One-Way Ticket

The starting point for Anglo-Israelism is the belief that the northern tribes never returned with Judah and the other tribes associated with Judah during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. In opposition to this is the biblical text that describes that after the Babylonian exile of Judah, people from all the tribes assembled again in Israel due to an edict given by Cyrus, king of Persia. Nehemiah 12:47 tells us all of Israel was involved. Every single tribe was present, not just Judah, Benjamin, and Levi. In addition, in Ezra 6, a sin offering of twelve male goats is offered “according to the number of the tribes of Israel.”[1] Ezra 8:35 says it rather plainly: “Also the children of those that had been carried away, which were come out of the captivity, offered burnt offerings unto the God of Israel, twelve bullocks for all Israel . . . twelve he goats for a sin offering.”[2]

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The New Testament also indicates there were tribes other than Judah residing in and near Judea. Luke 2:36 tells us the prophetess Anna was from the tribe of Asher (Aser), which was a tribe from the Northern Kingdom, so at least this tribe was not lost. The Gospel of Matthew chronicles Christ telling His apostles to go and preach “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”[3] Obviously, these Israelites were nearby in the Middle East regions in the early parts of the first century AD and not in some foreign, far-off land of what is now Germany/Britain. These Israelites were lost in the spiritual sense, not in the sense that no one knew where they were, for if they were geographically lost, Christ would have been sending His disciples on a futile mission.

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Further evidence of the northern tribes living nearby is found in the book of James. In a letter addressed to the twelve Israelite tribes, James describes them as being “scattered abroad.”[4] However, James knew where they were since he was sending them communication. Due to these biblical facts, we can conclude that the northern tribes, up until at least the time of the epistles in the first century AD, had not moved far from the Middle East region.

 

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Footnotes

​[1] Ezra 6:17.

[2] Ibid., 8:35.

[3] Matt. 10:6.

[4] James 1:1.