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125-460: British Israelism (also called Anglo-Israelism ) is a pseudo-historical belief that the people of Great Britain are "genetically, racially, and linguistically the direct descendants" of the Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel . With roots in the 16th century, British Israelism was inspired by several 19th century English writings such as John Wilson's 1840 Our Israelitish Origin . From

250-414: A "central plank" of his theology. Pseudohistory Another hallmark of pseudohistory is an underlying premise that scholars have a furtive agenda to suppress the promotor's thesis—a premise commonly corroborated by elaborate conspiracy theories . Works of pseudohistory often point exclusively to unreliable sources—including myths and legends , often treated as literal historical truth—to support

375-437: A Myth , states that the proof cited by adherents of British Israelism is "of a feeble composition even by the low standards of the genre." Some proponents of British Israelism have claimed that numerous links exist between historical linguistics , Ancient Hebrew , and various European place names and languages. This can be traced to the works of John Wilson in the 19th century. The self-trained Wilson looked for similarities in

500-510: A belief in the unrivaled power of the British economy to expand a middle-class membership that viewed it as the divine duty of the nation, as God's chosen people, to rule and civilize the world. By the mid-20th century, the dissipation of these factors changed the focus of the movement to one troubled by social and moral decline, including the degradation of class distinctions and of monarchical absolutism. Societal changes were viewed as portents of

625-458: A broader definition; Douglas Allchin, a historian of science, contends that when the history of scientific discovery is presented in a simplified way, with drama exaggerated and scientists romanticized, this creates wrong stereotypes about how science works, and in fact constitutes pseudohistory, despite being based on real facts. Robert Todd Carroll has developed a list of criteria to identify pseudo-historic works. He states that: Pseudohistory

750-492: A coming apocalypse and as indications that the nation was in need of redemption. A fantasized society which practiced Victorian moral rectitude and imperialism, lacked socialism , bureaucrats, intellectuals, and income tax , would now come to be viewed by the movement which drew its support from the well-to-do as the ideal that modern British society should emulate. Adherents believe that the Twelve Tribes of Israel are

875-482: A false interpretation of records, namely physical ones, often by unqualified or otherwise amateur archeologists. These interpretations are often baseless and seldom align with established consensus. Nazi archaeology is a prominent example of this technique. Frequently, people who engage in pseudoarchaeology have a very strict interpretation of evidence and are unwilling to alter their stance, resulting in interpretations that often appear overly simplistic and fail to capture

1000-418: A few small Pentecostal churches have taught British Israelism. The post-Imperial era brought about a change in orientation for British Israelists, reflected in a corresponding change in the social class to which their membership predominantly belonged. During the years of its initial growth, it could depend on the spread of Christian fundamentalism within the country, the emotional appeal of imperialism, and

1125-548: A form of proto-Turkish. The theory may have been partially devised in order to legitimize Arabic and Semitic loanwords occurring in the Turkish language by instead asserting that the Arabic and Semitic words were derived from the Turkish ones rather than vice versa. A large number of nationalist pseudohistorical theories deal with the legendary Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel. British-Israelism , also known as Anglo-Israelism,

1250-514: A historical figure and that his existence was invented by early Christians. This argument currently finds very little support among scholars and historians of all faiths and has been described as pseudohistorical. Likewise, some minority historian views assert that Muhammad either did not exist or was not central to founding Islam . The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982) by Michael Baigent , Richard Leigh , and Henry Lincoln

1375-626: A matriarchy preceded the patriarchy. The Goddess Movement and Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade cite Venus figurines as evidence that societies of paleolithic and neolithic Europe were matriarchies that worshipped a goddess. This belief is not supported by mainstream academics. Excluding the Norse colonization of the Americas , most theories of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact have been classified as pseudohistory, including claims that

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1500-414: A modern language were planned for the first time, the choice would undoubtedly have fallen upon English." The unedited text of the original can be found at The Jewish Encyclopedia website. The site offers both JPEG facsimiles of the original articles and Unicode transcriptions of all texts. The search capability is somewhat handicapped by the fact that the search mechanism fails to take into account

1625-467: A work and could benefit thereby would have been better served if it were put out in Hebrew, German or Russian. The editors and authors of The Jewish Encyclopedia proved prescient in their choice of language, since within that same span of 25 years, English rose to become the dominant language of academic Jewish scholarship and among Jews worldwide. Wolfson continues that "if a Jewish Encyclopedia in

1750-403: Is "not always covert". Separately, the mythology of British Israelism has been characterized as fostering "nationalistic bellicosity" by historians. To some adherents, British Israelism served as a justification for British imperialism and American settler colonialism ( manifest destiny ), along with the displacement of indigenous peoples which subsequently followed them. British Israelism

1875-540: Is a book that purports to show that certain historical figures, such as Godfrey of Bouillon , and contemporary aristocrats are the lineal descendants of Jesus . Mainstream historians have widely panned the book, categorizing it as pseudohistory, and pointing out that the genealogical tables used in it are now known to be spurious. Nonetheless, the book was an international best-seller and inspired Dan Brown 's bestselling mystery thriller novel The Da Vinci Code . Although historians and archaeologists consider

2000-454: Is a revised sequence of events that deviates from the standard timeline of world history accepted by mainstream scholars. An example of an "alternative chronology" is Anatoly Fomenko 's New Chronology , which claims that recorded history actually began around AD 800 and all events that allegedly occurred prior to that point either never really happened at all or are simply inaccurate retellings of events that happened later. One of its outgrowths

2125-625: Is an academic fringe theory that postulates the belief that the bulk of European Jewry is of Central Asian ( Turkic ) origin. In spite of the mainstream academic consensus which conclusively rejects it, this theory has been promoted in Anti-Semitic and some Anti-Zionist circles, they argue that Jews are an alien element in both Europe and Palestine . Holocaust denial in particular and genocide denial in general are widely categorized as pseudohistory. Major proponents of Holocaust denial include David Irving and others, who argue that

2250-682: Is captured by Harry Wolfson , writing in 1926: About twenty-five years ago, there was no greater desert, as far as Jewish life and learning, than the English-speaking countries, and English of all languages was the least serviceable for such a Jewish work of reference. To contemporary European reviewers of The Jewish Encyclopedia , the undertaking seemed then like an effort wasted on half-clad Zulus in South Africa and Jewish tailors in New York. Those who were then really in need of such

2375-399: Is evident by the encyclopedia's almost obsessive attention to manuscript discovery, editing, publication, comparison, and dating. These endeavors were among the foremost interests of Wissenschaft scholarship. The Jewish Encyclopedia is an English-language work, but the vast majority of the encyclopedia's contemporary sources are German-language sources, since this was the mother tongue of

2500-511: Is intended to forge a national identity distinct from modern Bulgaria , which regards North Macedonia as an artificial nation. The theory is controversial in Greece and sparked 2018 mass protests there. A particular item of dispute is North Macedonian veneration of Alexander the Great ; mainstream scholarship holds that Alexander had Greek ancestry, he was born in an area of ancient Macedonia that

2625-441: Is known. The scholarly apparatus of citation is thorough, but can be a bit daunting to contemporary users. Books that might have been widely known among scholars of Judaism at the time the encyclopedia was written (but which are quite obscure to a lay reader today) are referred to by author and title, but with no publication information and often without indication of the language in which they were written. The Jewish Encyclopedia

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2750-508: Is not consistent with the claims of British Israelism, with scholars drawing attention to its "historical and linguistic inaccuracies" in addition to its links to antisemitism. Hale (2015) refers to "the overwhelming cultural, historical, and genetic evidence against it." Critics of British Israelism note that the arguments which are presented by promoters of the teaching are based on unsubstantiated and highly speculative, amateur research. Tudor Parfitt , author of The Lost Tribes: The History of

2875-584: Is now Greece, and he ruled over North Macedonia but never lived there and did not speak the local language. To placate Greece and thereby facilitate the country's entry into the European Union and NATO , the Macedonian government formally renounced claims of ancient Macedonian heritage with the 2018 Prespa Agreement . Dacianism is a Romanian pseudohistorical current that attempts to attribute far more influence over European and world history to

3000-539: Is purported history which: Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke prefers the term "cryptohistory". He identifies two necessary elements as "a complete ignorance of the primary sources" and the repetition of "inaccuracies and wild claims". Other common characteristics of pseudohistory are: The following are some common categories of pseudohistorical theory, with examples. Not all theories in a listed category are necessarily pseudohistorical; they are rather categories that seem to attract pseudohistorians. An alternative chronology

3125-454: Is quite clear that everything this man wrote about Arthur and his successors, or indeed about his predecessors from Vortigern onwards, was made up, partly by himself and partly by others". The Shakespeare authorship question is a fringe theory that claims that the works attributed to William Shakespeare were actually written by someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon . Another example of historical revisionism

3250-498: Is still highly regarded. The American Jewish Archives deemed it "the most monumental Jewish scientific work of modern times", and Rabbi Joshua L. Segal said "for events prior to 1900, it is considered to offer a level of scholarship superior to either of the more recent Jewish encyclopedias written in English." It was originally published in 12 volumes between 1901 and 1906 by Funk & Wagnalls of New York, and reprinted in

3375-538: Is still prevalent among Wiccans, but is gradually declining. The belief that Ancient India was technologically advanced to the extent of being a nuclear power is gaining popularity in India. Emerging extreme nationalist trends and ideologies based on Hinduism in the political arena promote these discussions. Vasudev Devnani , the education minister for the western state of Rajasthan , said in January 2017 that it

3500-545: Is the Tartary conspiracy theory. Other, less extreme examples, are the phantom time hypothesis , which asserts that the years AD 614–911 never took place; and the New Chronology of David Rohl , which claims that the accepted timelines for ancient Egyptian and Israelite history are wrong. In the eighth century, a forged document known as Donation of Constantine , which supposedly transferred authority over Rome and

3625-557: Is the thesis, found in the writings of David Barton and others, asserting that the United States was founded as an exclusively Christian nation. Mainstream historians instead support the traditional position, which holds that the American founding fathers intended for church and state to be kept separate . Confederate revisionists (a.k.a. Civil War revisionists), " Lost Cause " advocates, and Neo-Confederates argue that

3750-626: Is traditionally claimed to be the pillow stone on which the biblical patriarch, Jacob, slept, and the stone used in David's coronation. A commonly held British-Israel doctrine is the belief that the Tribe of Ephraim and the Tribe of Manasseh can be identified as modern day Britain and the United States of America. Part of the foundation of the British-Israel doctrine is the theological claim that particular blessings were bestowed upon three of

3875-510: Is used to refer to the Contest of Homer and Hesiod , a purportedly historical narrative describing an entirely fictional contest between the Greek poets Homer and Hesiod . The pejorative sense of the term, labelling a flawed or disingenuous work of historiography, is found in another 1815 attestation. Pseudohistory is akin to pseudoscience in that both forms of falsification are achieved using

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4000-696: The Wissenschaft scholars and the lingua franca of Biblical scholarship in general in that period. Of all works cited not in German—usually the more classical works—the largest part are either in Hebrew or Arabic . The only heavily cited English-language source of contemporary scholarship is Schechter's publications in The Jewish Quarterly Review . The significance of the work's publication in English rather than German or Hebrew

4125-531: The Book of Mormon to be an anachronistic invention of Joseph Smith, many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) believe that it describes ancient historical events in the Americas. Searches for Noah's Ark have also been categorized as pseudohistory. In her books, starting with The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921), English author Margaret Murray claimed that

4250-591: The British-Israel-World Federation (BIWF) was founded in London, and Covenant Publishing was founded in 1922. William Pascoe Goard was the first director of the publishing house. During this time, several prominent figures patronized the BIWF organization and its publisher; Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone was its Patron-in-chief prior to World War II . One of its highest-profile members

4375-652: The Brockhaus publishing company . After the House of Rothschild in Paris , consulted by Zadoc Kahn , offered to back the project with only eight percent of the minimum funds requested by Brockaus, the project was abandoned. Following the Dreyfus affair and associated unpleasantness, Singer emigrated to New York City . Initially believing that American Jews could do little more than provide funding for his project, Singer

4500-797: The Ceaușescu regime portrayed the Dacians as insurgents defying an "imperialist" Rome; the Communist Party had formally attached "protochronism", as Dacianism was known, to Marxist ideology by 1974. The consensus among academics is that no unambiguously and strictly matriarchal society is known to have existed, though many societies are known to have or have had some matriarchal features, in particular matrilineality , matrilocality , and/or matrifocality . Anthropologist Donald Brown 's list of human cultural universals ( viz. , features shared by nearly all current human societies) includes men being

4625-664: The Central Conference of American Rabbis , which had been contemplating a competing project, agreed to discuss collaborating with Funk & Wagnalls—thus securing the position of the Jewish Encyclopedia as the only major project of its kind. Shuly Rubin Schwartz describes the payment scheme arranged at this time as follows: Members of the local executive committee, exclusive of Singer and, of course, Funk, would receive one thousand dollars per annum, while

4750-703: The Confederate States of America 's prime motivation was the maintenance of states' rights and limited government, rather than the preservation and expansion of slavery . Connected to the Lost Cause is the Irish slaves myth , a pseudo-historical narrative which conflates the experiences of Irish indentured servants and enslaved Africans in the Americas . This myth, which was historically promoted by Irish nationalists such as John Mitchel , has in

4875-720: The Dacians than that which they actually enjoyed. Dacianist historiography claims that the Dacians held primacy over all other civilizations, including the Romans ; that the Dacian language was the origin of Latin and all other languages, such as Hindi and Babylonian ; and sometimes that the Zalmoxis cult has structural links to Christianity. Dacianism was most prevalent in National Communist Romania , as

5000-715: The Holocaust , the Holodomor , the Armenian genocide , the Assyrian genocide , the Greek genocide and other genocides did not occur, or accounts of them were greatly exaggerated. Most Afrocentric (i.e. Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories , see Ancient Egyptian race controversy ) ideas have been identified as pseudohistorical, alongside the " Indigenous Aryans " theories published by Hindu nationalists during

5125-556: The Kingdom of Judah , and the remaining ten tribes forming the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) . Thus, they argue, "the great bulk of Israelites are not the Jews". W. E. Filmer, writing in 1964, suggested that the fact that some Jews continue to search for the Ten Lost Tribes implies that their representatives are not found among modern-day multi-ethnic Jews . A number of British Israelites quote Josephus in order to support their claim that

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5250-715: The Lost Cause of the Confederacy , the Irish slaves myth , the witch-cult , Armenian genocide denial , Holocaust denial , the clean Wehrmacht myth , the 16th- and 17th-century Spanish Black Legend , and the claim that the Katyn massacre was not committed by the Soviet NKVD . The term pseudohistory was coined in the early nineteenth century, which makes the word older than the related terms pseudo-scholarship and pseudoscience . In an attestation from 1815, it

5375-870: The Mufti of Jerusalem , gave Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders the idea for the Holocaust. Historians across the world, along with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the German government, characterized the claim as historically baseless. The PLO and the Zionist Union said the statement was politically motivated because it wrongly places blame for the Holocaust on Palestinian nationalists , whom Netanyahu opposes, while implicitly absolving Hitler. The Christ myth theory claims that Jesus of Nazareth never existed as

5500-574: The Planet Nibiru known as the Anunnaki visited Earth in ancient times in search of gold, and that they genetically engineered humans to serve as their slaves. He claims that memories of these occurrences are recorded in Sumerian mythology , as well as other mythologies all across the globe. These speculations have likewise been categorized as pseudohistory. The ancient astronaut hypothesis

5625-748: The Sacae to the Saxons (interpreted as "Sac's sons" – the sons of Isaac), who are portrayed as invading England from Denmark , the 'land of the Tribe of Dan '. They saw the same tribal name, left by the wanderers, in the Dar dan elles , the Dan ube , Mace don ia , Dun kirk , Dun glow in Ireland, Dun dee in Scotland, Swe den , and Lon don , and ascribed to this lost tribe the mythical Irish Tuatha Dé Danann . In

5750-608: The Scythians , Cimmerians , and Goths were representatives of these lost tribes, and the progenitors of the later invaders of Britain. John Wilson would argue for the inclusion of all Western European Gothic peoples among the descendants of the Israelites, but under the later influence of Edward Hine, the movement would come to view only the peoples of the British Isles as having this ancestry. Herodotus reported that

5875-583: The Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. In 1906, T. R. Lounsbury stated that "no trace of the slightest real connection can be discovered" between English and ancient Hebrew, while in 1993 Michael Friedman refuted claims that Hebrew was closely related to Celtic and Anglo-Saxon when he wrote that "the actual evidence could hardly be any weaker". Others have addressed the specific word relationships proposed. Russell Spittler (1973) says of

6000-466: The witch trials in the early modern period were actually an attempt by chauvinistic Christians to annihilate a secret, pagan religion , which she claimed worshipped a Horned God . Murray's claims have now been widely rejected by respected historians. Nonetheless, her ideas have become the foundation myth for modern Wicca , a contemporary Neopagan religion. Belief in Murray's alleged witch-cult

6125-642: The "disputable" etymological claims made by the British Israelists that they "have no ample basis in linguistic scholarship and are based on coincidences only." William Ingram (1995) would present arguments made by British Israelism as examples of "tortured etymology". Adherents of British Israelism cite various scriptures in support of the argument that the "lost" Northern Israelite Tribes migrated through Europe to end up in Britain. Dimont (1933) argues that British Israelists misunderstand and misinterpret

6250-508: The "dominant element" in public political affairs, which is the contemporary opinion of mainstream anthropology . Some societies that are matrilineal or matrifocal may in fact have patriarchal power structures, and thus be misidentified as matriarchal. The idea that matriarchal societies existed and they preceded patriarchal societies was first raised in the 19th-century among Western academics, but it has since been discredited. Despite this however, some second-wave feminists assert that

6375-511: The 1320 Declaration of Arbroath , reflecting a tradition related in the 9th-century Historia Brittonum that the Scots descended from the union of a Scythian exile with Scota, daughter of a Pharaoh , a tale found in some form in several other early-14th-century historical and poetic sources. The Declaration begins: "Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own,

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6500-684: The 1870s onward, numerous independent British Israelite organizations were set up throughout the British Empire as well as in the United States ; as of the early 21st century, a number of these organizations are still active. In the United States, the idea gave rise to the Christian Identity movement. The central tenets of British Israelism have been refuted by archaeological , ethnological , genetic , and linguistic research. According to Brackney (2012) and Fine (2015),

6625-561: The 1930s; Monson taught British Israelism and some of the racial teachings which Swift would later reformulate into Christian Identity theology. Swift was also exposed to Charles Parham 's British Israel teachings at the Angelus Temple. In Britain, the espousal of British Israelism by George Jeffreys , founder of the Elim Pentecostal Church , led to a schism which precipitated his resignation in 1939 and led to

6750-537: The 1960s by KTAV Publishing House . It is now in the public domain . Singer conceived of a Jewish encyclopedia in Europe and proposed creating an Allgemeine Encyklopädia für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums in 1891. He envisioned 12 volumes, published over 10 to 15 years, at a cost of 50 dollars as a set. They would contain scientific and unbiased articles on ancient and modern Jewish culture. This proposal received good press coverage and interest from

6875-562: The 1990s and 2000s. The "crypto-history" developed within Germanic mysticism and Nazi occultism has likewise been placed under this categorization. Among leading Nazis, Heinrich Himmler is believed to have been influenced by occultism and according to one theory, developed the SS base at Wewelsburg in accordance with an esoteric plan. The Sun Language Theory is a pseudohistorical ideology which argues that all languages are descended from

7000-460: The Americas were actually discovered by Arabs or Muslims. Gavin Menzies ' book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World , which argues for the idea that Chinese sailors discovered America, has also been categorized as a work of pseudohistory. Josiah Priest and other nineteenth-century American writers wrote pseudohistorical narratives that portrayed African Americans and Native Americans in an extremely negative light. Priest's first book

7125-456: The Anglo-exclusive view promoted by Hine. By 1886, the "Anglo-Israel Association" had 27 affiliated groups throughout Britain. Hine later departed for the United States, where he promoted the movement. The 1906 edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia stated that British Israelism's adherents "are said to number 2,000,000 in England and the United States", an unreliable figure if association membership and journal subscription numbers are any guide;

7250-411: The British Israelite movement. Hine and Bird achieved a degree of "doctrinal coherence" by eliminating competing forms of the ideology: in 1878, the Anglo-Ephraim Association of London, which followed Wilson by accepting the broader community of western European Germanic peoples as fellow Israelites who were also favoured by God, was absorbed into Bird's Metropolitan Anglo-Israel Association, which espoused

7375-465: The Covenant . More recently, it was renamed Destiny . A prolific author on British Israelism during the later 1930s and 40s was Alexander James Ferris . The BIWF continues to exist, with its main headquarters in Bishop Auckland , County Durham . It also has chapters in Australia , Canada , the Netherlands , New Zealand , and South Africa . In 1968, one source estimated that there were between 3,000 and 5,000 British Israelists in Britain. There,

7500-416: The Declaration as evidence for the link between the Scots and the Scythians, and hence the Lost Tribes, as had been proposed by the early British Israelist etymologists. Other Celtic invaders would be given an analogous descent. In the Welsh ( Cymry ) the British Israelists would see a direct connection through the Cimbri to the Cimmerians, the Gimirri of Assyrian annals, a name sometimes also given by

7625-405: The French Huguenot magistrate M. le Loyer's The Ten Lost Tribes , published in 1590, provided one of the earliest expressions of the belief that the Anglo-Saxon , Celtic , Scandinavian , Germanic , and associated peoples are the direct descendants of the Old Testament Israelites. Anglo-Israelism has also been attributed to King James VI and I (1566–1625), who is reported to have believed he

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7750-479: The Gods , which won popular acclaim, but scholarly disdain. Christopher Knight has published numerous books, including Uriel's Machine (2000), expounding pseudohistorical assertions that ancient civilizations possessed technology far more advanced than the technology of today. The claim that a lost continent known as Lemuria once existed in the Pacific Ocean has likewise been categorized as pseudohistory. Furthermore, similar conspiracy theories promote

7875-431: The History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on the history, culture, and state of Judaism up to the early 20th century. The encyclopedia's managing editor was Isidore Singer and the editorial board was chaired by Isaac K. Funk and Frank H. Vizetelly . The work's scholarship

8000-408: The Komitopules , which ruled the First Bulgarian Empire in late 10th and early 11th centuries AD, is presented as "Macedonian", ruling a "medieval Macedonian state", because its capitals were located in what was previously the ancient kingdom of Macedonia . North Macedonian historians often replace the ethnonym "Bulgarians" with "Macedonians", or avoid it. North Macedonian scholars say the theory

8125-507: The Prophecies and Times in 1794, John Wilson 's Our Israelitish Origin (1844), and John Pym Yeatman 's The Shemetic Origin of the Nations of Western Europe (1879). British Israelism arose in England, and then spread to the United States. Its adherents cite various supposedly-medieval manuscripts to claim an older origin, but British Israelism appeared as a distinct movement in the early 1880s: Although scattered British Israel societies are known to have existed as early as 1872, there

8250-466: The Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules , and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today." British-Israel Associations cite

8375-435: The Soviet Union economically, particularly during World War II . Scholars point to overwhelming evidence that Stalin directly helped plan mass killings, that many prisoners were sent to gulags or executed extrajudicially, and that many prisoners did no productive work, often being isolated in remote camps or given pointless and menial tasks. In 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that Amin Al-Husseini ,

8500-410: The ancient Babylonians to the Scythians and Saka. Perceived similarity between this and the name by which the Assyrian annals referred to Israel, Bit Khumri , would lead the British Israelists to claim that the Welsh too were members of the Lost Tribes. According to the Anglo-Israelists, these claimed connections would make the British the literal descendants of the Lost Tribes, and thus inheritors of

8625-411: The ancient Persians called all of the Scythians Sacae , but they called themselves Scoloti . However, a modern comparison of the forms which are given in other ancient languages suggests that Skuda was their name. Ancient writers, such as Josephus and Jerome would associate the Scythians with the peoples of Gog and Magog , but British Israelist etymologists would see in Sacae a name derived from

8750-426: The biblical " Isaac ", claiming that the appearance of the Scythians where they claimed the Lost Tribes were last documented also supported a connection. Further, British Israelists find support in the superficial resemblance between King Jehu 's pointed headdress and that of the captive Saka king seen to the far right on the Behistun Rock . They continued the chain of etymological identification leading from Isaac to

8875-421: The blood of Abraham through intermarriage and were hence eligible to take part in his end-time drama. British-Israelist beliefs would soon be marginalized in the movement, but their influences could still be seen in the teachings of several key leaders in the mid-20th-century. Noted Christian Identity minister Wesley A. Swift was first introduced to British Israelism via Pentecostalism in the early 1930s. Swift

9000-463: The board, followed by Morris Jastrow , Frederick de Sola Mendes , and two published critics of the project: Kauffmann Kohler and Gotthard Deutsch Theologian and Presbyterian minister George Foot Moore was added to the board for balance. Soon after work started, Moore withdrew and was replaced by Baptist minister Crawford Toy . Last was added the elderly Marcus Jastrow , mostly for his symbolic imprimatur as America's leading Talmudist. In March 1899,

9125-461: The closely related English and Germans. The Scythian origin of the Scots has been referred to as mythical. Algernon Herbert, writing in 1848, characterized the linguistic derivation of Scots from Scoloti as "strictly impossible", and Merrill (2005) referred to it as false etymology . Addressing their view on the fate of the exiled tribes, Frank Boys said of their voluminous output, "All the effort to write these volumes might well have been saved on

9250-653: The complexity and nuance of the complete narrative. (These following examples can belong to a variety of the above mentioned categories, or ones not mentioned as well). Immanuel Velikovsky 's books Worlds in Collision (1950), Ages in Chaos (1952), and Earth in Upheaval (1955), which became "instant bestsellers", demonstrated that pseudohistory based on ancient mythology held potential for tremendous financial success and became models of success for future works in

9375-670: The crowd. Indian Science Congress ancient aircraft controversy is a related event when Capt. Anand J. Bodas, retired principal of a pilot training facility, claimed that aircraft more advanced than today's aircraft existed in ancient India at the Indian Science Congress . Courses critiquing pseudohistory are offered as undergraduate courses in liberal arts settings, one example being in Claremont McKenna College . Jewish Encyclopedia The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of

9500-605: The culmination of this movement, which sought to modernize scholarly methods in Jewish research. In the 20th century, the movement's members dispersed to Jewish Studies departments in the United States and Israel . The scholarly authorities cited in the encyclopedia—besides the classical and medieval exegetes —are almost uniformly Wissenschaft figures, such as Leopold Zunz , Moritz Steinschneider , Solomon Schechter , Wilhelm Bacher , Solomon Judah Loeb Rapoport , David Zvi Hoffmann , and Heinrich Graetz . Its scholarly style

9625-562: The decision to maintain all diacritical marks in the transliterated Hebrew and Aramaic from the 1901–1906 text, which used a large number of diacriticals not in common use today. Thus, for example, to successfully search for " Halizah "—the ceremony by which the widow of a brother who has died childless released her brother-in-law from the obligation of marrying her—one would have to know that they have transliterated this as "Ḥaliẓah". The alphabetic index ignores diacriticals so it can be more useful when searching for an article whose title

9750-588: The encyclopedia on the condition that it remain unbiased on issues which might seem unfavorable for Jews. Singer accepted and was established in an office at Funk & Wagnalls on 2 May 1898 . Publication of the prospectus in 1898 created a severe backlash, including accusations of poor scholarship and of subservience to Christians. Kaufmann Kohler and Gotthard Deutsch , writing in American Hebrew , highlighted Singer's factual errors, and accused him of commercialism and irreligiosity. Now considering that

9875-427: The existence of confirmed events, often including various massacres, genocides, and national histories . Some examples include Holocaust denial , Armenian Genocide denial , as well as Nakba Denial in the 1984 work From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters . Mainstream historians have categorized psychohistory as pseudohistory. Psychohistory is an amalgam of psychology, history, and related social sciences and

10000-600: The existence of the movement may be gauged by the comment which Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890) made when he was asked why he had left the Church of England in 1845 in order to join the Roman Catholic Church . He said that there was a very real danger that the movement "would take over the Church of England." In the late 19th century, Edward Hine , Edward Wheler Bird , and Herbert Aldersmith developed

10125-651: The formation of the Bible-Pattern Church Fellowship , which continues to teach the doctrine. Beginning in the 1960s, Herbert W. Armstrong , founder and Pastor General of the Worldwide Church of God , vigorously promoted the teaching of British Israelism. Armstrong believed that the teaching was a key to understanding biblical prophecy : "One might ask, were not biblical prophecies closed and sealed? Indeed they were—until now! And even now they can be understood only by those who possess

10250-424: The founding of Pentecostalism embraced the tenets of British Israelism. The British-Israel-inspired self-identification of Anglo-Saxon peoples with the Jewish nation and the promises which were made to them by their god would significantly contribute to the belief that they would play a central role in the end times , a belief which was adhered to by several prominent proto- and early-pentecostals. Notable among them

10375-469: The genre. In 1968, Erich von Däniken published Chariots of the Gods? , which claims that ancient visitors from outer space constructed the pyramids and other monuments. He has since published other books in which he makes similar claims. These claims have all been categorized as pseudohistory. Similarly, Zechariah Sitchin has published numerous books claiming that a race of extraterrestrial beings from

10500-450: The humanities. Its stated goal is to examine the "why" of history, especially the difference between stated intention and actual behavior. It also states as its goal the combination of the insights of psychology, especially psychoanalysis , with the research methodology of the social sciences and humanities to understand the emotional origin of the behavior of individuals, groups and nations, past and present. Pseudoarchaeology refers to

10625-805: The idea of embellished, fabricated accounts of historical civilizations, namely Khazaria and Tartaria . The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a fraudulent work purporting to show a historical conspiracy for world domination by Jews. The work was conclusively proven to be a forgery in August 1921, when The Times revealed that extensive portions of the document were directly plagiarized from Maurice Joly 's 1864 satirical dialogue The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu , as well as Hermann Goedsche 's 1868 anti-Semitic novel Biarritz . The Khazar theory

10750-526: The lost tribes of Israel are not Jews: "the entire body of the people of Israel remained in that country; wherefore there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans , while the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude." The key component of British Israelism is its representation of the migrations of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Adherents suggested that

10875-497: The master key to unlock them." Armstrong believed that God commanded him to proclaim the prophecies to the Lost Tribes of Israel before the " end-times ". Armstrong's belief caused his separation from the Church of God Seventh Day because of its refusal to adopt the teaching. Armstrong founded his own church, first named the "Radio Church of God" and later renamed the "Worldwide Church of God". He described British Israelism as

11000-585: The meaning of these scriptures. One such case is the distinction that British Israelists make between the "Jews" of the Southern Kingdom and the " Israelites " of the Northern Kingdom. They believe that the Bible consistently distinguishes the two groups. Dimont says that many of these scriptures are misinterpreted because after the captivities, the distinction between "Jews" and "Israelites"

11125-425: The methodology that purports to, but does not, adhere to the established standards of research for the given field of intellectual enquiry of which the pseudoscience claims to be a part, and which offers little or no supporting evidence for its plausibility. Writers Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman define pseudohistory as "the rewriting of the past for present personal or political purposes". Other writers take

11250-661: The migration of the "lost" Israelites in a westerly direction. Examples given include burial customs, metalwork, clothing, dietary customs, and more. Dimont argues that the customs of the Scythians and the Cimmerians are in contrast to those of the Ancient Israelites, and he further dismisses the connection between these populations and the Saxons and Celts, particularly criticizing the then-current formulations of British Israelism that would interject Semites between

11375-449: The modern-day been promoted by white supremacists in the United States to minimize the mistreatment experienced by African Americans (such as racism and segregation ) and oppose demands for slavery reparations . The myth has also been used to obscure and downplay Irish involvement in the transatlantic slave trade . While closely related to previous categories, historical negationism or denialism specifically aims to outright deny

11500-450: The most famous example of this type, has been conclusively refuted by mainstream historians using evidence from a vast array of different fields of study. Another nationalistic pseudohistorical theory is Antiquization or Ancient Macedonism, which postulates direct demographic, cultural and linguistic continuity between ancient Macedonians and the main ethnic group in present-day North Macedonia . The Bulgarian medieval dynasty of

11625-478: The movement as being "fundamentally about providing a rationale for Anglo-Saxon superiority." To Kidd , its theology represents a "quasi- heresy ", which serves to "blunt the universalist message apparent in the New Testament ." Its role in fostering antisemitism in conservative Protestant Christianity has been noted by historians, along with its role in fostering a feeling of "racial chauvinism " which

11750-514: The movement, saying, "Texts are torn from their context, and misapplied without the slightest regard to their original meaning." British Israelism rests on linking different ancient populations. This includes linking the "lost" tribes of Israel with the Scythians, Cimmerians, Celts, and modern Western Europeans such as the British. To support these links, some adherents believe that similarities exist between various cultural aspects of these population groups, and they argue that these links demonstrate

11875-628: The name of the British they see berith ish, referring to the Hebrew covenant with God . Bede (died 735) had linked the Picts to the Scythians, but British Israelists suggested that he had confused the two tribes of Scotland, and that it was the Scotti (Scots) who were one with the Scoloti (Scyths) of Herodotus. They drew particular support from the derivation of the Scots from the Scythians found in

12000-586: The national birthright blessing. They cite passages such as 1 Chron 5:1–2 and Gen 48:19–20 in order to support their claim. British Israelism has been criticized for its poor research and scholarship. In the 1910 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, an article which summarizes the theology of British Israelism contains the statement that: "The theory [of British-Israelism] rests on premises which are deemed by scholars—both theological and anthropological—to be utterly unsound". Current scholarship

12125-595: The notion that the Pyramid of Khufu contained a prophetic numerology of the British peoples . In 1914, the thirty-fourth year of its publication, the Anglo-Israel Almanac listed the details of a large number of Kingdom Identity Groups which were operating independently throughout the British Isles as well as in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and the United States of America. In 1919,

12250-696: The number of passive Protestant sympathisers is almost impossible to determine. Between 1899 and 1902, members of the British-Israel Association of London dug up parts of the Hill of Tara in the belief that the Ark of the Covenant was buried there, doing much damage to one of Ireland 's most ancient royal and archaeological sites. At the same time, British Israelism became associated with various pseudo-archaeological pyramidology theories, such as

12375-534: The premise that 'they were never lost,' which we believe to be the correct one." Parfitt suggests that the creation of British Israelism was inspired by numerous ideological factors, which included: a desire of its adherents, many of whom were from ordinary backgrounds, to prove that they had a glorious ancient past; emerging pride in Western imperialism and colonialism , and a belief in the "racial superiority of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants ". Aikau characterized

12500-482: The project could not succeed with Singer at the helm, Funk & Wagnalls appointed an editorial board to oversee creation of the encyclopedia. Funk & Wagnalls assembled an editorial board between October 1898 and March 1899. Singer toned down his ideological rhetoric, indicated his desire to collaborate, and changed the work's proposed title to The Jewish Encyclopedia . Despite their reservations about Singer, rabbi Gustav Gottheil and Cyrus Adler agreed to join

12625-545: The project. Article assignments were shuffled around and communication practices were streamlined. Joseph Jacobs was hired as a coordinator. He also wrote four hundred articles and procured many of the encyclopedia's illustrations. Herman Rosenthal , an authority on Russia, was added as an editor. Louis Ginzberg joined the project and later became head of the rabbinical literature department. The board naturally faced many difficult editorial questions and disagreements. Singer wanted specific entries for every Jewish community in

12750-480: The promises made to the Israelites in the Old Testament. Some adherents further claim that the British royal family is of lineal descent from the house of King David via a daughter of Zedekiah , the last king of Judah . According to this legend, the prophet Jeremiah , and his scribe, Baruch , escaped with "the king's daughters" (Jer. 41:10; 43:6) to Egypt. They later travelled to Ireland, where one of

12875-518: The pseudohistorical thesis that all the major monuments of the ancient world, including Stonehenge , the Egyptian pyramids , and the moai of Easter Island , were built by a single ancient supercivilization, which Hancock claims thrived from 15,000 to 10,000 BC and possessed technological and scientific knowledge equal to or surpassing that of modern civilization. He first advanced the full form of this argument in his 1995 bestseller Fingerprints of

13000-426: The rest of the department editors would receive five hundred. All collaborators, editors included, would be paid five dollars per printed page of about one thousand English words. If the article was written in a foreign language, payment would be only $ 3.50 per page. Singer's compensation was forty dollars a week (thirty-five plus five for a life insurance premium). His salary was considered an advance, since Singer alone

13125-475: The sounds of words and argued that many Scottish, British, and Irish words stemmed from ancient Hebrew words. Wilson's publications inspired the development of British Israel language associations in Europe. Modern scholarly linguistic analysis conclusively shows that the languages of the British Isles ( English , Welsh , and Gaelic ) belong in the Indo-European language family, while Hebrew belongs in

13250-723: The superiority of white people (as well as to oppose the Catholic Church ). Such misuse of Viking history and imagery reemerged in the twentieth century among some groups promoting white supremacy . Supporters of Soviet communist pseudohistory claim, among other things, that Joseph Stalin and other top Soviet leaders did not realize the scope of mass killings perpetrated under the Stalin regime , that executions of prisoners were legally justifiable, and that prisoners in Soviet gulags performed important construction work that helped

13375-458: The surviving Judahite princesses, Tea Tephi , married a local High King of Ireland . From this fabled union the Davidic throne was supposedly preserved, having been transferred to Ireland, then Scotland, and later England, whence the British monarchs are alleged to have descended. The Stone of Scone , which has been used in the coronations of Scottish, English, and British monarchs for centuries,

13500-477: The thesis being promoted while ignoring valid sources that contradict it . Sometimes a work of pseudohistory will adopt a position of historical relativism , insisting that there is really no such thing as historical truth and that any hypothesis is just as good as any other. Many works of pseudohistory conflate mere possibility with actuality, assuming that if something could have happened, then it did. Notable examples of pseudohistory include British Israelism ,

13625-457: The tribes of "Manasseh, and Ephraim, and all the remnant of Israel" (2 Chronicles 34:9), and Hezekiah, who sent invitations not only to Judah, but also to northern Israel for the attendance of a Passover in Jerusalem . (2 Chronicles 30); British Israelites interpret 2 Chronicles 34:9 as referring to "Scythians". Dimont is also critical of the interpretations of biblical prophecy embraced by

13750-568: The tribes of Israel, in that the Tribe of Judah was to be the 'chief ruler' e.g. King David, and Ephraim was to receive the birthright (See Jacob and Esau ). Adherents believe that these blessings have continued down through the ages to modern times, with the British Monarchy being identified as the continued blessing upon Judah, and both Britain (Ephraim) and the USA (Manasseh) as recipients of

13875-402: The twelve sons of the patriarch Jacob (who was later named Israel). Jacob elevated the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh (the two sons of Joseph ) to the status of full tribes in their own right, replacing the Tribe of Joseph . A division occurred among the twelve tribes in the days of Jeroboam and Rehoboam , with the three tribes of Judah , Benjamin , and, in part, Levi , forming

14000-678: The western part of the Roman Empire to the Pope , became widely circulated. In the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth published the History of the Kings of Britain , a pseudohistorical work purporting to describe the ancient history and origins of the British people. The book synthesises earlier Celtic mythical traditions to inflate the deeds of the mythical King Arthur . The contemporary historian William of Newburgh wrote around 1190 that "it

14125-669: The world, with detailed information about, for example, the name and dates of the first Jewish settler in Prague. Conflict also arose over what types of Bible interpretation should be included, as some editors feared that Morris Jastrow's involvement in " higher criticism " would lead to unfavorable treatment of scripture. The scholarly style of The Jewish Encyclopedia aligns directly to the Wissenschaft des Judentums , an approach to Jewish scholarship and religion that flourished in 19th-century Germany. The encyclopedia may be regarded as

14250-752: Was John Alexander Dowie , who spoke about Anglo-Saxon Christians' plans to take control of Jerusalem in order to prepare for the Second Coming . This legacy was continued by Charles Fox Parham , but he believed that the Lost Tribes would join their Jewish brethren in order to reestablish the nation of Israel. His view of the Lost Tribes was more expansive than Dowie's view (see Nordic Israelism ) , in addition to encompassing Anglo-Saxons, it also encompassed Scandinavians , Danes , High Germans , and even Hindus and Japanese (see Japanese-Jewish common ancestry theory ), who, according to Parham, had acquired

14375-844: Was The Wonders of Nature and Providence, Displayed (1826). The book is regarded by modern critics as one of the earliest works of modern American pseudohistory. Priest attacked Native Americans in American Antiquities and Discoveries of the West (1833) and African-Americans in Slavery, As It Relates to the Negro (1843). Other nineteenth-century writers, such as Thomas Gold Appleton , in his A Sheaf of Papers (1875), and George Perkins Marsh , in his The Goths in New England , seized upon false notions of Viking history to promote

14500-706: Was William Massey , then Prime Minister of New Zealand . Due to the expansive nature of the British Empire , believers in British Israelism spread worldwide and the BIWF expanded its organization to the British Commonwealth . Howard Rand promoted the teaching, and he became the National Commissioner of the Anglo-Saxon Federation of America in 1928. He published The Bulletin , later renamed The Messenger of

14625-479: Was a student at L.I.F.E. Bible College at the Angelus Temple , Aimee Semple McPherson 's Pentecostal Foursquare Church , during the 1930s. Swift later served as a minister at the Angelus Temple during the 1930s and 1940s. This teaching was brought by Gerald Burton Winrod , an evangelist from Kansas, who was a speaker at Angelus Temple. Swift was a student of Rev. Philip Monson's Kingdom Bible School during

14750-429: Was at first no real move to develop an organization beyond the small groups of believers which had arisen spontaneously. The beginnings of the movement as an identifiable religious force can, therefore, be more accurately placed in the 1880s, when the circumstances of the time were particularly propitious for the appearance of a movement so imperialistically-orientated. The extent to which the British clergy became aware of

14875-681: Was further popularized in the United States by the History Channel television series Ancient Aliens . History professor Ronald H. Fritze observed that the pseudohistorical claims promoted by von Däniken and the Ancient Aliens program have a periodic popularity in the US: "In a pop culture with a short memory and a voracious appetite, aliens and pyramids and lost civilizations are recycled like fashions." The author Graham Hancock has sold over four million copies of books promoting

15000-515: Was important to "understand the scientific significance" of the cow , as it was the only animal in the world to both inhale and exhale oxygen. In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a gathering of doctors and medical staff at a Mumbai hospital that the story of the Hindu god Ganesha showed genetic science existed in ancient India. Many new age pseudohistorians who focus on converting mythological stories into history are well received among

15125-581: Was impressed by the level of scholarship in the United States. He wrote a new prospectus, changing the title of his planned encyclopedia to Encyclopedia of the History and Mental Evolution of the Jewish Race . His radical ecumenism and opposition to orthodoxy upset many of his Jewish readers; nevertheless he attracted the interest of publisher Isaac K. Funk , a Lutheran minister who also believed in integrating Judaism and Christianity. Funk agreed to publish

15250-650: Was lost over time. British Israelists believe that the Northern Tribes of Israel lost their identity after the captivity in Assyria and that this is reflected in the Bible. Dimont disagrees with this assertion and argues that only higher-ranking Israelites were deported from Israel and many Israelites remained. He cites examples after the Assyrian captivity, such as Josiah , King of Judah, who received money from

15375-656: Was rapidly growing in England when the United States-based Latter Day Saint movement sent its first missionaries to England. British Israelist ideas clearly influenced Mormon thought by the 1850s, and by the 1870s, Mormon periodicals published in Britain were citing British Israelist proponents to promote the belief that most Mormons were of Anglo-Saxon and Israelite descent, concepts that would subsequently be synthesized into general Mormon discourse. Several individuals who were influential in

15500-640: Was the King of Israel. Adriaan van Schrieck (1560–1621), who influenced Henry Spelman (1562–1641) and John Sadler (1615–74), wrote in the early 17th century about his ideas on the origins of the Celtic and Saxon peoples. In 1649, Sadler published Rights of the Kingdom , "which argues for an 'Israelite genealogy for the British people'". Aspects of British Israelism and its influences have also been traced to Richard Brothers , who published A Revealed Knowledge of

15625-782: Was to share with the company in the profits. Other editors participating in all 12 volumes were Gotthard Deutsch , Richard Gottheil , Joseph Jacobs , Kaufmann Kohler , Herman Rosenthal , and Crawford Howell Toy . Morris Jastrow, Jr. and Frederick de Sola Mendes assisted with volumes I to II; Marcus Jastrow with volumes I, II, and III; Louis Ginzberg with the first four volumes; Solomon Schechter with volumes IV through VII; Emil G. Hirsch with volumes IV through XII; and Wilhelm Bacher with volumes VIII through XII. William Popper served as assistant revision editor and chief of translation for volumes IV through XII. The editors plunged into their enormous task and soon identified and solved some inefficiencies with

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