Posted on 06/10/2010 9:08:00 AM PDT by GOPGuide
The Jewish people, according to archaeologists, originated in Babylon and Persia between the 4th and 6th centuries BC. The modern-day Jews most closely related to that original population are those in Iran, Iraq and Syria, whose closest non-Jewish relatives are the Druze, Bedouins and Palestinians, the study found.
Sometime in that period, the Middle Eastern and European Jews diverged and the European branch began actively proselytizing for converts.
At the height of the Roman Empire, about 10% of the empire's population was Jewish, although the bulk of them were converts. Some Khazars were also incorporated during this period.
"That explains why so many European and Syrian Jews have blue eyes and blond hair," Ostrer says. It also explains another of the team's findings — that the population most closely related genetically to European Jews are Italians.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Very interesting. I had no idea Judaism sought converts.
They must have been very busy.
Interesting. Was not this entire article about DNA, which is is another name for genetic evidence, that the those claiming to be Jews are really Europeans and not descendants of Abraham? That was the entire point of the article.
“Was not this entire article about DNA, which is is another name for genetic evidence, that the those claiming to be Jews are really Europeans and not descendants of Abraham? That was the entire point of the article.”
Nope.
Read the article:
“Jews really are different from their non-Jewish neighbors,” said Dr. Harry Ostrer, a geneticist at the New York University Langone Medical Center, coauthor of the study appearing Thursday in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
The study, which was conducted primarily to further medical knowledge of genetic diseases, rejected a highly controversial idea that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Khazars in Eastern Europe who converted to Judaism — an idea that has recently been used in an attempt to discredit the idea that Jews belong in Israel because it is their historic homeland.
The study shows that there is “clearly a shared genetic common ancestry among geographically diverse populations consistent with oral tradition and culture …and that traces back to the Middle East,” said geneticist Sarah A. Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the study. “Jews have assimilated to some extent, but they clearly retain their common ancestry.”
-— and from the same day -—
“Jewish communities in Europe and the Middle East share many genes inherited from the ancestral Jewish population that lived in the Middle East some 3,000 years ago, even though each community also carries genes from other sources — usually the country in which it lives.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2532173/posts
I would specifically note that your “Jews are really Europeans” theory was speficially rejected on the first page of the article you cite.
Read. The. Article.
That makes sense seeing that Jews and Arabs are all descended from Abraham.
“The vast majority are Europeans, Roman (European) converts and Russian converts.”
That’s completely contrary to the article, which points to the middle eastern origin, with closest realtives being the arabs and the Druze.
I would also point you to these studies:
http://www.cambridgedna.com/y-chromosomal-aaron-and-the-cohen-model-haplotype.php
90 percent of Cohanim today to share the same genetic markers, specifically including Jewish people outside of Europian lines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron
“Very, very few modern Jews today are biological descendants of Abraham. . . The vast majority are Europeans, Roman (European) converts and Russian converts.”
Wrong.
FTA:
“The study shows that there is “clearly a shared genetic common ancestry among geographically diverse populations consistent with oral tradition and culture …and that traces back to the Middle East,” said geneticist Sarah A. Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the study. “Jews have assimilated to some extent, but they clearly retain their common ancestry.”
More you failed to read:
“Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews have roughly 30 percent European ancestry, with most of the rest from the Middle East, the two surveys find. The two communities seem very similar to each other genetically, which is unexpected because they have been separated for so long.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/science/10jews.html?src=twt&twt=nytimes
“Very, very few modern Jews today are biological descendants of Abraham, and none of them are pure blood.”
I am not sure that the original Palestine based Israelites were a single ethnic group.
The bible talks about Solomon taking foreign wives which may have diluted the amount of common Abrahamic ancestry the Hebrews in Israel shared. The Jews may always have been a mixed group of ethnicities because Judaism is a religion, not an ethnic group.
Are we sure the Hebrews were ever a single ethnic group?
There were certainly intermarriage. No one disputes that.
The theory that “Jews are of European” (read: Khazars) argument of Gazan Arabs and Jews-Are-Fake-Jews-of-Synagogue-of-Satan Christians, however, is wrong.
Could it be that the circumcision thing made converts hard to find? ;~))
The NT itself attests to numbers of Gentile "God-fearers" attending synagogue long before the Gospel went forth--it was these Gentile God-fearers, in fact, who paved the way for the success of the Gospel among the Gentiles (see Acts 13 in particular).
The issue in Acts 15 and Galatians was not that all of the twenty-four or so sects of Judaism were united in the belief that all Gentiles must be physcially circumcised in order to be "saved," but that so many were turning to the Gospel that it was messing up the accepted social boundary markers. The seemingly expedient solution was to go with the view that no Gentile had a place in the World-to-Come, but that they could have one if only they became Jewish by the rite of circumcision. Had the Gentile mission been less successful, I doubt the issue would have been raised.
Shalom.
I was just joking, but thanks for the history lesson. I never knew the ancient Jews looked for converts.
The arabs are innocent victims? Uh, OK.
However, there were enough Levites left to continue the Temple priesthood.
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