Religious Cults & False Prophets~ Discussions and DebatesJewryEvidence against false views about the Jews
Are today’s Jews really descendants of Abraham?
The Hungarian-born Jewish author Arthur Koestler (1905–1973) theorised that today’s Ashkenazi Jews are really descendants of the Khazars, who allegedly converted en masse in the eighth century in what is today modern Russia.6 However, Koestler was prone to anti-establishmentarianism, and this Khazar conversion theory could have been motivated by his desire, as a secularised Jew, to assimilate with gentiles and avoid persecution.
The idea has been widely discredited by reputable historians, because the real history of the Jewish people is far too well documented to sustain such tan idea. They point out that the theory presupposes lots of gentiles assimilating into Jewish society, the exact opposite of what normally happens where Jew/Gentile intermarriage occurs. In reality only a tiny number of Khazars converted to Judaism, while far more converted to Islam and also some to Russian Orthodoxy. The Khazar converts to Judaism had disappeared by the 14th century, largely by being incorporated into already existing Jewish communities in Poland. There is also a problem of what happened to the real Jews who are supposed to have mass-evangelised the Khazars, then disappeared without trace out of history.7
Many anti-semites quote Koestler as though he were verbally inspired, thus damning the Jews because they supposedly aren’t real Jews. Whereas the Nazis and those who absurdly called Jews ‘Christ-killers’ damned them because they were real Jews!
The studies by Hammer et al. shows that the Ashkenazi Jews really are the same people group as the other Jews, and that there is a common ancestry for the Cohanim from Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, so are the last nails in the coffin for Koestler’s idea.
Genesis correctly predicts Y-Chromosome pattern: Jews and Arabs shown to be descendants of one man!
7. Powledge, J., Replacement Theology: The Denial of Covenant, Appendix C: McKeever, Koestler and the Khazars: Questions of validity and factuality on historical research, M. Div. Thesis, Messiah Biblical Institute and Graduate School of Theology, 1991.
So LastWord, who do we believe; secular historians with an agenda or the true history of the Jews?
| View Parent Message View dfilename Return Home |