Cimmerians, Scythians and the “Lost” Tribes of Israel–Part Three
Were the Cimmerians named for King Omri of ancient Israel? Did the Scythians get their name from Isaac? Are the Cimmerians and Scythians to be identified with the lost ten tribes of the house of Israel? Will the descendants of these ancient peoples play a role in future world events? In bringing the good news of the kingdom of God to the people of Israel the apostles initiated the establishment of congregations within several of the regions where we would expect to find the displaced twelve tribes of Israel. And it is reasonable to expect that those same congregations would at times reflect the societal and cultural attributes acquired by the twelve tribes, which required the apostles to write admonishing letters to the church of God. The Apostle John, for example, wrote to seven of the churches in western Asia Minor to address specific problems that had arisen within all the church congregations. And in doing so, John used words and expressions familiar to the history of ancient Israel. Also, Paul, in writing to the congregations in Asia and in Greece, reminded the church of the promises made to Abraham, while explaining the covenantal responsibilities of the Commonwealth of Israel in regard to salvation for all of humanity. His letters were written to the Philippians, to the Ephesians, to the Colossians and also to the Galatians, with the latter being in a region associated with those later called Gauls and Celts. The Apostle Peter also wrote to church congregations in Asia Minor, sending them greetings from his son and the congregations that then existed in Babylon, which gives us some insight into the extent of the apostles’ mission to the twelve tribes of Israel (I Pt. 5:13). So we may conclude then that the apostles’ mission—as verified by their letters—confirmed the existence of the twelve tribes of Israel in the apostolic period, even though nearly 800 years had passed since the Assyrians initiated the diaspora of the Commonwealth of Israel. (The work of the apostles was nearly at its end by AD 70 when the Roman Empire crushed the remnant of the Commonwealth of Israel at Jerusalem.) What then became of the twelve tribes of Israel? To answer this question we need to understand what happened to the apostles in the 1st century AD. They all died. What remained were the individuals and congregations whose responsibility it was to uphold the teachings and agreements of the prophets and the apostles. And this responsibility was accomplished in part by the early preservation of the apostles’ letters that became part of the scriptural record, wherein we also find the preserved messages of the prophets and their writings that would continue to uphold the promises made to the descendants of Abraham. (Scripture also contains the related message of the coming kingdom of God and the testimony of the witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection.) However, because of the church’s inherent proclivity to evolve, the church began to cultivate diverse and questionable doctrinal interpretations. This understandably led to continuing conflicts and divisions within the church of God. But why would this happen to the church? It is simply because the church has always been—from the beginning—influenced by the societies and cultures of every generation from which people have been called. Therefore the church’s diversity, disunity and instability would naturally reflect the influence of the twelve tribes, who from their beginning as a commonwealth lacked unity and stability as a nation. And being that the church was intended to be diverse spiritually from the beginning there has always been an expected disunity and instability within the church congregations, which makes it easy to see why Israel’s journeys, their social and cultural changes, and their conflicts with other peoples in the diaspora—along with the evolving teachings of the church—continually muddled Israel’s perspective of their origin and covenantal responsibilities, particularly so for some generations of the tribes of Israel. Therefore any attempt to identify the twelve tribes as nation-states today would mean sifting through the bits of truth and embellishments acquired through oral traditions that are typically found in ancient annals and chronicles. And so it would not be unexpected to discover that the ancient lore of the present-day twelve tribes contains colorful and varied descriptions of a flood, of rebellious kings, of a tower reaching to heaven, and of men of valor performing feats of great strength. And within these histories and legends there would be the expected stories of heroes and patriarchs likened to those found in Scripture. So with that being said, it should be understood that the ability to confirm the existence of the twelve tribes of Israel today is only possible by the evidence presented in Scripture. And based on that evidence it is reasonable to conclude that the twelve tribes are no longer in those lands associated with the Davidic Dynasty and the apostolic period, with the exception of those who currently represent a remnant of the tribe of Judah in the geopolitical region called Palestine. This then would allow us the reasonable supposition that several of the twelve tribes as nation-states today would most probably be found—by reason of four notable empires—among nations formed from the later descendants of earlier Indo-European peoples. So let’s examine this further. Now it is sometimes assumed that the “Table of Nations” is addressing three major racial distinctions and divisions that stemmed from the three sons of Noah—Shem, Ham and Japheth (Gen. 10). This is not the case. What is being presented by what is commonly called the Table of Nations is a limited geopolitical framework of the post-Flood ancient world that would inevitably shape some ancient and modern-day civilizations, implying that each of Noah’s sons would assert themselves by creating world-ruling dynasties. And we can base this conclusion on what is stated about Japheth’s descendants, which applies in principle to all of Noah’s sons, who would be “divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations” (Gen. 10:5). Consequently, Japheth’s sons and