ANGLO-ISRAEL CRAZE by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 13, 1881

ANGLO-ISRAEL CRAZE.

By Editor

Some weeks since, we made some comments on an article which claimed that the Anglo-Saxons are the "lost ten tribes" of Israel. Rev. C. R. N. Lyne, of Exeter, England, kindly sends us articles by himself and Mr. Mushet on the same subject. The articles would lose much of their interest if published here, as they are controversial, and refer to men and writings known but to few of our readers. There are some points, however, so forcibly put that they will be appreciated by all. In a communication to the Cheltenham Evening Telegram, Mr. Mushet says:—

"Scripture tells us, that the scepter shall not depart from Judah, 'till Shiloh come.' Now Shiloh was the name of a place, and Shiloh is also, an adjective, signifying 'peaceful.' But that the expression, 'till Shiloh come,' means Christ's first advent, no one will dispute. Now at the Crucifixion, Pilate prophetically ordered the inscription, 'This is Jesus, the King of the Jews,' to be written up in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and Pilate refused to qualify this inscription, to please the Jews. So Jesus was thus proclaimed to the world, as King of the Jews, and therefore the holder of the scepter of the house of Judah. The Anglo-Israelites have, however, dethroned him, the Omega, and therefore last King, and have placed his scepter in the hands of our British Queen. I do not suppose that the infatuated Anglo-Israelites intentionally blaspheme; far from it; but this doctrine is rank blasphemy, and nothing else."

That must be so. If the Anglo-Israelites are correct, Queen Victoria is a usurper, ruling a people over whom Jesus has the sole right to reign. It has been accepted by all Christians as an argument in favor of the right of Christ that Israel yielded to the behests of Providence, and laid aside their genealogical claim to a king from the time of Jesus of Nazareth. But the Anglo-Israelites have reversed that by turning the British kings into kings of the Jews. Again the same writer says:—

"Anglo-Israelites affirm that the English people are the Hebrew tribe of Ephraim; that the Irish are the tribe of Dan, and the Americans the tribe of Manasseh. I now proceed to the reductio ad absurdum, which necessarily follows, when these assertions are examined into.

"Statistics show that of the forty millions of people in the United States, about ten millions are Irish, or of Irish descent. Quite ten millions more are Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Danes, Russians, and Spaniards, or descended from these. Now these are not Manassehites; neither are the Irish, for they are Danites. Next there are more than five millions of negroes, and mulattoes. These, the Anglo-Israelites affirm, are Hamites; and therefore not Manassehites. Lastly, there are a few millions of Red Indians. These are held by Anglo-Israelites to be Japhetites, in course of being improved off the face of the earth by the tribe of Manasseh. In reality, they are being extirpated by the rifles, the spirit casks, and the loathsome diseases of the Anglo-Saxon race. The same process is in full play, under the same rule in New Zealand. Be that as it may, if the red men are Japhetites, they cannot be Shemites, and are therefore not Manassehites. The residuum, consequently—the ten or twelve millions out of the forty millions of inhabitants of the American States—must be the tribe of Manasseh, if there be really any such tribe there. Now this residuum is made up of English people, or the descendants of the English people, who colonized America, crossing over from England to America. But the English people are the tribe of Ephraim, therefore these colonists were Ephraimites, and their descendants are therefore likewise, Ephraimites, and cannot be Manassehites. Where, then, is the tribe of Manasseh in America? And echo answers, Where? If, then, the Anglo-Israelites are correct in affirming the Americans to be the tribe of Manasseh, it follows that merely crossing the Atlantic converts a child of Ephraim into a child of Manasseh, and conversely, a Manassehite into an Ephraimite! These preposterous views beat hollow the childish babble and transparent absurdities of the Evolutionists, who hold that, only allow sufficient time, and a frog will evolve an ape, and an ape will leave off his tail, and wear trousers, and evolve a man; or a tenpenny nail may evolve a locomotive engine."

In an article in the same paper, Mr. Lyne refers to the same point, and says:—

"Let them be thoroughly consistent, and make it in future an article of their faith, that all sea-captains who cross the Atlantic are of Ephraim whenever they leave Liverpool, but sons of Manasseh as soon as their ships are safely at anchor at New York. This would only involve a change of parentage twice a month."

This "Anglo-Israel Craze," as it is well styled by these writers, has earnest advocates in Great Britain, but has not much following this side of the Atlantic. We see nothing in the theory but useless vagaries.