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> I'm just not going to waste further time responding to your flea bites. I've read through your badly-researched screed and it's evident you're a True Believer.

Ah, see how easy it was to flush you out! When you are on the pontificating side of an issue you are all sweetness and light. But when challenged to actually think about a subject, it's brain lock-up followed by sputtering noises.

What follows is very well researched, including on-site study over 2 decades and post-Doctoral work at European Universities which might allow you to visit only in order to use the rest room. Please give us the benefit of your enlightened "research" on the topic. "Customs" and "Traditions" don't count:

3-MINUTE HISTORY OF THE ISRAELITES

Four Thousand years ago, Abraham (a great-great grandson of Shem, a son of Noah) and a small group of Hebrews (of which there were & are many varieties) migrated from southern Iraq to Canaan (~Palestine). Several generations later, around 1853 BC, his Grandson Jacob (who was renamed Israel) and his 12 Sons and families moved to Egypt. As offspring of Shem, they were called "Shemites" or "Semites", as were his many other offspring.

~1453 BC, now as the 12 Tribes of the 12 Sons of Israel, and over 3 Million strong, these Semites bailed out of Egypt in the well-documented overland EXODUS and fled back to ~Palestine. But the Tribes "couldn't all get along" there, so ~922 BC these 5 Million Israelites split into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.

(In actual numbers, 5 Million people is about the same size as Ireland, Norway, Denmark or Israel today, and was 10% of the estimated 50 Million world population at that time. The world population is now ONE HUNDRED TIMES as large. Compared to todays 6 Billion people, the Israelites relative population would have been over twice as large as the United States of America!)

The very large Northern Kingdom of Israel was made up of 10 of the Tribes. Inheriting the Kingly names which applied to all 12 Tribes before the split, the Northern Kingdom (alone) becomes known as the Kingdom of Israel or House of Israel, (also House of Joseph, House of Ephriam, House of Isaac, and House of Omri), and is led by the northern Tribe of Ephraim.

Two hundred years later these Northern Israelites were taken into captivity by the Assyrians (~722 BC) and relocated to the northern Fertile Crescent area of Iraq/Iran. They were not diligent in updating their eMail addresses, thus were called, by some, the "Lost Tribes", or "Lost Sheep" or "Lost Children" of the Kingdom or House of Israel. (However at ~1/12 or more of the worlds population it seems unlikely they would actually disappear, or get "lost". The global population now ~75 Million.)

A hundred years later, this "lost" Northern Kingdom of Israel with now over 6 Million Israelites helped the Medes and Persians overthrow the Assyrians, then escaped north through the Caucasus Mountains and around the Black and Caspian Seas, to explode into history ~610 BC as The Celts. These Celts mixed with (and fought against) each other, and with other scattered Israelites (proto-Celts) who had escaped from Egypt by sea nearly a thousand years earlier, before the overland Exodus. Also, with other Israelites who migrated from Palestine after the overland Exodus but before the Assyrian captivity and who had already established numerous outposts in Europe and elsewhere.

These Millions of Celts grew to become Tens, then Hundreds of Millions as they migrated in waves westward and northwest to Galatia, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonika, Phillipi, Collosse, to what is today Hallstatt, Austria and Neuchatel, Switzerland (where exist major Celtic digs and museums) and beyond, to totally dominate Northern and Western Europe. These Celts (also as Cimmerians, Scythians, Danaoi, Massagetae, Milesians, Masilia, Sarmatians, Germani, Goths, Franks, Gauls, Lombards, Belgae, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vandals, Danes, Normans, and other assorted "Barbarians") are the rootstock of today's Europeans and Americans who became the backbone of global Christianity.

The much smaller Southern Kingdom was made up of the Tribe of Judah & a mix of Levites and Benjamites. It was also known as the Kingdom of Judah or House of Judah. These Southern Israelites (aka Judeans) were taken captive in ~587 BC and removed to Babylon. Only ~50,000 Judeans returned to Palestine ~70 years later. They and their offspring are called Jews.

America at the time. It is my personal opinion that the world population was a good deal higher than estimated even 4000 years ago.

Now, now, calm down True Believer. They've really come up with some good treatments lately for obsessive-compulsive behavior.

What follows is very well researched, including on-site study over 2 decades and post-Doctoral work at European Universities which might allow you to visit only in order to use the rest room.

Also you're 6'4" and have an 11 inch penis, and are a multimillionaire.

A hundred years later, this "lost" Northern Kingdom of Israel with now over 6 Million Israelites helped the Medes and Persians overthrow the Assyrians, then escaped north through the Caucasus Mountains and around the Black and Caspian Seas, to explode into history ~610 BC as The Celts.

Meantime, their language had changed from Semitic in family to Indoeuropean, which is difficult enough to understand given that their Assyrian captors were themselves Semitic. Celtic is also on a rather different branch from the Persian flavor of Indoeuropean. Therefore, it's hard to see what a Lost Tribe of Israel with the history you relate is doing speaking it.

I might as well add that you have a total of 112 years for supposedly 6 million people to stop speaking Hebrew and start speaking Celtic (which they learn from where, exactly?) Just absurd. How and from where do they all so suddenly learn this other language (not even the language of their conquerors?)

I think you're estimating the populations of the civilized countries of classical and late-preclassical times too high. For instance, archaeologists have uncovered several of the Mycenaean Greek cities that according to Homer contributed to the force sent against Troy. The catalog of ships from various cities in the Iliad is quite long and gives some impressive numbers. However, Pylos and Mycenae couldn't possibly have sent the forces Homer describes if every man, woman, and child went off to the war. They were far too small. But then Troy itself was far smaller than the high-towered, multi-gated Ilium Homer describes. In short, the whole thing was considerably overblown by later generations.

Nothing was that big back then. Rome, with probably tens of thousands of people in classical times, was about as big as any city got at the time. It became utterly dependent on Egyptian wheat. It's hard to feed a big city with cart-horse-and-trireme technology.

Six million people in the Northern Kingdown of Israel alone would be seriously straining the resources of such a small spot even if it was much more fertile then than now. They'd probably have kicked the tail of anyone trying to conquer them, though, just by superior numbers.