talk) 20:48, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@DXRD: Maybe I wrote too much information and you did not bother to read it. Studies have not just shown they have high percentages of haplogroup J, or J1a, but that they have a high frequency of an extremely specific 11 for 12 and 12 for 12 marker Y-DNA signature known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype, which is only found in high frequency among Jews, Samaritans, Palestinians, the Bene Israel, and 50% of the Buba clan of the Lemba people. That is what indicates their Israelite ancestry, not just the generic semitic haplogroup J. It is a myth, and a lie, that they descend from Arabs who immigrated there after Zionism, that would be very convenient for Israel (a nation which I love) wouldn't it? Well, it is not that easy. They indeed are descendant from people who populated the region since antiquity (before the Roman and Byzantine occupation of Judea), we know this from the data on immigration to the region from English and Ottoman records, as well as Crusader, Islamic, Byzantine, and Roman history. Does that make sense now?--Newmancbn (talk) 06:06, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@Newmancbn:Actually this is an inappropriate use of the talk page. You are using the talk page to discuss the subject rather than to discuss sources, etc, treating it as a forum. None of what you say is actually relevant here. Again, what you need are sources that explicitly link named groups with Israelite descent. That is absolutely vital. Editing here is very very different from writing a paper for an academic journal. What you write above would be ok for such a paper, but we need explicit sources. I've asked you for quotations several times and I don't think you've responded, although it's hard to tell sometimes. We need those responses. Dougweller (talk) 06:53, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@Dougweller: I understand, I'm gathering the exact references from the cited studies that say the data indicates these groups have Israelite ancestry. It will take a little time, but I'll return with the precise sources.--Newmancbn (talk) 09:58, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

As I explained earlier, I'm not agree with your claims about their origin, there are vast evidance for the Arab and non-Arab muslim descent of most "palestinians" living in the Land of Israel today. Hope you know Hebrew cause this source deals with this issue: "Are Palestinians originated in Ancient Israelites? No, No, No says many Israeli Historians" And those are in English: Genealogy of Palestinian surnames & Origins of the "palestinians" proves them to be descendants of Arab tribes, other Levantine and North African Muslims, Sudanese Afro-Arabs, Jewish-Samaritans & European forced converts to islam, Bosniaks, Chechens, Turks, Indians and Kurds.--DXRD (talk) 16:48, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I am confused about this sentence

This sentence: ...Jews are descended from the southern Kingdom of Judah (alongside the remnants of the Northern Kingdom of Israel who migrated to their Southern counterpart and assimilated there)

With the reference: According to the Books of Chronicles chapter 9 line 3, the Israelites, who took part in The Return to Zion, are stated to be from the Tribe of Judah alongside the Tribe of Simeon that was absorbed into it, the Tribe of Benjamin, the Tribe of Levi (Levites and Priests) alongside the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, which according to the 2 Kings 7 were exiled by the Assyrians. (The Biblical scholars Umberto Cassuto and Elia Samuele Artom claimed in their book "The Books of Kings and Chronicles in modern view" (1981) these two tribes' names to be a reference to the remnant of all Ten Tribes that was not exiled and absorbed into the Judean population)

The Kingdom of Judah included the tribes of Benjamin, Simeon, and the Levites, they were not 'absorbed' into the Jews from the northern kingdom, they were from the southern kingdom originally. So this statement seems kind of redundant, and actually incorrect, unless I am missing something. It is also already known the names of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh are used as a reference to all of the lost northern tribes, collectively called Joseph and contrasted with Judah. Maybe I just don't understand what is trying to be said. Chronicles states there were Ephraimites and Manassehites living in Jerusalem, does Cassuto and Artom claim part of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh were absorbed into the Jews? If that is the case, then its totally relevant, if its not then I just don't get it.--Newmancbn (talk) 01:36, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

All seems in place. The verse goes:

3 And in Jerusalem dwelt of the children of Judah, and of the children of Benjamin, and of the children of Ephraim and Manasseh.

To answer the question what ethnic groups descended from which tribes, Wikipedia first points out in the ref that Judah in the verse refers to descendants of what was earlier regarded as the separate Judah and Simeon (first "absorbed"). And then points out that Ephraim and Manasseh refers to immigrants from all ten (nine) tribes of the north. At the time the verse refers to, Ephraim and Manasseh have not absorbed into Judah as much as Simeon had already (as they are still named), but obviously, later on they did (second "absorbed", "assimilated")(and Benjamin did too). All became one Jewish nation, while those descendants of the ten north tribes, which never emigrated to Judea, were exiled and did not remain Jewish. (Or, according to the rest of the section, became mostly Samaritans, or maybe re-embraced Judaism under one of the greater Jewsih kingdoms of the following centuries, but at this point there was no telling what tribe their ancestors belonged to...).

I'd say the words "which according to the 2 Kings 7 were exiled by the Assyrians" make it a bit confusing, but there is something else. trespassers william (talk) 14:31, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense--Newmancbn (talk) 01:13, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Removed section asserting that the prevailing opinion is that various groups are "the authentic remnants of Israelite populations"

First, there are no sources listed that I read that state that this is the prevailing opinion.

There appears to be an assumption that Y-chromosomal Aaron (referred to in the article as the "Cohen Modal Haplotype" proves Israelite ancestry, despite our article stating that it doesn't.

There's inappropriate use of sources. We never refer people to our own articles. Feldman's "The Genetics of the Samaritans and Other Middle Eastern Peoples." doesn't seem to have ever been published. And Goldstein doesn't say that the Samaritans are descended from the Israelites. He says " Recent genetic testing has shown that Jews and Samaritans, as well as the previously mentioned ethnic groups, share a unique Y-DNA signature that can be identified as variants of the Cohen Modal Haplotype, strongly indicating a common paternal lineage from a single recent Semitic male ancestor." That's not the same thing. He also says "A 2004 genetic study of living Samaritans by Marc Feldman, Peter Oefner, and colleagues (Shen et al., “Reconstruction of Patrilineages and Matrilineages”) found evidence of ancient Samaritan and Cohen ancestry." Again, no mention of Israelites. Neither the YouTube video[1] or the article in Israel National News[2] are reliable sources by our criteria. (If anyone disagrees, take it to WP:RSN.) You can't use a source that says "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews" to back "and 85% of Palestinian Arabs,[23][24] are the authentic remnants of Israelite populations.[25][26][27]". It doesn't say that. It doesn't even mention 85%. What does Goldstein, David B. Jacob's legacy: a genetic view of Jewish history. say about Palestinians? And page numbers for books are required.

"The 19th century discovery of the Paleo Hebrew script and the Gezer calendar demonstrated that the Samaritan Pentateuch is in fact preserved in an ancient variant of the pre-exilic Hebrew script seen in artifacts such as the Siloam inscription, lending further credence to the authentic Israelite origin of the Samaritans independent of the Jews" has no source at all, just "The Newly Discovered Phoenician Inscription, New York Times, June 15, 1855, pg. 4. Jump up" (Jump up? Why?) which whatever it says can't be used as a source for the sentence, which appears to be original research. Dougweller (talk) 11:12, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Totally agree with this. On your latter point, I have made a few amendments to the article tidy this up (and request missing cites). On the Israelite DNA connection to a variety of modern groups, I think that should be completely removed from the article. Firstly as you say we have no sources making the connection. Secondly, common sense says it is impossible to prove any connection via DNA to the Israelites, because there are no known Israelite human matter to take DNA samples from. Any connection between a common Semitic gene and the Israelites would be conjecture at best. To my mind such conjecture has no place in this article unless it is widely reported, which we have not shown. Oncenawhile (talk) 17:13, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

‎@Dougweller: "There appears to be an assumption that Y-chromosomal Aaron (referred to in the article as the "Cohen Modal Haplotype" proves Israelite ancestry, despite our article stating that it doesn't." You are correct that the CMH in ITSELF does not prove Israelite ancestry. It is the 12 marker CMH, in combination with a tradition of being descended from the Israelites (like the Lemba or Bene Israel), or historical ties to the Israelites, Jews, or Samaritans (like the Marranos and various Anusim like the Palestinians), that conclusively proves Israelite ancestry. I think you do not fully understand the precision of modern Y-DNA testing. Matches do not happen by accident, not over a large number of markers. A 12 marker match does not mean two people share a common ancestor 15,000, or 8,000 years ago, but only a mere 3000 years or so. The CMH was originally a 6 marker haplotype, but has been extended to 12. The 6 marker match, which it appears you are referring to, by itself and with no history of Israelite extraction only proved that someone's ancestors originated in northwestern Arabia. The presence of the 12 marker CMH, even without an Israelite tradition, proves either Israelite ancestry, or descent from a closely related ethnic group. In the future as geneticists continue to sequence the living Israelite populations mentioned in this article, a 36, and eventually a 111 marker CMH may be identified. If that is the case, you would not even need a Hebraic tradition to verify Israelite ancestry, as the extended CMH would be proof in itself. For now however, the 12 marker CMH in combination with a historic link to the Israelites is sufficient to confirm descent from them. When the 12 marker CMH is combined with historic evidence linking a group to the Israelites either through Hebraic customs, a tradition of having Israelite ancestry, or a historic paper trail linking that group to either Jews, Samaritans, or the Israelites, it does indeed unambiguously verify an Israelite origin.--Newmancbn (talk) 03:47, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

‎@Dougweller: "There's inappropriate use of sources. We never refer people to our own articles. Feldman's "The Genetics of the Samaritans and Other Middle Eastern Peoples." doesn't seem to have ever been published". You may need to get the study from Stanford, I have no problem removing them.--Newmancbn (talk) 03:47, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

‎@Dougweller: "And Goldstein doesn't say that the Samaritans are descended from the Israelites. He says " Recent genetic testing has shown that Jews and Samaritans, as well as the previously mentioned ethnic groups, share a unique Y-DNA signature that can be identified as variants of the Cohen Modal Haplotype, strongly indicating a common paternal lineage from a single recent Semitic male ancestor." That's not the same thing." -No he didn't. I wrote that, and yes it does. Cohen ancestry necessitates Israelite ancestry, or in this case the CMH in combination with historic ties to the Israelites, indicates Israelite ancestry.--Newmancbn (talk) 03:47, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

‎@Dougweller: "He also says "A 2004 genetic study of living Samaritans by Marc Feldman, Peter Oefner, and colleagues (Shen et al., “Reconstruction of Patrilineages and Matrilineages”) found evidence of ancient Samaritan and Cohen ancestry." Again, no mention of Israelites." Perhaps you don't know what a Cohen is. The Kohanim are the descendants of Aaron the brother of Moses who served as the priestly cast in ancient Israel. Cohen ancestry is Israelite ancestry, from the tribe of Levi. A Cohen is a type of Israelite. That is like saying "being descended from Cyrus the great doesn't prove Persian ancestry' or 'Korean ancestry doesn't prove Asian ancestry' or 'Human ancestry doesn't prove ape ancestry'. The Kohanim are a division of Israelites.--Newmancbn (talk) 04:00, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

You are confusing two orders of discourse or analysis. The Bible is not an historical document, it is a mythistorical document, so when you write:

The Kohanim are the descendants of Aaron the brother of Moses who served as the priestly cast in ancient Israel.

You are implying that an historical group are descendents of two mythical figures, since Aaron and Moses are mythical figures. At best you can only write: Kohanim claim descent from Aaron (an historical claim is not evidence of a connection with reality, here some component of the pre-exilic 'Israelites'. While the Pentateuch exalts the Aaronic line, the rest of the Tanakh does not, and textual scholarship argues that the showcasing of this line, as opposed to the Zadokites and Levites, is 'post-exilic', and stems from a retroscriptive romance of the line's antiquity during the Second Temple period when they assumed prominence. You cannot relate genetics to myth and retain any credibility. Nishidani (talk) 09:50, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

‎:::@Nishidani: You are missing the point, the historical existence of the biblical Aaron is irrelevant. The studies don't demonstrate they are descendant from the Aaron of the Hebrew Bible. The point is, whether you call him Aaron, or Teshimitsu, there is a real founder of the Israelite priesthood who lived around 3500 years ago, and we have his DNA marker. He is the founder of the Jewish Kohanim, and either him, or some of his immediate Hebrew family members, are the patrilineal founders of the Samaritans, Bene Israel, 50% of the Buba clan, and extremely high segments of the Palestinian people. Since his DNA is tabernacled uniquely among ethnic groups with a tradition of being descended from the Israelites, it can be safely asserted that he, and his close relatives, were indeed actual ancient Israelites, regardless of the veracity of the biblical narrative, and we know they founded the extant peoples listed above. The presence of this highly specific Israelite genetic signature among those ethnic groups, in combination with their long established traditions of explicitly being descended from Israelites, proves, definitively, they are of actual Israelite origin.--Newmancbn (talk) 10:38, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

‎@Dougweller: "You can't use a source that says "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews" to back "and 85% of Palestinian Arabs,[23][24] are the authentic remnants of Israelite populations.[25][26][27]". It doesn't say that. It doesn't even mention 85%". The DNA results are a piece of the puzzle putting together the origin of the Palestinians, the other work citied, which you want to remove, is what, in combination with the DNA results, verifies that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians, 85-90% according to anthropologists, are descended from Israelites via the Jews and Samaritans of the Second Temple period. You ask for the citations to be removed and then claim there is no evidence, I'm sorry, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.--Newmancbn (talk) 04:00, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

‎@Oncenawhile: "Secondly, common sense says it is impossible to prove any connection via DNA to the Israelites, because there are no known Israelite human matter to take DNA samples from. Any connection between a common Semitic gene and the Israelites would be conjecture at best". With all due respect, you could not be more incorrect. We do have 'known human Israelite matter' to take DNA samples from, the Jews and the Samaritans. Are you claiming the Jews are the descendants of Khazars, or some other group of converts, or that Samaritans descend from Assyrians who were settled in Samaria? Those myths have been rejected by all respected scientists, scholars, anthropologists, and geneticists. Only politicized movements like antisemitic groups, or certain religious groups like the Hebrew Israelites, continue to claim the Israelites are not the ancestors of the Jews. Since Jews and Samaritans both share the exact same unique and very rare haplotype that originates in the area where the Israelites are traditionally thought to be from, their DNA in combination with their tradition of Israelite ancestry going back thousands of years, and their strong historic ties to ancient Israel, does indeed conclusively, and without ambiguity, prove they are in fact the living children of Israel. I realize the concept that Jews and Palestinians, and far flung ethnic groups like the Lemba of Zimbabwe, are descended from Israelites, is jarring to many people, but there is conclusive irrefutable evidence for it. There is irrevocable genetic, historic, cultural, linguistic, and textual evidence linking the Jews and Samaritans indisputably with the Israelites, which confirms that their 12 marker CMH (which alone does not prove Israelite ancestry, but only in combination with an Israelite tradition or a historic link to the Israelites) is indeed Israelite DNA. When their Y-DNA is compared to other groups with an Israelite tradition, and there is a match, then boom, thats where we are.--Newmancbn (talk) 03:47, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

It all boils down to what reliable academic sources explicitly state that the Palestinian Arabs have been proven to be of Israelite descent. WP:RS and WP:VERIFY determine what are reliable sources - familytreedna doesn't qualify. WP:NPOV determines the use of those sources and we would almost certainly have to attribute them, ie not state as fact the relationship is proven. There is another big problem. You are using the Bible/Torah as part of your evidence. That's a primary source and can't be used this way. You also need to read WP:NOR. YOU think there is irrefutable proof that the Lemba are descended from Israelites, but the evidence is against you here. Not only that, writing about the Lemba has to reflect what Lemba people says, not contradict it. The Lemba are descended from a Middle Eastern population, but Wikipedia cannot be used as a platform to assert that it is without doubt an Israelite population that they descended from. Dougweller (talk) 07:41, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

‎@Dougweller: Doug, did you not bother reading the some 10 or 12 separate peer reviewed scientific papers cited as sources? You are mentioning Family Tree DNA, a source I cited a single time because it has a nice chart showing timetables of common descent, while every single other source cited is from scholarly papers, you are straw manning the evidence. Obviously the Hebrew Bible can't be used as a stand alone source, this evidence is not based on the text of the Torah, it is based on genetics and anthropological research. Sometimes real scientific and archeological work happens to overlap with the biblical narrative, that is no reason to dismiss a scientific reality. I do not think the Lemba are descended from Israelites, its these scientists who do:

Le Roux, Magdel. "The Bhuba: a paternally inherited Jewish priesthood in Southern Africa?." Ekklesiastikos Pharos 92 (2010): 286-304.

Parfitt, Tudor, and Yulia Egorova. "Genetics, history, and identity: the case of the Bene Israel and the Lemba." Culture, medicine and psychiatry 29.2 (2005): 193-224

Thomas, Mark G., et al. "Y chromosomes traveling south: the cohen modal haplotype and the origins of the Lemba—the “Black Jews of Southern Africa”." The American Journal of Human Genetics 66.2 (2000): 674-686.

And so does the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8550614.stm

And PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/familylemba.html

If your article on the Lemba people is in conflict with these peer reviewed scientific studies and news reports, then maybe its time to correct your article on the Lemba.--Newmancbn (talk) 08:22, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

You mean our article on the Lemba. The latest study is [3] and says " While it was not possible to trace unequivocally the origins of the non-African Y chromosomes in the Lemba and Remba, this study does not support the earlier claims of their Jewish genetic heritage." The BBC can't be used for scientific claims. Dougweller (talk) 08:34, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

‎:::::@Dougweller: The study you citied looked at the Y-DNA of 76 Lemba men and found that 10 had the CMH, concluding that the majority of the Lemba are not descended from Israelites. This has been known from earlier studies, the CMH is not found among the general Lemba people, but only among the Buba clan, their priests, of whom 50% have the 12 marker CMH. The oral tradition of the Lemba is that their priests, the Buba clan, came from ancient Israel thousands of years ago, and settled in Yemen, and then journey to southern Africa. That is why the article explicitly states 'the Buba clan among the Lemba people...' and not simply 'the Lemba people', because the Lemba as a whole are not descended from Israelites, it is their priestly clan which is of Israelite origin.

@Dougweller: If you want to see studies on Palestinians here they are, they are also in the article.

Nebel, Almut, et al. "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews." Human genetics 107.6 (2000): 630-641.

Lucotte, Gérard, and Géraldine Mercier. "Y-chromosome DNA haplotypes in Jews: Comparisons with Lebanese and Palestinians." Genetic testing 7.1 (2003): 67-71.

Nebel, Almut, et al. "The Y chromosome pool of Jews as part of the genetic landscape of the Middle East." The American journal of human genetics 69.5 (2001): 1095-1112.

News sources in addition to the ones already discussed:

http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2009/01/shared-genetic-heritage-of-jews-and.html

http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/The-lost-Palestinian-Jews

Doug's call is correct in that it conforms to policy, and we have no place for anything that smacks of WP:OR here. There is a serious problem (as there is in the field of Israeli archaeology) between DNA research on origins that make inferences about prehistoric or early historic populations. The confidence that one can establish things confirming a biblical story or historic priestly tradition or meme by DNA has been shaken time and again by results that overthrow or significantly modify inferences made as recently as several years earlier than the latest paper. All the more reason to demand that, on a page dealing with history, the dominant concern should be to establish carefully what historical scholarship argues (and its range of often conflicting views) rather than to resort to inferences about history by geneticists who, in this regard, are notoriously unfamiliar with the niceties of historical and philological reconstructive models.Nishidani (talk) 10:01, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

‎:::::@Nishidani: I would have no tolerance for it either. What is presented above is not original research, but peer reviewed genetic studies, anthropological studies, and respected news articles. I'm sorry, what is the problem with Israeli archeology and DNA research on inferences about prehistoric and early historic populations? There are no other means to which we can turn for knowledge about the world beside science and archeology, from where else do you suggest we get our information? You mention something about confirming biblical stories and priesthoods, the information in this article is about confirming which extant populations are the actual descendants of the ancient Israelites (yes, who really did exist, as verified by archeology) and not about validating the Hebrew Bible. I agree the information on the page should conform to historical scholarship, and in this case there is not a 'range' of conflicting views, no respected scholars claim the Jews or Samaritans are not descended from the historic Israelites. Similarly, no respected scholars claim that the Buba clan, or Bene Israel, or the Palestinians are not of significant Israelite origin. I refer you, and everyone else, once again to the massive number of studies citied on this subject in the article. We should not take inferences about history from geneticists? Y-DNA testing is one of the most accurate and unambiguous fields of scientific research, unlike archeology where one often has to guess what something dug up from 5000 years ago is and what implications it has, genetic testing is definitive, it can be calculated through examining protein strands of DNA, to the degree of a few generations, how recently two people share a common ancestor. The ethnic groups mentioned in this article have historic ties to ancient Israel and posses highly specific Y-DNA signatures that are distinctly of Israelite origin. That is why they are listed in this article. That is also why there is scholarly consensus that these groups are the actual descendants of the historic Israelites, and why all of the available scientific papers and news articles demonstrate that opinion, and finally, why there are no cited sources on this page which show that Jews, Samaritans, the Buba clan, Bene Israel, or Palestinian Arabs, are not descended from the Israelites, because it would be an impossibility, given the evidence of their genetic results and their ties to ancient Israel. If you can show me a single scientific study demonstrating otherwise, I'll show you a mausoleum in Agra I want to sell you. --Newmancbn (talk) 11:07, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• You are so profuse in your bizarre opinions, that answering each of them is a waste of time, You suffer from conceptual confusion of the most elementary kind, speak of a 'scholarly consensus' (H Soodyall, Lemba origins revisited: Tracing the ancestry of Y chromosomes in South African and Zimbabwean Lemba,Molecular Genetics, December 2013, Vol. 103, No. 12) you cannot document, and employ terms in a manner that shows ignorance of basic distinctions and historical data.
• 'It is the 12 marker CMH, in combination with a tradition of being descended from the Israelites (like the Lemba or Bene Israel) '

You fail to distinguish Israelites from Jews. You have zilch knowledge of the complexities of history if you persist in thinking that Jews and Israelites (post and pre-exilic ethnic groups) are interchangeable.

The Lemba do not claim descent from the Israelites: they have various conflicting traditions, some, including the Zimbabwean offshoots, claim Arab descent. Others say they hail from from Middle Eastern Jews in Sena, which their own traditions can't finger as either Yemen, Egypt, Ethiopia or Judea (for all we know given the Himyarite kingdom that could mean even converts to Judaism). Idem for the Bene Israel, who do not claim descent from the Israelites, but from Jews, 1,500 years after the falling into desuetude of 'Israelites' as an ethnonym.

• I said a group claiming descent from a legendary, i.e. non-existent person, does not descend from that person. The example was Aaron. Your reply was disingenuous. 'It wasn't Aaron' but someone else who lived, according to DNA studies, 3,500 years ago. i.e. exactly the traditional priestly date of fundamentalists for Aaron (ca.1,500BCE). So the Bible just got his name wrong, 'cos I guess that section of it was written a thousand years later! This is bizarre special-pleading.
• Genetics tells you nothing of what an historian understands by history.

The Cohen modal haplotype is found also in non-Jewish men. 'As such ' it is not a test for whether or not a particular man is a Cohen any more than it is a test for whether or not a particular Lemba man is a Jew. For that matter, it cannot be used to determine whether or not the Lemba as a group are Jews. Genomic facts of generational connecion and halakhic traditions of both priestly status and of Jewishness are and must remain distinct, researchers insist'. (Nadia Abu El-Haj,The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology,University of Chicago Press, Jan 13, 2012.p.190)

Given that it is a new science, studies date rapidly, and all your sources are, technically, antiquated (as well as using science to try and prove a national myth). To take the example of the study published last year, it concludes:

Overall, this study has shown that Y chromosomes typically linked with Jewish ancestry were not detected by the higher resolution analysis conducted in the present study. It seems more likely that Arab traders, who are known to have established long-distance trade networks . .are more likely linked with the ancestry of the non-African founding males of the Lemba/Remba.' p.1043.

So much for you 'scholarly consensus'. The field of genetics has all too frequently proved to be hopelessly confused when its researchers descant on history. It's not their field, and when a historian analyses this aspect, much of it looked, and has proved to be, inane with the results contaminated by the result much of the research undertaken was specifically designed to find. Until there is some refinement and real consensus, we should use great caution in using such provisory genetics papers, given the way a 'consensus' is overturned every couple of years or so.Nishidani (talk) 12:53, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Nishidani: I will respond to this later.--Newmancbn (talk) 17:19, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure which study on the Lemba that is, but [4] which says " it was not possible to trace unequivocally the origins of the non-African Y chromosomes in the Lemba and Remba, this study does not support the earlier claims of their Jewish genetic heritage." Also found Nadia Abu El-Haj, the Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology By Samra, Myer | The Australian Journal ofjewish Studies, Annual 2012 which says "Surprisingly, however, this haplotype has been found among members of the Buba clan of the| Lemba, at a frequency-i3.5%-higher than that among ordinary Israelites. The Lemba are Bantu speaking community from South Africa and Zimbabwe, who have long maintained a claim of Jewish ancestry. Y-chromosome studies tend to support the proposition that some of their male ancestors had come from the Middle East, and even the possibility that they might have Jewish roots (p.187). Whilst this does not make the Lemba Jewish, it has apparently sparked interest in them from a number of Jewish organisations, such as South African Jews" In other words, the recent research in no way shows a consensus that the Lemba are descended from the Israelites, indeed it casts doubt upon that suggestion. Dougweller (talk) 13:06, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Dougweller: The study you are cited above, Lemba origins revisited: Tracing the ancestry of Y chromosomes in South African and Zimbabwean Lemba, looked at the Y-DNA of 76 Lemba men and found that only 10 had the CMH, concluding that the majority of the Lemba are not descended from Israelites. This is not surprising, and has been known from earlier studies, the CMH is not found among the general Lemba people, but only among their priestly Buba clan, who strictly disallow any non-Buba men from entering the clan, of whom 50% have the 12 marker CMH. The oral tradition of the Lemba is that their priests, the Buba clan, came from ancient Israel thousands of years ago, and settled in Yemen, and then journey to southern Africa. That is why the article explicitly states 'the Buba clan among the Lemba people...' and not simply 'the Lemba people', because the Lemba as a whole are not descended from Israelites, it is their priestly clan which is of Israelite origin.--Newmancbn (talk) 14:56, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

I wrote in response to you that:

The Lemba do not claim descent from the Israelites: they have various conflicting traditions, some, including the Zimbabwean offshoots, claim Arab descent. Others say they hail from from Middle Eastern Jews in Sena, which their own traditions can't finger as either Yemen, Egypt, Ethiopia or Judea (for all we know given the Himyarite kingdom that could mean even converts to Judaism).

You now repeat a meme, ignoring my comment.

The oral tradition of the Lemba is that their priests, the Buba clan, came from ancient Israel thousands of years ago

The ethnographic work, as I showed (it can be sourced) says no such thing. This means you are talking past editors, and repeating yourself, citing selective accounts as though they were a 'truth'. The inability to address editors' concerns, and reply cogently to them, is one reason why you are, and will continue to be, reverted.Nishidani (talk) 16:01, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Nishidani: The reason I repeated my self is because the study was brought up before, and I responded that it is only the Buba who have a confirmable Israelite origin, and then the same study was brought up by again in a different section with the same assertion, which is fine, I don't care about having to repeat things. Obviously they are not going to know with absolute certainly where they are from, they left Israel most likely 2000 years ago, and because in the 21st century they don't know whether Sena was in Yemen or Egypt that somehow has any kind of imaginable bearing on the authenticity of their Israelite origins? It is pretty remarkable they could even retain the name Sena down through the centuries. Do you know what city your ancestors or my ancestors were in in the year 400 CE? Sena happens to be located in Yemen, one of the places they have a tradition of migrating from. They practice the Shabbath, kashruth, brith milah, sheita, they worship one god, have no pagan customs, have no concept of the devil or Jesus, no tradition of Muhammad, and have the exact same highly specified 12 marker Y-DNA signature found in Jewish Kohanim and Samritans. You tell me where they come from. Many Jews don't practice all of those customs and don't have the Cohen gene. It is not just on wikipedia, the Buba have been told they are not of Israelite origin, they have faced rejection from all sides. They obviously have just as much evidence of Israelite ancestry as any other group descended from Israelites, but the information is continually met with fierce denial. Why? Is it possible people are so viscerally opposed to the idea of a Sub Saharan African being a descendant of the Israelites, they can't see the evidence? I think it must be a similar phenomenon when it comes to Palestinian Arabs as well. The idea is so intrinsically horrifying to certain people, that nothing could connivence them. I reference you to the fact that neither the Israelite origin of Bene Israel, the Marranos, Jews, or Samaritans was ever contested in the article, although the evidence across the groups is the same. If we found the bones of the kings of Judah and a burial site of ancient Kohanim, and tested their DNA, and it was the same exact 111 marker haploype found in large groups of Palestinians or people from the Buba clan, I fear the response would be the same.--Newmancbn (talk) 17:53, 18 August 2014 (UTC) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyu2jAD6sdo--

More on sources

For the Buba having a proven Israeli ancestry we have [5] which I can't read but the abstract says " It demonstrates how DNA tests which happened to support the possibility of the communities' legends of origin affected their self-perception," Note the word possibility. As I've said, we have sources that make it clear there is no consensus, but I'd love to see quotes from this saying the Israeli ancestry of the Buba has been proven. For the Lemba I see something published in "Ekklesiastikos Pharos", a "peer-reviewed and accredited theological as well as philological-humanistic journal," by a professor of biblical studies and biblical archaeology.[6] Not a scientific paper on genetics so shouldn't be used for genetics, we need the original work presumably cited in the paper - this author isn't qualified to make pronouncements on genetics. Dougweller (talk) 13:32, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Dougweller: The study, Genetics, history, and identity: the case of the Bene Israel and the Lemba, which you are referring to was published in 2005 which appears to be based on the less accurate 6 marker CMH discussed in length above, which was done before the new testing based on the extended, and highly specific, 12 marker CMH.

@Dougweller: I don't get it, in one post there is a complaint that these genetic studies mean nothing without historical evidence (which I agree with) and then here there is criticism for referring to a historian along with the geneticists, because apparently a historian isn't qualified to make pronouncements on this subject. Magdel le Roux is a professor of archeology and ancient Palestine at the University of South Africa. He is an expert in archaeology and Iron Age in Palestine, the Hebrew Bible and Africa, the Lemba (so-called "Black Jews of Southern Africa), Judaising groups in Africa, and the period of the Judges. I think he's qualified to weigh in his two cents about the origin of the Buba clan, dontcha think?

Maybe, attributed, and not as an expert in genetics. But that really should go at Lemba people first. Then we can summarise it here. See WP:SUMMARY. I've cited a 2012 study mentioning the Buba but still saying only possibility. You keep talking about something citing a 12 marker CMH - is that MG Thomas - 2000? If so, it's older than the 2012 study so can't be used to refute it. Then here is Himla Soodyall. "Lemba origins revisited: tracing the ancestry of Y chromosomes in South African and Zimbabwean Lemba." South African Medical Journal 103 (12 Suppl. 1) (October 11, 2013): pages 1009-1113. This study uses higher resolution testing of extended haplotypes (notably the 12-marker extended Cohen Model Haplotype, beyond the 6-marker CMH previously searched for) to test the Lemba of South Africa and the related Remba people of Zimbabwe. The author now believes that the results are inconsistent with any Jewish origins for either the Lemba or Remba, though they do indeed have partial ancestry from outside of Africa. (Probably Arabs from Yemen?) That's the one I've been citing. Do you know for a fact it didn't study the Buba?

Oh hell, just looked at that Thomas study. I should have looked earlier. It doesn't say what you claim it says. "The CMH has been suggested as a signature haplotype for the ancient Hebrew population, and it may be performing that function in this study (Thomas et al. 1998). Further support for Lemba oral history comes from the Buba/CMH association. However, it is possible that the Lemba CMH Y chromosomes are a consequence of a relatively recent event that, in Lemba oral tradition, has acquired a patina of antiquity." "The genetic evidence revealed in this study is consistent with both a Lemba history involving an origin in a Jewish population outside Africa and male-mediated gene flow from other Semitic immigrants (both of these populations could have formed founding groups for at least some of the Lemba clans) and with admixture with Bantu neighbors; all three groups are likely to have been contributors to the Lemba gene pool, and there is no need to present an Arab versus a Judaic contribution to that gene pool, since contributions from both are likely to have occurred. The CMH present in the Lemba could, however, have an exclusively Judaic origin." None of that supports your use of it to say that the Lemba or the Buba are "authentic remnants of Israelite populations". Dougweller (talk) 18:27, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

This article

looks like it was written by a fundamentalist crackpot. Almost nothing here is reliable.Nishidani (talk) 13:00, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Nishidani: Nothing is reliable? Besides the debate over the Israelite origin of these various ethnic groups, what else are you referring to?

Whoever wrote the bulk of it had never read or studied Middle Eastern history, Biblical source criticism, ancient archaeology, etc. The map is a total fantasy, like all wikipedia maps for that period. It is written up, not from archaeological material, but from wild inferences made from reading the Bible, which is rather like trying to reconstitute the political structure of Anatolia on the basis of the Iliad. The Hebrew vocalization is screwed up. Jewish tradition (you place great emphasis on tradition) repudiates Samaritans as descendants of the Israelites, branding them Kuthim from Iraq etc.etc.etc. Yawn.Nishidani (talk) 17:32, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Modern ethnic groups indicated to be of Israelite origin by genetic and historical evidence: Jews, Samaritans, Palestinian Arabs, Bene Israel, and the Buba clan

I suggest including the section, and also having a paragraph where the opposing view, with sources, can be presented. Currently there are 12 peer reviewed scientific papers cited, that demonstrate a strong link between the ethnic groups listed above and the ancient Israelites, as well as 5 news articles from respected papers, and 1 book. This is not original research, or a crackpot theory, it is accepted by the vast majority of geneticists and anthropologists specializing in the migration patterns of Jews, ancient Israelite studies, and the history of ancient Palestine. Sources have been provided. I suggest that the opinions of the respected scholars who disagree be listed with their sources. At the end of the current section I have 15 citations listed, which I think is ridiculous, unnecessary, and aesthetically unappealing, but they were added due to the continual call for more scientific studies from the talk page, hopefully it can be reduced to a reasonable number. If anyone has any problems with the current text, please provide an alternate version below. The citations are listed first, followed by the section.

PEER REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC STUDIES DEMONSTRATING THE ISRAELITE ORIGIN OF THESE ETHNIC GROUPS

Roper, Matthew. "Swimming in the gene pool: Israelite kinship relations, genes, and genealogy." The FARMS Review 15.2 (2003): 129-164.

Levy-Coffman, Ellen. "A mosaic of people: the Jewish story and a reassessment of the DNA evidence." Journal of Genetic Genealogy 1 (2005): 12-33.

Kleiman, Yaakov. DNA & tradition: the genetic link to the ancient Hebrews. Devora Publishing, 2004.

Le Roux, Magdel. "The Bhuba: a paternally inherited Jewish priesthood in Southern Africa?." Ekklesiastikos Pharos 92 (2010): 286-304.

Thomas, Mark G., et al. "Y chromosomes traveling south: the cohen modal haplotype and the origins of the Lemba—the “Black Jews of Southern Africa”." The American Journal of Human Genetics 66.2 (2000): 674-686.

Nebel, Almut, et al. "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews." Human genetics 107.6 (2000): 630-641.

Lucotte, Gérard, and Géraldine Mercier. "Y-chromosome DNA haplotypes in Jews: Comparisons with Lebanese and Palestinians." Genetic testing 7.1 (2003): 67-71.

Nebel, Almut, et al. "The Y chromosome pool of Jews as part of the genetic landscape of the Middle East." The American journal of human genetics 69.5 (2001): 1095-1112.

Shen, Peidong, et al. "Reconstruction of patrilineages and matrilineages of Samaritans and other Israeli populations from Y‐Chromosome and mitochondrial DNA sequence Variation." Human mutation 24.3 (2004): 248-260.

Egorova, Yulia. "The proof is in the genes? Jewish responses to DNA research." Culture and Religion 10.2 (2009): 159-175.

Parfitt, Tudor, and Yulia Egorova. "Genetics, history, and identity: the case of the Bene Israel and the Lemba." Culture, medicine and psychiatry 29.2 (2005): 193-224.

Behar, Doron M., et al. "The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people." Nature 466.7303 (2010): 238-242.

RESPECTED NEWS SOURCES

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8550614.stm

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/132800#.U-_lOGBZ1SA

http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2009/01/shared-genetic-heritage-of-jews-and.html

http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/The-lost-Palestinian-Jews

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/familylemba.html

BOOK

Goldstein, David B. Jacob's legacy: a genetic view of Jewish history. Yale University Press, 2008.

NON-SCHOLARLY MEDIA

Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQCr7GaVMWA

Y-DNA testing and database: https://www.familytreedna.com/faq-markers.aspx https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Samaritan/default.aspx?section=yresults; https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Samaritan/default.aspx?section=ysnp https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Samaritan http://blog.23andme.com/23andme-and-you/genetics-101/more-than-just-a-parable-the-genetic-history-of-the-samaritans/

While the scholarly consensus has been that Jews are descended from the southern Kingdom of Judah (alongside the remnants of the northern Kingdom of Samaria who migrated to their southern counterpart and assimilated there), until the 20th century there was no consensus on the origin of the Samaritans, or the fate of the northern Israelite kingdom. Today one leading opinion is that Jews and Samaritans, as well as large segments of other ethnic groups including the Bene Israel of India, the descendants of the Marranos from Iberia, the Buba clan among the Lemba of South Africa, and 85% of Palestinian Arabs, are the authentic remnants of Israelite populations. Some scholars have contested this, and hold the opinion that some of these groups do not have any historic connection to the ancient Israelites. Jewish religious scholars often citied the assertion that Samaritans were foreigners sent from Assyria to repopulate Samaria. According to the Annals of Sargon II, Sargon only exiled 27,290 people of the Kingdom of Samaria, possibly just from the aristocracy, the monarchy, and the priesthood. The 19th century discovery of the Phoenician script in the region, sometimes referred to as the Paleo Hebrew script, for example in the Gezer calendar and the Siloam inscription, suggested that the Samaritan alphabet had an Israelite origin independent of the Jews.

− − Recent genetic testing has shown that Jews and Samaritans, as well as the previously mentioned ethnic groups, share a unique 12 marker Y-DNA signature that can be identified as variants of the Cohen Modal Haplotype, strongly indicating a common paternal lineage from a single recent Semitic male ancestor who lived in the last 3500 +/- 500 years. A 10 for 10 marker match demonstrates a 95% percent probably of two people sharing a common male ancestor in the last 72 generations. This could date the recent common paternal ancestor of many in these groups to even after the traditional time of the Patriarchs, who the Torah asserts lived around 4000 BCE. These genetic results, in combination with the historic links each of these respective ethnic groups has to ancient Israel, strongly indicates they have an authentic Israelite origin.

For further discussion of this topic, and more sources, see the wiki article Groups claiming affiliation with Israelites

Quick response, we have Groups claiming affiliation with Israelites as a see also, it doesn't belong anywhere else. I've started commenting about your use of sources below. This is a major problem. Note also that this is about the historical Israelites, so we need to be dealing with facts, not speculation about the time of the prophets, etc. Besides the bad source, your statement "A 10 for 10 marker match demonstrates a 95% percent probably of two people sharing a common male ancestor in the last 72 generations" followed by "This could date the recent common paternal ancestor" is classical original research which WP:NOR was written to prevent. This is firm policy. I also note that you are using an encyclopedia over a century old.

It isn't clear why " According to the Annals of Sargon II, Sargon only exiled 27,290 people of the Kingdom of Samaria, possibly just from the aristocracy, the monarchy, and the priesthood" is in the article.

Again, you say "The 19th century discovery of the Phoenician script in the region, sometimes referred to as the Paleo Hebrew script, for example in the Gezer calendar and the Siloam inscription, suggested that the Samaritan alphabet had an Israelite origin independent of the Jews." Could we please have quotes from those two sources stating that? The one source I read didn't seem to say that. Dougweller (talk) 16:07, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

"These genetic results, in combination with the historic links each of these respective ethnic groups has to ancient Israel, strongly indicates they have an authentic Israelite origin"

Your sources must explicitly state that. Please add quotes from them showing that they do. We shouldn't be using blogs or familytreedna. epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/ is some sort of blog. Or newspaper articles. For books you need page numbers. Your choice of sources shows that you aren't familiar yet with our policy on sources, and I still believe that your use of them suggests you don't understand our policy on original research at WP:NOR. Worse, you are presenting one pov as though it is consensus, despite any change in wording, and in the case of the Lemba ignoring the recent research in favor of stuff as old at least as 2000. And take one of your sources:[7]. In that article you need to stick to the stuff in bold letters. It ends with "In contrast, Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel) and Indian Jews (Bene Israel and Cochini) cluster with neighbouring autochthonous populations in Ethiopia and western India, respectively, despite a clear paternal link between the Bene Israel and the Levant. These results cast light on the variegated genetic architecture of the Middle East, and trace the origins of most Jewish Diaspora communities to the Levant." However, it is being used as a source for strongly indicates they have an authentic Israelite origin". We are not supposed to use sources that way. As I said, you need to show that your sources make that explicit, you cannot use deductive reasoning here. Dougweller (talk) 15:57, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

@Dougweller: I will provide the exact sentences from the sources listed that say the results indicate Israelite ancestry. This is a good deal of research spanning five separate ethnic groups, and it's easy to get confused if you're not familiar with this topic. The Beta Israel Jews of Ethiopia, in contrast to other Jews, the Bene Israel of India, and the Buba clan, have no indication of Israelite ancestry in their DNA, despite having a tradition of being descended from Israelites. The same is true for the Bnei Menashe of India. The massive majority of Bene Israel carry the 12 marker CMH on their Y-DNA, and indigenous Indian haplotypes on their mtDNA. The article could also state Jews, Samaritans, Palestinians, Bene Israel, and the Buba clan share strikingly high percentages of variations of the Cohen Modal Haplotype, and traditions of historic ties to ancient Israel, without stating it is proven they descend from Israelites, and let people make up their own mind. I will return with the specific references you are looking for, at which point I hope this information can be published, unless God forbid, there is a conspiracy to disallow evidence that Africans and Palestinians could be descended from Israelites. I notice no one took issue with the Bene Israel, Jews, Samaritans, or the Marranos being descended from Israelites, although they have the same genetic results and cultural ties to ancient Palestine as the Buba and Palestinians, is it possible there is a subconscious undercurrent of racism in vehemently rejecting these Africans and Palestinians as living children of Israel, in spite of overwhelming evidence?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyu2jAD6sdo--Newmancbn (talk) 16:43, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh for heaven's sake! Of course there isn't racism. Until we can deal with the problems with the way you use sources and the sources you use there is no point in looking at anything else. As for the Bene Israel, their lineage isn't proven so far as I know and I've said that before. But one step at a time. Newmancbn, have you read WP:NOR yet and if not why not? Dougweller (talk) 17:44, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'm glad to hear that. Yes, I read it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newmancbn (talk • contribs) 18:37, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Request for simplification

User:Newmancbn, thanks for your contributions. You clearly have a lot to add to wikipedia. Since this is a collaborative project, could I ask you to condense your position here in a summary form for a simple reader like me? I have not been able to follow all the "walls of text" above, and would like to understand your position clearly. Rather than just bringing hundreds of sources, perhaps select the most powerful (and short) quotes from two or three of your highest quality sources. As i've said above, the idea that DNA can prove Israelite descent does not seem intuitive to me, so i'd like to understand where the most reputable scholars have specifically made that exact claim. Oncenawhile (talk) 20:59, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

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